——先哲言
▅ 虫 童而友之 酷首始构其形 文 / 丁立人 常常是,在我心里,把时间倒退80余年。那时,大白天,天朗气清的,阳光灿烂,空气里像撒上金粉,闪闪发亮。并且,空气里响着嗡嗡之声, 嘶嘶之声。嗡嗡声是慢动作飞虫振翅声,嘶嘶声是那些像子弹那样快捷飞行虫子身体与空气的摩擦声。蜂蝶一类的虫子是慢飞飞虫,最常见的是蚊子。快飞一类的虫子很多,虫子身小体弱,敌害多多,为了生存,不得不快飞。最常见的是苍蝇一类,单是蝇类,也是多种多样。 飞行距离有长短,蝗虫身体粗壮而沉重,只能飞飞停停,飞一段距离, 停下歇歇。而蜻蜓一身轻质材料组成,翅大又薄,简直可以悬在空中, 根本不用着地。至于那些甲虫,个子虽大,筋骨却是强壮,飞劲十足。飞速甚高,小甲虫飞过来像子弹,大甲虫飞过去像炮弹 ...... 总之,那时的空中,尤其是在乡村,全像是它们的,从早到晚,嗡嗡声来,嘶嘶声去,热闹非凡。 80多年前,上世纪30年代,我5-6岁吧,童年黄金时代,整天处在闪闪发亮,嘈杂的嗡嗡嘶嘶声中,眼前子弹来炮弹去的空气中度过的。童年总是漫长,童年的印象总是深刻的,这些印象深深印入我的血液、骨髓、 染色体、基因里,终生难以磨灭。 —— 稍长,上学,人在课堂里坐着,心还是惦着虫子,好在教室的窗子开着, 窗外是一片田野,飞虫之声,无妨声声入耳。 在家里,园子里,也有不少虫子,就在室内,母亲还养着蚕,蚕也是虫子, 这个蚕宝宝,我国已经饲养数千年了。 我们这些小学生,自己也养起虫子来的。有一种小型甲虫,甲是黑色的,黑得发亮。我们将它装入小木匣内,木匣里放些饲料,饲料是红枣、 便宜的高丽人参。它最爱吃高丽人参,故称它为高丽?。小木匣可置于衣袋里,冬天可藏于内衣口袋,以人的体温去温暖它,虫子是冷血动物,也称变温动物,自身没有温度,冬天会被冻僵死的,得靠人的体温去暖和它。 温度适宜、饲料充足。它冬天照常活动。这繁殖力很强,不多天,就会繁衍出满满一匣子。虫子满了装不下怎么办 ? 送人,送给同学。因此,那时,我们小学里的孩子,养高丽䖬的很普遍。 —— 初中是在乡村中学里读的。学校周围,大樟树成林。一到初冬,樟树 下散落好多断枝,约6-7厘米长,一个断枝里藏有一条虫子。这些断枝便是这个虫子咬下来的。这个樟树虫平时处于树枝内吸取树汁为生,长到成熟期,准备化蛹,便将树枝两端咬断, 断枝从树上落于地面, 便是我们在树底下捡到的那些断枝。 断枝长短粗细不一,曲折形状多样,树皮颜色纹理各异,断枝万千,无一相同,在我们眼里枝枝优美好看,全值得珍藏。好在这种藏品不用花钱,只要花些时间去捡就是。有些同学,便作起樟树虫的藏家来了。藏家有大有小,有些同学成了大藏家,收藏的樟树虫断枝竟达千余根。这么多的断枝也占有很大空间,作为寄宿学生,不可能有藏品柜。只能将自己仅有的一只衣箱出空,将樟树虫藏于箱里,这满满一箱的断枝,便是他的宝贵藏品。我都替他操心,学期终了回家,带回一箱樟树虫, 怎么向父母交待 ? 我们还不时进行樟树虫交流。到时,大家聚集一起,各个藏家将藏品亮出,进行欣赏、品评、交流心得,还进行交换、互通有无。在寂寞而单调的乡村中学生活中,增加了不少乐趣。 —— 高中时期,高一的生物课是鲁富川老师上的,鲁老师是我国大生物家朱洗的高足,朱洗先生是研究无性生殖的,他发明“无外祖父的蟾蜍”。一个卵,不用受精,改用一根玻璃丝刺一下,代替受精,亦会使卵细胞分裂,发育成蛙。朱先生早期已著有一套科普读物,《人生蛋蛋生人》、《雌雄之变》等,早早使我看到迷醉了。 朱洗又是国际大生物学家巴德荣的高足。真是名师出高徒,这一级级传下来,鲁老师的生物功底有多深我们能得到他的教诲,真是大幸。鲁先生的一堂遗传学印象最是深刻。他把孟德尔的豌豆实验讲得栩栩如生。仿佛把我们带到奥地利的一个小教堂后院菜地,生生见到孟德尔在豆棚前亲手摆弄豌豆藤蔓。 鲁先生说遗传学不光是遗传,还有变异,二大内容同样重要,缺一不可。遗传是传统、保守,没有遗传,不会有品种。变异是改变、异化,没有变异,没有进化,不会有新品种发生。并指出,变异的最佳方法是杂交。杂交要选取优秀亲本,而二个亲本的血缘以远为好。我们学的虽然是生物,但这个原理不止于生物,艺术也同样如此。艺术上的典型例子如毕加索,他的艺术是西班牙艺术同非洲黑人艺术杂交结果,这是远缘的,故其艺术的生命力特别的强盛。 —— 高三毕业班时,来了一位山东大学生物系教授尹光德先生,他是回家休养的,闲着无事,为家乡中学作点事,担任几堂生物课。高三虽然没有生物课,但我是生物爱好者,此间,我已阅读了一些生物书籍, 因此,与这位尹先生很有共同语言,十分投契,常一起看显微镜下生物玻片,聊有关生物方面知识。这么一来,我更走近生物。高三是最后一学期,面临投考大学,是人生抉择时刻。就在这个关键时刻,有这么两位老师,对我志愿选择生物,起到重大作用。但,这只是近期的,其实,童年的小虫子情结,起的作用不小。虽然,我很爱好画画,我6岁就开始热衷于画画了。 那年,我参加统考,果然考取南京大学生物系,这是师资、设备具佳的名牌大学生物系。老师陈义先生是博士,他研究蚯蚓,是世界少有的蚯蚓博士,他是临海人,是我同乡,一下子拉近了。蚯蚓是低等生物, 陈先生讲课也偏重低等动物方面内容,尤其是原生动物内容特别丰富, 给我在这方面开了一个窗,将我推入这个超视角的无比奥妙的微观世界。使得我了解这个微观世界的丰富性,一点儿也不下于高等动物。 在艺术上其实也是如此,原生艺术一点儿都不低于次生艺术,相反的,好的原生艺术只有更高,比次生艺术有过而无不及。 —— 五十年代末,我进入上海科学院华东应用昆虫研究所工作,与好多昆虫研究专家在一起,面对各类昆虫进行各种工作,我见到了各种各样的昆虫,像走进昆虫大世界。我也画了形形色色的昆虫,万花筒似的,画不胜画。 在研究所看昆虫,不同一般,可说大不相同,这里有仪器设备,扩大眼睛的功能,利用解剖镜显微镜,可依人需要放大倍数,将小虫子的里里外外细微末节,看个通透。 一只微不足道的小虫子,可以放得像直升机大,一只小蚱蜢可以放到航母那么大,不仅如此还可进入体内,像参观博物馆那样观看虫体内 部各种器官、系统、组织。小虫子也有消化系统、循环系统、神经系统、肌肉系统,应有尽有。高等动物有的他也有,真是麻雀虽小,五脏俱全。 就这样,天天昆虫,月月昆虫,年年昆虫,我在虫子世界足足呆了五个年头。 岁月悠悠过去,三十年里也没闲着,忙过这个忙那个,总是忙个不停, 因此把虫子小事也就搁在一边,近乎淡忘了。 脑神经细胞活动,确是神奇莫测,不可捉摸。年前一天,突然想起昆虫来了。它不邀自来,来得莫名其妙。小虫一大片一大片的飞来,无法抑制,势不可挡。唯一办法便是画它。 昆虫怎么画呀?画了足足五个年头昆虫的我,想不到此刻竟然生起疏来, 不知所措了。是时代变了?人的心态变了?是的,是这样,我已经不是画标本画的绘虫者,也不是像画戏剧人那样舞台人物写生者,这些全是依样画葫芦,跟着对象走,缺少主意,自然主义 。 画,应该不是这样,真正的画本来就不是这样。 画,应该画出对事物的体验。画的是体验,不是那个物形物态。 这个体验不是他人的,是自己的,个人的,只此一家,别无分号。 画的本质意义变了,画的手段方法也跟着变,不仅如此,画的工具材料也得一起变。一变全变。全盘变换,彻底变更。 那么采取什么手段 ? 打散构成吧。——听起来有点时髦,像在搞设计。其实打散构成不是什么新鲜玩意儿,打散构成早已有了,并且不止是在艺术小圈子里,各学各科早早存在,就拿与人们生活最密切的衣食 住行来看 : 一,衣。一匹布是个整体,剪成片是打散,再缝成衣,便是构成。二,食。就拿主食来说,稻麦大田是整体,收割、脱粒、磨粉是打散,再将米麦粉作成糕团等物是构成。三,屋。山是整体,炸成岩块,轧成碎块,磨成粉,烧成水泥粉是打散,浇成房屋是构成。四,行。车子等交通工具亦是如此。 不仅人类生活所需之事物离不开打散构成,地球上的风云、山川、水陆变化,亦是打散构成,乃至宇宙的星云变幻莫不如此。 可见打散构成是整个物质世界形态变化的普遍义。我的一把小剪刀, 几张小纸片,剪剪贴贴,也算得上是个打散构成的活,实在是一件微乎其微,小得不能再小的一种吧。2021.5
English Version
