夏可君

写字，每一天都写汉字书法的人，就把写变成了一种约定，成为一种生活态度，一种呼吸的工作，但如此的约定必然活在一种神奇又悖论的状态中：一方面，拿起毛笔去书写汉字，这是一种日常行为，但其中有着几千年的文脉气数在其间，如何可能延续汉字的气息与魂魄呢？而不陷入习气与成规？整个中国现代书法或流行书风似乎并没有走出来；另一方面，如何从书法走向书写？是书法式书写，不是日本的少字数与美国的抽象画，既要有着书法同源的原理，又要形成当代的个体面貌，直接从传统的“汉字书法”走向“图像书写”可能吗？

对于来自于于陕西居住在北京宋庄好久的姚兴文先生，以其独特的笔法与气脉，书写出一种倒写逆行的书法，在歪歪斜斜的涩行中，让我们看到了笔触在缓慢笔势中留下的墨痕，每一笔看似支离，但还是可读的诗句，但却总有着一种“怪味”，一种生涩的悲凉之气，让人想到“秦腔”，骨子里透出一种生命不屈服的姿态。很多人非常喜欢兴文兄的书法，其风格的可识别性，其字态在拙稚与荒寒之间不可思议的结合，体现出兴文兄对于传统书法的个人转化。

但兴文兄并没有停留于此，他在书写中顿悟到书画同源的秘密，对于传统而言，“书画同源”其实是一种线痕书写或运笔上的相通性，尤其是元代文人画开始的以书法用笔如画，直到后来的大写意，但基本上并非文字与绘画的直接同一，即尽管文字具有某种图像性，但并非绘画，而绘画尽管有着大写意笔法，但也并非文字书法。

因此问题还是留下来了：既有着文字书法，同时又是图像绘画？在当代如何可能？而且还并非日本现代书法，比如井上有一的“文字画”，一个字是可以成画的，但如何好多的字，就是汉字的篇章书写就可以成画？

兴文兄是如何做出来的呢？他就是写字，以逆行的涉笔在纸上或者布上随意书写，使之错叠起来，好似已经成为通行的乱笔书写，在叠加中，文字相互汇聚，似乎按照某种神秘的密码编织出来，文字的线痕开始形成图像，这些图像是在书写中慢慢生成出来的，一种缓慢地爬行，有着生长性，保持其笔势的蔓延，有时候会形成一个人形，有时候就好似山水，但这不是去画图像，不是再现，而是顺着文字在扭曲变形的过程中，在歪歪斜斜之中，形成某种似与不似之间的余象，可以激发读者的想象力，一切都是在暗中约定，在日常的熟练神学与陌生的变形之间，生成出可能的形象。很多时候，这些文字伸展而形成的图像，又好似墙壁上的水迹与纹理，好似自然无意义的杰作，但又好似抽象画，但还是可以辨认出某种可能的形象，或者如同被时间风化的碑文，一片老辣苍茫之气。

兴文兄之前画过表现性极强的丙烯与油画，因此他随后也开始尝试运用混合材料来书写，其书写性与涂写性结合形成的的笔痕，就具有了某种复杂性与混杂性。这就结合了抽象绘画、文字的造型、笔触的偶发性、墨色的层次，还有留白的效果，这些作品具有实验水墨的制作性，但又保留了即兴书写的线痕，书法的微妙痕迹得到了保留，并且形成了变幻万象的各种图像，每一次都不一样，这就让汉字的变形得到了最大的发挥。

传统书法与现代书写的距离得到了巧妙的克服与转化，这一切都来自于汉字书法在兴文笔下的自由变形，尤其来自于中国传统独有的变形术：即，在文字——图像——姿势，三者的共感，从文字的字形出发，但不落入语义的限制，而是走向图像的生成，但此图像又不是再现自然，而是顺着笔痕与笔势的走向，沿着墨迹自身变化的可能趋势。就是听任汉字在自行生长时的自由与自然，让汉字保持呼吸变化的同时，还有着可塑的变化，既保留了书法笔痕的微妙变化，又有着造型的意外生成。

