嘉文 柯頓博士 (Dr. Kevin Allton)邢莉莉翻譯
對超越性和崇高境界永無休止的追尋是梁藍波藝術的顯著特點。這種如饑似渴的狂熱驅使他不斷地探索傳統媒介與先進的數碼成像技術相融合的最新可能性。儘管他的藝術創作通過多重的處理手法最終呈現出獨特的、嶄新的綜合形式，梁藍波從未間斷從他的精神家園 -- 狂草書法中汲取創造性能量。在他的水墨作品中，我們可以看到一個深深根植於中國悠久的傳統藝術的成熟藝術品味所結出的碩果。
兼具實用與藝術雙重功能的書法，在中國文化中扮演著一個極其重要的角色，四千多年來，它與中國人的生活息息相關。人們慨嘆著書法作品的氣度、表現力和震撼力，也迷醉於書法中蘊含的精妙的協和感。梁藍波的狂草師法王獻之（344-388，東晉）和懷素（737-800，唐代），並以古代狂草的簡約、節奏和均衡作為其作品構成的基石。在他的狂草作品如《龍騰虎躍》、《鑄魂》和《善應》中，梁藍波向我?展示了他對古典書法的均衡與和諧的敏銳把握，我們亦可切實地感受到他對這種古典精神與大自然的浩瀚和博大的深層聯繫的深刻領會。"透過我的書法和繪畫"，梁藍波說，"我願與觀眾同享我對偉大自然的敬畏與驚羨。"
然而，就算是在他那些最為"傳統"的作品裡，梁藍波狂草的"狂性"仍然是他那激情和個性的引證。畢竟，在狂草中，傳統及傳統中的任何原則皆可被打破的理念看似自相矛盾，實則互為表裏。
梁藍波追溯先賢，心儀張旭、懷素亦非偶然。此二人均不蹈前人軌則，適性情，逐本心，獨樹一幟，堪立後世之風。在他們那裡，偶然的筆墨之痕、無意的灑滴都是生命激情的宣言；點劃之間包蘊著奔放的豪情、酒後的酣暢、適性的放任、乃至不羈的狂癲。
無可置疑，用筆在中國書法中有著至高無上的地位，尤其在狂草中，每一筆都是個體藝術精神的獨特外化。在其千古名篇《自?帖》中，"醉僧"懷素以鬼使神差的筆勢，淋漓狂放之姿去捕捉一系列幾乎是超現實的形象："初疑輕煙澹古松，又似山開萬仞峰。字成只畏盤龍走，筆下唯看激電流。寒猿飲水撼枯藤，壯士拔山伸勁鐵 …… "
像張旭、懷素這樣的書法大師，為了達到最大限度的個性張揚，會把狂草文字簡約到幾乎失去其可讀性的程度。正因如此，梁藍波與"癲狂"派大師們息息相通的原因也就不難理解了。我們可以看到這種傾向在梁藍波的綜合媒材作品裡得到了更徹底的體現：在那些以他獨特的方法融合著中國傳統元素和西方抽象表現主義的巨幅油畫裡，他筆下的狂草經歷了一番更為劇烈的蛻變。
在這組作品里，他先在宣紙上揮寫狂草書法，然後將這些字體撕碎後重新拼貼在油畫布上，打破字型辭意，卻讓書法的筆觸和字的局部去建構畫面的框架和節奏，並使這些筆勢浸淫在騷動的氛圍，猶如被某種魔力所驅使，舞動在強烈的色彩空間之中。在他那多重復合的處理手法之下，我們可以清楚地看到，狂草書法經過激烈的幻變，最終落定在一種靈靜的精神境界之中。梁藍波說"在狂草中，我有意強化了筆觸的乾與濕、濃與淡，字體的大與小、粗與細等各種對比。當我懷揣著對狂草筆觸的隨機性、力度和節奏感的沉迷，我同時希望表達我對大自然巨大能量的默想，對道家"天人合一"精神的敬仰，對被現代科學所不斷揭示的宇宙的神往。 我希望通過強化各種媒材的表現力，以喚起創世的神奇和力量，與觀眾同享創造新生命的艱辛與快慰。"
在宇宙般的饑渴感的驅使下，介乎狷狂於興奮之間，"癲狂"派的畫家和詩人們有意喝醉，任情恣意，以長髮代筆，甚至像伊夫o克雷恩（Yves Klein, 1928-1962) 那樣，讓一些粘滿顏料的裸體模特兒在紙上互相拖曳。然而，儘管創作的過程是冗長和繁複的，我們不能忘記，他們的最終目的是指向精神的。
把雄渾與崇高作為靜觀和感悟的對象是梁藍波與古代一些書畫家共通的追求，但與眾不同的是，梁藍波強化了那些本來就十分戲劇化的象形文字，就好像他發現了在藝術上也有一個像語言一樣的並聯關係 -- 與英語中 character 一詞具有字母和性格的雙重意義一樣，書法也可以是文字和激情的綜合体。神奇的是，在梁藍波煉金術般的東西方融合實驗中，在人們最為珍視的中國傳統媒介中，他能夠釋放出隱藏於書法符號中潛在的浮士德式的精神。
在狂草作品中，梁藍波披離點劃，以有形的書法傳達著無形的精神。而他的整個創作過程，在我們看來，與他的"癲狂"派鼻祖又是如此的一致：在令人眩目的創造瞬間，所謂的返歸自我便是達於忘我之境；奔瀉的個性與嚴密的法度宛如一體；筆墨渾然天成，體現著宇宙的"道"。在這個完美的時刻，一股濃縮的能量就像噴泉一樣湧出，神奇的字形閃現在我們的眼前，帶著生命的騷動，用它們那屬於大自然原初的力量和生命氣息向我們挑戰。
編者按：梁藍波狂草書畫展2006年8月2日至9月2日Sun Gallery4760 Grand Avenue SouthMinneapolis, MN 55419612-822-6388開放時間：星期四至星期六，11點至6點
THE WILD CALLIGRAPHY OF LAMPO LEONG