Playing with Insects in Childhood and Painting Them in Old Age By Ding Liren Often, I turn the clock back more than 80 years. Back then, what could be seen during the day were clear sky, brilliant sunshine and shining air as if sprinkled with gold dust. In the air sounded the buzz and hiss. The buzz came from the wing flap of slowly flying insects, while the hiss came when the fast flying insects rubbed against the air as they flied like bullets. Bees and butterflies are slowly flying insects, and the most common is the mosquito. Fast flying insects are in large quantity. They are small and weak but in face of many enemies, so they have to fly fast to survive. The most common fast flying insects are the flies, which are in wide variety. The insects can fly long and short distance. Locusts, squat and heavy, can only fly in a stop-and-go manner--after flying a certain distance, they stop for a rest. The dragonflies, however, are lightweight with large and thin wings, allowing them to hang in the air without touching the ground at all. As for the beetles, they are strong and powerful enough to fly, though they were large in shape. They can fly extremely fast: small beetles fly over like bullets, and big beetles like cannonballs...In short, the air, especially in the countryside, was full of flying insects, buzzing and hissing from morning till night. How boisterous they were! More than eight decades ago in the 1930s when I was about five or six years old, I had my best years of childhood. I spent my days in the glittering, buzzing and hissing air, with “bullets and cannonballs” flying around. Childhood is always so long and impressive that it has been deeply imprinted into my blood, marrow, chromosomes and genes. It is stamped indelibly on my memory. —— I went to school as I grew older. Sitting in the classroom, I could not help thinking about insects. Fortunately, the classroom window was open, outside which were the fields. I could hear the sound of flying insects. There were a lot of insects at home and in the garden. My mother also kept silkworms indoors. Silkworms belong to worms, which have been cultivated in China for thousands of years. We, the pupils, raised insects ourselves as well. There is a small beetle whose armor is shiny black. It was put in a little wooden box filled with red dates and cheap Korean ginseng. It loves to eat Korean ginseng, so it is called Korean beetle. Small wooden boxes could be placed in pockets, and we hid the beetle in the underwear pocket in winter, in order to warm it with our body heat. Insects are cold-blooded arthropods, also known as ectotherm. They cannot warm themselves and will be frozen to death in winter. So we had to keep them warm with body heat. With appropriate temperature and adequate food, it could live normally in winter. The beetle was extremely fertile, and reproduced a full box of babies. What if the space in the wooden box was not enough to hold them? Give them to the classmates. As a result, many children in our primary school kept Korean beetles. —— My middle school was in the countryside. Around the school were lots of camphor trees. At the beginning of winter, many broken branches dropped down from the trees. They were about 6-7cm long, each of which hid a worm. It was the worm that gnawed and broke these branches. This camphor tree worm lived on the juice of the tree. When it grew to maturity and was ready to pupate, it would gnaw through the branch, falling to the ground. That is what we picked up under the trees. Broken branches were of different length and thickness, with varied twists and turns. The multicolored