摘要：欣赏过杨远威这位年逾八旬，长期旅居美国的中国艺术家近期的作品，我们不禁觉得这九幅画作与其说是一个系列，不如说是一场冥想⸺它们是记忆、地点与绘画创作之间持续对话的片段。如果说许多耄耋之年的艺术家展览像是尾声或终结，那么，杨远威的水墨作品则拒绝了这种终结。它们并非
杨远威的诗意漫游：水墨、记忆与未竟之程
The Poetic Wanderings of Yang Yuanwei: Ink, Memory, and the Unfinished Journey
注：文章原稿以英文书写，AI翻译，后经画家本人及编者调整。
欣赏过杨远威这位年逾八旬，长期旅居美国的中国艺术家近期的作品，我们不禁觉得这九幅画作与其说是一个系列，不如说是一场冥想⸺它们是记忆、地点与绘画创作之间持续对话的片段。如果说许多耄耋之年的艺术家展览像是尾声或终结，那么，杨远威的水墨作品则拒绝了这种终结。它们并非故作姿态的“留给后人的总汇”，而是诗意漫游的瞬间，是画家试图捕捉在他眼前和心中不断流动的世界的展现。
这些作品似乎是铭刻于水墨与记忆中的人生。杨远威先生的职业生涯显然根植于中国水墨画，但却从未被局限于此。他此次的作品绝不是传统的展现，他也不希望被冠以“中西融合”的标签。相反，这些作品是对生活体验的记录：一位艺术家跨越海洋，与日新月异的现代并肩而立，他汲取各种影响，创作手法却不为之所困。
杨先生的每一个笔触常萦绕于对时间的感触。这些画作展现出画家那既精巧又执着的灵变之手，笔触时而匆匆，时而沉思，但其中始终充满着个人色彩。我们感受到的与其说是内华达沙漠、阿尔卑斯山修道院或巴黎街道等题材，倒不如说是这些风景在他的笔下激起的共鸣。画家诗意地捕捉生命中某个身处某地的片刻情绪，每一张画作都承载着他颤动的回忆，画家每一次情绪都转瞬即逝却又弥足珍贵。
内华达风景：荒野与孤独之间
杨远威两幅以内华达为背景的作品《春回内华达》和《荒原绿茵⸺内华达抒怀》并非宏大场景的呈现，而是通过个人视角展现画家的美国经历。画中景象不是美国西部宏伟壮丽景观的再现，而是蕴涵静谧与蜕变的含蓄抒情。
在《春回内华达》中，杨先生捕捉到了这片以景色荒芜闻名的土地上蕴藏着的不可思议的新生活力。画中笔触俏皮而不失天真，艺术家意趣多变的勾线传达出一种近乎脆弱的新生脉动，仿佛春天本身就是一位不速之客。相比之下，《荒原绿茵⸺内华达抒怀》则更具内省性。单从标题就可以看出，这幅作品不仅关乎土地，更关乎画家的情感状态。在柔和色调的映衬下，一片片绿色隐喻着自然中坚韧不拔的生命力量，呼应着画家自身晚年的坚持。这些作品读起来如同两本平行的日记：一本记录着生命不断回归的惊喜，另一本则为坚韧不拔的精神谱写赞歌。
春回内华达
Spring arrives in Nevada
70X35cm 2025
画家心 语
内华达的荒芜气象不是壮阔的，春天尤为不是。萌动的春意静悄悄的，让人爱怜。寥寥几根脆弱的线条能否撑起这般意趣，尚待时光打磨。
荒原绿茵 —内华达抒怀
Green Grass in the Wasteland — Nevada's Feelings
69X49cm 2025
画家心 语
秃笔残墨，画到尽兴而止。为即将“瞻仰”拉斯维加斯的繁华，做些反向铺垫，画的过程中似有体味到古人“墨戏”的快乐。
欧洲速写：记忆、距离与情怀
杨远威记忆中的旅行感悟在《里面的世界很精彩⸺阿尔卑斯山里的修道院》、《傅抱石先生忘记画的欧洲风景》和《日出而作⸺欧洲老城所见》中展现得淋漓尽致。每一幅画作展现的并非走马观花游客的视野，而是一位游历过此地，如今重新构建鲜活意境的长者的记忆。
里面的世界很精彩 –阿尔卑斯山里的修道院
The world inside is wonderful – the monastery
in the Alps
70X35cm 2025
画家心 语
修道本是“苦差事”，哪里来的精彩？画事亦然。可是画可以和读者沟通，也许在交流的过程里会有些许敏悟，慧者能自得其中精彩。
这幅阿尔卑斯山修道院的画作散发着一种内在的光芒。画的名称也暗示了吸引画家的并非阿尔卑斯山本身，而是修道院生活的隐秘内心，一个与画家可能的自身孤独产生共鸣的世外桃源。修道院成为一则寓言。也许，艺术家的工作室如同禅室，他的水墨如同祈祷。
傅抱石先生忘记画的欧洲风景
European Landscape That Mr. Fu Baoshi
Forgot to Paint
69X49cm 2025
画家心 语
拿大师打趣了！但其中未有不敬之意。近60年前曾有机会瞻仰大师挥毫的风采，那种气场一直是我画意、画趣的源头。阿尔卑斯山的风物触动了我记忆中的这根弦，勾起了一段“青春回忆”。这张画和大师的作品比，当是“不及万一”了。（“不及万一”是傅先生画中的一方常用印）
