One
When the wind rose, the monk's robe moved.
In fact, it was not the wind, it was the jumping footsteps dancing the coat - the crimson robe fluttered in the May sun, and this fluttering red light suddenly lit up the painter's eyes, and when they had just stood still, Zhang Yaxi turned around and quickly pressed the shutter.
Red Coat (1991) 80cmx65cm
This is the origin of this "Red Coat" oil painting, and the inspiration that floats away makes the four young monks with different looks forever fixed on the Loess Plateau - their skin color comes from the soil under their feet, and the surprised smile fills the color of the monk's robe. They looked at the uninvited guest in front of them, and his sudden intrusion obviously broke their ancient mood, especially the flickering thing he was holding in his hand, making them vaguely aware of the existence of a strange world... But this vague uneasiness soon subsided, after all, the Baye green lantern had not yet worn away their innocence, especially the three smaller monks, the corners of their curved and raised mouths revealed obvious surprise and curiosity, they wanted to open their eyes to see the people and objects they had never seen before, but the early summer sun was already glaring, and they had to close their eyes slightly—perhaps, this posture was originally the posture of the monks, and their eyes should not have been directly exposed to the world, because they would have relied on the bodies that grew up in the mud to be fed by grains and grains And the duel entanglement of the color void is tearing the body and mind all the time, so how can the mind that cannot be quiet obtain the enlightenment of life and go to the end of Prajnaparamita? Well, then let us be like a bodhisattva who has settled down, and between light and darkness, on the edge of the three thousand red dust and meditation in front of us, let the helpless skin bag see the delusion in the "being", see the fire in the water, and encounter the abyss above the vast dome...
When I first saw this "Red Coat", I suddenly felt that the door of my head seemed to be shocked by electricity, and then, a tingling sensation suddenly came, as if it was stung by a wild bee in the mountains, and then, a wave of heart fluttering made my whole body tense... I know that this is the original trembling of life. After that, for a long time, my heart would suddenly flutter, and then the picture of "Red Coat" was instantly presented... I was amazed, how could such a seemingly inconspicuous painting disturb my mind so easily?
In fact, I have never had a special feeling about painting, especially the works of today's people, or I don't understand them in the first place. I spent my long, flowing childhood in a remote mountain village, a few rickety tables and chairs arranged irregularly in the ancestral hall, and the bells ringing in and out of class were a few chaotic whistles, which was our school. There was only one and a half teachers, and the other half was in front of the principal. In addition to the politics of language arithmetic, other subjects are incomplete, such as art classes, there is no art teacher, so those children who like to draw can only take small stones and graffiti on the mud. It was a special age, and the dry village could hardly see books and portraits... The quality of culture and art, the aesthetic mind and vision, must be cultivated for a long time and even professionally domesticated, especially in the childhood time when a lot of nutrition needs to be absorbed. And I, only seen a few color pictures on cigarette boxes, all day in the mud barefoot flipping childhood, leaving only desolation and emptiness...
So I am very clear that I am another conceptual "color blind", a "blind person" in the art world. The doors and windows of my life toward a more colorful world were never opened, just as a person without musical talent could not listen to the beautiful sounds of a lifetime. This is actually a "disability" in another sense, like a tree, which is removed from its branches at the beginning of its growth, and life is no longer flourishing.
Unexpectedly, on a snowy early spring afternoon, bored, I came to the "Art Work Hall" and suddenly saw this "Red Coat" - I still feel that this is not accidental, but an inevitable encounter in fate, I feel that the bucket room of my life suddenly slipped into some light, so that my eyes have the ability to start another look at a certain world - obviously, I do not just see the little monks on the picture who close their eyes slightly like blind people. It is not only to see the color in the aesthetic sense with strong symbolic meaning, but also to see a person, a familiar stranger, a lyrical subject who projects his spiritual life into the oil painting, that is, the brilliant presentation of Zhang Yaxi's "here-and-now" life as a painter.
Two
Seeing, of course, is not just what the everyday eye sees. As the saying goes, the eyes are the windows of the heart. Where the soul is, the spirituality is there, that is, it must have the insight, the deep vision and the discovery of inspiration, even if the eyes are slightly closed, the subtle still "sees" the deepest, most secret and brilliant picture of the world. For example, color, the color seen by the oil painter is definitely very different from what we see in the eyes of ordinary people, because in our vision, color is only a reproduction of the color itself; and when it comes to the work of art, it becomes the expression of the painter's heart.
Red is a color that we can see everywhere, but in the eyes of creators, it is given a different meaning. The writer Goethe saw a high degree of solemnity and solemnity in pure red; the painter Kandinsky believed that red was "a coldly burning passion, a solid force in itself."
