中国艺术是线的艺术，也是生命化的艺术。唐人张彦远说：“无线者非画也”，一根线条的质地、弹性、节奏与韵律，承载着作者的品格、灵气、情性与素养，蕴含了一个人在当下的所有生命信息。

　　白描，无疑是中国人对于世界美术史的独特贡献----以“无”为“有”、以“有”为“无”，将自然物象中并不存在的“线”概括提取出来，而物象的实处却化为空白。从一根线发端，“紧劲联绵 、循环超忽”，纯粹地以线造型、以线传情、以线达意，通过线条来表达自己对于整个世界的诠释。

　　作为王来文多年的好友，笔者可能是他的白描作品最早的观众之一。“我这段时间按照自己的想法和感觉，画了一批白描花卉，你有空来看看”，从接到电话后脑海中的想象，到排列齐整的几十件作品第一次跃入眼帘，之间的反差是相当大的：原来白描也可以具备撼动视觉的内在力量。白描并非“清汤挂面”，白描同样能够感动人。

　　超出笔者意料的另一点是，王来文之于白描，似乎有种轻车熟路、不学而能的“宿根”。甫一入手，从笔法，到线质，到形式，皆已火候具足，宛若天成。

　　机缘的果实一旦成熟，便会自然掉落。王来文画白描，也应是多种因缘交汇的结果。长于用线，乃闽地绘画传统的一个突出特色，这个传统从边景昭、吴彬、上官周、黄慎，一直延续到晚近的陈子奋、郑乃珖。而陈子奋更是被誉为现代画坛的“白描祭酒”。俞剑华曾评价曰：“吴昌硕用金石书法作写意花卉，陈子奋用金石书法作白描花卉，真所谓春兰秋菊，异曲同工。”成长于福建的花鸟画家，在艺术实践过程中，不可能不以某种方式思考或触碰白描。

　　然而，以旁观者的角度臆测，王来文在白描上的尝试，既是理性的选择，更是听从内心的冲动，是其艺术成长到一定阶段后的必然要求，所谓真积力久，不得不然。王来文早期画路较广，用笔酣畅，画面色墨交融，情绪饱满。后来进入到一个从题材到图式皆“力约色相”，以专注求深入的阶段，在墨荷系列上进行了“意匠惨淡经营中”的探索，直至形成鲜明的个人面目。而进入白描，仍是这一“逻辑”的延续，寻求一种更纯粹、更自由的绘画体验，试图用一根线条吟哦咏叹，独抒性灵。另外，近年来他在书法，特别是隶书上的用功，也可以视为其白描创作的“助缘”。

　　“曹衣出水”，“吴带当风”。 白描线条因其简练单纯，成为中国画家人格化、情感化的造型手段，而历代白描大师将自己的主观精神融入线条，形成了各自的风格神采，从而引领白描画的新创造。王来文的白描线条，在含蓄内敛与明爽轩豁，容夷婉畅与顿挫浏漓之间找到了巧妙的平衡，恰如其沉稳细腻中不乏浪漫阳刚的个性特点

　　王来文在创作中有意识地进一步突出线条的抒情性，令其成为作品的“主角”，同时也让白描摆脱长期以来作为粉本、底稿的“身份”，恢复其独立的审美价值。他一反白描勾勒常用的熟宣硬毫，代之以生宣(或半生熟材料)、兼毫、焦墨，中锋行笔，力透纸背，以追求线条松秀而苍涩的质感。运笔中注重刚柔虚实、轻重缓急的变化，通过韵律感来实现心境、情绪的表达。

　　抒发情性之外，概括物象是白描的另一特性。王来文画白描花卉，坚持直接对物写生，这就对画家的观察生活与提炼对象的能力提出了挑战。不论是梅、兰、水仙、荷花这些常见题材，还是蒲草、芭蕉、一串红、滴水观音，王来文都能以接近于“格物”的态度，观照物象的性理天姿和精神意涵，达到“物我相融”的境界，进而化机在手，别构灵奇，以最恰当的剪裁取舍、图式构成传达“象外之韵”。纵观王来文的白描系列，留白之大胆，构图之张力，多组线条之相互穿插、对比与协调，不断给人带来类似音乐般的审美享受。

　　日新又新，否定之否定，螺旋式上升，这是艺术成长的规律，而人生亦然。眼下的白描创作对于王来文来说，或许只是他艺术道路中的阶段性实践与成果。而这些实践与成果，又将如何增进他的艺术感悟，作用于他的写意花鸟，还是让我们拭目以待吧。

Expressing Yourself with A Line—Line-Drawing Art of Wang Laiwen

He Guangrui(Deputy director of Theoretical Art Committee, Fujian Artists Association)

　　Chinese art is the art of lines and life. Zhang Yanyuan, a painter in Tang dynasty, said: “Without lines, there is no painting.” The texture, elasticity, rhyme and tone of every single line are the carriers of the author’s character, talent, temptation and quality; it contains all the current living message of a person.