更俏皮、更发人深省的是这幅名为《傅抱石先生忘记画的欧洲风景》的画作。杨远威先生在此与这位伟大的20世纪中国绘画大师对话，这仿佛幽默地填补了历史空白。然而，妙趣横生之下却隐藏着一份真诚⸺杨远威认为自己是在延续东亚水墨与欧洲风景之间一场未竟的对话。然而，与傅抱石雄壮的笔触不同，杨远威的线条似乎犹豫、涩滞，既流露出记忆的脆弱，也流露出画家为铭记历史所保守的谦逊。
日出而作—欧洲老城所见
Working at sunrise—what we see in old European cities
69X49cm 2025
画家心 语
探寻中国水墨和宣纸在表现域外古老风情时能有多大的“能耐”，一直是我感兴趣的。首先，这宣纸要结实，要经得起摸爬滚打而不损。颜色不能求清雅，要努力营造传统水墨画往往忽视的浑沌“色调”。至于眼前看到的许多物件，画的时候要“当舍则舍”，不为“景”所困，此亦不易。
这幅描绘日出时分欧洲古城的画作或许是最具时代生活氛围的一幅。作品题目强调了工作、劳作和日常生活⸺几个世纪以来城市里人们清晨的日常生活。杨先生的笔触仿佛清晨柔和的阳光和挥之不去的薄雾，这是他对平凡生活的同情。城市景观成为一面坚韧的镜子，如经久不衰的建筑一般。杨先生在墨线与墨团中铭刻着无常的永恒。
美国都市风景：在奇观与静思之间
如果说欧洲给予杨先生的记忆是深邃和古老的，那么美国则给予他的则是即时性。这些描绘纽约中央公园、黄昏芝加哥河以及曼哈顿哈德逊河的作品，展现了画家与现实的协商与妥协。
《纽约中央公园远眺》回避宏大天际线的戏剧效果，却捕捉了公园与城市的距离和呼吸，展现公园是如何在城市的密度中开辟出一片空地。这幅作品轻盈飘逸、笔触稀疏，仿佛画家的目光并非停留在摩天大楼，而是驻足于参观者喘息之中。
纽约中央公园远眺
New York Central Park overlooking
70X35cm 2025
画家心 语
近年来，我为纽约中央公园不那么入画的景致动了不少脑筋，画了不下十数张的稿子。我总觉得，不入常态的风景定有别致有趣的表达方式，盼望有“蓦然回首，她在灯火阑珊处”的创作快感。
《夜幕降临芝加哥河》更浓重、更暗沉，也更具氛围感。杨远威的墨迹在此演变成近乎抽象的晕染。作品标题暗示着叙事的终结⸺夜幕降临，一天结束。但是，画作中却有不愿终结的意味：水面忧郁低沉，建筑倾斜，整个构图仿佛仍然悬浮在空中。
夜幕降临芝加哥河
Night falls on the Chicago River
70X40cm 2024
画家心 语
太多次在黄昏中徜徉于芝加哥河畔，高楼的阴影和光线交相辉映，我希望能营造出画面的“颤动感”，可是这哪有那么容易。自说自话自我陶醉是可以的，真能有所表现，“同志仍需努力”！
《哈德逊河上⸺曼哈顿风情》是美国风格系列中最大胆的一幅。方形版式把河流与天际线之间的躁动聚焦链接起来。杨远威拒绝将曼哈顿“纪念碑化”，他的画笔将形体分解为具暗示性的姿态，将实体消解为印象。曼哈顿不再是权力的象征，而是一个脆弱的海市蜃楼。这幅画是杨先生作为在美国生活数十年却依然保持独立思考的艺术家，其抒发世间万物尽兴潇洒，皆可一瞥而过的感怀。
哈德逊河上——曼哈顿风情
On the Hudson--Manhattan Style
70X70cm 2025
画家心 语
曼哈顿代表了什么？权力？富裕？强大？这是许多艺术作品（不仅仅是绘画）已经充分表达的。而我，则想描绘其“浑沌”、“固执”和“蹒跚”，为什么会这样想，我自己也说不清楚。权且作为一种实验，不断从水墨到墨彩来回折腾，以求探索心中的疑问。
秋日巴黎：最后的轻盈
在这些作品中，《巴黎街头秋色》最为抒情。纸张尺寸虽小，但恰与其主题相得益彰。街道的细节为季节变迁而改变。画家的笔触由此闪烁着温暖的色调，暗示生机与衰落。秋叶仿佛也成为他的自画像，纤细、短暂，却依然闪耀。
巴黎街头秋色
Autumn colors on the streets of Paris
水墨纸本 49X39cm 2025
画家心 语
多年前在巴黎画过一张铅笔的速写，寥寥几笔，记录了我对于巴黎显见的优雅而平常风采的印象。秋意袭来，巴黎不似北美秋色的壮丽和灿烂，但逸趣动人，能让亲临者思考很多（感叹人生、感叹社会、感叹历史）。利用中国宣纸微妙敏感的特质来表现，画了以后心中似乎略有所得。
这里引人注目的并非画家对巴黎作为文化之都的怀旧，而是他对转瞬即逝的个人情感。杨先生不愿将这座城市“纪念碑化”，而是要记录它流逝的色彩。这种感性与其说是忧郁，不如说是胸怀接纳之情。
