無言之妙、無筆之巧
尚濤教授
-former Director of the National Museum of History
When I look at Shang Tao's work, at how he uses brush and ink to create the Chinese literati painting aesthetics of simplicity and spatial contrast, I tend to forget that he is painting a flower or a certain subject, only noticing the great artistic potential of the ink at the tip of his brush; he is truly an artist of minimalism but also of complex emotions who, as a pioneer and inheritor of aesthetics and Chinese culture, is to be greatly admired.
黃光男
-前國立歷史博物館館長
我看尚濤先生畫作,在行筆變墨之中,以簡潔、天地反差的空間作為中國文人畫作的美學觀時,已忘卻他是在畫某一種花、某一類題材,而是有一股濃郁墨氣聚於筆端之重啟藝境;誠是簡之又簡,卻又是多項情思反轉,對於一個如此表現的水墨畫家,是個令人敬佩的美學之於中國文化的開拓者與承繼者。
Wang Huangsheng
-Professor, doctoral student adviser, and Curator of the Art Museum at the Central Academy of Fine Arts
Art always returns to aesthetics, especially for ink wash painting.True artistic character should give aesthetic height to the whole artwork, and not just make it “different.” Shang Tao's works, to me, are unforgettable, I think because their spiritual referentiality guides me into the realm of the aesthetic. Aesthetics is an experience, an interaction between mind and object, mind and mind- it may even be “ineffable.” The great image has no form.”“The great image has no form; the great note has no sound”- this belongs to the ideal state of aesthetics, the result of effort, refinement, and genius. The tension inherent in Shang Tao's figures is mainly a tension, not at the visual level, but at the psychological level, perhaps even at the level of cultural implication. Shang Tao's paintings is his spirit of “love and peace.” Despite the fact that he has met with trials and disappointments in life and in art, and even though his paintings can be unique, even idiosyncratic, in form, he has always kept faith in the beauty and kindness of life and art; this can be detected in the “adorable” undercurrent of his form. The huge fish and large birds, giant leaves and big flowers, pandas and toads, even birds of prey, that flow from his brush all seem, in a way, approachable and adorable. Shang Tao's belief in art is: Art should be adorable. The word “adorable” itself evokes the innocence of childhood and doting benevolence; it also connotes perseverance in living. Li Kuchen once said Shang Tao is “raw,” but he added, “Rawness is hard to find. Huang Tingjian pursued it his entire life without achieving it.” Shang Tao also calls himself “simple,” so he cannot but follow his “simplicity” to develop the unique character of his art and the trait of “form,” elevating it to an aesthetics of “image.” But in essence, Shang Tao is more of a scholar- he has that elegance and refinement that accompanies a man of letters. If his art has a special “rawness,” it can be said to be a “rawness” of “great learning,” a classical, scholarly rawness.
王璜生
-中央美術學院教授及美術館館長
