大道无极——赵无极的艺术世界｜多米尼克•德•维尔潘：二十一世纪的先锋（上） - 动态

ZAO WOU-KI: PIONEER OF THE 21ST CENTURY

赵无极：二十一世纪的先锋

Dominique de Villepin

（多米尼克•德•维尔潘）

General Advisor of Centennial Retrospective Exhibition of Zao Wou-Ki

Former Prime Minister of France, Honorary Chairman of the Foundation for Art and Culture

赵无极百年回顾特展总顾问

法国前总理、FAC艺术文化基金会名誉主席

It is a great pleasure for me to be here with you for this triple celebration:It is a celebration of the largest exhibition in China around Zao Wou-Ki, here in Hangzhou, at the China Academy of Art where he studied in his youth. It is a celebration of one of the giants of the 20th century. One of the rare artists to have participated in the adventure of art on its three main scenes: The European scene, the American scene and of course the Asian scene, Finally, it is a celebration of the friendship between France and China through this special tribute to Zao Wou-Ki, such an important figure, of whom we are all proud, on the eve of the anniversary of sixty years of diplomatic relations between our two countries.

此次活动有三大意义。首先，庆贺展览的举行。此次展览是在中国举办的亚洲最大规模赵无极回顾展，展览设在中国美术学院，前身即赵无极先生早年就读的国立杭州艺专。其次，颂扬赵无极先生。赵无极是20世纪的一大卓越人物，也是少数几位活跃于欧美及亚洲舞台的艺术家之一。最后，歌颂中法友谊。在即将到来的中法建交60周年之际，我们通过向赵无极这位我们引以为豪的重要人物致敬，共同庆祝中法之间60年的友谊。

Today is a key moment: For the world, facing tensions and crisis everywhere on our planet, For China, dealing with major responsibilities in terms of peace, in terms of stability and developing multilateralism, But also, it is a key moment for culture because through such exhibitions, we can expand the dialogue between countries and civilizations. Zao Wou-Ki is always looking for understanding, friendship and reconciliation, fighting to put art at the center of our lives, while being deeply rooted into the Chinese culture and tradition.

当今世界正面临百年未有之大变局，中国肩负着维护和平、保持稳定和发展多边主义的重要使命。文化界也正处于关键时刻，通过此次展览，我们能够进一步扩大不同国家和文明之间的对话。赵无极先生深深根植于中国的文化和传统，同时不断寻求理解，建立沟通桥梁，调和差异，让艺术成为生活的核心。

A mediatorbetween cultures

文化的协调者

I often had opportunity in different countries to express the admiration and friendship I felt for Zao Wou-Ki, both for the man and for the artist. On the occasion of this major exhibition in Hangzhou, I would like to evoke before you this afternoon, the figure of Zao Wou-Ki as a Chinese painter who is part of a thousand-year-old tradition. He succeeded, by opening up to another tradition, European and Western, to establish himself as a bridge between cultures, as a link between tradition and modernity.

我曾在不同的国家和场合都表达过我对赵无极本人及其艺术家身份的钦佩并颂扬我们之间的友谊。值此杭州展览开幕之际，我想让大家重新回想起赵无极作为一名承袭中国千年文化的中国艺术家的身份。他通过接纳欧洲和西方传统，成功扮演着不同文化之间的桥梁，以及传统与现代之间的纽带。

Because, if in 1948, he left for France, China never left him, always alive in his heart and in his mind. All those who, ever, have had the chance to visit him in his house-studio and his garden in the heart of Montparnasse have been able to witness the strength of this Chinese presence. All his life, his ambition was to strive to hold both ends together, in between two worlds, the East and the West, in between two cultures, in between two traditions of painting, with the philosophy of adding without ever renouncing, to confront without ever subtracting, to seek to understand without ever humiliating, to reconcile without ever obscuring contradictions and conflicts. You can see and almost touch this truth in all the great paintings of the end of his life.

尽管赵无极1948年就前往法国，中国从未离开过他，始终在他的心中。多年以来，所有曾去过他在法国巴黎蒙帕纳斯中心位置的工作室和庭园的人都能感受到中国在他心中的分量。他秉承加而不减的理念，直面困难，毫不退缩，不顾一切寻求理解，调和差异而不掩盖矛盾，穷尽一生，努力贯通东西方文化和绘画传统。这在他晚年的所有伟大画作中体现得淋漓尽致。

《09.03.65》

1965年，布面油画，130 × 162 cm

In The wind pushes the sea (Le vent pousse la mer), a 2003 triptych where a fragile junk in the middle of the immensity of the sea faces a threatening sky, as if it was in a last voyage. In this painting, he frees himself from perspective, from Western geometric subjectivity that dissects space and time, to embrace the whole landscape at once, in a glimpse, true to that lesson of Chinese art, which consists in bringing together all points of view. However, the drawing of the boat reveals, another lesson learned during his countless visits to the Louvre upon his arrival in Paris and from his many trips across Europe. So we better understand his ambition to hold the two ends of Eastern and Western tradition, as if to make compatible the two artistic heritages, the two visions of the world and of the art.

