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（下） - 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

The lessons of a lifetime

毕生的学问

In Zao Wou-Ki’s highly personal journey, what did he draw from the depths of himself? What lessons could he learn? I will personally remember six of them:

在赵无极个人独特的艺术生涯中，他汲取了什么样的教训或者获取了什么的经验，我觉得一共有六点：

The first one, the importance of work and example which is embodied in the high figure of the Scholar, transmitted through his family heritage via his Song ancestors and the image of his grandfather and father. He knows that Chinese painting owes its status, its originality and contemplative depth, to its central place within society. Unlike the West where it became the monopoly of virtuoso craftsmen, painting remains the business of thinkers, of scholars painting with and for other scholars, in a daily practice of the great classics of poetry and thought.

第一，职责和榜样的重要性。学者的崇高形象让我们认识到职责和榜样的重要性。赵无极的宋代先祖、他的祖父和父亲作为家族中的前辈以身作则，树立典范，让这种重要性代代相传。他深知中国画的地位、原创性和立意深度都归功于中国画本身在社会中的核心地位。与西方不同，绘画在中国并未成为技艺高超的工匠们的专利，而依然是思想家们、学者们的一种工具，他们会在日常创作中积极吸纳、实践、传承诗歌和思想经典。

赵无极，《无题》

1987年，铜版画，39 × 53 cm

苏州博物馆藏，中国苏州

The second lesson is openness to others, because Zao Wou-Ki is convinced of the creative force of friendship, sharing and exchange. His approach is one of trust in man, trust in nature and in the world. Although he does experience doubts and worries of betrayal, trust always prevails. In his Self-portrait written with the great complicity of his wife Françoise that we are so honored and pleased to have with us tonight, he will be able to say “I love my friends just as I tend the bonsai trees, orange trees and orchids in my dining room every morning at breakfast time, while drinking .(tea)”

第二，包容他人。赵无极深信友谊、分享和沟通能够赋予人创作灵感。他相信人类、相信自然、相信世界。尽管他常常为怀疑和背叛所困扰，但信任始终占据上风。就像我们今天看到的赵无极与妻子弗朗索瓦共同创作的《自画像》，他通过《自画像》传达了这样一种理念：“每天早晨我会一边品茶，一边细心照料饭厅里的盆景、橘树和兰花，就像我照顾自己的朋友一样”。

赵无极，《无题》

1958年，布面油画，114 × 163 cm

It is therefore not surprising that Zao Wou-Ki knew most of the great artists of his time, not only to share but also to debate, to confront points of view on art and on the world, to overcome the obstacles that lay in front of him, on canvas and in life. And this debate, he pursues it until the end with living artists, those intercessors who mean so much to him, whether they are called Rembrandt, Cézanne, Matisse or Picasso, who help him to overcome the obstacles, to move forward along the path he has chosen.

因此，赵无极熟悉他那个时代大部分伟大的艺术家，这点并不令人惊讶，这不仅是为了与他人分享自己的观点，也是为了就不同的艺术和世界观开展辩论，希冀克服创作和生活中的困难。赵无极和伦勃朗、塞尚、马蒂斯、毕加索等伟大艺术家之间的这场辩论一直持续到最后一刻，他在这些艺术家的指引下克服障碍，沿着所选择的道路前行。

The third lesson is the conviction that all the arts are linked and work towards the same goals of beauty and truth. He believes in a necessary dialogue between all the arts and especially between painting and poetry. All his life, he sought the company of poets and engaged with them to create wonderful art books. He turned to Henri Michaux, René Char, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Yves Bonnefoy and so many others. But his dialogue with poetry also applies to other arts, such as music with composers like Edgar Varèse or Pierre Boulez, or even architecture with Ieoh Ming Pei. And to each of them, he will want to express his gratitude through dedicated works, Tributes to those who, friends and artists, have inspired him. Without doubt, he experienced the last glimmerings of a fraternity of the arts, before the fragmentation and isolation, which won contemporary art in the last decades.