藝術的根本歸宿是品味問題,尤其是水墨畫。真正的藝術個性應是一個有品味高度的藝術整體,而不僅僅只是「跟別人不一樣」。我對尚濤作品的不能忘懷,我想主要是有一種精神指向引導著我走進「品味」的境地。品味是一種體驗,一種心與物、心與心的交流,它可能是「只可意會,不能言傳」的。「象」的最高境界是由「品味」來決定,即走進了老子所言的「大象無形」的境地。「大象無形,大音希聲」,這屬於審美的理想境界,它是積聚著努力、修養、天性而最終水到渠成的結果。 尚濤作品「象」之特點在於「大」,具有一種飽滿膨脹的張力。其墨的酣暢,筆的壯健,水的淋漓,空白的厚實,造型的奇崛而雍容,這一切所構成的張力凝結在畫面的結構中而同時撐破具體的畫面,直接進入人們的心靈。這是一種靜態的張力,於內斂、凝聚中現外張、擴展之氣勢,這與那種劍拔弩張的外張力具有本質上的差別。 尚濤圖形所包涵的張力,側重點不在於視覺張力,而更可能是一種心理張力,甚至是文化意味的張力。 尚濤有著一種「仁愛和善」的情懷。儘管,在生活和藝術上他曾經歷不少磨難和失落,也儘管他繪畫的造型可以表現得相當獨特、甚至奇崛古拙,但他對生活和藝術始終有著一種美好和善良的信念,他的造型總蘊藏著一種潛在的氣質–「可愛」。在他筆下的大魚大鳥、大葉大花、貓熊蛙蟾,甚至鷹鷲鵬鵠,總令人覺得有一種可親可近、憨厚可愛之感。尚濤對藝術的信念是:藝術應該是「可愛」的。「可愛」一詞,本身就充滿著童心的天真和慈祥的厚愛,也隱含著百折不撓的生活信念。 李苦禪曾直言尚濤「笨拙」,但又說「笨拙也實在難求。黃庭堅夢想了一輩子仍未能得到」。尚濤也自言自己「笨」,故只能按「笨」的本性來發展自己的藝術個性和「形」的特點,並提升為「象」的品味。但從本質上講,尚濤更具「儒者」–文人學士典雅溫文的氣質。如果說他的畫有一種「笨拙」之妙,那可以說這是一種「大智慧」的「笨拙」,一種充滿文人古雅氣息的「拙」。
象之品味─
關於尚濤的繪畫
畫,就是畫─
略談尚濤藝術中的書畫問題
Li Weiming
-Researcher and member of the Academic Committee at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts
In Mainland China, Lin Fengmian is undoubtedly the greatest painter to have, through painstaking and wide-ranging comprehensive experimentation, successfully stepped outside the unitary tradition of “poetry, calligraphy, painting, and seal engraving.” Shang Tao's experimental spirit is in some sense similar to Lin Fengmian's. In drawing inspiration from the vital strength of stele and seal engraving, Shang Tao rejects the atmosphere of fragility in calligraphy-by-template; he introduces the decorative qualities of stele and seal engraving and modern block printing into the surface arrangement of ink permeation, so that his art distances itself from traditional formal syntax to ultimately enter into the mainstream of modern Chinese art.
李偉銘
-廣州美術學院研究員、學術委員會委員
在中國本土,林風眠無疑是一位以百折不撓的毅力進行廣泛的綜合實驗,最終成功地走出了“詩、書、畫、印結合”這一位傳統藩籬的最偉大的畫家。尚濤的實驗精神,在某種意義上與林風眠有相通之處。取法碑版、鑑印剛健的力度以排拒帖札柔弱的氣息,在水墨滲化的平面佈局中引進碑版、鑑印及現代版畫藝術的裝飾意趣,使尚濤的藝術遠離傳統習用的形式句法,最終加入了中國當代藝術的主流。
寓目難忘的藝術─
看尚濤的大寫意花鳥
Xue Yongnian
-Professor, doctoral student adviser, and Dean of Graduate Students at the Central Academy of Fine Arts
The birds, flowers, insects, and fish in Shang Tao's grand freehand style are captivating and suggestive, neither flitting nor obsequious, not small scenes but great flowers and birds with great brush- and inkwork, grand and whole. He paints not the transient flower or changing seasons but a perpetual life essence, imbued with ancient purity and resilience. Analyzing his works, we see his masters Li Kuchen and Li Keran and his indirect influences Bada Shanren, Wu Changshuo, and Pan Tianshou. His paintings are deep like Li Keran's, unadorned like Li Kuchen's, bearers of tradition like Wu Changshuo's, unconventional like Pan Tianshou's, and simple like Bada Shanren's, but have something not to be found in these old masters: elements of ancient folk art and planar construction, both foreign and domestic, resulting in a formalism unforgettable to the eye. The grandness, power, and even shock of his grand freehand style bird-and-flower paintings, formally speaking, comes from a number of traits. First, his development of the ancient practice of basing form on lines into basing form on large patches of ink and color: There are still lines, but they have been reduced in number and made rough and robust. Second, he is not confined by large-scale geometry; he reduces the layering of ink and heightens the contrast between angle and curve, heavy and light ink, dryness and moisture.