作品风格解析
在杨远威的作品里，我们看到的是对现代主义策略的回应⸺不可套用风格，而是不拘泥于样式变异，通过感性来启迪观者。《夜幕降临芝加哥河》的碎片式构图，《哈德逊河上⸺曼哈顿风情》中光与色的抽象化，以及对傅抱石致敬作品中的戏谑，都与现代主义对于不完整性、模糊性和追求个人视角的遥相呼应。杨远威从不墨守成规，但他又与那些以创建标志性风格立足的艺术家不同，他的每一幅作品都有新的构想和运筹。面对创作对象，杨远威拒绝千篇一律的风格。
这种拒绝至关重要。许多当代画家，尤其是那些游走于传统的画家都习惯培养一种“品牌认同”。杨远威或许本能抵制这种认同，他的创作更接近于诗歌而非视觉品牌。他的每一幅画作都是一首诗，为特定场合而写，回应某个主题的特殊性。如果观者期待作品保持一致性风格，那就误解了他的创作理念。
感受岁月的厚重和姿态的轻盈
这九幅作品的共同点并非风格，而是对生命的赞歌，它们承载着一位艺术家的印记。这位艺术家生逢其时，深知与时代共鸣远比传承重要。有时，他的笔触颤抖，线条散乱，形态松弛。但这并非软弱，而是真诚，画家透过画笔将身体的脆弱转化为诗意的轻盈。
我们能感觉到杨远威的绘画与其说是为了彰显技艺，不如说是为了记录艺术家本人的存在。坐在芝加哥的河边或纽约的公园前，回想阿尔卑斯山的修道院或巴黎的街道，然后sketch⸺这是他坚守对世界信念的方式，也许每一笔都既脆弱又叛逆。
艺术需要无疆界更广阔地传递
杨远威借鉴前辈，但做法是兼收并蓄的。他对傅抱石的纪念显而易见，但也隐约可见特纳（William Turner，1775—1851）对于氛围的消融，克利（Paul Klee，1879—1940）的玩味，甚至迪本科恩（Richard Diebenkorn , 1922—1993）的空间开放性。然而，杨远威的做法与其说是挪用，不如说是吸收。他的艺术表明，“艺术影响”不受地域或媒介束缚，水墨线条可以与油画对话，中国水墨画可以呼应欧洲现代主义而无需突出其混杂性。
画作具开放性，拒绝任何狭隘分类
杨先生既不是海外中国水墨画家，也不是全球化的融合主义者。他只是一个回应所见所感的画家，“汲取”对他而言仍然是有意义的艺术资源。他的成就不在于风格上的创新，而在于回应的真实性。
结语
这是一场永无止境的旅程。杨远威的近期作品不作纪念碑式的宣言，而是画家专注的私人行为⸺画作汇聚成为这位年逾八旬却依然对世界保持开放态度的艺术家的日记。它们的价值在于画家拒绝遵循单一身份、风格或民族传统的叙事。
在欧美的批评语境中，杨远威的成就也许可以概括如下：这些画作展现了艺术家对生命的持久投入。杨远威将自己的执着、好奇与脆弱投射于全部画面。它们是诗意的漫游，是开放的姿态。这些作品邀请我们透过一位长者的眼睛去观察世界，世界依然值得描绘。
画家简介
杨远威，1943年出生，江苏人，现居美国芝加哥。中国画学会（美国）荣誉会长，《芝加哥艺术论坛》首席撰稿人。
英文原稿
The Poetic Wanderings of Yang Yuanwei: Ink, Memory, and the Unfinished Journey
By Prof. Cindy Kaszubowska (Canada) In reviewing the recent works of Yang Yuanwei, a Chinese artist now in his eighties and long resident in the United States, one cannot help but feel that these nine paintings are less a series than a sequence of meditations—episodes in an ongoing dialogue between memory, place, and painterly invention. If many exhibitions by octogenarian artists appear as codas or summations, Yang’s ink sketches resist such closure. They are not “last words,” but rather moments of poetic wandering, attempts to capture something of the world as it continues to flow before his eyes and through his mind.