在2003年的三联画《风推海浪》中，在那无际的大海中央，在阴沉的天空下，悬着一叶孤舟，好像是这孤舟最后的一次航行。在这幅作品中，他运用中国艺术的经验，摆脱了独立视角，集所有视角于一体，摒弃了西方几何主义对空间和时间的主观剖析，将整个景观一览无余地融入其中。画中的孤舟也融入了他在抵达巴黎后通过无数次参观卢浮宫以及多次欧洲旅行收获的体悟。我们可以通过这幅画作更好地了解他的理想，即贯通东西方传统，将东西方艺术遗产、世界观和艺术观相容。

《向塞尚致敬》（Hommage à Cézanne）

2005年，布面油画，162 × 260 cm

摄影：Dennis Bouchard

This ambition is echoed in another painting, in the Homage to Cézanne of late 2005, where the space is now held together by color alone. The green dominating the full painting is why, we can barely make out the sketch of a tree in the left foreground and the Sainte Victoire mountain in the background. It’s easy to understand why Zao Wou-Ki once said “It was Cézanne who taught me to find myself a Chinese painter ” His commitment to crossing cultures is also obvious in one of his last major canvases, also from 2005, the Temple of the Han, He returns to his roots, drawing inspiration from a mural painting of a tomb from the Han dynasty. But You can see how he purifies, simplifies the lines, universalizes his subject turning it into a kind of ark of alliance of our common humanity, you can find a memory of the pagoda and the memory of acropolis where balance and harmony dominate. It’s easy to understand why Zao Wou-Ki once said: “Everyone is tied to one tradition, but I am tied to two different ones ”

他的这种理想在2005年末的《向塞尚致敬》中再次得到了呼应。这幅画作中，空间仅靠色彩来维系。由于整幅画都是绿色，我们只能勉强辨认出前景左侧的一棵树和背景中的圣维克多山。这就不难理解为什么赵无极曾说：“是塞尚让我重拾中国艺术家的身份”。他对于跨文化交流的投入在2005年创作的最后一幅大型油画《汉代寺庙》中也表露无遗。在这幅画作中，他回归本源，从汉墓的壁画当中汲取灵感。你可以从这幅画作中看到他如何简化线条，升华主题，传递凝聚力，你还可以在画作中找到塔和城堡等记忆中的东西方建筑元素，这些元素呈现出和谐且平衡的氛围。这就不难理解为什么赵无极曾说：“每个人都有一个传统，我则有两个”。

The crystallization of an identity

身份的升华

The affirmation of Zao Wou-Ki's Chinese identity is the result of a heritage, of an apprenticeship and a conquest that have enabled him to express this unique creative energy. His legacy is threefold. First of all, that of China, of a way of life, of a culture, of a history in a country which, at the beginning of the 20th century, is going through troubled times. Dark times of violence and misery in a country weakened by a century of looting and humiliation, subject to the Japanese yoke, torn between "warlords". It was also for him a time of wandering when, after the Japanese invasion, the Academy of Art was transferred from Hangzhou to Chongqing and he had to reach this city by foot, with his fellow students.

赵无极通过传承、学习和创作探索，掌握了具备独特创造力的技法，这使得他中国艺术家的身份得到认可。我们可以从三个方面剖析赵无极所取得的成就。首先，赵无极出生于20世纪初，当时中国遭受了长达一个世纪的掠夺和屈辱，国力衰弱，处于被暴力和苦难笼罩的黑暗时期。抗日战争爆发之后，赵无极也经历了一段漂泊岁月，当时中国美术学院从杭州迁到重庆，他不得不和同学们一起徒步前往重庆。

His heritage is also that of a family of scholars from his father, going back to the Song dynasty, and whom transmitted to him the passion for painting and a taste for collecting, while with his grandfather, he learned reading and writing, as well as loving poetry. Finally, he also inherits a critical eye, an appreciation for a certain quality of light and landscapes. For him, faithful to classical teaching, the landscape is not unity, but means polarity, coexistence of opposites and clash of contradictions, as evidenced by the designation "Shan-shui" Mountain on the one side and Water on the other side , which expresses a moment of tension in reality with the duality between vertical and horizontal, between what stays and what undulates, between hard and liquid, as Shitao emphasizes in his Philosophy of painting. He will also remember the lesson of the Song landscapes, the struggle between figure and background, when he discovers certain Italian primitives like Cimabue, during visits to museums in Europe.