In the early summer of 1991, Zhang Yaxi, who was studying in the oil painting department of the People's Liberation Army Academy of Arts, came to a crossroads in his life. This year, he happened to be thirty years old, and the passion of life was still burning, but it also fell a little to ashes. And this bit of ashes means that the fiery emotions have begun to cool, and the wisdom of reason has grown, which is a necessary transition of Romanticism to Classicism. That is to say, for a creative life, thirty years old is an important demarcation: when the torrent of youth gradually recedes, the ideal is replaced by reality, and people who return to real life are often overwhelmed by the burden of survival, and it is more difficult to bear the loneliness and confusion that the individual of life will inevitably bring about to independence - freedom also means loneliness, so helplessness, emptiness and frustration make many people begin to "psychological return", that is, to escape freedom and find the "dependence" of reality again, thus returning to the established track of ordinary life. This can almost be said to be the end point of individual life self-completion, and it is the final "spiritual weaning" of life growth. Therefore, only by overcoming loneliness and transcending the void, and re-questioning the meaning of existence and the value of life in the self-denial and self-torture, can it be possible to achieve the re-creation of life itself in the independent sense. As Confucius said, "thirty and standing" is by no means the acquisition of a social position in the usual concept, but rather the cultivation of the "Sven spirit" and the birth of a value life, that is, the establishment of life goals and spiritual beliefs. It can be said that this is the choice that every life must face, a "choice" for Hercules to face the goddess of Shili and the goddess of virtue.
As a painter, Zhang Yaxi is also faced with such a choice.
How to live a day as a lifetime, so that every quarter of an hour of life has a true self? How to let the brush in your hand get out of the skillful expression of "craftsmanship" and seek the discovery of life towards the unknowable spiritual wasteland? It was in this gray time of doubt and denial that Zhang Yaxi walked out of the school gate, picked up the camera and easel alone, and walked into the strange northwest plain.
Many years later, standing in front of the oil painting "Red Coat", Zhang Yaxi, who was a late teenager, still remembers the distant afternoon when he first walked into the plains of northern Shaanxi, which was the direction of the Beidou, the Liang Jia gully, and he had wanted to paint the cave, he accidentally met a few young monks - the red monk's robe under the may sun lit up his eyes of inspiration, he saw another kind of red, the color of his heart when he stepped on the fire pond - how close the heart-tearing emotions and the idea of fighting each other were with the colors in front of him..." When you feel the flowers splashing tears, hating other birds and being frightened", so the "seeing" at this moment is sublimated into the projection and perspective of life.
He seemed to have found another version of himself.
In fact, the Red Coat in front of me is just a photograph, the original was collected by a Japanese collector back in the 1990s. I think it is a bit regrettable that this should be regarded as a landmark work of the painter anyway, but Zhang Yaxi seems to be indifferent, he may feel that the process is more important, the process can gather sand into a tower, and the piles and pieces of the past are grinded into powder in the mill of time, accumulating into the content and quality of life.
Years later, I saw his diary, and he recalled his mood at that time with a real tone: "The oil painting "Red Coat" was created during my most painful and happy period. At that time, I was traveling in all directions, and I felt that something was wrong with my thinking, that the picture and the thought were fighting each other, and as a result, there was not even a little blood on the picture, only red, only many regrets.
I don't know what his "regrets" are, of course I didn't ask, because it doesn't matter anymore, the painter paints his own feelings, but also paints things that he himself doesn't feel, such as I see tension, hidden pain, haste and emptiness in "Red Coat", and at the same time I feel surprise and heat, all kinds of mixed emotions are like the confluence of different water currents, and the collision produces agitation and tearing: dust and emptiness, noise and introspection, light or dark... In the strong contrast between earth yellow and red, the author's mood overflows with the appeal to heal the wound and the low roar that is not willing to calm down... I seem to see the painter's pale, serious face and chapped lips, walking against the lonely wind on the empty desolate highlands, his lingering sadness, resentment and self-blame, the earthly bondage he could not get rid of and the inner struggle to break through the net... Although the work may still have mutilations, helplessness and question marks, the implied drooling is far more deeply than completeness or harmony, which constitutes the innermost quality of the painting... I think that the lines outlined with a brush are difficult to convey such an inner struggle, and only the color and the knife can more deeply "tell" the creator's bloody life self-whipping, and more vividly present the depth, breadth and richness of the tears - this is undoubtedly the spiritual trembling brought to me by the oil painting "Red Coat".
