去年秋天，还是在云南的时候，远在青岛的李都就在电话上给我说起过潘文逸其人其画。李都的说法不着一字，有点《世说新语》中“人物品藻”、雾里看花的意味。给我的感觉，这也有点像是一个活在“世说新语”里的人物吧？一个隐居于闹市和在水泥丛林中修行问道的现代文士。
市场升温，肝火红旺。所以时下做艺术的人大都自我感觉良好，喜欢下评语或打妄语，而较少反省能力。我混迹艺术“江湖”日久，没有所谓“出于污泥而不染”的抱负，实在是不能免俗了。所以，心里多少有些忐忑，生怕会误读了艺术家和他作品的本我、本心，让人家还予白眼或冷饭，给同仁同道丢脸。及至在青岛一座居民楼不算阔绰的房间见到潘文逸本人和他的作品时，我才放下心来，上面说的那些感觉也都巴实，还不算离谱。潘文逸长相奇伟，仙风道骨，待人接物温文尔雅，很有点名士风度，而他的画作恬淡飘逸、优美抒情，画的几乎全是理想中的田园牧歌诗境和行吟打坐的神仙佛道人物，使用的媒介手段虽是浓笔重彩的油画，但骨子里却是中国古代乡土文人的浪漫情怀。说他像一个“大隐隐于市”、以绘画修行问道，成就生命圆满的现代“文士”，可谓是不离左右了。
潘文逸的艺术趣味和生活情调都明显倾向于一种与中国古代文人相近的审美理想，但又包涵着现代乡土知识分子恋土怀旧的绵绵乡愁。他的“田园诗”、“幻游”等作品中既有陶渊明式的恬淡隐逸、“采菊东篱下，悠然见南山”；也有梁祝式的男欢女爱，两情相悦、夜夜笙歌；更有伯牙子期不期而遇的高山流水，无音之音、山外有山。从这点来看，他的确好像是一个与世隔绝、梦在桃花源中的人，但是在“变相”这样的作品中，艺术家还是含蓄地流露出他对现实与历史的关注，虽然这是一种类似中国古代文人士大夫“达则兼济天下，穷则独善其身”的人文情怀，不过也许正是因为这类作品的出现，我们就不能简单地将他归结为一个复古的“隐逸”画家。套用佛家的说法，潘文逸绘画所体现出来的精神，是一种自由往来于生活世界与艺术世界之间的“洒脱”，他是用出世的精神做入世的事业，出是超过或胜过的意思，能修行问道，有智慧，通达宇宙人生的真理，心里清净，没有烦恼，体验永恒真理就叫“出世”，而并不是叫我们跑到另外一个世界去。潘文逸少年时因寂寞而喜欢上艺术，其间学过武术、当过工人、画过电影海报，颠沛流离、居无定所，及至中年方才拥有自我的一方天地安稳歇息下来专心画画。与他同龄的艺术家相比，一直处在艺术圈和社会体制的边缘。但是，在潘文逸的绘画中，我们看不到现实生活苦难留下的痕迹。他画的永远是自己喜欢和理想的世界，绘画成为一种充满诗意的生活方式。这点也与他喜欢的艺术家夏加尔和莫扎特相似。
潘文逸的绘画既远离了当下的中国先锋艺术主流，又不同于学院主义的绘画传统。而是更多地传承了中国古代文人绘画的余绪和浪漫主义、民间艺术的根器与精神。他把艺术作为一种“修行”、“问道”的生活方式，身体力行，将修身、修心、修德，落实在每天的艺术工作中，身心整体的切己体认与自觉修持已经融入到他的艺术方式与生活行为之中，成为浑融一片的整体。正所谓“一花一世界，一沙一天国”是了。孔子谓：“游于艺”，意思是说：艺术家在艺术创作活动中，不仅自己的整个身心涵泳、沉潜于“艺”，而且生命的展现本身就是人生艺术的大“艺”。潘文逸和他的绘画都说明了这一点。
猫和鱼在潘文逸的绘画中占有非常重要的位置，在他的作品中，猫和鱼都是拟人化的、面具化的，常常乔装打扮与艺术家出行、悠游、生活、居住在青岛这座青春浪漫的海滨城市。
也许，除去北京，青岛要算我去过最多、也是待的时间最长的北方城市了。但是，说青岛是一座“北方城市”我总觉得有些不妥。因为在多数人的心目中，“北方”意味着广阔、粗犷、悲壮、人民、历史和众多与宏大叙事相关联的东西。但在我的印象中，青岛更像一座“北方”的南方城市，妩媚、抒情、梦幻、性感。一如潘文逸的绘画那样：既入世又出世，既现实又虚无，充满各种令人感动的疑惑和矛盾。
2008年4月16日夜于昆明翠湖边上
Life, Painting and Self-cultivation
------Correspondence of Art Discussion with Pan Wenyi
Guan Yuda
Last autumn in Yunnan, Li Du has mentioned Pan Wenyi and his works on the long-distance call from Qingdao. But he didn’t comment a lot, which was just like admiring the flowers while it was foggy; the way of description in <>. My feeling was that he was a scholar hiding in the noisy city and cultivating himself in the concrete jungle of this modern time.