中国当代汉字艺术，就在于保持传统汉字特有的三重共感，但又能够在个体的自由书写中，让汉字获得从未有过的组合，这是可能世界的敞召唤，汉字的魂魄也得以被召回。

 Yao Xingwen's "YUYUE" Series: Chinese Character Art of Paintings and Calligraphy with the Same Origin

Xia Kejun 

Each and every one who writes Chinese calligraphy on a daily basis, turns writing into a kind of agreement, an attitude to life, a kind of breathing job, but such an agreement must live in a state of magic and paradox: On the one hand, picking up a brush to write Chinese characters is a daily behavior, but how to continue the scent and soul of Chinese characters without falling into habits and rules since there are thousands of years of literary temperament in it ? The whole modern Chinese calligraphy or popular calligraphic style does not seem to stand on its own foot; on the other hand, how to write from calligraphy to writing? It is calligraphy-style writing rather than Japanese’s Calligraphy with neither few words nor an American abstract painting. It must have the principle of the same origin of calligraphy and painting, but also form a contemporary individual features. Is it possible to go directly from the traditional "Chinese calligraphy" to "image writing"?

For Mr. Yao Xingwen, who has lived in the Town of Songzhuang, Eastern Beijing for a long time, he writes his calligraphic lines in reversed and slanting strokes with his unique brushwork. The ink marks left in each stroke, seemingly fragmented, are still readable verses, but always with a kind of "weird taste" and a kind of sadness, which reminds people of the "Qin Opera", the very local drama of his hometown of Terra-Cotta, revealing in the bones a gesture of tenacity. Many people like Xingwen's calligraphy very much out of the recognizability of his style and the inexplicable combination of childish and desolate features in his character, reflecting the personal transformation of Xingwen from the traditional calligraphy.

However, Xingwen does not stop here. He realizes the secret of the homology of painting and calligraphy in his writing. Traditionally, the "sonography of painting and calligraphy" is actually a kind of line mark brush writing, especially since the Yuan Dynasty. The literati painting began with calligraphy and painting, until later, but it was basically not the same as the painting. That means, although the text has some kind of image, it is not painting; the painting, with a freehand brushwork, it is not a calligraphy.

So the question remains: what should it be defined——with both text calligraphy and image painting? How is it possible in the contemporary era? Moreover, it is not a modern Japanese calligraphy, the so-called "character painting". A word can be a painting, but how can many Chinese characters be made into a painting? How does Xingwen make it? He is writing, arbitrarily writing on paper or on cloth with staggered strokes. In the superposition, the words converge on each other and seem to be woven according to some mysterious code. The line marks of the text begin to form images. These images are slowly generated during the process of writing. They crawl and grow slowly, with their gestures spreading, and sometimes forming a human form, sometimes like mountains and rivers. But it is not to draw an image, not to reproduce, but to follow the text in the process of distortion in the oblique direction to form an afterimage between the similarities and dissimilarities. It can stimulate the viewers ‘imagination, everything conveyed by it is a secret agreement that creates a possible image between skilled everyday theology and unfamiliar distortions. In many cases, the images formed by these words stretch like the water marks and textures on the walls. Like natural and meaningless masterpieces, or abstract paintings, but they can still be recognizable images though weathered by time.

Xingwen has previously painted with highly representative acrylic and oil paintings, and he later began to try to use mixed materials to write. The marks formed by the combination of complexity and promiscuity are abstract, textual, and sporadic in the form of the colorful ink with the stunning effect of the blankness. These works are experimental ink painting, but retain the impromptu writing marks, the subtle traces of calligraphy. The images have been preserved in varied forms at each time, which makes the deformation of Chinese characters to their greatest extent.The distance between traditional calligraphy and modern writing has been subtly overcome and transformed. All of this comes from the free deformation of Chinese calligraphy in Xingwen's brush, especially from the traditional Chinese metamorphosis: that is, the shared sense of text, image, and posture, starting from the glyph of the text, but not falling into the semantic limit, but moving