第三，所有的艺术都是相互联系的，都致力于追求美和真理。他坚信各种艺术间需要进行必要的对话，尤其是绘画和诗歌之间的对话。他一生都在寻求与诗人为伴，与他们合力创作精彩的艺术书籍。他向亨利·米修、勒内·夏尔、利奥波德·塞达尔·桑戈尔、博纳富瓦等人求教。但他与诗歌的对话同样适用于其他的艺术，例如与埃德加•瓦雷兹或皮埃尔·布列兹等作曲家的音乐对话，甚至与贝聿铭的建筑对话。他希望通过特定的作品向每个人表达感激之情，向那些启发他的朋友和艺术家致敬。毫无疑问，在过去几十年中，当代艺术经历了分裂和孤立，但他亲身经历了艺术团结的最后闪光时刻。

《亨利·米修解读赵无极的八幅石版画》

（Lecture par Henri Michaux de huit lithographies de Zao Wou-Ki）

1950年，45 × 65 cm

摄影：Antoine Mercier

The fourth lesson is the pursuit of an ideal of reconciliation. There is a powerful mystery here: how did this Chinese painter, in love with the world and with all cultures, far from home, managed in the solitude of his studio to clear a path for a possible encounter between the East and the West? What secrets does he hold? The first requirement of his art is to remain alive, that is to say capable of movement and of change. It is at this price that art, he thinks, can be beneficial. But being alive is not enough, it is still necessary, according to the Taoist tradition, to be capable of withdrawing into oneself, from which it becomes possible to unite and gather forces. Its point of balance is not that of compromise, but of a challenge pushed ever further, of reconciliation between reality and art, beauty and truth, to enable painting to become a work of peace of mind, allowing man to be reconciled with himself.

第四，寻求和解。我们需要思考，这位热爱世界和多元文化的中国艺术家，远离家乡，如何在异国他乡独自一人努力为贯通东西方文化而奋斗？他到底藏着什么样的秘密？他对艺术的首要要求是保持活力，即艺术需要适应环境的变化。他认为，只有这样艺术才得以传承下去。然而，仅仅保持活力还不够，根据道家传统，我们还必须回归本心，只有这样，我们才能坚定内心想法。在追求平衡的过程中，不满足于妥协，不断挑战自我，在现实和艺术、美和真理之间找到和解的平衡点，让画作成为能够给人带来内心平静的作品，让人能够与自己和解。

赵无极，《07.04.80》

1980年，布面油画，152 × 130.5 cm，法国国家造型艺术中心藏

存放地：法国驻华大使馆，中国北京，FNAC 33427

图片版权保留

The fifth lesson, the commitment to metamorphoses, because to stay alive, you have to Keep questionning yourself. Zao Wou-Ki will never cease to apply this rule to his art. On the question of color, by constantly broadening his palette to reach the vibration of being. On the question of space, in the place to be given to the void, in the format of his paintings, in the creation of refuges or suspended territories. On the question of time, inseparable from rhythm and breath, which contribute to the formation of meaning, a decisive factor for him as he intends to go ever further.

第五，努力蜕变。为了保持活力，必须不断地质疑自我。赵无极在创作时始终秉持这一理念。在色彩运用方面，他不断拓宽调色板来表现冲突。在空间结构方面，他坚持留白，通过绘画作品创造出的一种特殊空间。在时间方面，他认为节奏和呼吸密不可分，时间、节奏和呼吸三者相互作用，赋予更深层次的意义，推动他不断前进。

It is therefore important for him to distinguish between two different conception of time, the one which passes and the other one which lasts, as well as to distinguish two conception of space, the visible and the invisible, without ever forgetting what is the basis of the quest: the beautiful, the just, the true.Through metamorphosis, Zao Wou-Ki opposes the great teaching of Chinese philosophy to a Western art still and always captivated by the permanence of the form, by the idea of the being of things that must be captured on canvas, against the sensitive world. On the contrary in China, there are no distinct states, only incessant passages，varied polarizations in a thought of flux and change.