bark had different texture. Those varied branches were beautiful in our eyes, all of which were worthy of collection. This kind of collection did not require money, and we just needed to spend some time picking the branches up. Some students also collected camphor tree worms. The collection could be in large or small scale. Some students collected as many as a thousand branches with worms. Ample space was needed, but for a boarding student, it was impossible to have a collection cabinet. He had to empty the only suitcase to hide the camphor tree worms. This was his precious collection. I was once concerned with his collection: if he brought back home a case of camphor tree worms at the end of the semester, how should he explain to his parents? We also communicated on camphor tree worms from time to time. Together, each collector would show his/her collection, and we appreciated and evaluated the worms and exchanged experience. Sometimes, we exchanged worm with each other. These activities added much fun to the lonely and monotonous middle school life in the countryside. —— In the first year of high school, Mr. LU Fuchuan taught us biology. Teacher LU is the outstanding student of ZHU Xi, a famous biologist in China. Mr. ZHU was dedicated to the research of asexual reproduction and he invented “the toad without grandfather”. Without sperm, an egg can developed into a frog by pricking with a glass fiber to enable egg cell division. In his early days, Mr. ZHU had written a set of books on popularization of science, such as Egg to Human and Human to Egg and The Change of the Male and Female, which made me fascinated. Mr. ZHU is the student of great international biologist Batarllon. An accomplished disciple owes his accomplishment to his great teacher. Hence, teacher LU had solid foundation of biology due to knowledge inheritance. We were so lucky to be his students. A lecture on genetics was the most impressive. The animated narrative of Mendel’s pea experiment was delivered as if we were guided to a vegetable field in the back yard of a small church in Austria and saw Mendel moving the pea vines in front of a pea shed. Mr. LU said that genetics is not only about heredity, but also variation, both of which are equally important. The heredity is traditional and conservative, without which there will be no species. Variation means change and alienation, and no new species will appear without variation and evolution. He pointed out that the best method of variation is hybridization. Good parent plants should be selected for hybridization, and two parent plants should be as far as possible in terms of consanguinity. This discipline can be applied not just in biology, but also in art. A typical example in art is Picasso, whose art is the result of hybridization between Spanish art and African black art. Such hybridization is a distant one, so Picasso’s art is particularly vigorous. —— In the third year of high school, Mr. YIN Guangde, a professor from the Department of Biology of Shandong University began to teach us. He went back home to recuperate and had nothing to do. So he wanted to make contributions to the high school in his hometown and served as a teacher in several biology classes. Biology class was not available in the third year of high school, but I was a biology lover and had read some biology books. So, I had a common interest with Mr. YIN and we often observed the slides under the microscope and chatted about biology. In this way, I got closer to biology. Grade