A Life Etched in Ink and Memory
Yang’s career, though grounded in the discipline of Chinese brushwork, has never been confined to it. His present works are emphatically not demonstrations of tradition, nor do they labor under the overused label of “East–West fusion.” Instead, they are records of lived experience: the hand of an artist who has crossed oceans, aged alongside shifting modernities, and absorbed influences without anxiety about where they come from.At eighty, the sense of time weighs on every gesture. These paintings bear the delicacy of a hand that knows both fragility and persistence. The brush is sometimes hurried, sometimes meditative, but always deeply personal. What we encounter is less the “subject matter” of Nevada deserts, Alpine monasteries, or Parisian streets, and more the resonance these places stir in Yang. Each sheet of paper holds the vibration of recollection, a poetic attempt to pin down the transient quality of being in a place at a moment in life when each encounter feels both fleeting and essential.
The Nevada Landscapes: Between Wilderness and Solitude
Two works set in Nevada—*Spring Arrives in Nevada* and *Green Grass in the Wasteland – Nevada’s Feelings*—frame Yang’s American experience not through the lens of grandeur but through intimacy. These are not monumental landscapes of the American West, but inward-facing sketches of quiet transformation.In *Spring Arrives in Nevada*, Yang captures the improbable vitality of new life in a terrain better known for barrenness. The brushstrokes are playful, yet never naïve: the artist conveys a fragile pulse of renewal, as if spring itself were an unexpected visitor. By contrast, *Green Grass in the Wasteland* is more introspective. The title alone signals that the work is as much about the painter’s emotional condition as about the land. The swath of green, laid against muted tones, functions as a metaphor for resilience—an echo of his own persistence in old age. These works read as parallel journals: the one recording surprise at life’s continual return, the other an elegy for endurance.
The European Sketches: Memory, Distance, and Affection
Yang’s travels—or perhaps remembered travels—across Europe surface in *The World Inside is Wonderful – The Monastery in the Alps*, *European Landscape That Mr. Fu Baoshi Forgot to Paint*, and *Working at Sunrise – Old European Cities*. Each suggests not the eye of a tourist but the memory of an elder who has wandered and now reconfigures what remains vivid.The Alps monastery painting radiates a kind of inner light. Its title suggests that what drew Yang was less the mountain itself than the cloistered interiority of monastic life, a world apart that resonates with his own solitude. The monastery becomes an allegory: the artist’s studio as cell, his ink as prayer.
More playful, and more revealing, is the painting titled *European Landscape That Mr. Fu Baoshi Forgot to Paint*. Here Yang positions himself in dialogue with the great 20th-century Chinese master, as if to humorously fill a historical gap. But the wit conceals an earnestness: Yang sees himself as continuing an unfinished conversation between East Asian ink practice and European scenery. Yet unlike Fu’s heroic sweeps of brush, Yang’s lines hesitate, trail, and cluster, betraying both the fragility of memory and the humility of one who paints not to impress but to remember.The painting of an old European city at sunrise is perhaps the most atmospheric. The title emphasizes work, labor, daily life—the dawn routines of people in streets centuries old. Yang’s brush suggests the soft haze of early light, but what lingers is his sympathy for ordinary existence. The cityscape becomes a mirror of endurance: just as buildings outlast generations, Yang’s ink lines try to inscribe permanence within impermanence.
The American Urban Scenes: Between Spectacle and Quiet Reflection
If Europe gives Yang memories, America gives him immediacy. The works depicting New York’s Central Park, the Chicago River at dusk, and the Hudson River by Manhattan demonstrate his negotiation with the contemporary metropolis.
