美国作家梭罗在他的《瓦尔登湖》这本书中，在谈“最高法则”的篇章里有这样一段话“每一个人都是一个庙宇的建造者，那个庙宇称之为他的身体，是为他崇拜的神而建造，纯粹是以他自己的风格来建造的”。看杨光的画，我感到他正用粗黑简洁、硬直冷峻的线条，正用忧愤和悲怆的情感，在搭建这个时代他内心荒凉的庙宇圣殿。
杨光与我是鲁迅美术学院的同班同学，他不善言辞，略带腼腆的一面和他的刚毅、硬朗的外表形成了很大的反差。大学时他常在我们的相互起哄下，背诵当时日本电影《追捕》里的大段著名台词，低沉的嗓音发出苍峻的声音，令我们竞相模仿他，他也只是宽厚的一笑。他学习优秀，在校时的习作常作为范画挂在教室的墙上供同学们学习揣摩。诸多作品被学校留存，令当时的我十分艳羡。
毕业后各天南地北，相互在彼此的视线里消失了很多年，后来在北京的一次同学聚会上相见，一番捶胸顿足的亲热后，才知道他来北京已很多年，言语之间让我感到，岁月给了他很多，在沉稳和寡言的背后，我觉察到他的一丝忧伤。
后来去他的工作室叙旧，他慢慢的跟我聊了很多，毕业二十余年后的命运坎坷，情感的变化让他感到彷徨和苦闷，但还是绘画挽救了他，终究，他还是舍不下他为艺术的人生。他常不分昼夜的画着，几个月不出工作室一步，那种疯狂和执着如同他笔下的树疯狂而执着的生长着。他跟我聊对人类社会和战争的看法，聊他喜欢和崇拜的中外艺术大师，聊西方的宗教和东方的禅宗，聊他在艺术追求过程中内心的困惑和灵魂的挣扎。在聊天的过程中我渐渐清晰了许多年后他成长的生命轨迹，也在心里由衷的祝福和敬佩。我知道他几乎就是一个艺术的殉道者，有着自己强烈的信念，他用内心体悟着生命，用生命验证着灵魂。
他用冷静的笔捕捉着这个世界的躁动与不安，发出他愤怒的批判，这种呐喊经过他的自觉和融通已变成了他内敛的画面。他充分意识到作为一个当代画家，必须从历史、传统、东方、西方那里吸收大量的营养，而去完成他自我追求的艺术境界。他从这万千的自然里，截取了“树”这个语言符号，以此作为他表现的画面主体，他淬取了树的姿态、树的精神，来表达对纯真、美好的呼唤，对生命自由的向往。“树”成为他绘画生命的图腾。
他跟我说，家乡的山水给了他深刻的记忆，儿时在大山里的摸爬滚打，在树林中的上窜下跳，给了他难以忘怀的美妙感受，这种记忆随着时间的流逝，反而愈发的清晰，愈发挥之不去。那山里的草木，滋养了他的性灵，滋养了他的艺术，偶尔在他画里出现的童年游戏形象，给画面增添了一份莫名的惆怅，对纯真时光的怀念又勾起了我们的怀想，那游戏着的儿童，也仿佛有着成人的忧伤。
他远离当下各种时髦的流行画风，直观自己内心世界真实情感的流露，摒弃了光影、摒弃了色彩、摒弃了空间关系，从写意的理念出发，在现实的十方世界的景象里，以黑白两色基调为主，创造了一个带有诗人般忧郁气质的自我的大千世界。他笔下的树没有季节感，没有时间感，孤独的站立着，没有方向、没有归属。树干硬直曲折、枯涩直白，枝杈犹如繁杂心绪般错落交织，在画面黑白交错的张力和对抗中，毫无生命迹象的树，表现出对生命的极度渴望。对自然的再认识，对生命的深感知，才是他真正意义上的回归，杨光做着生活的减法、艺术的减法和生命的减法，正参悟着老子：“为学日增，为道日损”的真谛。
The Posture of Life
Xu Xianliang
American writer Henry David Thoreau once wrote the following sentence in the chapter “Higher Laws” of his well-known book Walden: “Every man is the builder of a temple, called his body, to the god he worships, after a style purely his own.” Yang Guang’s paintings strike me as if he is employing straight and succinct black bold lines to build a desolate and solemn temple of his own heart in the current age with tremendous grief and indignation,.