three in high school was the last semester, when we were going to take the college entrance exam. It was moment to making choice. At such critical moment, these two teachers played a significant role in my choice of biology. Of course, it was only a recent factor; indeed, my love for insects also played a major role. Although I was very fond of painting, an interest cultivated since I was 6 years old, I finally chose biology. I took part in the unified examination that year and was admitted to the Department of Biology of Nanjing University, which is a famous university with excellent teachers and equipment. My teacher Mr. CHEN Yi studied earthworm, and he held the rare doctor’s degree in earthworm. Native in Linhai, we are fellow-townsmen. This relationship brought us closer. Earthworms are lower creatures, and Mr. CHEN’s lectures focused on lower animals, especially the rich content of protozoa, which broadened my horizon in this aspect and led me into this extremely mysterious microscopic world with multiple perspectives. I came to understand the richness of this microscopic world, which is as colorful as the world of higher animals. For art, the same is true--raw art is not interior to derivative art at all. On the contrary, high-quality raw art is superior to secondary art. —— At the end of 1950s, I joined East China Institute of Applied Entomology, Shanghai Academy of Science & Technology, where I worked with a pool of experts on various insects. I saw a variety of insects, as if I was wandering in the world of insects. I also painted all kinds of insects, with so many objects for painting. A small insect could be magnified as big as a helicopter, and a small grasshopper could be as large as an aircraft carrier. I was also able to see their internal part, and observed the organs, systems and tissues like wandering in a museum. An insect also has the digestive system, circulatory system, nervous system and muscular system. It has everything that are possessed by the higher animals. Despite its small body, it has complete functions. In the institute, I studied insects every day and stayed in the world of insects for five years. As time passed by, I had been busy with lots of things all the time. Trivial matters such as insects were laid aside and I have almost forgotten it. The cranial nerve cells behave mysteriously and unpredictably. One day in last year, I suddenly thought of insects. It came uninvited, without any reason. Blocks of insects flied in, unstoppable and overwhelming. The only thing I can do is to paint them. How to paint insects? To my surprise, with five years of experience in painting insects, I was a little rusty and at a loss. Has the era changed or my mindset changed? In fact, I’m no longer a painter creating specimen drawings, or a stage personage painter depicting the drama actors. Previously, I just painted mechanically following the subjects, lack of creation and naturalism. The painting should not be like this, and the real painting is never like this. Painting should reflect the experience of objects. It’s about the experience, rather than the shape and form. This experience is not someone else’s, and it’s yours, unique and exclusive. The essential meaning of painting has changed, so has the techniques and methods. Besides, tools and materials also need to be changed. A change leads to changes in all fronts, completely and thoroughly. So what technique shall I take? Disintegration-rearrangement. --It sounds kind of trendy, similar