　　Undoubtedly, line drawing is one of China’s unique contributions to the world art history. Taking “nonbeing” as “being” and “being” as “nonbeing”, line drawing abstracts the intangible “lines” in nature and translates the tangible objects into nothingness. Starting with a “compact, linked, cycled and complex” line, a painter purely uses it to make models, expresses his feelings and meanings and shows his understanding of the whole world.

　　As an old friend of Wang Laiwen, I’m probably one of the first audiences of his line drawings. “These days I drew some flowers with line drawing skills based on my own thoughts and feelings. You can come and have a look when you are free.” Wang said on the phone. There is tremendous contrast between my imagination and the dozens of neatly-arranged works. I realized that line drawing could also have an internal power to surprise your eyes. Line drawing is not merely “simple and plain”, but also something that’s able to move people. 

　　The other unexpected thing is that for Wang Laiwen, line drawing is so easy that he doesn’t need to learn, as if he was born with such talent. Once started, the style, the texture and the form have already been as good enough as natural.

　　Once the fruit is ripe, it will fall down naturally. The line drawings of Wang Laiwen are also the fruit of multiple principal and subsidiary causes. One outstanding feature of traditional drawings in Fujian is that painters are good at using lines. This tradition is followed by Bian Jingzhao, Wu Bin, Shangguan Zhou, Huang Shen as well as modern painters like Chen Zifen and Zheng Naiguang. Among them, Chen Zifen is honored as the “master of line drawing” of modern painting. Yu Jianhua once said, “Wu Changshuo draws sketches of flowers and plants with seal cutting and calligraphy while Chen Zifen does line drawings. These are different approaches but equally satisfactory results.” In their fine art practice, flower and bird painters growing up in Fujian would somehow think and learn line drawing.

　　However, as a by-stander, I suppose Wang Laiwen’s try in line drawing is a rational choice as well as an impulse from his heart. It’s a necessity in the development of art. It’s a must after long-time accumulation. During his early time in painting, Wang Laiwen painted various objects. His painting style was rapid and continuing. With the mixed color and ink, his paintings were full of emotions. Later, he entered a phase where he “tried to be simple” from the subject to his painting style and strived to get a deep understanding. He explored the lotus in ink painting series after “a bleak and wan exploration” until he created his own style. Using line drawing skill is a continuance of this “logic”. He sought another purer and freer painting style, trying to express himself by a single line. In recent years, his efforts on calligraphy, especially on Li script (the official script) could be considered as a “help” to the creation of line drawing.

　　There are two main painting styles - “mimicry of vivid objects” and “general description of objects”. Line drawing becomes a way of Chinese painters to give characteristics and emotions to paintings due to its simpleness. Masters of line drawing in different times would integrate their emotions in the lines to form a picture with their own characteristics and to lead the creation of new line drawings. The line drawings of Wang Laiwen find a proper balance between implicit and explicit, between smoothness and incontinuity. They are just like the feature of Wang Laiwen himself - delicate, romantic and strong as well.

　　In his creation, Wang Laiwen consciously highlights on the emotion of lines and makes them the “main character” of his works. Meanwhile, the “status” of line drawing as powder painting or manuscript has been abandoned in his work, and their own independent aesthetic values has been restored. He refuses to use the common choice: Treated Xuan paper and rigidity brush. Instead, he prefers Xuan paper (or semi-Xuan paper), doubled both brush and dense black ink. The brush dips the paper with the middle of the brush tip so that the texture would be both elegant and vigorous. The power and texture of each strike are taken into consideration while painting. Through different tones, he expresses different moods and emotions. 

　　Besides expression of emotions, the other character of line drawing is generalization. While painting flowers and plants through line drawing, Wang Laiwen insists on painting from life, which brings challenge to painters’ observation and ability to abstract the object. No matter the commonly seen objects like plum-blossoms, orchids, narcissu and lotus, or the stem of cattail, bananas, sagebrush and dishlia, Wang Laiwen can grasp the appearance as well as the implicit emotion of a object through his strict attitude of “investigating and researching things” and achieve the level where “the object and the painting are blended to be one”. Then, he grabs his brush to express “the beauty inside of the object” by unique structure and proper tailoring. The whole series of the line drawings of Wang Laiwen gives people musical aesthetic enjoyment through its bold blanking, strained structure and inter-crossed, contracted and coordinated folds of lines. 

　　The development pattern of art and life is a process of constant progress, negation of negation and a spiral escalation. The current line drawing creation is perhaps a periodical practice and results in Wang Laiwen’s future art work. But How these practices and results would offer him more art inspiration in freehand brushworks of flowers and birds? Let’s wait and see.