其次，赵无极来自书香世家，家族历史可追溯至宋朝，他继承了父亲对绘画的热情以及对收藏的爱好，他跟随祖父学习读书写字，鉴赏诗歌，他还继承了先人的批判性眼光，对光线和山水有着独特的欣赏能力。他坚持古典教义，认为山水不是统一的，而是对立、矛盾、冲突的。正如“山水”一词本身所体现的那样，一边是山，一边是水，山水体现了现实中垂直与水平、静止与起伏、固定与流动的二元对立，这也和石涛的绘画理念一致。在欧洲博物馆参观时，他了解到契马布埃等意大利原始派艺术家，但他也不会忘记宋代山水画的精髓，即人物与背景之间的对比。

《我在杭州的家》（Ma maison à Hangzhou）

1947年，布面油画，65 × 80.7 cm

版权保留（Reserved rights）

But this heritage does not go without difficult choices, without questions, inner debates and questioning that mark his apprenticeship in painting. Let us not forget that when he was introduced to art as a young teenager, the vision of painting here in China was dominated by the imitation of the ancients or the model of socialist realism. In this respect, his entry into the School of Fine Arts in Hangzhou in 1935 was a real opportunity. There he meets teachers who are more open to Western culture, such as Lin Fengmian who plays a decisive role for him and who spent seven years in Paris and Berlin while others are trained in Brussels.

赵无极并不是没有经历艰难的抉择、怀疑、内心的挣扎和质疑，这些都是他绘画生涯的一部分。我们不要忘记，在他十几岁刚刚开始接触艺术时，中国的绘画还是以模仿古代艺术或者社会主义写实主义风格为主。1935年，他入读国立杭州艺专（中国美术学院前身）是一次转机。他在这里遇到了更包容西方文化的老师，如对他有着举足轻重影响的林风眠老师。林风眠曾在巴黎和柏林待了七年，而其他老师则是在布鲁塞尔接受培训。

He understands also how fortunate he is to discover Hangzhou, a place of learning, dreaming and meditation, with its sumptuous landscapes of lakes and hills that will remain in his memory as an image of paradise. From the outset, he chose to study Western painting at the Academy, his curiosity having been aroused by magazines and postcards featuring reproductions of paintings by artists such as Cézanne, Matisse and Picasso. He thus rejected the prevailing Academicism and the weight of tradition, especially since he turned to oil painting early on, with a technique and materials that underlined his spirit of research and independence.

他也明白自己有多么幸运能来到杭州，一个能够追逐梦想的地方，这里美丽的湖光山色将永远留在他的记忆中，就像天堂一样。杂志和明信片上塞尚、马蒂斯和毕加索等艺术家的画作复制品引起了赵无极的好奇心，因此他从一开始就选择在学院学习西方绘画。他摒弃了当时盛行的学院教条和陈旧传统的束缚，很早就转向油画创作，所运用的技法和素材凸显了他的独立探索精神。

Finally, beyond the heritage and the choices he makes, his identity as a painter is constituted by the willingness of digging deep within himself to reconnect with three major dimensions of Chinese art marking his desire for an eternal return to China.First, and this is the first return, the rediscovery of the sign, through the Swiss painter Paul Klee, on the occasion of an exhibition in 1951. This is why he could say that “Paul Klee taught [him] to become a Chinese painter”. For him, it is a question of using Chinese characters, to find living signs, in harmony with the spirit. So he goes back to the very sources of the signs to find the vestiges of ancient writings, drawing inspiration from Shang oracular characters or archaic bronzes. The aim is to shake up the meaning, of making the sign waver in order to encourage it to be reborn, each time, ephemeral but alive. Numerous canvases in the mid-1950s bear the trace of this exploration, in particular the Homage to Chu-Yun, the second painting, Stele for a friend and the Homage to Tou-Fou. Each time,you will find the same signs which are constituting, organizing the spaces in the painting.

