彼得·德瑞克

　　艺术家 纽约艺术学院院长

　　人类最接近神性的行为无过于创造出清新独特、美丽优雅的艺术作品，但纵观人类的历史，有幸拥有这种天赋的人少之又少。著名画家陈逸鸣先生的作品美丽非凡，他必是受到艺术之神青睐的幸运儿。陈先生毕生致力于绘画，磨练出敏锐的视觉判断力。他这种旁人少有的视觉智慧既是天赋，更是将长期浸润于东西方文化传统的体验付诸于辛勤实践之所得。

　　数万年中，一种被称为油画的视觉语言体系逐渐形成，它比任何一种绘画都更为复杂、更能够唤起人类情感，并且更难以捉摸。19世纪晚期的法国艺术传统中，油画的视觉说服力达到了顶峰。在这段时期，人类对透视解剖、色彩、形式和价值发展等的所知所识都在油画艺术的熔炉里相交汇，培育出未来将继续书写油画历史的年轻画家们。油画的传统体系规范曾因现代主义的兴起而分崩离析，但它从未真正消失。相反，如今油画已逐渐呈现出全新的面貌，并逐渐传播到包括中国在内的其他国家。

　　作为观者，我们非常幸运，因为陈逸鸣先生在极为艰深的油画艺术上造诣颇深。他熟知油画语言的一切，并将所知充分赋予了来自艺术历史中的形象，但同时仍保持着毋庸置疑的现代感。陈逸鸣先生穿越了迄今为止最为苛刻的视觉思维体系，在追寻油画艺术的过程中造就了自己独特的声音，同时也在不断地向前求索。这样的艺术轨迹在他的风景、静物、肖像等油画作品中都得到了充分体现。

　　陈逸鸣先生的诸多作品给观者以时间流逝之感，引人深思，仿佛情感也一时变得复杂起来，而这一切正是由画家娴熟的技艺传递而来。陈先生的作品《怀旧》表现了一位年轻女子弹奏琵琶的间歇。画中的女子正轻抚琴弦，身后的一幅中国传统水墨画烘托出女子身上精致的丝质旗袍。这位年轻女子同时身处的三种文化背景共同描绘出她深沉的思绪。水墨山水在女子身后隐约显现，山势陡峭，色彩单一，令人望而生畏，心生孤寂之感。女子身穿团花旗袍，发上簪花，臂上腿上皆有花样，画面生动。琵琶憩于女子的双臂之间，淡漠而稳重，形如泪滴。水墨画、花样和琵琶皆是文化历史的痕迹，令女子现代的面容仿佛深陷其中，不知如何进退。

　　“画中画”是陈逸鸣先生作品的特色之一。同时代的画家多通过“引经据典”和“擅挪巧用”来探索视觉文化的意义，陈先生却与众不同，他往往将新意赋予旧物。在《咏》这幅作品中，陈逸鸣先生结合了三种大相径庭的错觉系统，产生了极具视觉冲击的效果。画面的背景是一道屏风，屏风上的一只鹤正轻轻啄着端坐着的女子的肩部，造成了形式上的巧合，这种形式错觉极富画家的个人风格。如此地破坏画面造成错觉是画家对错觉艺术手法的探寻，同时这种手法也恰恰因陈先生娴熟的技艺而得以加强。画家对丝质旗袍的描绘几乎可以媲美杰拉德·特·伯赫，但也正因此我们往往只注意到了这一形式上的巧合。事实上，画家仔细地观察了随温度的变化而产生的光影效果，微妙地描绘出温暖的暗海螺红和清冷的紫罗兰色之间的色彩差异。画家将丝绸的质地描绘得美仑美奂，花枝盘绕在神态淡然的女子身上，营造出第二个错觉系统。观者若有暇细细思量这看似混乱的画面，定会惊讶地发现画面的整体气氛却是极为平静的。在这平静气氛的中心正是最为显著的又一个错觉：画中女子的面部精雕细琢，肤色温润，仿佛跃然纸外。观者与女子四目相对时，恍若置身画中。