The market has been warmed up and made everyone excited of it. So today’s artists are mostly feeling good to themselves, enjoying remarking, wild talking and being short of the ability of self-reflection. I have been in this world for long time, without the ambition to be larruping, becoming the same at last. So I felt a bit nervous at first, being afraid of misunderstanding the artist and the essence of his works, afraid of being sneered and disdained, and also afraid of losing face. Until met with Pan Wenyi himself and his works in a room, not ostentatious, of a residential building in Qingdao, my worry has been released. My feeling seemed close to the truth. Pan Wenyi looks like a personage, gigantic in stature, immortally, gentle and elegant. And his works are indifferent to fame or benefit, expressing his emotion on his ideal pastoral poetry and supernatural beings in every pose by means of heavy color oil painting, however, his deep side of heart is full of romantic emotion of Chinese traditional rural scholar. It is right actually to think him as a modern scholar, who is a big recluse feeling most secluded amidst the urban hustle, cultivating himself to the eventually harmony of life by painting.
Pan Wenyi’s taste of art and life style are obviously close to an ideal of Chinese tradition, moreover, it is including the long time nostalgia of modern rural scholars. His works, “Pastoral Poetry” and “Illusion”, imply the indifference to benefit like that “pick the chrysanthemum beside the east fencing, and see the south mountain in a leisureliness mood” in Tao Yuanming’s poem, the love between man and woman like Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, and the meet by chance like Boya and Ziqi. From this point, he is seemed to be separated by the real life, but in the “Transformation” series, artist shows his concern to the history and really implicitly. It’s a kind of passion also could be found among Chinese traditional scholar-bureaucrats; “help the country if being capable, otherwise, live a good life of him own”, which let us be able to conclude that he is a recluse artist tended to return to the ancient. In Buddhism, it is “free and ease”, switching freely from reality to art, shown by Pan Wenyi’s paintings. He joins to the reality career by the spirit of leaving the world, which means to understand the truth of life, be quiet and without trouble, experience the immutable truth by cultivation, and not let us to move to another world indeed. Pan Wenyi started to love art in his teenage time because of the loneliness. He has studied Gongfu, been a worker, painted movie posters and had no place to live for long. Until his middle age, he could have his own place to be concentrated in painting without disturbance. He is always marginal to the world of artists and social system. But we couldn’t find the hints of suffering the pains of reality life in his works. He always paints the ideal world he likes and makes it a life style full of poetry. It is similar to the artists he likes: Chagall and Mozart.
Pan Wenyi’s works has big difference from the mainstream of Chinese pioneer art nowadays, also the traditional academism. He has more heritage of Chinese traditional scholar painting and the roots and spirit of romanticism and folk art. He has regarded art as a life style of cultivation, which fulfilled the daily art work and melted with his art and life into a whole. It is so-called “To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower”. Confusion said: “Tourism as an art”, which means artists should not only be concentrated in the art when creating works, but also try to show the life itself, which is the big art of the life. Pan Wenyi and his works have already proved it.
Cat and fish have occupied very significant place in Pan Wenyi’s works, in which they are all personated, masked and often dress up to outing, wandering, and living and residing with the artist in Qingdao, the young and romantic seaside city.
Maybe, besides Beijing, Qingdao is the city in North I had been there the most frequently and stayed for the longest time. But, if to call it a “city in North”, I would feel it not very suitable. Because in most people’s memory, “North” means the wide, rough, solemn and stirring, people, history and many magnificent narrative things. But in my opinions, Qingdao is more like a South city in “North”, which is charming, emotional, dreamlike and sexy. As same as Pan Wenyi’s works: leave the world but also join to the reality, real but unreal, and filled with all kinds of puzzles and conflicts to bring us movements.
Apr. 16, 2008 night, Kunming Green Lake