Yang Guang was my classmate at Department of Oil Painting in Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts. At that time, his ineloquence and slight shyness formed a great contrast with his resolute and tough appearance. I can still remember that he was often goaded to recite large sections of the famous lines in the Japanese film Kimi yo fundo no kawa wo wataret. His voice was so deep and low that we competed to imitate him with great enthusiasm, but only receiving his clement smiles in return. Because of good academic performance, his exercise paintings were always hung on the walls in the classroom as good examples for students to learn from. Some of his works were even kept by the university permanently, which made me very envious at that time.
Graduation witnessing our departure, we lost track of each other for many years until the reunion at a classmate gathering in Beijing. After some intimate chitchat, I came to know that he had been in Beijing for many years. I could feel between his words that time taught him a lot, but behind his self-possession and reticence, I also felt some sorrow.
Later we went to his studio talking about the old days, and he told me a lot about his experiences. During the twenty years after graduation, his life underwent ups and downs even misfortunes, which made him feel helpless and depressed, but it was painting that eventually saved him --- after all, he couldn’t give up his life in pursuit of art. He engaged himself in painting day and night, and that kind of obsession and perseverance grew wild just like the trees he depicted. He also shared with me his views on human society and wars, about the Chinese and foreign artists he loved and admired, Western religions and Oriental Zen, as well as his confusion and struggle in his pursuit of art. Through chatting, I gradually made clear his life during these years, then admiration and sincere wishes to him couldn’t help welling up in my heart. In my view, he is an artistic martyr with strong convictions, who apprehends life with heart and testifies life with soul.
Yang Guang uses calm strokes to capture the restlessness and anxiety of world, releasing his angry criticism which has given birth to his introvert paintings through his consciousness and apprehension. He is keenly aware that as a contemporary artist, he must absorb large amount of nutrients from Eastern and Western histories and traditions, the, in order to achieve his endless-seeking artistic realm. He selects the symbol of “trees” from thousands of physical images as the main character shown in his pictures. He abstracts the posture and spirit of trees to express his appeal for innocence and happiness as well as his aspiration for the freedom of life. Trees, in a certain sense, have become the totem of his artistic life.
Yang Guang once told me that the memory about the landscape in his hometown was still fresh in his mind. He still remembered indulging his childhood playing willfully in the mountains and jumping up and down in the woods. What a wonderful and unforgettable experience! Time flied, yet this memory became increasingly fresh, never fading. It is the trees and plants in the mountains that cultivated his temperament and nourished his art, and the images of childhood games occasionally appearing in his paintings add up certain inexplicable melancholy to the pictures, arousing our nostalgia for the pure and innocent past. It seems that even the children playing games in the paintings suffer some adults’ sorrow.
In spite of a variety of trendy painting styles, Yang Guang follows his own heart and develops his unique style by getting rid of shadows, colors, and special relationship. Based on the concept of freehand brushwork, he creates his own artistic universe dominated by the color of black and white out of the real world with a poetic melancholy. The trees in his paintings, reflecting no sense of season and time, stand there lonely, without direction or belonging. Stiff and withered trunks twist and turn, while twigs are intertwined resembling complex and unsettling thoughts. In the tension and confrontation between black and white, those trees, despite no sign of life, show utmost aspirations for life. Yang Guang constantly engages himself in the subtraction of life and art because it is his belief that rethinking nature and apprehending life represent a real return. He is attempting to figure out the true meaning of Laozi’s words: “One needs to increase knowledge yet decrease desire to realize Dao (the way of everything) day by day.”
Thousands of beings take on their unique postures during the long process of self-growth in the earnest pursuit of sunshine. Yang Guang’s works reflect his present .
