在《艺术与错觉》一书中，贡布里希分析了西方绘画制造错觉的历史和心理机制。从古希腊开始，西方画家致力于在平面上制造立体的视错觉。传说古希腊画家宙克西斯画出的葡萄如此逼真，以至于引得鸟儿来啄食。经过文艺复兴绘画大师们的探索，在平面上制造立体的视错觉的技术得到完善。不少艺术家还把绘画与建构空间结合起来思考，制造出更大规模的视错觉。画家喜欢在墙上画门、窗、龛等，诱导观看者把绘画中的题材看作真实的对象。到了巴洛克时期，出现了登峰造极的错觉绘画。比如，波佐（Andrea Pozzo, 1642-1709）在罗马圣伊格纳齐奥教堂绘制的巨幅天顶画，它制造错觉的能力如此之大，以至于当观众偏离透视轴时，会看到画面在扭曲。总之，在建筑空间里画上一些建筑元素，产生以假乱真的效果，是西方画家常用的方法。清代画家邹一桂就观察到，西洋画“画宫室于墙壁，令人几欲走进”。

 

中国画家也善于在平面上制造立体的视错觉。传说曹不兴在屏风上画出的苍蝇，竟然引得孙权去驱赶。周文矩(917-975)的《重屏会棋图》在空间安排上也令人称道，它所产生的错觉感不亚于欧洲巴洛克时期的一些错觉画。

 

然而，由于照相技术的发明，在平面上制造立体错觉对于画家来说不再有强大的吸引力。特别是随着现代绘画的兴起，平面性被视为绘画区别于其他艺术门类的重要特征，画家有意识地避免制造立体错觉，于是错觉绘画不再时兴。

 

张显飞是一位特立独行的画家，在大家追求现代绘画的平面性的时候，他要追求古典绘画的立体感；在大家追求当代绘画的单纯平涂的时候，他要追求古典绘画丰富的层次和肌理。他要像欧洲古典油画大师那样画画，画出正宗的油画，而且从不掩饰自己对错觉的追求，甚至通过异形绘画来强化错觉感。制造错觉，成为张显飞绘画的最高目标，其实也是绘画最单纯和朴素的目标。看张显飞的绘画有一种时空穿越之感，放佛进入了欧洲绘画辉煌的巴洛克时期。不过，奇怪的是，张显飞的绘画一点也不让人感到老套，相反却让人觉得十分新鲜。这一方面是文化语境造成的效果，另一方面与他的绘画题材不无关系。

 

对于中国观众来说，地道的欧洲油画让人感到耳目一新，就像欧洲观众对于地道的中国绘画感到新鲜一样。这是文化语境错位而产生的效果。张显飞沉湎于这种文化语境错位而形成的新鲜感之中。但是，这还不是张显飞绘画让人觉得新鲜的主要理由。我们将张显飞的绘画视为当代绘画的主要理由，是他画出了当代人的某种感受，尤其是在大城市奋斗的年轻人的某种生活体验。在北京有众多追梦的北漂族，在偌大的北京城里属于他们的空间却异常狭小。他们感受到的挤压感，不仅是物理的，而且是心理的。张显飞与北漂的年轻人一样，感受到了这种挤压感。更重要的是，他为这种挤压感找到了一种很好的表达方式。当张显飞用古典油画技法画出蜷缩在狭小空间中的年轻人时，却让我们看到了他们的丰富和微妙。相反，当我们回过头来看那些生活在灯红酒绿的大空间之中的人们时，却觉得他们是那样的单薄和苍白。愿意做一个挤压的丰富的人，还是愿意做一个放纵的单薄的人，孰优孰劣尚难定论。这就是今天人们的生活处境！张显飞的绘画或明或暗地揭示了今天人们的生活处境。

 

 2015年9月21日于北京大学艺术学院

Painting and Illusion

-------Review about the Paintings of Zhang Xianfei

 

Peng Feng

 

In the book of Art and Illusion, Gombrich analyses the history and psychological mechanism of the illusion of western painting. From the ancient Greek times, western painters have been devoted to creating a visual illusion of three-dimension on a plane surface. It is said that the Greek painter Zeuxis painted grapes so vividly that even birds were attracted to peck them. After the exploration of the drawing masters in the Renaissance, the technology of creating a visual illusion of three-dimension on a plane surface was improved. Many artists also combined painting with architectural space, creating larger scale visual illusion. Painters loved to paint doors, windows and niches etc. on the wall to induce viewers to look the subjects in the paintings as true objects. In the Baroque period, marvelous illusion paintings appeared, such as the huge nave ceiling of the Church of Sant' Ignazio by Andrea Pozzo (1642-1709) in Rome. The fresco has so great magic of creating illusion that the viewers can feel that the picture is warping when they deviate from the perspective axis. In a word, it is a common method for western painters to paint some architectural elements in architectural space so as to create a realistic visual illusion. Zou Yigui, a painter in Qing Dynasty of China found that westerners painted palace on a wall so vividly that people could even have the illusion that they can enter the palace.

 

Chinese Painters are also good at creating a visual illusion of three-dimension on a plane surface. It is said that Sun Quan took a fly drawn by Cao Buxing on a folding screen as real that he even tried to drive it away. A Painting of Chess Playing with a Screen Drawn on Another Screen by Zhou Wenju (917-975) is also wonderful in spatial arrangement and the illusion created is as good as that of some illusion paintings in the Baroque period.

 

However, due to the invention of camera technique, making three-dimensional illusion on a plane surface no longer appealed to the painters. Especially with the springing up of the modern paintings, planarity was regarded as a distinctive characteristic of painting from other classes of art. Painters consciously avoided to creating three-dimensional illusion. Then, illusion painting was no longer popular.

 

Zhang Xianfei is a unique painter. When other painters are pursuing planarity in modern paintings, he is pursuing a stereoscopic impression in classical paintings. When other painters are pursuing flat coloring in modern paintings, he is pursuing rich gradations and textures in classical paintings. He wants to paint like the European classical painters, creating authentic paintings. He never conceals his pursuit of illusion, even strengthening the sense of illusion through abnormal painting. His supreme aim of painting is creating spatial illusion, which is also his pure and simple aim of painting. The paintings of Zhang Xianfei make you feel that you are travelling back to the splendid Baroque period. However, the paintings of Zhang Xianfei are surprisingly refreshing, instead of old-fashioned. On the one hand, it is resulted from his cultural context. On the other hand, it is related with his painting subjects.

 

The authentic European oil paintings are refreshing to Chinese viewers, just like authentic Chinese paintings to European viewers, which is a result from cultural context. Zhang Xianfei enjoys the refreshing feeling created by a different cultural context. However, this is not the main factor making his paintings refreshing. The main reason that we classify his paintings into modern paintings is because his paintings express the feelings of modern people, especially the life experience of youngsters striving for their futures in big cities. There are large amount of North Driftings chasing dreams in Beijing who only own extremely small space in a large city and have a space depression. More importantly, he finds a good expression manner for the depression. In paintings of Zhang Xianfei with classical technique, the youngsters living in a small space cherish beautiful dreams and rich life experience while the people living in the big world of glitz have a strong sense of emptiness. It is hard to determine that whether it is better to be a man living in a small space or a man living in a large space because the life in a small space can be rich and the life in a large space can be empty. This is the life of modern people. The paintings of Zhang Xianfei explicitly or implicitly demonstrate the life of modern people.

 

School of Art of Peking University, September 21, 2015

作者：彭锋