Or it should be argued more that the different feelings of many viewers constitute a complete narrative of a painting. And the life of a work of art is extended to its fullness in the appreciation of generation after generation. That is to say, the reason why excellent works have become excellent is not only the creator's "divine stroke", that is, the instantaneous bloom of artistic inspiration, but also the continuous "seeing" of more people...
Yu Hua, a contemporary writer with more insight into life and linguistic penetration than a poet, believes: "No author's writing history can be longer than the history of reading, just as no experience can be longer than life." I believe it is the reader's experience that nurtures my ability to write, like the land that nurtures the rushing of rivers and the growth of woods. ”
Zhang Yaxi saw his "seeing"; and his "seeing" thus awakened my aesthetic vision at the moment, allowing me to see the red in his heart, and at the same time see the "red" in his heart.
Three
Life is originally a mysterious existence. Its contingency and uncertainty are like the seeds that fall randomly from the mouth of a bird, and finally find the possibility of survival in the midst of thousands of impossibilities, just like divine help. Therefore, every life is precious and will contain magical possibilities.
One night in the early autumn of 1961, a man to be named Zhang Yaxi came to the county seat of Huangmei in Hubei Province. This is a dual-career home, all aspects are guaranteed, it can be said that it was the upper class family in China at that time, the parents had culture, full of new Chinese values, and the family atmosphere was relaxed and mild. It can be imagined that Zhang Yaxi's childhood was happy, and he lived in warmth like a sapling under the sun, and every branch was naturally stretched. Everyone knows that a free life thrives.
His parents' deep love for him was also full of expectation, and his name was the best description -- Ya, the second son; the seat, through it, is the seat, the seat, the position, or more ought to be interpreted as identity, authority, status. Zhang Yaxi said that he had searched through three generations of his parents' ancestors, and none of them were related to painting, but he did not know why, he just liked painting. Probably five or six years old, I liked it, smeared everywhere, painted with pencils on paper, painted with chalk on the wall, painted with stones on the ground, without colored pens and paints, I ran to the place where the artist of the county cultural center painted the advertisement, to pick up the remaining waste and residue... Spring trees, young leaves on the treetops; all kinds of flowers, calling for delicate flower buds that make people's hearts flutter faintly; peaches, pears, yellow-orange-orange grapefruit and red persimmons hanging on the branches of the swaying wind, in the distance, rolling up the golden yellow waves of rice paddies; empty wilderness, distant mountains, ice, like the pure white snowflakes flying in the sky of the cold virgin... The magical light and color of the world of life, the moving pictures of different seasons, as long as he closes his eyes slightly, they are like reflections in the water, and his heart is surging and shouting: I want to paint them, to paint the most moving and lovely appearance of nature, to draw the dreamlike and real pictures in my heart, and all the novelty, surprise and yearning... In the gray neighborhoods around the 1970s, on the edge of the decaying town or on the outskirts of the fields, a small figure staggered alone, a thin body dangling a huge head, a pair of girlish clear and bright eyes under the broad forehead, often staring dreamily forward... The people in the small county town were surprised to find that this boy who could draw had an unusual look of a child of the same age, a calm face like water, and a closed lips that kept silent for a long time...
One day at the age of twelve, his mother carried the only big hen in the house with one hand and dragged him to a stranger's house with the other. At that time, the Zhang family had fallen into a difficult situation, relying on the salary of their mother to maintain the family's livelihood. The old hen will lay eggs, more or less can fill some of the household, but the mother is very determined, there is no painter in the small county, and the painter found by the mother for him is just a local artist.
Zhang Yaxi was fortunate that his innate endowment was revealed in his childhood, which was extremely rare. Although each individual has its own unique life characteristics, and it is already contained at the moment of the birth of the embryo of life, most of them are potential, and some have not even appeared in their entire lives. Fortunately, his initial talents were not snuffed out by the weight of his school bags and the will of his parents. Of course, for a creator, personal choice and tenacious persistence are more important, such as Zhang Yaxi, his lonely thin figure and closed lips, which makes his mother pay the price of the old hen.
Many years later, on Labor Day in 1983, the 22-year-old Zhang Yaxi solemnly wrote with a brush on the front page of his diary: I exist for art, not for existence.
Zhang Yaxi's military travel photo (1983)
At this time, Zhang Yaxi was traveling in Huanggang, Hubei Province, which can be said to be his solemn confession to an artistic life.
More than 20 years later, Zhang Yaxi, who is not confused, is already living in Beijing, and I see this testimonial in his diary: Everything is so far away from me, I can't see the end, in addition to being lonely or lonely, now only this immortal heart is still beating with painting, that is, when the day will stop, my soul will still wander on the picture.