《我父亲的花园》（Jardin de mon père）

1955年，布面油画，38 × 46 cm

最后，除了坚持传承传统，坚定每一次选择外，赵无极的成就也与他对回归中国的渴望密不可分。作为画家，赵无极愿意深入探索内心世界，并与中国艺术的三个主要维度重新建立联系，这也表明他渴望永恒地回归中国。1951年，他在一次展览上通过瑞士画家保罗·克利第一次回归到符号的概念。难怪赵无极会说：“通过保罗·克利，（我）学会了如何成为一名中国画家。”（对他来说，这是使用汉字的问题，寻找一个能够与精神世界交相呼应的鲜活符号，所以他回归本源，从商代甲骨文或者古代青铜器中汲取灵感，通过符号寻找古代文字的痕迹。他全身心地投入，重建脆弱、波动、转瞬即逝但始终鲜活的符号。20世纪50年代中期他的许多画作都带有这种探索的痕迹，尤其是《向屈原致敬》、《友人之碑》以及《向杜甫致敬》。我们在这些画作中都可以看到构成画面空间的这种类似符号。

There is then, and this marks second return to China, the rediscovery of gesture, when Zao Wou-Ki, in the early Seventies, re-appropriates the delicate art of ink and brush. The experience is twofold, the projection of the body in the work and of the transmission of the spirit’s breath. He is encouraged by his poet friend, Henri Michaux, on the death of May, his second wife, when, overwhelmed with grief, he struggles to get back to the easel. And he will pursue this practice until the end of his life, finding in this return to tradition, a source of audacity, freedom and happiness, which he had refused until then for fear of being criticized for the temptation of the easy and the exoticism.

接下来就到了赵无极的第二次回归。赵无极在70年代初期重新采用了细腻的水墨艺术。这种体验是双重的，画家需要身心投入，内在精神通过笔墨一气呵成。诗人朋友亨利·米修也激励了赵无极。这个时期的赵无极刚刚痛失第二任妻子，当时他悲痛欲绝，在朋友的鼓励下，他重拾绘画。直到生命的最后一刻，他仍在坚持创作。在回归中国传统的过程中，他感受到了愉悦，他自由大胆地进行创作，在此之前，他一直拒绝这些，因为他担心作品被贴上洒脱与异国风情的标签。

《无题》

1975年，纸本水墨，54.5 × 53 cm

Finally, there is a third return, with the rediscovery of the void at the heart of Chinese painting. Thanks to the void, reality becomes structured, becomes visible, capable of receiving and inhabiting light. By seeking a balance between the two opposite forms, space comes to life in contact with fullness and emptiness emerges, populated by breaths - clouds, mists, rain - linking the visible and the invisible. According to Mifu's principles, this is how the reciprocal relationship between Mountain and Water is articulated, via the Void: "Clouds are -he says -the recapitulation of the landscape, for in their elusive Void, we see many features of mountains and water reserves hidden there " In the concept of the Void, we find all the wisdom and skills of China as the monk-painter Shitao still reminds us: "The one Brushstroke is the origin of all things, the root of all phenomenons; its function is manifest to the mind and hidden in man, but the vulgar do not know .(it)” And he further adds, it is “the absence of rules that begets the rule. ”

第三次回归赵无极重新审视了中国画的精髓——留白。留白构建起现实，让画面能够吸收、容纳光线。虚实的精妙平衡加强了空间感，留白贯穿呼吸、云、雾、雨，将可见与不可见相互连接。正如米芾所言，山水之间的关系是通过留白来体现的，他说：“云是对山水景观的浓缩概括。在模糊隐秘的留白里，你能看到无数山的特质与水的性情”。留白这一概念是中国智慧和技艺的一种体现形式。正如画僧石涛所言：“一画者, 众有之本，万象之根；见用于神, 藏用于人，而世人不知。”他还补充道：“无规矩，不成方圆”。

In the game of perpetual exchanges between East and West, Western painting shares Chinese thinking, at the time of freeing itself from conventions and academicism, like Matisse. All these rediscoveries by Zao Wou-Ki are made, step by step, following a thousand tricks and crossroads, following in the footsteps of great intercessors, such as Paul Klee or Henri Michaux.

东西方艺术不断交汇，我们也看到马蒂斯等西方画家的画作摆脱了陈旧传统和学院教条，展现了中国绘画的思想。赵无极追随保罗·克利或亨利·米修等伟大艺术家的脚步，通过探索和选择不同的技法，最终开辟出一条新艺术之路。

This is the first part of Dominique de Villepin's keynote speech delivered at the forum, "The Way Is Infinite: Zao Wou-Ki's World of Art", on September 19, 2023.

本文为2023年9月19日，多米尼克•德•维尔潘在“大道无极——赵无极的艺术世界论坛”上的主旨演讲的第一部分。

Some illustrations of Zao Wou-Ki's works in this article are slightly different with those in the speaking script due to copyrights.

由于作品图版权限制，文中部分配图与讲稿提到的相应作品图略有出入。