因此，他需要区分流逝的时间和持续的时间这两种时间概念，以及可见空间和不可见空间这两种空间概念，他也始终记得探索的真谛，即美、正义和真实。赵无极通过变革让中国哲学的伟大教义与西方艺术形式形成鲜明对比。西方艺术始终沉迷于形式的永恒性，通常追求将物体永远地固定在画布上，并不注重表达敏感世界的变化。中国艺术则认为事物没有明确固定的状态，而是不断地变迁和流转，思维方式通常更加多元和灵活。

赵无极，《无题（高迪尼）》（Sans titre [Gaudigny]）

2007年，纸本水彩，66 × 102 cm

摄影：Antoine Mercier

Zao Wou-Ki is fully in line with this demand for movement, against a frozen history of art. Painting for him must be in touch with its time, in breath with the evolution of customs and habits, tastes and expectations. He applies this lesson,including to colors, noting that black had been repudiated by the Impressionists, before returning to favor in the era of lyrical abstraction, after 1945. Painting for him is not locking up life in a tomb or produce a bouquet of dried flowers, but it is creating life itself, in a moment of History.

赵无极始终顺应变化，反对艺术历史的僵化。对他而言，绘画必须与时俱进，必须与人们的习惯、习俗、品位、期望遥相呼应。他将这一原则运用到色彩方面，指出黑色曾为印象派所排斥，但却在抒情抽象主义时代（1945年后）重新受到青睐。他认为，绘画不是将生命封存在坟墓中，也不是制作一束干花，而是通过画布呈现某个时刻生命的活力。

The final lesson perhaps for Zao Wou-Ki is the importance of harmony without which Chinese thought would not even be possible. This harmony is the only law of things, the condition of the intelligibility of the world and of human life in society. In our troubled century, it is our only chance for unity and cooperation around common goods. But this ideal of harmony must sometimes be embodied and expressed in our lives. For Zao Wou-Ki, harmony reveals itself in a chosen place, a place that he inhabits and that inhabits his work. He will never forget the magic of this Hangzhou lake, where he learned for the first time to see, to translate with his brush "this breath of airon the calm of water" that he will pursue all his life. On his paper, as on his canvas, he will want to capture the quivering life that can only be measured when the heart of a being beats at the same rhythm, with the same trembling murmur, as that of nature. At this moment, in this vast undertaking of radiography of reality, the artist understands that he is "alive", to become one with Nature, and as such, he can experience and transmit to us, if only fleetingly, the feeling of eternity.

第六，和谐的重要性。和谐是中国思想的核心。这种和谐是事物存在的唯一法则，是整个世界和社会中的人类被理解的前提条件。在这个混乱的世界中，我们必须秉持和谐的理念，团结合作，实现共同利益。但是我们必须将和谐的理念付诸实际行动并在日常生活中表现出来。对于赵无极而言，和谐不仅显现于他栖身之所，也显现于他的作品之中。他永远都不会忘记西湖给他带来的非凡体验，那是他第一次学会用画笔表现微风吹拂水面的独特感觉，而这个感觉将伴随他一生。无论是纸上还是画布上，他都试图捕捉并表现出自然与生命之间的共振和共鸣。在这位艺术家探索现实生活、进行艺术创作的过程中，他意识到自己是“活着的”，与自然融为一体。此刻的他能够体验永恒的感觉，并通过艺术作品将这种感觉传达给我们，即使这种感觉可能在观赏作品的瞬间即刻消失。

赵无极，《无题》

1975年，纸本水墨，31.5 × 54.5 cm

蓬皮杜艺术中心，国家现代艺术博物馆 / 工业创造中心藏，法国巴黎，1976 年艺术家捐赠

Today more than ever, Zao wou-ki is alive with his painting among all of us. And we can make the full measure of his presence, the gift that he had made to us by the very precious exhibition that has happen today at the academy of Arts in Hangzhou. Zao wou-ki is standing in front of us as one of the most imaginative, one of the most creative, one of the most innovative, and certainly the most universal artist of the century. Thank you very much!

如今，赵无极的作品依然充满生命力，并且比以往任何时候都更加鲜活。通过今天在中国美术学院举办的珍贵展览，我们可以充分感受到他的存在，以及他所带来的馈赠。透过赵无极的作品，我们能够感受到他的创造力和艺术贡献，他是这个世纪最富想象力、最具创造力、最富创新精神的艺术家之一，无疑也是最具全球影响力的艺术家之一。感谢聆听！

This is the third 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”上的主旨演讲的第三部分。

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，文中配图与讲稿提到的相应作品图略有出入。