　　多数画家的作品形式或是开放或是封闭，分属威尼斯画派或是佛罗伦萨画派，受到浪漫主义或是古典主义的影响。陈逸鸣先生是极少数超越了这两种对立思维方式的画家之一，这在他的风景画作品中有着明确的体现。在以景物为主题的作品中，陈逸鸣先生运用他全面而精深的油画技艺展现了天空的广阔和大海的骚动。在《惠安女》这幅作品中，三个女子坐在岸边的一艘小船上，一个男孩望着远处的两个身影。天边云层厚重，云层的边缘却透出光来，天空的立体感表现得非常完美。画家用钛白、培恩灰和海螺红描绘了小船的侧面，看来突兀，却对比鲜明。整幅画面的色调一致，色彩搭配极具匠心，展现出一位画家的自信。当画家为画作着色时，每一次落笔既要合理表现描绘的对象，又要巧妙利用颜料本身的物理性质，此时画家的自信就显得尤为重要，陈先生在这方面可说是落笔自如。

　　使用重复描绘同一对象的方法来构成画面，其中的佼佼者是德加，在他的作品中，女帽和芭蕾舞裙反复出现，几乎成为了符号化的对象。陈逸鸣先生也是一位熟练运用这种技艺的大师。在他的静物画和肖像画作品中，观者能感受到画家敏锐而娴熟地将各种形象组织在一起，使观者的目光遍及整幅画面。陈先生将水平线的高度进行提升，让描绘的对象得到形式上的审视和创造。在《银茶具》这幅作品中，圆苹果、蕾丝桌布、茶壶盖顶，以及壶身的反光，都使观者的视线游走于整幅画面。提升的画面令人想起塞尚和波拉克，画家对物体的处理又更接近于维米尔。仅是描绘壶身反光所体现出的高超技艺和表现力，就不得不让人联想起多位著名的荷兰艺术大师了。

　　陈逸鸣先生作品中的装饰性图案、形式的重复和画面的提升都有着一种诗意的形式感。19世纪时，向往亚洲的西方艺术家们都钟情于日本版画和中式屏风画中装饰性图案的运用。惠斯勒、德加、蔡斯和方丹·拉图尔都曾借用这种手法创造出西方艺术从未注意过的装饰性的元素。自文艺复兴初期时西方的绘画构成就停滞不前了，但随着新艺术元素的出现，似乎突然之间画家们摆脱了束缚，开始自由吸收不同文化的绘画特点。在西方，只有在拜占庭的艺术对锡耶纳产生影响之后，才出现了这种文化间的艺术交流。陈先生通过运用装饰性图案、重复的形式和提升的画面，重拾了原属于他自身文化的绘画构成。

　　在《花样年华》和《Chinese Garden中式花园》两幅作品中，陈先生运用了装饰性图案和形式重复两种手法，充分展现出喻意和形式上的各种可能性。在图案和因图案而产生的怀旧联想之间发生了碰撞，这碰撞几乎导致了幻觉。在《花样年华》中，观者无法确定自己身处何处，但能感受到画面传递出的一种近乎超自然的静谧气息。这种感受部分是由于画面按1/3和2/3比例分配的布局。1/3部分的构成是垂直方向的，垂直的线条自女孩的头发、鼻梁向下延伸至麻花辫梢。2/3部分的构成是平行方向的，平行的线条来自与女孩衣袖形成交叉的背景花卉图案。这两种结构的运用给整幅画面带来了稳定感，若非如此，画面就会显得杂乱无章。女孩凝视的目光专注而难以捉摸，观者看到的则是一幅明亮而热烈，同时沉静且隐隐透出不安的画面。

　　艺术界对西方油画的表述性近年来多有提及，比如，远景的消失点代表精神的无限性，形象从亮到暗的变化代表已知和未知。但在像陈逸鸣先生这样的油画大师笔下，描绘人体才是最富表述性的。在人体和肖像画中，陈先生不仅仅是在描绘，更是在重新创造。他用法国学院派油画苛刻的态度审视自己的人物形象，笔下的人物个个栩栩如生，这绝非偶然而成。在油画技法中，描绘人体需将颜料层层迭加，同时每一层颜料又不可将下层色彩覆盖，如此便制造出肉体真实而生动的层次感。光线射入层层颜料之间，再从底面反射到观者的眼中，观者看到的仿佛就是充满生命力的真实的人体。