This is the upholding of a serious artist and his resolute determination.
One summer day in 2021, sixty-year-old Zhang Yaxi had a big drink, he felt that he did not know how many spring, summer, autumn and winter he slept, and when he woke up, he was like a revived vegetative person with numbness, but he still said to himself in his diary: The vegetative person has woken up and should scribble!
I just want to use time to count time, use the brush to forget time, and I can't find any more valuable than that...
At different stations of the life journey, many Zhang Yaxi with different faces continue to express the same heart, that is, the pursuit and persistence of the artistic muse - this is actually a long-term look back at the original aesthetic heart of the young Yaxi, and the eternal turmoil and noise of the artistic soul of the nine deaths...
When he was in the fifth grade of primary school, Zhang Yaxi's paintings were selected for the National Children's Art Exhibition, he came to Beijing, and finally saw tiananmen square, which he loved most in his heart, he was very excited, and he excitedly looked at the majesty and grandeur of the capital of the motherland. The great Capital City has given the children of this small county in Hubei a big dream: they must live here in the future, and only in this city will his paintings be seen by the whole world. So at the end of the exhibition, he quietly wrote down five big words on the ground in front of the National Art Museum of China: Zhang Yaxi's Painting Exhibition.
The people who hurried past him may not have noticed at all that the squatting child was gradually clenching his hands in his heart.
That's it.
Four
Zhang Yaxi came to Beijing again, it was already 1990, more than a dozen years after his first visit to Beijing.
He walked into the department of military oil painting in the most beautiful season of Beijing in the face of the cool wind under the incomparably blue sky, the autumn sun was like a shining paint smeared on his broad forehead, he saw the strange but full of faces in the classroom with the same look, and his eyes were full of novelty and yearning...
This is how late college life begins.
It's not too late. After groping alone for more than ten years, his technique has become more and more skilled, his works have been more and more affirmed by people, and many people are optimistic about him. That is to say, at this time, his genius as a painter has been revealed. But only he himself knew what kind of situation he was in, and time had brought him to the age of 29, and at the same time he had taken him to a desolate ferry that no one cared about, and he did not know how to get to the other side, but he understood that he could not find a ferry on his own.
Later, he recalled: "I started painting like this, a painting is 20 years, really know how to paint or in recent years, the time ahead, in addition to impulsive or impulsive ..."
It was at this time that an admission letter from the People's Liberation Army Academy of Arts brought him to Beijing, and it was here that he really got to know many people: Michelangelo, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Gauguin, Repin, Monet, Picasso, Renoir, Kandinsky... These are people he didn't know, he had heard about them at a very young age, and he had seen their works. However, he did not understand, did not really understand, did not enter their world, or simply felt that the painting was good, really good, that is only at the level of appreciation, did not enter his heart, into his own color and heartbeat. In a word, the works that did not make his life tremble were tantamount to not seeing; he did not know a single master who had not been inspired by them and taught him. Of course, he knew that it was not the master's problem but his own, and could you let a man who had just walked to the foot of the mountain get a taste of the sights of the summit climber? It was a matter of height, a question of distance, and he even felt that he and these masters might be hundreds of light-years apart.
He was frustrated, empty, desperate, and the art was indeed beautiful, but the road to art was full of thorns, it was an adventure with mixed feelings, and there were almost no winners in the past, and he was only one of those who were eliminated. Maybe it's providence! Discouraged, he felt as if he had walked into a dead end.
However, it was on such a gray winter dusk, in the aisle of the empty oil painting department teaching building, that Zhang Yaxi, who was alone with his lips closed, met the great Jean-François Miller.
In any case, this is a touching encounter in the history of Zhang Yaxi's artistic life, or more strictly, it is his sudden encounter with Miller's masterpiece "Evening Bell" hanging on the wall.
It should be a twilight dusk in late autumn in northern France, a young peasant couple standing on an empty and silent field, a barren horizon, a residual dappled color in the twilight, birds circling in the sky, and a hazy church standing in the distance... When the bell of the vespers rang, the couple stopped their work and bowed their heads in silent prayer, like two eternal statues - in the backlight, this pair of ragged and isolated peasants looked so docile, stoic, pious, simple and miserable, and the whole picture gave people a deep depression and a strong sense of destiny, like a low, dignified, sad music flowing slowly... But it is also in this darkness and weakness, in the cry and appeal, that love, compassion, beauty and truth, along with the bells from afar, descend to this vast earth, dedicated to the suffering beings in the midst of innocence and misfortune...