Dr. Kevin Allton
The hallmark of Lampo Leong's art is a restless, questing pursuit of the transcendent and the sublime. This passionate thirst has driven his ceaseless exploration of new possibilities in the fusion of traditional media with the latest advances in digital imaging technology. Yet through all the dramatic stages and new hybrid forms of his artistic evolution, Leong has continually drawn fresh creative energy from his spiritual roots in the art of calligraphy. In his work with brush and ink one may see the fruits of a mature artistic vision deeply in tune with the millennia-old tradition of this most cherished of Chinese art forms.
"Through my calligraphy and painting," Leong has said, "I hope to allow the viewer to share my reverence and wonder before Nature's awesome majesty." And in works such as Soaring Dragon & Leaping Tiger, Spiritual Forge, and The Golden Age the Chinese-born Leong evinces a deep sensitivity to calligraphy's classic expression of balance and harmony, its association with the majestic spirit of nature. Leong's cursive style calligraphy is modeled after ancient masters Huaisu (ca. 737-800, Tang Dynasty) and Wang Xianzhi (344-388, Jin Dynasty). Because of its long history, Leong says, the over four thousand years during which it has been completely integrated with the daily lives of the people, calligraphy plays a unique role in Chinese culture. Chinese people everywhere can appreciate works of calligraphy for their expressive beauty, their strength, vibrancy, and the intricate balance of the dynamic elements of the art. In his own work, Leong adheres to time-honored methods of abbreviation, rhythm, and balance in building the basis for his final compositions.
Yet even when he is in his most "traditional" mood, the "wild" cursive qualities of Leong's calligraphic style bear witness to the questing passion at the heart of this artist's individuality. After all, in the kuan cao, or "wild" cursive script, you have the paradox of a tradition in which every rule is made to be broken!