　　陈逸鸣先生的女性人体画最为令人倾倒。通过这些作品，观者仿佛旁观了画家绘画的整个过程。当他落笔，我们发现他使用的是厚涂的技法;当他注视模特，我们发现他的视角并非客观而抽离，他对绘画对象的观察更接近伦敦学派直接而细致的方式;当作品最终呈现在我们眼前，其中的细微之处又令人想起安格尔和布格罗笔下女性人体的真切和唯美。画中人似乎触手可及，仿佛随时会转过身来，观者甚至能感到温度因人体的靠近和远离而产生的由低到高、再由高到低的变化。面对每一幅画作，观者都有如面对一具真实的人体，对方尽管暴露无遗，却泰然自若。

　　景深是一个通常与胶片影像联系在一起的术语，始用于透镜和相机暗盒出现的年代。维米尔和与他同时代的画家们最早开始使用相机暗盒来投射画面，并对其进行描绘。按照镜头焦点所在即为重点所在的前提，景深的运用使描绘的形象区分出不同的层次。在陈逸鸣先生的笔下，景深却通常用来表达人物周围的虚境。在《Young Woman in Bamboo Garden》、《Lily Pond池边少女》和《Pensive Moment沉思》这几幅作品中，画中人物仿佛独自沉静在周遭的氛围之中，与世无争，观者竟成了冒昧的闯入者。这种感染力来自陈先生随心所欲驾驭绘画语言的独特能力。《Pensive Moment沉思》中画家对人物形象的准确表现产生了近似相机聚焦的效果，时间仿佛在这一刻停止，观者渐渐贴近了画中人的内心世界。画家对人物周围景物进行了类似柔焦的处理，这暗示某种模糊的记忆，被淡化的情节和人物捉摸不透的内心。陈逸鸣先生的作品从不刻意吸引观者的注意力，他笔下的画面仿佛有着独自述说的能力，这更显示出陈先生非凡的绘画天赋。

　　在后现代主义主宰的世界里，美丽是一个代表着发展和进步的概念。在近一个世纪以来的艺术界，与凝结着真正杰出艺术智慧的作品相比，人们更推崇的是那些在艺术造诣上乏善可陈、平庸无奇的作品，但美丽的意义绝不仅止于此。人们对美丽事物进一步的认识更挑战了如今多元文化不得不面对的状况，即为了协调多元的文化因素，艺术品质的界定正逐渐趋于中庸。当我们书写后现代主义的历史时，像陈逸鸣先生这样的艺术家无疑将脱颖而出。陈逸鸣先生浸润于各种丰富的视觉文化之中，汲取着艺术历史所能给予的一切滋养，并将这种文化和历史推向新的高度，为艺术领域作出了真正可称美丽的贡献。他是一位视觉的诗人，是人类心灵世界敏锐的解说者，也是娴熟运用技巧和形式的魔术师。陈逸鸣先生用他对绘画语言的驾驭能力引领着观者思考和想象，对文化进行再一次的审视。

　　Chen Yi Ming

　　Peter Drake

　　Artist Dean of Academic Affairs, New York Academy of Art

　　The ability to create works of art that are fresh, unique and beautiful is a creative act that is as close to divine as humankind is capable of, and a gift that has been bestowed on a select few over the course of history. Artist Chen Yi Ming makes extremely beautiful paintings. He does so unapologetically and with a degree of visual acuity that is both rare and deeply intelligent. His visual intelligence is the product of an innate natural gift and a studio practice that is steeped in both Eastern and Western traditions.

　　Over the course of tens of thousands of years, a system of visual rhetoric known as painting has evolved into something that is more complex, evocative and elusive than any visual system on Earth. It can be argued that this system of visual persuasion reached its apex in the French academic traditions of the late Nineteenth Century. During this period in time, all of the world’s knowledge of perspective, anatomy,color, form and value development were channeled into one creative cauldron where young artists could come, learn from art history, and then contribute to it. This system was temporarily dismantled by Modernism, but never actually disappeared. Instead, it began to show itself in new disciplines and migrated to other countries, one of which was China.

　　We are fortunate that Chen Yi Ming is a product of this very discriminating system. He has taken all of the world’s knowledge with regards to the rhetoric of painting and has applied it to images that are steeped in art history, while still remaining undeniably contemporary. Chen Yi Ming has passed through one of the most exacting systems of visual thinking to date, and come out the other side as a unique voice that draws upon the past while simultaneously advancing the future of painting. This is evident in all of his works whether they are landscapes, still-life paintings or portraits.