This is a picture of tragic colors, and oil painting should be the best and most authentic presentation of this subject - from the painting we can understand that tragedy is not destruction, but a new birth in redemption; tragedy is not absolute pain, but warmth in the pain of love; tragedy is not a kind of aesthetic illumination of clarity, but in the aesthetic photography of the spiritual streamer emerges - in the abyss to call God, transcendence is born instantly.
Zhang Yaxi was shocked, and in a trance he seemed to walk into the picture, blending with the farmers, the remnants, and the bells—he was them, one of the countless suffering beings on this vast earth, and his heart was trembling slightly, and he seemed to faintly hear the great voice of Ruoxi descending from the sky, like an empowerment, and he seemed to be reborn.
He finally found the path he needed to find to continue painting.
In this way, art was inherited. The magic of art lies in the fact that it enables two people of different ages, different worlds, different colors, different languages and different destinies to sit together, see their own images in his eyes, and feel their heartbeats in his pulse. However, the inheritance of art is not repetition or reproduction, not the same technique, the imitation of style, the consistency of ideas, but to enter his heart to open his own soul, to enter his world to discover his own color, is the spiritual bloodline of the torch and continue to regenerate, just like flowing into a river is not to become the same river, but to run to a wider vastness. Thus, in Zhang Yaxi's case, the university was not strictly speaking just a place for him to absorb knowledge, but rather a channel, taking him to meet the masters and find his discoveries in their immortal creations. Great works of art are like mountains, and continuous learning is more like a road that extends forward, leading him to climb over one mountain, and opening up a road for him to another mountain, so that art continues unceasingly...
Goethe said: Fear and trembling are the best of man. The best is the truth, and the most true is the beautiful. "Evening Bell" made Zhang Yaxi shudder, and the trembling made him open his heart. A true painter always creates only for the heart, and the heart allows him to truly understand himself, and once he understands himself, he also understands the world. However, the heart is often obscured, and only through continuous creation can the heart be opened and placed in the discovery, just like the spring thunder resounds through the earth, after one spring rain after another, the trees spit out young leaves, and the inspiration suddenly comes at this time.
Zhang Yaxi, who once compared himself to a long-distance runner, said: "Doing anything requires continuity, and the final sprint of the long-distance runner is very illustrative, and the continuity and persistence of the painter seem to be more obvious." ”
What I seek is beauty, not something beautiful.
Zhang Yaxi solemnly wrote Plato's words in his diary, indicating that he would abandon the old self and begin a new aesthetic pursuit.
What is beauty? Beauty is something more intrinsic, which requires the discovery of the heart, the listening and gaze of the heart, through the habitual hearing and seeing, through the appearance of the purple and red, and straight to the most authentic beauty in the depths of life.
Zhang Yaxi said, "What is color?" I think that red, green, red, orange, blue, blue, and purple cannot be called color, but only color. True colors are colors that must be processed by the artist. Painting a figure, painting a scene, if it is the same as the actual color of the real person and the scene, it is nothing more than a failed color painting. ”
"Evening Bell", "Shepherd Girl", "Gleaner"... From the immortal paintings of miller and many other oil painting masters, Zhang Yaxi gained new aesthetic inspiration, and he finally understood that what art should oppose is skill, it is repetition. There are skilled techniques, where are the skilled creations? Creation needs the guidance of the heart to open up to the strange place, let the familiar things reveal the strange atmosphere, and creation is an adventure in the wasteland——
I fell ill, dizzy, stomach aches, but the creative inspiration always did not come, so that people really fell down...
Dreams of death often come to me, and the deep calling cannot awaken me. The dream of death will eventually become a reality, and I want to always sing the song of death and rebirth, unable to explain that I often rub shoulders with the car of death.
……
The thorny adventure, physical and mental torture, Zhang Yaxi recorded his suffering in his diary.
Creation also means rebellion, zhang Yaxi even expressed his aesthetic position in an extreme tone: since structural theory and color theory can guide painting, why can't the theory be modified? Don't wait until you learn the color theory after memorizing the structure, it is equivalent to putting the tight hoop spell on your head.
Oil painting is the art of color, color is the language of oil painting, and language is the reality of the mind. Zhang Yaxi began to look for his own language with the experiment of color.
"The road of painting ... Diligence is also to be repeated, and there must be unexpected discoveries in diligence, and we must firmly grasp this unexpected discovery. In the process of painting in recent days, I have mistaken the luminescent oil for a toner and turpentine oil, and the result is very good, it dries quickly, has no luster, and has depth. This method of reconciliation is best suited to the nature of one's own painting..."
