人们是怎么谈到马克•夏加尔（Chagall Marc）的？异乎寻常的瑰丽？童心未泯的浪漫？还是其他？
对于伟大的艺术家，解释他们似乎成为艺术史家惟一的任务，我们絮叨夏加尔为野兽派、立体派所作的贡献，感慨他作为俄国出生的画家成为巴黎画派的重要人物的价值，但是我们却很少提起，夏加尔后期那些伟大作品之所以打动我们，是因为它还藏有一种“超现实的感伤”，而这种感伤之所以产生是由于一个女人：他相依为命却又在他们结婚29年后离他而去的妻子——帕拉•夏加尔，夏加尔从此开始了长达40余年直至他生命结束以回忆帕拉为中心的题材综合体创作。这时候，在时间的坚持下，“感伤”因超现实而成为一种生命的哲学。
好，我们回到雷子人，关于这位画家，大家一定感到不很熟悉，虽然他已经出了一些书、办过好几次画展。这是因为在所谓的当代中国艺术的格局中，雷子人的作品不知应归为何类？新文人画？涂鸦艺术？表现水墨？都不是，所以他可被称为是那种“非主流”的画家，我常感想，我们今日的艺术史纪录为什么只有一、二种角度？不是西方的视野就是官方的角度，看看《世说新语》或《历代名画记》，我们先人的创造和评说是何等的自由！艺术作为人的有意味的本能和自觉，是何等的自在！用一句现代汉语说：艺术是一片“生态”，而雷子人就是这“生态”中的一部分，草木枯荣或野草丛生，漫漫生长，历史实际上是人的时间，在人的时间中，“千古风流人物”，以此作为出发点，来评说雷子人将成就如何，我们也就心态平和了！
很早就想为雷子人的作品写点感想，但是由于很多原因，一拖竟是五年！如同一些人对他作品的看法一样，我对他作品中显露出来的“感伤”“颓废”一直犹豫。面对雷子人的作品，我一直有两种状态：艺术史的状态（因为我是学艺术史出身？！），感伤和颓废，常常与小布尔乔亚情调联系在一起，在后现代的艺术范畴中，或是说在当代艺术的主流话语中，小资情调被人视为无病呻吟有意标榜而招致嘲笑，因此我的教育告诉我，大凡这样的画家，不能代表时代，因为这个时候，艺术作品的“深刻性”，会成为评价的惟一标准，实际上，整个后现代主义思潮滥觞以后的艺术批评大都如此，在行为、装置、影像等新艺术样式中，思想因素被极端放大，趣味、审美被认为是陈词滥调，在现代艺术还原艺术是潜意识、是生命本能、是生存意志的同时，活泼的生命机制因现代社会中的种种不如意而被放大的苦难受到抑制，一种与中世纪艺术时期似曾相识的艺术评价体制籍“全球化经济”之名出现了，我也不由自主地噤若寒蝉，人云亦云。另一种状态是我的本真状态，我的感觉让我喜欢雷子人的作品，“感伤”亦好，“情色”亦好，我喜欢！凭着直觉，我不满意雷子人受夏加尔等人的影响太深，但是，他用中国水墨自在的、甚至是惫懒的笔法，漫不经心地画出各色的女人男人，让人感觉曲折暧昧难言，它与现实生活的艰难形成鲜明的对比，让我的内心与作品同时飞扬在超越现实的时空之中。他有时也是焦虑的痛苦的，但是他从不把它直接示意，而是转换成一种感伤和情色的诗情。这种“节制”成为雷子人作品的意味重要延续之一，所以当我怀着观看世俗画的经验，希望得到感官的愉悦时，“感官”不见了，节制使有教养的观者的感官产生了位移。
当然，雷子人还十分年轻，这个瘦削、敏感、苍白的画家，让我想起许多艺术史上杰出画家的早期，夏加尔、劳特累克、弗洛伊德、巴尔蒂斯，瞧，我又回到艺术史了，但愿我的艺术史经验，会成为一个雷子人作品观者对雷子人的鼓励，我不知道在他的作品背后有没有如夏加尔那样的故事，但有一点可以确定：我和我们对于“感伤”的需要和人类对于“感伤”的需要一样，将永远延续下去。
杭 间
2005年1月10日写于汕头大学桑浦山日月湖畔
Homey Pathos
How people talk about Marc Chagall? Egregious splendor, innocent romance, or something else?
