繪畫的英勇性——林葆靈的光之畫作
by Ian Woo
文/胡耀光
“Your cities do not exist. Perhaps they have never existed. Why do you amuse yourself with consolatory fables? 1
Kublai Khan to Marco Polo
「你的城市並不存在，或許從未存在過。為何要以這些安慰性的寓言自娛？」
——忽必烈汗對馬可波羅說（註1）
The paintings reveal illuminated matter informed by the grids and structures of a city. Made up of multiple reflections of illusionary glare, the illuminated subjects seem to be exalted, suggestively arranged to appear in an order that resembles building and structures. James McNeil Whistler’s preoccupation with luminosity and visual poetry plays an important role in influencing the way Bao Ling paints and sees. It was Whistler who suggested the importance of the formal arrangement of colour and lines as a way to emphasis the materiality and discreet act of painting over the elaboration of subject matter. The similarities that lie between Bao Ling’s and Whistler’s paintings are their concern with painting as a way to illuminate matter rather than as a medium to give detail to observation.
這些畫作呈現出由城市格網與結構所啟發的被照亮物質。由眩光與反射交織而成，這些光亮的主體彷彿被提升，被暗示性地排列成類似建築的秩序。詹姆斯·麥尼爾·惠斯勒對亮度與視覺詩性的關注，在林葆靈的觀看與創作中扮演重要角色。惠斯勒曾指出，色彩與線條的形式安排比主題細節更能彰顯繪畫的物質性與其行動本身。林葆靈與惠斯勒的相似之處，正是在於他們皆將繪畫視為照亮物質，而非描述細節的媒介。
It was in the painting of fireworks; Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket by Whistler that caused a reaction from the noted art critic / artist John Ruskin to commend that it looked like a unresolved painting made out of drips and accidental marks with no concern to the craftsmanship and labor of painting.2 However, the argument would be that painting, as suggested by Whistler, should serve a double fold to represent material as itself as well as that of creating the illusionary. The idea of painting here is pigment being engaged at different levels. One can experience the mark of pigment that is fluid and immediate. At another level, there is the shaping and ordering of form; both characteristics allow a series of dialogue between representation and abstraction. There is a constant shift between these two states of reading, setting up the mind to enable a degree of shift between a formalism of aesthetics to that of representation.
惠斯勒的《黑金夜景：墜落的火箭》曾引發評論家兼藝術家拉斯金的批評，認為其畫面只是滴痕與偶然筆觸的堆砌，毫無工藝與勞動。（註2）然而惠斯勒所主張的是，繪畫應同時具備「呈現物質本身」與「生成幻象」的雙重功能。繪畫中的顏料在多重層次上被啟動：一方面，它流動而直接；另一方面，它塑造與安排形體。這兩種特性讓觀者在再現與抽象之間展開對話，使觀看在形式美學與再現之間來回轉換。
Here, we see the language of painting reveal its processes but the structure that governs its flow to become visually comprehensible plays key to enabling the mental state to play language games. This range of illusionary depth provides momentary displacement as the eye tries to make sense of the illuminated subject matter. The momentary displacement that results in this combination resembles the fleeting memory of the registration of a remembered image, one that is unclear, fragmented, in parts. In Bao Ling’s paintings, the parts are situated and differentiated by colours, creating fluctuating optical shifts as one gathers the visual identity from the suggested parts of illuminated matter.
在這裡，繪畫的語言揭露自身的流程，而支撐畫面流動、使其可讀的結構，是啟動觀者心智語言遊戲的關鍵。這些幻象性的深度讓觀看在試圖辨識被照亮的主體時，產生短暫位移。這種暫時性的位移近似記憶中模糊、片段、不完整的影像回想。在林葆靈的作品中，這些片段藉由色彩被區分與定位，使視覺在吸收畫面時產生光學上的流動，並從被照亮的片段中逐步建立其視覺身份。
In Bao Ling’s nocturnal cityscapes, the spontaneity of painting to capture memory is relayed with acrylic while an overlay of oil paint gives contrast to configure shadow and light to highlight portions to be illuminated. The paint is than brushed and dragged to further distort to create contrasting depths of mutation and saturation in the lighted experience. The structures in Bao Ling’s paintings stand as corridors and towers that reflect on the relationship we have with the world. The viewer seems like the only person looking at the city. The lighted sensation also seems alien, making the city appear without inhabitants, emphasizing only the artificial colours of green, blue, yellow and red as illuminated matter.
在林葆靈的夜景城市中，即興的壓克力筆觸承載記憶，而覆蓋的油彩形成光影對比，突顯特定的光亮區域。顏料被刷動與拖移，使光在深度、變形與飽和度上呈現強烈對比。畫中的結構如走廊與高塔般矗立，象徵我們與世界的關係。觀者彷彿是唯一觀看城市的人；光的感受異質，使城市呈現無人狀態，只剩綠、藍、黃、紅等人工色彩在發亮。
Metaphorically, the dynamics in Bao Lings painting seems festive and celebrative; bringing comparisons to the notion of the heroic. As Bao Ling talks about light as symbolizing a kind of wishful desire, this aspect really captures the heroic nature of his light subject, where they stand as glimmering perhaps even burning structures of hope, like an iconic mirage within all the darkness that surround us. The depth in his paintings allow one to engage in background foreground shifts in focusing and losing sight of this vision of hope. Perhaps these paintings are an analogy to the manner in which hope can come into being, yet it can also disappear and fade out, if the focus is shifted elsewhere.
