The Speculation of the Ephemeral against the Everlasting

——Decipher Ding Wenqing’s Cloud Atlas

文/胡电亮

Hu Dianliang

东方的传统文化语境中，山石是亘古的表征，云烟是须臾的隐喻。以须臾的云烟形态状摹亘古的山石体貌，使知觉意识在更为宏大的时空场域内自由流淌，在完成灵魂 的逍遥欢畅中也给观看者带来时空上的错位感，进而导致视觉上的“恍惚”，而这种“恍惚之美”正是合乎东方美学旨趣的无形大象。我们似乎也因着丁文卿悉心营造的云图幻境觉出了生命自在的味道，感知到世界原应有的自足与丰盈。

In the context of oriental traditional culture, mountains and stones symbolize the everlasting and clouds and mist suggest the ephemeral. The everlasting images of mountains are painted with the ephemeral clouds and mist, which allows the senses to flow freely in a grand sphere of time and space，giving the observers an enjoyment of the soul along with an experience of misplaced time and space. And this sense of misplacing creates a visual trance, which bears the beauty of the oriental aesthetic idea, the grasp of shape beyond the shape itself. In the fairyland of cloud atlas created by Ding WenQing, we also seem to start to taste the unrestrained elements in life and sense the richness and sufficiency of the world

丁文卿的绘画体验选择的是不回避的正视。从正视当下赖以生存的都市森林中找寻藏匿于其背后的情感热望，再到现阶段的绘画创作，将其精神投注到灵感来源的林泉梦境，以臆动着的生命热望重新阅读蕴养了千年的山林经典，激活裹挟于历史尘埃背后的图式范本，转译成现代图像叙事中的淳美语境，进而完成自我真实情感的生发，而这种实验与对接则是需要极大的勇气。

Ding Wenqing’s painting experience is to look squarely without evasion. He looked squarely into the urban jungles that we live on and looked for the hidden passion. At the current stage of work, he devotes to the dreamy space of woods and springs, which is also the source of his inspiration. He rereads the classic works of mountains and woods with passion, activates the paradigm buried in the dust of history, translates them into a pure and natural context in modern image narration, and finally, completes the growth and expression of his genuine feelings. This experience and transition, however, calls for extreme courage.

禅宗上讲:“应无所住即生其心”如果说对都市森林的情感投射，是将其在水墨图像叙事中所获得的审美体验加诸到物质文明的水泥沙漠中，以人本的生命情感对精神的荒原进行引流与绿化，那么他现阶段所做的尝试，则是不依傍于任何已经定格成立的技术语言，纯以个人的知觉体验去接近古人的情感秘境，将经典文本中的云山梦境转译成现代图像中的意识洪流，完成意识对形象的超越。

According to the Zen philosophy, “Enlightenment comes when we do not attach to anything.” If Ding’s emotional projection of urban jungles is to put his aesthetic experience gained from the ink painting image narration to the cement desert of civilization, and to irrigate and afforest the desert of spirit with the human-oriented sentiments, his current attempt is to approach ancient man’s secret emotions with his individual senses instead of any already-established techniques. He translates the classic dreamingly images of mountains and clouds into a flow of consciousness of modern image so that the consciousness goes beyond the image.

林泉是凝结着的情感谧境，意象是流淌着的奇幻风景。画家丁文卿以游动着的虚拟云烟重构风格化了的山林美景，在烟霞明灭的意象云山中构筑通往东方神秘世界的坦途，揽万千气象于尺端，收山河圣境于一隅，得意而忘象，得象而忘言，在以象达意中忘乎其所以然，留给我们的视觉以无尽的惊叹。

The woods and springs are secret, static lands of sentiments while the images are flowing fanciful sceneries. Ding WenQing used virtual, mobile clouds and mist reconstitute the stylized sceneries of woods and mountains, and created a path to the mysterious oriental world in the clouds and mountains with glittering haze. He concentrated boundless and endless sceneries into a measurable picture, in which the image goes beyond the language and the meaning goes beyond the image, giving us surprising visual experiences.

于动荡的云烟中经营布置有形之物是丁文卿处理动静仪态的巧妙方式。固化了的虚设实景：亭、榭、廊、台，以休止符的样态在流淌的氤氲篇章中置布，使生命流在时空场域中做间歇式的停顿，观者可移情于其中，以空灵的视角坐望臆动的云山，峰回路转处缀以两三婀娜有致的苍松翠竹，时而观白云苍狗，时而听鹤唳霄穹，动静得宜间丰富了时空的韵致，完成对东方人文世界中理想圣境的铺陈。

It is Ding’s delicate way of dealing with the dynamic and static that he set tangible things in the transient clouds and mist. The fixed settings, such as pavilions, corridors, terraces, and platforms are all set as static as rest stops in the flowing mist. Life is like a running stream in the sphere of time and space, pauses from now and then so that the observers are able to set themselves into the context, and enjoy the lively mountains and clouds from a clear and delicate perspective, being surprised by the green pines and verdant bamboos growing at the corner along the path, watching the ever-changing clouds, and listening to the cranes crying through the sky. The mixture of the dynamic and static enriches the meaning of time and space, and completes the imagination of an ideal land of oriental culture.

东方绘画审美趣味的精彩处，是以情感的绵延展现对时空的超越，小中见大，于尺纸寸绢中包蕴宇宙的宏伟气象。丁文卿的几上景、杯中物正是纳芥子于须弥，游沧海于一粟，以一个现代都市人的视角完成须臾对亘古的思辩，进而解读出东方文人灵魂深处的情感密码。

The brilliant thing about oriental painting is the stretching sentiments and emotions which go beyond the time and space, letting us see the big in the little. Splendid and magnificent sceneries are all included in a mere small size of a painting. Ding WenQing’s works are like putting Xumi Mountain into a minute seed, or seeing a drop of water to see the whole ocean, showing us how a modern urban dwelling completes his speculation on the ephemeral against the everlasting, and furthermore, interprets the codes of emotion hiding deep in the oriental scholars’ soul.