2010年10月中旬,在长沙芙蓉美术馆举办的“汤万清王健美作品展”上,见识了汤万清王健美夫妇,并赏读了他们内蕴深遂,形式风格丰富多彩的艺术作品,让人流连忘返，愉悦和振奋。特别是和年近八十，笔墨耕耘六十余载的汤万清先生的交谈中印象深刻，清瘦干练，严肃认真、温柔坚毅、激情内敛、不事张扬，感悟出他老和蔼可亲、虚心若谷，对艺术不停攀登的精神世界和人格魅力。

　　观汤万清先生的山水画，首先他把握了大自然的山川胜景，宇宙气象、地域风貌人文环境的特征与作者观察体验生活时心灵，情感，意趣，进行了水乳交融的神会。他为了创作出自己心中的山水画，师造化是非常重要的，他每年都要花一定的时间到祖国的名山大川，登五岳、上黄山、赴漓江、游三峡，在那里实地写生深入观察和体验。说：“要夺天工就必须师造化。”当然也不是画实景即止。崔子范先生说得好：“实景不是艺术……要画你心中的漓江。”艺术家的客观现实生活是第一位，也是基础的。描摹实景，不是艺术形象，必须经过由物象到心象的转化过程，也就是情景交融，天人合一的艺术升华。艺术心象通过艺术语言，艺术图式创作加工后方成为艺术形象。汤万清先生的山水画无疑完成了由物象—心象—艺术形象不断升华精进的过程，遵循了艺术创作的规律。作品《月亮潭心一粒珠》《山居图》《山寨之春》《响雪》等作品，都是对这一规律的解读与诠释。

　　艺术作品自然流淌出是艺术家艺术人生，艺术感悟和审美追求。汤万清先生的作品真实地表现出了他博采众长，虚心学习古今中外艺术大师的人生轨迹和心路历程。汤万清先生年轻时酷爱民间剪纸和民间绘画。如《老屋》和《陌上花香》等南国水乡系列的作品。颇具现代构成意识的装饰点彩水墨画。以写实、概括、夸张的造型手法，粗笔墨线勾画出外形，以大青绿设色，间以水墨浅底，有强烈的剪纸韵味，水墨的苍润，抽象的点朵，色彩的斑斓把现实生活繁乱的形色，单纯化，秩序化和诗意化。

　　汤万清先生认真揣摩过中国古代名家的书画作品。从荆、关、董巨、李唐、郭熙、马、夏、元四家、明唐寅、兰瑛、清四王和遗民画家的作品都一一临摩研习，从而奠定了对中国画笔墨，程式理解和运用。在他不少作品中仍保持了宋元绘画的不少元素。这在他的《山居图》《瀑泉图》《山冲》等作品中，都是在“师造化”的基础上溶入了古人的不少技法，例如画树叶还是古人创造的点叶、夹叶、针叶……等，画山石还采用了大小斧劈皴。大小披麻皴、折带皴、解索皴……等程式。汤老认为：“把传统技法完全推翻不要是不对的，也是错误的，关键是怎样变化，在传统技法的基础上根据真山真水，树木山石，流云雾气，瀑布急湍，如何运用、怎样变通。我认为艺术作品不论以什么样的表现语言，只要真实自然地传达自己的真情实感并把客观的物象演化为属于自己的心象，再经过艺术加工升华为鲜明个性的艺术形象，这也是古人常说的“不似之似”“巧夺天工”的境界，追求创新。

　　二十世纪八十年代后，不断地研习从印象派到抽象派大师的作品，从莫奈、西斯莱、毕沙罗、凡高到康定斯基、蒙德里安……等大师的作品中去寻找新的突破点，创造他作品的新风貌。汤万清先生特别迷恋颇具东方艺术精神的抽象派大师赵无极先生的油画作品，通过反复地寻觅和学习。在他的水墨山水画里呈现出大气磅礴，大象无形的气势和情境。这在他的作品《光泉奏》《高秋》《响雪》等作品中有充分的体现，有宣泄热情的热抽象的意味，作品《月亮潭心一粒珠》却又有冷抽象的理性意味。走过七十年艺术探索历程的汤万清先生，归纳起来是走的一条博采众长、借古开今、由物象到心象不断升华的对美的追求轨迹。

陈慰民(中国美术家协会会员、湖南省美术家协会理论委员会顾问、湖南收藏协会书画委员会主任)

Chen Weimin

　　At the painting exhibition of Tang Wanqing and Wang Jianmei held at Fu Rong Gallery of Changsha in mid-October, 2010, I had the honor of meeting this couple and appreciating their artistic works which are so impressive, rich in deep connotation and varied in style. Tang Wanqing, a genial, modest, serious, unpretentious slim man in his late 70s, has been engaged in artistic creation for more than 60 years. Talking with him, I was greatly impressed with his personal charisma, as well as his spirit of “Cease to Struggle and You Cease to Live” in artistic exploration.

