温润：陈丹青色粉人体作品展

温润 ── 写在陈丹青色粉人体作品展前

文：韦羲

       说起国内的色粉画，此刻我想到李超士的静物，颜文樑的室内小景，陈丹青的人体画。李超士留法时曾入德加门下，归国后热心传播色粉画，他的静物是花卉和蔬果最好，有明清花鸟画余韵；颜文樑的厨房小景使人想起民国江南人家安静的午后；陈丹青的色粉画，无论是女人体还是男人体，都画出了人的性感。

       唯有美好生命，才是性感。这也是自古希腊以来，西方人体艺术的第一要义。人体艺术的上品，是不带有色情的情节，而天然流动一种性感，那便是美好的生命

       色粉画的好处是既有线条又有色彩，可以画成素描（速写），也可以色彩斑斓争美油画。陈丹青的色粉画介于两者之间，色不伤笔，笔不伤色，他私淑法国名手，因而兼有夏尔丹的朴素、华托的贵气，马奈的开朗，德加的笔色浑然。中国古来讲究中锋用笔，反观欧洲文艺复兴至19世纪的素描传统，也大致如此。陈丹青原以速写见长，画色粉是他80年代到纽约后的事，依旧好手感，用笔却比速写更精进更复古，笔笔中锋，线条自起自导，人身的轮廓、重量、空间、体积、骨与肉，均由线条发起，最后又都归回到线条，而饱满的造型，生动的姿态、浑圆的形体，肌肤的温度，跃然纸上。

       现代主义以后，绘画尤其重品味，线条可谓生动的，或者文雅的，有意味的，或者可爱的，然而渐渐失去旺盛的生命力。陈丹青的色粉画越过现代主义与后现代主义，远接19世纪遗风，线条精准而生气勃勃。以后，自然还有许多人画色粉，还会出现许多好看的色粉画，但这样的古风的色粉人体画，大约是难得再见了。

Temperature of the Skin

— Introductory Section before the Exhibition of

Chen Danqing’s Pastel Body-painting Works

Wei Xi

When talking about pastels in China, what come first to my mind are Li Chaoshi’s still life, Yan Wenliang’s indoor scenes, and Chen Danqing’s body-painting works. Li Chaoshi once took Degas as his teacher when he studied in France, and after his return to China, he was active in the spread of the pastel. His still lifes of flowers, vegetables and fruits are the best, containing some aftertaste of the flower-and-bird paintings in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Yan’s works about scenes in kitchens bring us back to the Republican Period to enjoy the peaceful afternoon of southern families. In Chen’s pastels of human bodies, either male or female ones, sex appeal is presented.

Sex appeal is found only in beautiful lives. This is also the essence of western human body art since ancient Greece. In top-grade body-painting works, sex appeal naturally flows without any erotic plots. These are beautiful lives I refer to.

Both lines and colors can be seen in pastels and this is an advantage. A pastel can be either a sketch or a colorful oil painting. However, Chen Danqing’s pastels lie between the two, in which lines and colors are in harmony. He ever studied personally from French masters, so his works combine Chardin’s simplicity, Watteau’s extravagance, Manet’s brightness, and Degas’s integration of lines and colors. Ancient Chinese artists laid much emphasis on keeping the writing brush perpendicular with the paper and the tip of the brush in the middle of the lines, and this is what we call “zhong feng yong bi”. From Renaissance to 19th century, pencils were also usually used this way to draw sketches in Europe. Chen was originally good at sketching. It was after he went to New York in 1980s that he began to draw pastels. For him, the feel is equally good. But his pastels are more exquisite and more reversionary than his sketches. “Zhong feng yong bi” is fully applied. Lines start and extend naturally. The profile of bodies, the weight, the space, the volume, and bones and flesh are all started from lines and finished with lines. Abundant shapes, vivid gestures, chubby bodies and even the temperature of the skin are fully displayed on the paper.

Since the beginning of modernism, for paintings, good taste is particularly emphasized. While we can say the lines are vivid, elegant, meaningful, or lovely, vitality is dying away. Chen’s pastels go across modernism and post-modernism and back to the legacy of the 19^th century. His lines are precise and vibrant. It’s certain that in the future pastels will be popular among painters, and numerous fine pastels will emerge. But archaistic pastels like this will probably be rare.