to a term in design. In fact, disintegration-rearrangement is nothing new. It has existed not only in the small circle of art, but also in various schools and subjects for a long time. Let’s take examples from the clothing, food, house and transportation, which are most closely related to people’s life. First, clothing. A bolt of cloth is a whole, cutting into pieces is the disintegration, and then sewing into clothes is the rearrangement. Second, food. Take the staple food for example. The rice and wheat field is the whole, harvesting, threshing and grinding stand for disintegration, and then making the rice and wheat flour into cakes means rearrangement. Third, house. The mountain is the whole, blasting into rocks, rolling into pieces, grounding into powder and burning into cement constitute disintegration, and building into house is rearrangement. Fourth, transportation. The same is true of means of transportation like cars. The things needed by human life as well as changes of wind and cloud, mountains and rivers, land and sea on the earth cannot be divorced from the disintegration-rearrangement. Disintegration-rearrangement even applies in the changes of the nebulae in the universe. It can be seen that disintegration-rearrangement is the universal principle for the morphological change of the whole material world. Cutting and pasting with a pair of scissors and a few pieces of paper can be regarded as my work of disintegration-rearrangement. It is really an activity with a minimal degree of disintegration-rearrangement. 2021.5 ▅ 艺术家介绍 丁立人,1930年出生于浙江省台州市海门镇。幼时就曾受到过西方现代艺术启蒙,青年时期师承刘海粟、关良等老先生,工作后深入地接触到了中国民间艺术,其质朴的美学趣味对丁立人的创作影响至深。任上海剪纸学会副主席,中国民间工艺学术委员会委员,上海理工大学设计艺术学院教授。 近期主要个展:《双虫记——丁立人个展》,站台中国当代艺术机构,北京(2021);《西游南行——丁立人个展》,广东美术馆,广州(2020);《手无止境——丁立人个展》,站台中国当代艺术机构,北京(2019);《寻脉·造山》,宝龙美术馆开馆展,上海(2018);《回归之心——丁立人个展》,浙江美术馆,杭州(2018);《非由述作 發于天然》——丁立人、王劼音、尚扬、夏阳四人展,上海(2018);《丁家画展——故乡行》,浙江台州市,(2012) 作品收藏于中国美术馆、中央美术学院、中国国家大剧院,上海美术馆,上海刘海粟美术馆,澳门文化司署、香港大一学院、河北教育出版社、人民美术出版总社等,及国内外藏家。 Ding Liren, Born in Haimen town, Taizhou, Zhejiang province, 1930. When he became a young man, he studied under Liu Haisu and GuanLiang who were very important and famous artists in Chinese art history,and he began to study both the traditional Chinese art and the folk art. Therewas no doubt he was deeply influenced by the special aesthetic taste of Chinese art. He is the deputy director of Shanghai Paper-cut Association, the member of China Folk Craftwork Committee, the professor of University of Shanghai for Science and Technology Main exhibition: “Ding Liren: Two Insects”, Platform China, Beijing (2021); “Ding Liren’s Solo Exhibition: A Southbound Trip of The Journey to The West”, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou (2020); “Ding Liren: The Hand Infinite”, Platform China, Beijing (2019); “Tracing Past and Shaping The Future”, Powerlong Museum, Shanghai (2018); “A Heart for Return — Ding Liren’s Art Echibition”, Zhejiang Art Museum, Hangzhou (2018); “Natural Creation from Narration — Ding Liren Wang Jieyin, Shang Yang, Xia Yang Group Show”, Shanghai (2018); “Natural Creation from Narration — Ding Liren”, Taizhou, Zhejiang,(2012); Works are collected in:National Art Museum of China, Central Academy of Fine Arts, National Centre for the Performing Arts, Shanghai Art Museum,LiuHaisu Art Museum,Instituto Cultural de Macau、Hong Kong School of Design, Hebei Education Publishing House, People’s Fine Arts Publishing House,etc.Works are also collected by international collectors.