　　The landscape painting of Tang Wanqing is an excellent combination of beautiful natural scenes, diverse cultures and his personal feeling and thoughts. To create the paintings in his mind, Mr. Tang has always spent a certain period of time every year visiting the famous mountains and rivers, such as China’s Five Mountains, Mount Huang, Li River and the Three Gorges, to carefully observe and experience the local life and paint directly from nature. “To create truly wonderful artistic works, one must learn from nature.” Of course, this absolutely doesn’t mean that only a realistic drawing is enough. Just as Mr. Cui Zifan said that a picture of the real scene cannot be called an artistic work … you should paint the Li River in your mind.” The life experiences of the artist are of utmost importance. It constitutes the basis and source of the artistic creation. A picture of the real scene is not what is called artistic work. Only when the objective scenery is transformed into the one existing in the mind of the artist -- that is to say, the objective scenery is integrated with the feelings and thoughts of the artist – can it be called an artistic work. The image existing in the inner heart of the artist can be transformed into the artistic image through various artistic languages and creation methods. Undoubtedly, based on the law governing artistic creation, the landscape paintings of Tang Wanqing have gone through the gradual process from objective scenery, to the image in his mind and finally to the artistic one featuring both real and spiritual. This can find concentrated expression in his paintings such asYue Liang Tan Xin Yi Li Zhu (literally meaning “Moon in the Lake), Shan Ju Tu (or Life on the Mountain), and Shan Zhai Zhi Chun (or Spring in the Mountain Village) and Xiang Xue (or Roaring Snow).

　　Through the artistic work, we can have a better understanding of the artistic life, insight and aesthetic pursuit of the artist. The paintings of Mr. Tang Wanqing truly reflect his trajectory as an artist - widely learning from others’ strong points, especially those of the great masters. Tang showed great interest in Chinese paper-cutting and folk painting when he was young. At that time, he created a series of paintings to reflect the natural and cultural scenes unique to the water-rich land in the southern part of China, including Lao Wu (literally meaning “Old House”) and Mo Shang Hua Xiang (literally meaning “Roadside Wild Flowers”). His splash-pigment brush paintings manifest a strong sense of modern composition. The realistic, summarized and exaggerated modeling approach through thick-black sketch painted with the dark green, and the pale-black background gives the painting a strong flavor of the Chinese paper-cutting art. The Chinese ink together with the abstract colorful stipples represents bustling and complicated reality in a simplistic, orderly and poetic manner.

　　Mr. Tang Wanqing seriously studied the famous ancient Chinese calligraphy and paintings, such as those of Jing, Guan, Dong Ju, Li Tang, Guo Xi, Ma, Xia, the four famous painters of the Yuan Dynasty, Tang Yin of the Ming Dynasty, Lan Ying, the four famous painters in the early Qing Dynasty and the famous painters among the adherents of the previous dynasty. This helped him lay a solid foundation in the understanding of the use of the Chinese ink and application method of Traditional Chinese Painting. Many of his paintings contain the painting skills left behind from the Song and Yuan Dynasties. Cases in point include his Shan Ju Tu (literally meaning “Life on the Mountain”), Pu Quan Tu (“A Picture of the Flying Waterfalls), and Shan Chong (“A Glance of the Scenic Mountain), in which, the leaves and rocks were painted in the way invented by the ancients. According to Mr. Tang, we cannot completely abandon the traditional painting skills. The key is how to use them in a flexible way. It will be OK only if the artist can freely express his own true feelings and can present a very unique artistic work, no matter what language he chooses. In fact, “Being Alike in Spirit” and “Wonderful Workmanship Excelling Nature” are the highest levels of painting that traditional Chinese culture has greatly advocated since ancient times. This also represents the spirit of making innovation.

　　After the 1980s, to make new breakthroughs in artistic creation and give his paintings a new look, Mr. Tang Wanqing began to focus on research and study of the works of those great impressionists and abstractionists in the world, such as Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro, Van Gogh, Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Cornelies Mondrian. Furthermore, Tang is in love with the oil paintings of Mr. Zhao Wuji, a great abstractionist with a strong flavor of Oriental art and he therefore made considerable efforts to study Zhao’s paintings. God always helps those who help themselves. Now looking at the landscape paintings of Tang Wanqing, we can feel something so majestic and a sense of “The Truly Grand Scene Has No Specific Shape”. This can find full expression in his Guang Quan Zou, Gao Qiu and Xiang Xue (literally meaning “Roaring Snow”), which contain something of a 'hot' abstract meaning “To Vent His Great Enthusiasm”. This also finds full expression in his Yue Liang Tan Xin Yi Li Zhu (literally meaning “Moon in the Lake”) which has a sense of 'cold' abstract meaning to show his rationality. Looking back over the 70 years of artistic exploration of Mr. Tang Wanqing, we can find that his artistic life has been built by his constant efforts in learning from the strong points of others, carrying forward ancient painting skills and transforming the objective scenery into the scenery in his mind.

　　(The author is a member of the Chinese Artists Association, an adviser of the theoretical committee of the Hunan Artists Association and Chairman of the Committee for Calligraphy and Paintings of the Hunan Collection Association.)

作者：陈慰民