薛永年
-中央美術學院教授、博士生導師、研究生部主任
尚濤的大寫意花鳥蟲魚非常抓人,又耐人玩味,不輕飄,不討好,不是畫小情小趣,而是大筆大墨、大花大鳥、精雄大氣,渾然整體。 他不畫朝花夕拾、四季流轉,而畫一種永恆的生機,有“氣結殷周雪”的古意,有“雨後江山鐵鑄成”的造詣。,他直 接的老師有李苦禪、李可染、間接的來源有八大山人、吳昌碩、潘天壽。他的畫,深厚像李可染,渾樸像李苦禪,古厚像吳昌碩,奇崛像潘天壽,簡約像八大山人,但比前輩畫家多了古代民間藝術和平面構成的因素,有中國的,也有外國的,因而多了寓目難忘的形式感。 他的大寫意花鳥畫之所以大氣,有衝擊力甚至震撼力,從形式上看,一是他把古人以線為主的造型手段發展成以大塊墨色為主,儘管仍然有線條,但盡可能減少,而且粗獷雄健。二是他突出了大的幾何型態,減少了用墨的層次,強化了方圓、濃淡、乾溼的對比。
尚濤藝術簡析
Chi Ke
-Professor Emeritus at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, founding director of the Guangdong Aesthetics Society
Maybe Shang Tao benefited even more from grandmaster Li Keran, from whom he learned mountains and water. His knowledge resides not in the imitation of brushstrokes, but in the spirit of his art and the cultivation of his method. His use of ink is also innovative. Sometimes it wafts like smoke (Midsummer); sometimes it is settled as if shorn velvet (Swan); and sometimes, a few strokes of dark ink on light ink can bring out a glass-like radiance (White Plum Blossom). The creation of an aesthetics is the lifeblood of painting as an art form.His work is mostly redolent and healthy, brimming with warm emotion: various orchids arrayed together are like a family reunion (The Orchid Family); a large swan playing with a fledgling evokes an cross-generation relationship (Swan); a pair of pigeons wary and alert bring out the stillness of the wild; ... His paintings also reveal innocence and humor, and humor is a rare virtue in both people and in art, for it needs not only a quick wit, but also love and sincerity.
遲軻
-廣東美學學會前會長、廣州美術學院終身教授
使尚濤得益更多的,是他還曾從一代宗師李可染學習山水。他所得到的益處不在於章法筆墨上的摹倣,而在於藝術的精神和作風的陶冶。 他在用墨方面也有很多創造。有時流動如濃煙《仲夏》:有時凝定如剪絨《天鵝》;有時在晶瑩的淡墨上擦幾筆漆黑的宿 墨,煥發出琉璃般的光彩《白梅》。 意境的創新乃是繪畫藝術的生命之所繫。他的畫大多是充實的,茁壯的,洋溢著溫馨的情感-形態各異的蘭科植物陳列在一起,好像是親戚 們聚會《蘭氏家族》;大天鵝和幼禽嬉戲,令人想起兩代人之間的關係《天鵝》;一對鴿子悚神諦聽,更顯得山野的寧靜…。 他的畫裡還時時流露出天真和幽默,無論對於人或對於藝術來說,幽默都是一項難得的品格,因為它不僅需要聰明機智,還需要仁愛與真誠。
沉厚雄健 意趣高格─
尚濤水墨畫意解讀
Mei Yun
-Editor-in-Chief of the Southern Daily, Art Critic
the 2nd National Art Academies Biennial was held at the Guangdong Museum of Art. Of the roughly 400 participating works, which were selected from almost 600 works from 31 province-level art institutes, 10 won the Academic Award. Among these 10 were Comfort and Ease by Shang Tao of the Guangdong Art Institute. In its uncomplicated vertical design, a school of lively fish are merrily swimming in a mountain river. The symbolic red fish, the great swathe of ink comprising the mountain, and the river left white in the middle give rise to a level of cleanliness, serenity, and merriment. The firmness and robustness of the mountain, the unadorned poses of the fish, and the clear contrast of black and white constitute a striking formal beauty that greatly enhances the expressivity of traditional ink wash painting and that augments the essence of the work.
梅雲
-南方日報主編、藝術評論家
“第二屆全國畫院雙年展”在廣東美術館舉行。參展的約400件作品,是從全國31家省級畫院選送的近600件作品中挑選出來的,最後,又評選出獲“學術獎”的10件精品。這其中,廣東畫院尚濤的《自在》榜上有名。 並不複雜的豎構圖畫面,一群活潑的遊魚,正悠然地遊弋於崇山峻嶺的河川間。那充滿象徵意味的紅顏色遊魚;佔據了宣紙上下部位的大面積積墨山崖;中間留白的江水,組成了一個高潔清淨和悠然自得的境界。山的沉厚雄健,魚的憨拙之態,畫面色彩對比的大黑大白,構成鮮明的形式美感,大大豐富了傳統國畫的表現力,增強了作品的意趣。 書法是幾千年的文化積澱,學書法是對古代美的欣賞。長期的書法課陶冶了尚濤的文化氣質,而這種氣質又潛移默化進入他的畫中。 尚濤入畫最多的如荷如蘭如芭蕉,大多不依靠線條的勾勒而靠厚重的積墨鋪染而成。他畫幅中的物象變形著——變形中顯出拙味,充滿意趣。拙,是尚濤的天性。