　　In much of Chen’s work there is a sense of time slipping away; a pensive mood that signals an emotional complexity that is only matched by his virtuosity as a painter. Chen’s Nostalgia is one such painting,in which a beautiful young woman pauses while playing the Pipa. A traditional ink landscape painting is featured behind her, accentuating the finely made silk garments she wears as she caresses the strings of her instrument. The young woman is, in fact, immersed in three cultural moments at once, all of which account for her mood of reflection. The landscape is forbidding and looms over her creating a monochromatic void. The patterns in the textiles of her garment and the flowers in her hair swarm over her, flitting gingerly on her arms and animating her lap. The belly of her Pipa rests in her arms waiting for her attention, stolid, secure, and heavy as a teardrop. The painting, patterns and musical instrument are all vestiges of her cultural history. Her face is that of a contemporary woman caught between these cultural indices and uncertain of how to proceed.

　　The strategy of using pictures-within-pictures is a hallmark of Chen’s work. Unlike many of his contemporaries who use quotations and appropriation to question the meaning of visual culture, Chen constructs new meaning out of old. In Lady in Silver Chen assembles three seemingly disparate systems of illusion to make a stunningly confrontational portrait. The screen painting that acts as a backdrop provides a highly stylized form of illusion wherein a coincidence of form takes place when one of the cranes in the picture pecks at the sitter’s shoulder. This disruption of the picture plane and the illusionistic system questions illusionism, while at the same time reiterating it through Chen’s masterful technique. In fact,we only notice the coincidence of form because the rendering of the silk blouse is worthy of Gerard ter Borch. Light masses and shadow masses are exquisitely observed with temperature shifts subtly reflecting compliments from pale cadmium oranges to cool violets. As beautiful as the rendering of the silk is, it is also a second illusionistic system wherein plant-life writhes around the oblivious sitter. If one stops to think about the maelstrom of visual activity that is present in Lady in Silver it is astounding that the overall mood is one of absolute calm. In the center of that calm is the most compelling moment of illusionism in the entire painting: the sitter’s face is so convincingly rendered, her skin tones so subtly observed, that they almost pop off the picture plane. This creates an unnerving but completely believable moment of connection between the viewer and the viewed, as if she is seeking you out in the frenzy of her patterned world.

　　Most painters are either open-form painters or closed-form painters; they are either Venetian or Florentine by nature, romantic or classically driven. Chen Yi Ming is one of those rare artists who excel at both of these often-oppositional ways of thinking. This is most clearly reflected in his landscape work, in which the vastness of the sky and the tumult of the sea bring out the full range of his technical virtuosity. In End of Day we find three women sitting in the prow of a skiff stranded at low tide. A solitary boy in the middle ground stares off at two figures in the far distance. The sky is rendered in perfect atmospheric perspective with volumes of clouds receding in space as their value range steadily lightens. This perfect system of palette and tonal modulation is sharply contrasted by abrupt slashes of titanium white, Payne’s grey, and cadmium red on the side of the skiff. These passages within the painting are handled with the confidence of an Abstract Expressionist. It can be hit or miss with gestures like these as a painting hangs in the balance awaiting the perfect application of paint. Each gesture has to carry the weight of the plausibility of the observed moment and the materiality of paint, and Chen handles both with ease.

　　Repetition of form is a compositional device that is frequently associated with Degas. Millinery hats and ballerina tutus created compositional opportunities that were almost abstract. Chen, too, is a master of this frequently overlooked practice. In his still-life paintings and his portraits one sees a remarkable mind at work, organizing form to skillfully move the viewer’s eye around the canvas. By raising the horizon line,Chen opens up the image for formal examination and invention. In Still Life with Silver Tea Service Chen uses the circular forms of the apples, the pattern of the lace doily, the top of the lid of the tea server, and the reflections in the server to circulate the viewers eye throughout the entire painting. The elevated picture plane harkens back to Cezanne and Braque but the handling of the subject matter is closer to Vermeer. In the reflections alone there is a level of mastery and a technical narrative that brings to mind the jewel-like quality of the Dutch masters.