隱喻上，林葆靈作品中的動態帶有節慶感與慶典性，引向「英勇」的概念。他談到光象徵渴望，而這也使畫中的光具有英勇特質：它們如在黑暗中閃爍、甚至燃燒的希望之塔。畫面的深度使人忽而捕捉到希望，忽而又在焦點轉移時失落——這或許正是希望的本質：它可能生成，也可能因注意力的偏移而消逝。
So where is the location that Bao Ling seem to have captured its heroic subject from? Though he works from photographs as a platform, he also extends and fabricates the structures with distortions and extensions of light, making the original identity of the subject matter seem redundant. But perhaps the identity of the location is unimportant; perhaps it could be anybody’s city or parts of a city. Socially, we understand the city as a melting pot, where cultures are interweaved and challenged, yet on a personal level, it’s conundrum can often leave one alienated causing emotional emptiness and loneliness. In these illuminated paintings, the latter experience of solitude and alienation can be seen as that which desires to be illuminated. This example can be contextualized to the painting’s contrast between shadow and light, where darkness and light plays a role in conjuring a dual experience of dark vacuums being filled with light.
那麼林葆靈所捕捉的「英勇之光」來自何處？雖以照片為起點，他同時透過光的扭曲、延伸，使原本的城市身份變得模糊。或許地點本身並不重要——它可能是任何人的城市。城市作為文化熔爐，也常讓人感到疏離、空洞或孤獨。在這些「被照亮的畫」中，那種渴望被照亮的孤寂，透過光與影的對比被展開：黑暗與光共同構成「黑洞被光填滿」的雙重經驗。
But what are the illuminated parts doing in the fulfillment of the voids that make up each painting? It seems that at times, the juxtaposition of warm colours in these illuminated spaces are verging on the fiery, like burning coals, echoing a kind of dream association to ideas of hell and its labyrinth of heated structures and never-ending depths. Yet, next to these fiery spaces are coloured chandelier like structures that offer a sense of stoppage and gaze. The combination blinds with its glare, tempting one to get into the space of its furnace.
然而，被照亮的區域在填補畫面空洞時扮演什麼角色？有時，這些亮區中的暖色幾乎呈火焰般，如燃燒的炭火，讓人聯想到地獄般的深處與迷宮。但在這些炙熱區域旁，卻又出現如吊燈般的色彩結構，提供觀看的停頓點。兩者的光輝交疊，以刺眼的亮度誘惑觀者走向一座內在的熔爐。
In these paintings, I suggest that the city is not real, it’s a metaphor…painted from memory. It’s a re-depiction, a trace of its original source that is hinted, mentally made up, like one of the imaginary tales of one of the many intricate architecture of cities told by Marco Polo to an aging Kublai Khan in Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities. Similarly, Bao Ling’s painted cities like Polo’s mental inventions seems to be made up of fire, glaring garnets, illuminated stones and shattered dreams, culminating a city of suspended states like that of one being burnt alive. Some of the buildings look like they are on fire and there is a fluctuating state where its particles of the city seem to be in a mist of being martyred in fire, like a thousand Joan of Arcs’.
我認為，這些畫中的城市並非真實，而是記憶中的隱喻，是其來源的痕跡與再現，如馬可波羅向年老的忽必烈汗所講述的那些虛構城市。林葆靈筆下的城市如同馬可波羅的心像：由火焰、發光寶石、亮石與破碎夢境所構成，懸浮在近似被火焚燒的狀態。有些建築看似正在燃燒，城市的粒子彷彿在火焰中殉道——如同成千上萬的聖女貞德。
There is something peculiar about seeing matter or a person being lighted on fire. It is illuminated, beautiful, with an eerie presence; victory portrayed in its final momentary state of existence, like a celebrative performance to mark the end of one’s mortal state, that which is soon to disappear into ashes. But death, the aftermath, that which is burnt is not important, but rather, it’s the moment of burning that is important. It’s the duality of presence and glow, connotations that are remembered from religious characters, historical martyrs and certain ceremonial rituals. It’s a final moment captured in testament to our work and all that has been built, our illuminated farewell to the heroic grandeur of achievement, just before it returns back to the ground, buried with the rest of our historical ruins.
觀看物質或人被點燃是一種奇特經驗——明亮、美麗、帶著詭譎的存在感，像生命在消逝前的勝利祝祭。然而重要的並非死亡或灰燼，而是「燃燒的瞬間」。這種光與存在的二元狀態，讓人聯想到宗教人物、殉道者與儀式性的象徵。那是對我們曾建造與完成的一切的最後見證——是回歸大地、與其他歷史廢墟同眠之前的英勇告別。
（中文翻譯由 ChatGPT生成）
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註釋
1.Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities, Harcourt Brace 1974, p.59
2.L. Peters, James McNeil Whistler, Todtri 1996, p.51–52
Ian Woo is a painter and musician. He currently lectures at the Faculty of Fine Arts, LASALLESIA College of the Arts, Singapore.
胡耀光為畫家與音樂家，現於新加坡拉薩爾藝術學院美術學院任教。
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