芳草说 | 从现代主义绘画谈到动画创作 The View: What Is Animation?

2021年的一篇《芳草说》曾提到，动画在时间上的连续性引发了创作者的一系列思考（《从静止到连续》）。而在本期《芳草说》中，动画导演卫诗磊则从时间的维度，浅析动画与现代主义绘画的关系，并向我们揭示他如何理解、应用这种关系进行创作。

In 2021, we discussed the continuity of animation in The View: From still to The View: From Still to Continuity, and how it inspired creators. In today's The View, animation director Wei Shilei elaborated on the relationship between modernist painting and animation and unveiled the application of such progress in action.

“动画是什么？”这种安德烈 巴赞似的诘问，在动画领域从未有人提出。作为一个以动画作为主要媒介的创作者，思维偶尔会触碰到这个问题，得到的经常是一种武断的回答：“动画，算不上艺术，勉强算电影”。

"What is animation"? It sounds as provocative as a typical André Bazin-style question, yet has never been raised in the animation community. As a creator relying on animation as a medium, the question crosses my mind occasionally. Quite often, I get an answer off hand, "animation is not categorized into art; film category would make sense".

动画，也许算不上高雅艺术（fine art），但至少可以算作低俗艺术（low art）或者商业艺术。然而产生这样认识的时代也只是在20世纪初期，那时的美国流行文化通常都被贴上低俗艺术的标签。

Animation may not be counted as fine art, but at least it falls into low art or commercial art. This view about animation only took shape in the early 20th century, when American pop culture was labeled as low art.

布面丙烯，罗伊·利希滕斯坦（Roy Lichtenstein）

Acrylic on canvas by Roy Lichtenstein

而到1960年代，高雅艺术（fine art）艺术史中的波普艺术（pop art）出现。波普艺术家罗伊·利希滕斯坦（Roy Lichtenstein）开始对流行文化大加赞赏，特别是美国文化。他的作品多直接复制自美国报纸上的漫画，他从这种低俗的大众艺术中提炼出一种代表性的视觉语言——本戴圆点（benday dots），那是一种用于印刷时表现灰度网点。他着迷于漫画这种标准化的线条和圆点，这使得他的作品看起来是客观的、无情感的。既没有艺术家的情感介入，更没有手的介入。他的绘画揭示出深植在媒介中的标准化趋势。同时他发现了低俗艺术中的美，并将之提升到了高雅艺术的地位。

By the 1960s, pop art emerged in the history of fine art. Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein admired pop culture, especially American culture. Most of Roy's works are direct cartoon copies from American newspapers, which he refined into ben-day dots, a representative visual language imbued with such popular art. Ben-day dots are used to represent gradation in printing. Roy was fascinated by the standardized lines and dots, which rendered impersonal and detached cartoons. With no traces of emotions or artificial polishment, the works reveal mechanical reproduction rooted in media culture. It is in this creative process, he discovered the beauty of low art and elevated it to fine art.

安迪·沃霍尔( Andy Warhol)广告插画设计

An illustration for advertising design by Andy Warhol

（摄于2021年尤伦斯北京UCAA安迪·沃霍尔展览）

(Photo credit: Becoming Andy Warhol UCAA Beijing 2021)

而另一位出身于广告设计师和商业插画师的波普艺术艺术家安迪·沃霍尔  Andy Warhol，更是在他名叫工厂（the factory）的工作室里，将那些从垃圾堆中捡回来的报纸上的名人照片，通过一系列暗房技术制作成丝网版画。他认为绘画也是商品，人们购买的不过是一件带有名字的产品。批量生产的标准性与消费主义统治了美国社会。对此安迪·沃霍尔与利希滕斯坦一样，他即不赞扬，也不谴责。

Another pop artist Andy Warhol, also an advertising designer and commercial illustrator, created silkscreen printings with darkroom techniques in the Factory studio. The prototypes were celebrity photos on newspapers that Andy picked up from the garbage. He regarded paintings as commodities, with a name for people to buy. He saw that mass production and consumerism had dominated American society, which neither Andy Warhol nor Roy Lichtenstein praised nor condemned.

安迪·沃霍尔( Andy Warhol)，丝网版画

A silkscreen printing by Andy Warhol

（摄于2021年北京尤伦斯UCAA安迪·沃霍尔展览）

(Photo credit: Becoming Andy Warhol UCAA Beijing 2021)

无论罗伊·利希滕斯坦还是安迪·沃霍尔，似乎都印证了波普艺术来自于美国的低俗艺术。美国低俗艺术除了漫画和广告设计，就当属以迪斯尼为首的美国动画了。而作为低俗艺术的美国动画，从视觉语言上与波普艺术有着极为类似的形式。这种形式既有丝网版画那种鲜艳明亮的平涂色块，也有来自于漫画那样标准化的线条和圆点。同时丝毫不掩饰其作为艺术商品的属性，热情拥抱资本主义，是消费社会重要的美国景观之一。从某种意义上说，美国动画也是某种波普艺术，至少是波普艺术的雏形和鼻祖。

Both Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol seem to testify that pop art stems from American low art that the Disney-led American animation pops up along with cartooning and advertising design. American animation is quite similar to pop art in terms of visual language. It draws bright plane color blocks from silkscreen printings, and renders the standardized lines and dots from cartoons. Unabashed as being an art commodity, it embraces capitalism passionately, being one of the American phenomenon in a consumer society. In a sense, American animation falls into pop art, and is its prototype and origin at least.