This is Zhang Yaxi's diary dated August 31, 1991.
Authenticity is fundamental to art. How to present the world in front of you with a real heart, and how to reconstruct the language of color to form Zhang Yaxi's own narrative? This is a "question worth considering".
After experiencing thousands of disappointments and all kinds of suffering, in the pain of not being able to lie flat, the oil painting "Red Coat" came unexpectedly.
Five
There's a Zhang Yaxi in the mirror, and I want to meet him.
This is zhang Yaxi's motto written to himself, and it is also a guess at his other life.
After the age of thirty, the years shortened, and quickly passed middle age, like the sun in the west, moving toward the treetops of the mulberry elm.
In addition to painting, his daily life is no different from ordinary people, he lives with his usual smile, approachable, and maintains a state of peace and quiet with life.
He had many simple friends like me, drinking, smoking, drinking tea, and talking freely and loosely. He settled in Yizhuang for many years, an unusually suitable place to live on the outskirts of Beijing, with clear and rhythmic changes in the seasons. His home is next to Nanhaizi Park, surrounded by emptiness, with a huge lake in front of it, and the Liangshui River in the northeast flows in the four seasons... The blue sky, the flocks of birds flying under the white clouds, the many unnamed trees, the flowers of all kinds and the fruits of all kinds... Zhang Yaxi often stood on his balcony, smoking a cigarette, staring at the flow of light in front of him, time, quiet and impermanent...
"Spring and Autumn Colors I" (2020) 90cmx90cm
Is this Zhang Yaxi? Yes, this is the painter Zhang Yaxi who lived in harmony with us in su ri, and often I saw him walking down the side of the road in the community, meeting acquaintances nodding and smiling, mixing in the crowd and being no different from others. Indeed, in most days, I look at others, others look at me, and when I look at them, I feel that they are generally the same as each other, and there is no special difference, yes, we are all ordinary people, we are all sentient beings who seek life in the world, and Zhang Yaxi, who makes a living by painting, is certainly no exception.
However, when alone, constantly facing yourself in the darkness, stripping away the various external role identities, shaking off the noise and dust of the world, sinking the heart to the bottom of the deep valley, the other self is convenient for the depths of life to appear.
The blind Borges constantly blurs reality and self in his writing, in order to recall the innerr self.
Zhang Yaxi stared at himself in the mirror over and over again, and he described it this way:
The face, the large, flat nose and the thick lips show his simplicity, which is what I look like. Familiar but elusive...
The 3rd was another unforgettable day in my heart, and the long silence did not exchange for anything useful, but on the contrary removed the most precious time. I look at me in the mirror, in this torrent is still slowly looking for myself, against any point of view of myself, but in this to find the arrogant self, I am afraid of death, but there is something more terrible than death, often, often jumped from the mind...
Today I want to say myself: I want to avoid the worldly things, but my head is always swinging in the world; I have not said what is deep in the soul, and the behavior is enough to prove everything. So people call me "Amaranth"...
What is "Amaranth"? Amaranth is a collective name for potatoes, such as sweet potatoes are also called "red amaranth"; but in the Hubei dialect, it means "stupid and not shrewd". It is true that relatives and friends call it "Amaranth", and there is also a secret love, which is a nickname in a sense.
But the basic meaning remains. Zhang Yaxi agreed with the title of "苕" because he had his own understanding of "苕".
He copied a passage from Goethe in his diary: "Many are intelligent enough, full of knowledge, but also full of vanity, in order to make the short-sighted laymen appreciate them as talents, they are simply shameless, for whom nothing in the world is sacred." Through Montaigne, he reflects profoundly on himself: "Our eyes do not see what is behind us, and when we laugh at our neighbors, we often laugh at ourselves, and we hate the shortcomings of others, which are more obvious in ourselves." Then he wrote in his diary: The enemy of approval, there are many people in life. Always use this mirror to look at yourself—deeper into the unspoken heart.
There are two opposing concepts involved here: stupidity and cleverness. So, what is smart? Human wisdom actually refers to the shrewdness or scheming of those who, for the sake of worldly utilitarian interests such as wealth and position, do not hesitate to rack their brains to calculate the long-sleeved good dance around the source, which is to use life as a tool and lose the authenticity of life for practical functions. And the restlessness in the world, the guilt of the world, and the evil of human nature are all caused by people's self-righteousness, people's arrogance, and people's shrewd selfishness, because in this world, there are too many smart people! And stupidity, humility, and ingenuity are aimed at adhering to the undeterred conviction in the heart, the bottom line and the fundamentals of being human, so we must adhere to the indomitable persistence and receive the failures, humiliations, groans and weaknesses in the abyss of life, only in this way can we keep the self in our hearts, the clear self that makes life into life, the self that reaches the "conscience" and has the "heart of light." Only this self can point to faith, hope and love, to the ultimate path of life.