　　There is a poetic irony in Chen’s use of pattern, repeated form and the elevated picture plane. Western artists traveling to Asia in the Nineteenth Century fell in love with the use of pattern in Japanese prints and Chinese screen painting. Whistler, Degas, Chase and Fantin-Latour all appropriated these formal devices to create abstract opportunities that Western art had previously been oblivious to. Suddenly the artist was free to manage pictorial strategies that had lain dormant since the Proto-Renaissance. Not since the Byzantine influence in Siennese art had there been such a flood of cross-cultural effect. Through his use of pattern, repeated form, and the elevated picture plane, Chen is in effect recouping pictorial strategies that were his own to begin with.

　　In paintings like Young Girl in Floral Dress and Chinese Garden Chen takes full advantage of the metaphorical and formal possibilities of pattern and repeated form. There is an almost hallucinatory aspect brought on by the collision of patterns and the historical associations with those patterns. In Young Girl in Floral Dress the viewer doesn’t know precisely where he or she is, but there is an almost supernatural quiet that adheres to the painting. This is partially the result of the composition, which is actually comprised of two one-third, two-thirds compositions. The first composition is vertical, and is established by the part in the young girl’s hair and the bridge of her nose, running down the line of her braid. The second composition is horizontal and is established by the background pattern intersecting with the sleeves of her blouse. Both of these structural devices bring stability to what would otherwise be a riotous compositional environment. Add to that the intense, almost opaque quality of the young girl’s stare, and you have a picture that is luminous, frenetic, serene and deeply disquieting.

　　Much has been written over the years with regards to the technical narrative of western painting; the vanishing point of perspective representing spiritual infinity, the turning point of form from light to dark depicting knowing and not knowing, but in the hands of a masterful painter like Chen Yi Ming, the depiction of flesh is perhaps the most telling moment in his own technical narrative. Chen’s nudes and portraits don’t just depict flesh; they recreate it. By applying the intensely demanding strictures of the French academic painting to his figures, Chen gives the sense that the form has been made real. This is no coincidence. Painting the flesh is actually a process of building layer upon layer of paint transparently.This creates the illusion that the artist has replicated the layers of the flesh itself. Light penetrates the layers of paint, reflects off of the ground and comes back to the viewer as if they were looking at the luminosity of a living being.

　　Chen’s nudes are some of his most ravishing and provocative works. They utilize his entire inventory of painting procedures, from the loaded brush and direct observation of the London School, to the subtle modulations of Ingres and Bouguereau. They frequently isolate the figure in a void, allowing the viewer to immerse themself in the turning of form and temperature shifts from cool to warm and back again. In each nude, however, there is the sense that the viewer is in the presence of a real human being, exposed and unselfconscious.

　　Depth of field is a term that is most often associated with photography and film, but it is a way of seeing that dates back to the invention of the lens and the camera obscura. Vermeer and his contemporaries initially used the camera obscura to project compositions, ultimately depicting its effects. Depth of field creates a formal hierarchy that is built upon the premise that focus implies importance. In the hands of Chen Yi Ming depth of field frequently connotes a vacuum surrounding the figure. In paintings like Young Woman in Bamboo Garden, Lily Pond, or Pensive Moment there is the sense that the subject of the paintings is lost in thought, isolated in their surroundings, almost caught unawares. The viewer feels as if they have interrupted the subject’s reverie. This is achieved by Chen’s unique ability to deploy all of the complex languages of depiction at will. The precise rendering of the figure in Pensive Moment creates a degree of focus that makes time stand still. It allows the viewer to become tethered to the internal life of the subject. The soft focus of the subject’s surroundings implies a haze of memory, loss and interiority. It is a testament to Chen’s gift that he accomplishes this sense of emotional isolation without calling attention to it, letting the picture speak for itself.

　　In a Post-Modern world, beauty is a progressive idea. It is at odds with a century of art making which championed the deskilled in lieu of extraordinary talent, and challenges the status quo of a pluralist culture that neutralizes quality in the service of relativism. When it comes time for the history of the Post-Modern period to be written, an artist like Chen Yi Ming will stand out. By immersing himself in the complexities of global visual culture, absorbing all of the lessons that art history has to offer, and pushing that culture and history to new heights, Chen Yi Ming has made a truly beautiful contribution to the world of art. He is a visual poet, an incisive interpreter of the human psyche, and a technical and formal magician. Chen Yi Ming’s paintings deploy all of the tools of the rhetoric of painting to entice the viewer to enter into a world of reflection, reverie and cultural re-examination.