It is no accident that the names of Zhang Xu and Huaisu figure prominently in Leong's discussion of his spiritual ancestors. These artists broke with the conventions of calligraphy's classical masters to develop a theory that promoted exaltation and unruliness as the prime artistic virtues. In calligraphy, they declared, even the accidents or the drips are manifestations of vital energy, and in their "wild" expressive style, they exalted passion, drunken abandon, spontaneity and even chaos.
Of course Chinese calligraphy had already long recognized the inimitable individual quality of the brush stroke, but for the aficionados of the "wild" style, the individual handling of the brush was held to be the spiritual essence of the art, in his celebrated calligraphic masterpiece Zixu tie, or Autobiographical Essay, Huaisu, "the Drunken Monk," invoked a series of almost surreal images to describe the wild beauty he strove to realize: "light mists floating among ancient pines, a peak towering over ten thousand mountains, a monkey shaking withered vines, a titanic giant playing with mountains like toys."
It is easy to see how Leong would resonate in sympathy with the great figures of the 𪃡ild" style. In their passion for maximum expressiveness the calligraphers like Zhang Xu and Huaisu would twist and deform the characters of the written language to the point of rendering them almost indecipherable. One can see this tendency taken to its logical extreme in Leong's multimedia work. In large paintings executed in his unique fusion of traditional Chinese techniques and Western Abstract Expressionism, Leong subjects the calligraphic figure to the most violent metamorphoses.
He begins with the calligraphic stroke - but then he cuts this up, collaging the fragments onto other surfaces, blowing them up or submerging them in seething atmospheres of pregnant color. In the multimedia animations of these works, one literally sees these mutable fragments of calligraphy fade in and out of dynamically shifting planes of meditative hues. Moved by mysterious forces, like dancers in an expressionist ballet, the calligraphic figures dissolve in black space or explode to create serenity in an electric manner. "In these works," Leong says, "I literally enhanced the contrast of the thin and the thick, the dry and the wet of the written strokes. While I continue to pay homage to the spontaneity and strengths of the calligraphic stroke, I also wanted to express my Daoist sympathies in terms of an ever-renewed amazement at the universe revealed to us by modern science. I wanted to stretch the expressive potential of the medium in order to evoke the power and mystery of the creative processes of the galaxy and celebrate the cosmic energies that give birth to new life, new planets, and new stars."
Driven by a cosmic thirst that verged on mania and delirium, painters and poets of the "wild" cursive school would deliberately get roaring drunk, paint with their hair, or else, in a weird parallel to the work of Yves Klein, drag each other across the paper surface. Yet despite the whimsical or ridiculous lengths to which such artists were prepared to go, it is important to remember that their pursuit was ultimately spiritual in nature.
The quest to realize the sublime as an object of contemplation is an impulse Leong shares with the great calligraphers of eras past. But what seems altogether new here is the way Leong has heightened the inherently dramatic dimension of the calligraphic gesture. It's as if he'd found an artistic parallel to the way that in English, the word character can refer either to a written sign or a dramatic role. The amazing result of Leong's alchemical experiments in synthesis is that in the heart of the most cherished of traditional Chinese media he has managed to liberate the drama of Faustian energies latent in the calligraphic figure.
In the best of Leong's work, the strokes of his brush reveal the invisible by means of the visible. At stake for him as it was for his "wild" predecessors - and indeed, as it still is for us - is the ineffable moment of the creative act, that vertiginous moment when the purest individuality is one with the purest self-forgetfulness, when the surge of spontaneous creativity and the rigorous laws of harmony are in transcendent accord, and when the brush becomes just as much imbued with the cosmic energies of the Dao as it is with ink. In that perfect moment there is a flashing forth of concentrated energy that is no less danced than it is written. And then, wonderfully, we find mysterious forms hovering before us, charged with a vibrating, electrical quality, and challenging us with their crackling, seething vitality of primordial spirits.
Editor's Note:The Enchanted Light: Calligraphy & Painting by Lampo LeongAug 2 - Sept 2, 2006Sun Gallery4760 Grand Avenue SouthMinneapolis, MN 55419612-822-6388Hours: Thursday-Saturday, 11am-6pm or by appointment
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