Zhang Yaxi stared at the mirror over and over again with his "amaranth", just to excavate this "self". Because this "self" is the subject of his creation and the soul of his art, he can let his "here-and-now" life "live" in the narrative and speech of color.
In the entrance of the "Yaxi Art Work Hall", two simple characters written by Lin Sanzhi in 1983 are hung: Art View.
Does Zhang Yaxi, who is very "Amaranth", want Lin Sanzhi's "self" to observe all the comers with the light of art? This is, of course, just my guess.
Confucius said: Clever words make color, fresh and benevolent.
What is Ren? My teacher, Mr. He Xin, once trained "Ren" as "maternity", which means "the son is in the mother's womb", and I deeply believed it. Then, the original meaning of benevolence is the love of mother and child, which is of course the greatest and most primitive and natural emotion of mankind. However, I prefer to extend that kernels are seeds, that is, peach kernels, almonds... The germ of all things. If it is said that heaven and earth are the seeds of man and the universe, then benevolence is the root of man--the human heart opens up the heavenly heart, and the heavenly heart and the human heart are originally one, and the nature that fills it is "love". Zi Yue: What does heaven say, four hours of action, a hundred things are born, and what does heaven say? Therefore, "love" is "birth", that is, the foundation of all things in heaven and earth.
Regarding "love", in 1 Corinthians, Sizzle Paul expresses this expression: Love is eternal patience and kindness; love is not jealousy, love is not boastful, not crazy, does not do shy things, does not seek its own benefit, does not easily anger, does not count human evil, does not like unrighteousness, only likes truth; all things are inclusive, all things believe, all things are patient, all things are hope, love is endless...
These words, in the eyes of many intelligent people, are more "amaranth" than stupidity.
In Zhang Yaxi's creative studio, there are two big characters with strong pens that he has written himself: Worry.
Concern is at the heart of love.
Love, on the other hand, needs to be guarded by foolishness; only by keeping the foolishness of love can we "exterminate the wisdom of the wise and discard the wisdom of the wise"; because of this foolish love, the world has light.
A man asked a writer: Why do you write? The writer replied: To make the mother proud and glorious. In February 2020, Zhang Yaxi's mother suddenly left, and later, he recalled in his diary with great pain: At that time, my mind was blank, I made several phone calls, and told my friends that a person could not bear it, and that I was living for the people I loved and the people who loved me.
Late at night on October 9, 2021, Zhang Yaxi sent me a message - "Mother I want to talk to you":
Since my mother left, or rather, since I left my mother, for the past two years, I have been in deep thoughts all the time, and the lingering past is like nailing me to the whole world. Tonight, for some reason, I wanted to talk to my mother, gently in the direction of heaven, in the direction that I thought my mother could hear, softly, heavily, loudly, sadly, involuntarily calling, I don't know what I said, whether I was in a dream or awake, but it didn't matter, nothing mattered, as long as the mother could hear the child's voice was the most important, as long as I lived, I would not stop saying for a moment...
Holding my phone, I read it over and over again, tears streaming down my face.
Lu Xun said: Creation is always rooted in love.
Zhang Yaxi went on to say: The person who loves me and the person I love are the people who give me strength.
Six
So, did Zhang Yaxi see the "self" in the mirror?
I certainly wouldn't ask. All I know is that for a long time afterwards, he tilted more of his energy towards figure painting. And his figure paintings, because of their ability to capture the spirit of people built-in, the characters in his pen come alive, many people believe that he has a unique understanding of Chinese oil paintings.
The philosopher said: For the natural world that I am not aware of, that is also equal to nothing. Therefore, if the character in the pen wants to come alive and have his own spirit and soul, he must first go into his own heart, reveal his inner love, inner spirituality and light enlightenment, and open up to the object world and future time through listening and staring, only in this way can the world in front of you have the sound and color of life. Kandinsky said: "The harmony of colors must depend on the vibration corresponding to the human mind, which is one of the guiding principles of the inner needs." "For man and man, man and the world, are not opposing relations, but unity in a community of life. If you want to make the object of your pen come alive, more full, bright, and flexible, and make the world a living world, you must constantly open your heart and make life an infinite life. In a word, only by opening oneself can we open the world; only when the world is constantly opened, expanded, and extended, can the self in the mirror, the inner self, be revealed.