To explain great artists and their works becomes the only goal of art historians. Although we have been talking Chagall’s contributions to Fauvism and Cubism and sighing with emotion his important values as a Russia-born painter in Paris School, we rarely mention Chagall’s late works that moved us because of its hidden “Surrealistic Pathos”. It derived from a woman that he married and lived together for 29 years. To remember his wife Pala Chagall, he started his complexe creation during 40 years until his life end. In the persistence of time, “Pathos” becomes a life philosophy because of Surrealism.
Well, now we return to Lei Ziren. People will not be quite familiar with this artist although he has published a few books and held some exhibitions. The reason is that among the contemporary Chinese arts Lei’s works are not easy to be labeled. New Scholars? Doodle? Expressionist Ink and Wash? None of them. He can be called and labeled to be a “Non-Mainsteam” painter. I often think that why our contemporary art records have only one or two angles? Either western or official angles? How free our forefathers’ creation and comments were in “Shi Shuo Xin Yue” and “Famous Paintings of All Dynasties”! How free their art as human being’s meaningful sense and self-consciousness! Using a modern Chinese terms: art is a “zoology”, and Lei Ziren is a part of it. Seeds grow up and die, like that, history is also man’s time where “smart people live in dynasties”. From this point of view, we will be quite peaceful when commenting Lei’s achievements.
Although I hoped to write something for Lei’s works before, this article has been lagged for 5 years because of many reasons. As many people’s opinion toward his works, I also am hesitating about the “pathos” and “decadence” hidden in his works. Facing his works, I have been in two status: art historic status (my major is art history?!). My pathos and decadence are often mingled with little bourgeois sentiments. In the art frame of post-modernism or the mainstream languages of contemporary art, little bourgeois sentiments is mocked for it’s been regarded as “make a fuss about an imaginary illness for boosting”. My education tells me: such painters are not representatives of the time, because “profundity” of art works will be the only criteria. In fact, all art critics after post-modernism trends are almost the same. In the new art forms as performance, assemblage, video etc, thinking factors are zoomed extremely while interest and taste are regarded as hackneyed and stereotyped expressions. At the same time modern art renders art as subconsciousness, life instinct and existing volition, vivid life system is depressed because of exaggerated miserables in modern society. Disguised by the name of “global economy” an art critics system, familiar to middle ages, appeared, and before it I keep quiet our of fear and echo what other says. Another status is my own reality. From my sense I like Lei Ziren’s works, either his “pathos” or “love and sexuality”. I like them! My instinct doesn’t allow me to be satisfied with his works influenced by Chagall too deeply. Under his free and somehow lazy Chinese ink and wash brushes he portrayed all kinds of women and men of sinuosity and obliquity, in contrast of hardships in real world. My soul fly with his works in surrealistic time and space. Sometimes anxious and miserable, he doesn’t want to express directly his feelings, but he hopes to transfer them into a poetic pathos and love. This “abstention” becomes one of Lei Ziren’s meaningful features. So, with experiences in watching ordinary paitings and hope to obtain sensual pleasure, my “sense” is lost and the abstention turned out to be exchange of sense for cultivated painting watchers.
Certainly, Lei Ziren, this slim, sensible and pale painter, is yet too young. It remembers me of the early period of many celebrated painters in art history, such as Chagall, Lauterec, Lautrec, Freud and Balthus. Look, I again returned to art history. I wish that my art history experiences will become the encouragement to Lei Ziren as Lei’s art works watcher. I don’t know whether behind Lei’s works there are some Chagall-like stories, but I am sure of one point: our demand of “pathos” as the human being’s demand of “pathos” will continue for ever.
Han Jian
Shantou University, January 10, 2005