*New York Central Park Overlooking* avoids grand skyline drama. Instead, it captures distance and breath: the way the park opens a clearing within the city’s density. The sketch is airy, its brushwork sparse, as though Yang’s eye lingers not on the skyscrapers but on the possibility of respite.*Night Falls on the Chicago River* is heavier, darker, more atmospheric. Here Yang’s ink modulates into washes that verge on abstraction. The title suggests narrative closure—night falling, an end to the day—but the painting refuses finality. The water shimmers, the buildings lean, and the whole composition feels in suspension.Finally, *On the Hudson—Manhattan Style* is the boldest of the American group. The square format centers on the restless interaction of river and skyline. But Yang resists the temptation to monumentalize Manhattan. His brush breaks the forms into suggestive gestures, dissolving solidity into impression. Manhattan becomes not an emblem of power but a fragile mirage, glimpsed through the sensibility of one who remains an outsider even after decades in America.
Paris in Autumn: The Last Lightness
Among these nine works, *Autumn Colors on the Streets of Paris* is the most lyrical. The small size of the paper suits its subject: a fragment of street, touched by seasonal change. Yang’s brush flickers with warm tones, hinting at both vitality and decline. The autumn leaf becomes his self-portrait: delicate, transient, yet still aglow.What is striking here is not nostalgia for Paris as a cultural capital but a personal affection for a fleeting moment. The artist does not monumentalize the city but registers its passing color. At eighty, such sensitivity is less about melancholy than about acceptance.
Modernist Echoes Without Formalism
Throughout these works, Yang engages modernist strategies—not through deliberate stylistic borrowing but through sensibility. The fragmentary composition of *Night Falls on the Chicago River*, the abstraction of light and color in *Hudson River*, and the playful intertextuality of the Fu Baoshi homage all resonate with modernist impulses toward incompleteness, ambiguity, and personal vision. Yet Yang is never doctrinaire. Unlike artists who build careers on a recognizable signature style, Yang refuses to impose uniformity on his subjects.
This refusal is important. Many contemporary painters, especially those negotiating between traditions, cultivate a “brand identity.” Yang resists this, perhaps instinctively. His practice remains closer to poetry than to visual branding: each painting is a stanza, written for the occasion, responsive to the particularity of its subject. To expect consistency would be to misunderstand his project.
The Weight of Age, the Lightness of Gesture
What unifies these nine works is not style but life. They carry the imprint of an artist who has lived long enough to know that coherence is less important than resonance. At times, his brush falters, lines scatter, forms loosen. But this is not weakness. Rather, it is honesty: the body’s frailty transposed into a poetic lightness.One senses that Yang paints less to assert mastery than to register presence. To sit before a river in Chicago or a park in New York, to recall a monastery in the Alps or a street in Paris, and to sketch—this is his form of keeping faith with the world. At eighty, each brushstroke is both fragile and defiant.
A Wider Inheritance Without Borders
If Yang draws from predecessors, he does so eclectically. The allusion to Fu Baoshi is explicit, but hints of Turner’s atmospheric dissolutions, Klee’s playfulness, or even Diebenkorn’s openness of space surface here and there. Yet Yang does not appropriate so much as absorb. His art demonstrates that influence need not be bound by geography or media: an ink line can converse with oil paint, a Chinese hand can echo European modernism, without the need to proclaim hybridity.This openness resists any narrow categorization. Yang is neither a “Chinese ink painter abroad” nor a “globalized fusionist.” He is, simply, a painter who responds to what he sees and feels, drawing upon whatever artistic resources remain meaningful to him. His achievement lies not in stylistic innovation but in the authenticity of this responsiveness.
A Journey Without End
Yang Yuanwei’s recent works are not monumental declarations, nor are they rehearsals of tradition. They are intimate acts of attention—sketches that, taken together, form a diary of an artist still receptive to the world in his ninth decade. Their value lies in their refusal to conform to a singular narrative of identity, style, or national tradition.In the end, these paintings testify to an artist’s enduring engagement with life. The Nevada deserts, Alpine monasteries, European cities, American rivers, and Parisian streets are less landscapes than mirrors: surfaces on which Yang projects his own persistence, curiosity, and fragility. They are poetic wanderings, gestures of openness, invitations to see through the eyes of one who has lived long and still finds the world worth sketching.
In the European and American critical context, Yang’s achievement might be summarized thus: he offers not a style but a sensibility, not a synthesis but a sincerity. His art is modern not because it adopts modernist forms, but because it remains true to the modern condition: fragmentary, provisional, and deeply personal.
文|Prof. Cindy Kaszubowska
图|杨远威
審校|混沌
编辑|仁来
来源：愙斋书法