"Watching the Sea" (2020) 75cmx110cm
In the past two years, Zhang Yaxi has constantly mentioned death and constantly talked to me about life and death. Recently, he said to me: "Can't sleep, can't fall asleep very late, and there is nothing wrong, just can't sleep!"
Old Man Wen Huaisha left, he was very painful, he studied with Elder Wen for more than 20 years, listened to him sing "Chu Ci", listened to him talk about calligraphy, Elder Wen said: "Cursive writing is not fast, but a disease without scorch, it is the operation and maintenance of qi." "It was a deep inspiration to him. On September 20, 2019, he wrote in his Bonnard album: This old man who does not obey the old man is still gone. A few thoughts, people must go, life is instantaneous, and the art party will always exist. He could never forget the words that Elder Wen said: How can I be as good as I want, but I must be worthy of my heart." He sighed: "Elder Wen is gone, and what he has left me is the life span of the artist he talked about, which is the real life." Some people are gifted, and some people use their lives to paint and calligraphy. ”
Death is not merely the disappearance of physical life; life is not merely an extension of natural life. Zhang Yaxi wrote in his diary: From 1983 to today, after 38 years, I still remain happy, I do not want to discuss the issue of life and death, but I seek the mystery of life and death, life and death are connected, time is infinite, I take life as fast, death as pleasure, that is happiness. To die is to be afraid, to be afraid of death is to be happy, because he is still in this world... Death is the biggest and smallest thing.
In order to lengthen the limited life, Zhang Yaxi did not stop thinking for a day, did not put down the paintbrush in his hand for a day, and in the incessant listening and staring, let the characters in his pen live more vividly, and let his life "live out" more powerfully. At the dinner party on the day of his sixtieth birthday, he drank a few glasses of wine and said excitedly: "I just want to be faster, stronger, smoother, sexier, more powerful, more real, more surging, more calm, more agile, more egotistical, more foolish, more aggrieved... Cheers to heaven, earth, and people. ”
He poured a lot of energy into the figure painting, measured the life under his pen with his own life, spent a lifetime exploring the code of life, and used his life to paint.
He sighed: "I embrace the earth with infinite love - what a pity! Time has cut off my love, and I can only be busy in these two severed knots, perhaps for centuries. ”
He continually explored the language of color, opened his diary, and we saw the passages of blood-soaked words he had written:
Color is the strangest of the odds, mastering the basics is extremely important, and then playing with emotion is a lifetime.
Red, yellow, blue, the three primary colors seem to have set the color tone for painting early, and we can only open the secret of painting from these three primary colors.
Add blackening the cold color to increase the warmth of the picture. The richness of color is not necessarily multi-hue, and sometimes it is necessary to find variations in a color, to find light and shade.
"Spring and Autumn Colors II" (2020) 91cmx132cm
Michelangelo once said, "I think that the closer the painting is to the effect of the relief, the better it is; conversely, the closer the relief is to the effect of the painting, the worse it is." The words of the master can be extended to more fields, and what do I get out of it? Writing this passage on a blank piece of paper is to let it impact itself from time to time.
Ethereality, relying on the "separation" caused by external material conditions, is more important than the "emptiness" inside one's own mind.
The unity between words and images, between what language portrays and what forms of shape, has collapsed, if the image really has the function of speech... It will be moving away from languages.
He felt that it was not that he wanted to paint, nor that the world in front of him wanted him to paint, but that the painting itself wanted him to paint, that the great artistic "other" that was everywhere, constantly pushing him to paint, to become a painter.
A few days ago, on a very cold night, in the "Art Work Hall of Aysi", he said to me: Recently, for some reason, I felt that my energy was not as good as before, my hands were not strong, and sometimes I could not even lift the paintbrush.
The day before yesterday, I asked a good friend of his: How is Teacher Zhang, is his hand better? His friend said: It's okay, he's working in the studio!
Because of love, because of compassion, because of the desire to constantly become a person, let life last forever to "live", until the world reflects the deepest needs of the soul, the white-haired Zhang Yaxi is still constantly creating, exploring, laboring, he said: Man is a secret, to understand it. He said he had been guessing the secret all his life.
What kind of existence is Zhang Yaxi in the mirror? There is a poem that goes like this—many tributaries, flowing into a great river: I have many lives. In this temporary world, I stand where the fruit is... I have many lives, into a river, a river into a sea ... I was alive, not completely lonely, lonely, but not entirely, with strangers surging around me. This is where the sea is: we exist in secrecy. I have had many lives before, and a cluster of flowers has its own stem...