安迪·沃霍尔( Andy Warhol)丝网版画

A silkscreen printing by Andy Warhol

（摄于2021年北京尤伦斯UCAA安迪·沃霍尔展览）

(Photo credit: Becoming Andy Warhol UCAA Beijing 2021)

而动画作为艺术，其实远远不止于波普艺术。从某种意义上讲，动画是多了一个时间维度的现代艺术。如果说电影是接过了摄影艺术的接力棒，独立发展为一门本体性时间艺术。那动画可能就是接过了绘画的接力棒，独立发展出的另一门时间艺术。

As a form of art, animation extends far beyond pop art. In a sense, animation is modern art characterized by the element of time. If films represent a form of art, with an ontological time structure, independently developed from photography, animation might also be an art of time independently developed from painting.

动画，几乎是与现代主义绘画同步出现的一门时间艺术。在美国、日本以外的国家（例如：欧洲、加拿大、俄罗斯、中国等）动画大多时候是现代主义艺术的另一块主要阵地。很多动画艺术家同时也是当时各国最重要的现代主义艺术家，例如：达达主义的德国实验动画导演汉斯·李希特 Hans Richter、抽象主义的加拿大动画作者诺曼·麦克拉伦 Norman McLaren、现实主义的爱沙尼亚动画作者皮特·帕恩 Priit Pärn、超现实主义的捷克动画作者杨·史云梅耶 Jan Švankmajer、表现主义中国动画设计张光宇、以及后现代动画艺术家威廉·肯特里奇 William Kentridge 等。动画中的绘画，从波普艺术开始，几乎与现代主义、后现代主义艺术有着极为密切的关联，且都能在动画史中找到相应的印证。

Animation is a form of art associated with time which came into being roughly in sync with modernist painting. Apart from the US and Japan, animation holds a main front of modernist art in European countries, Canada, Russia, and China. Numerous animation filmmakers are also renowned as modernist maestros in many countries. Some of the most representative examples include: Hans Richter, the German Dadaist experimental animation artist; Norman McLaren, the Canadian abstract animation artist; Priit Pärn, the Estonian realistic animation artist; Jan Švankmajer, the Czech surrealistic animation artist; Zhang Guangyu, the Chinese expressionist animation designer; and William Kentridge, the postmodern animation artist, etc. Since the advent of pop art, painterly practice within the framework of animation has been closely entwined with modernism and postmodernism.

草地上的早餐，皮特·帕恩 (Priit Pärn)

Breakfast on the Grass by Priit Pärn

草地上的午餐， 爱德华·马奈 Édouard Manet

Lunch on the Grass by Édouard Manet

自从摄影机发明之日起，“绘画已死”的口号一直喊到了今天。作为纯艺术的绘画也从杜尚开始几乎失去它的最后一块阵地。而当下社会，如果统计哪个行业的人画画最多，动画说第二，不知道还有谁还敢说第一。从某种意义上说，动画延续了绘画自以为早已丧失的某种功能性，这种功能性直到今天依然没有丧失生命力。如果说前现代的绘画已死，那么在现代社会的绘画可能就是以一种时间性的方式得到了重生，那就是动画。可到了今天，“电影已死”的声浪又开始不绝于耳之时，动画却早已站在通向元宇宙的大门口等待多时了。

The expression "From today, painting is dead", which was proclaimed against the invention of daguerreotype, is resounding till this day. Painting, as a form of pure art, lost its prominent position after the emergence of Duchamp's works. In modern society, the animation industry attracts many painters. In a sense, animation extends a long-lost function of painting, but the vigor of the function remains dynamic. Suppose pre-modern painting is dead, perhaps modern painting is renewed as animation. Nowadays, as "Cinema is Dead" is repeatedly proclaimed, animation has been at the door of metaverse.

碎银子1，46*71cm，丝网版画，卫诗磊

Scattered Silver 1 by Wei Shilei, 46*71cm, silkscreen printing

碎银子2，46*71cm，丝网版画，卫诗磊

Scattered Silver 2 by Wei Shilei, 46*71cm, silkscreen printing

欢乐颂，71*46cm，丝网版画，卫诗磊

Ode to Joy by Wei Shilei, 71*46cm, silkscreen printing

像青草一样呼吸，纸本丙烯，卫诗磊，王丹

Breathe like Grass by Wei Shilei, Wang Dan, acrylic on paper

最后说说我的动画创作。一直以来，动画对于我来说是一种基于时间的绘画，以及一种基于绘画的写作。把绘画放在时间轴上最终形成某种意义，才是我创作作品的思考方式。而我的绘画大多时候与记忆相关，是关于人、语言、空间的记忆。前20岁的记忆是缺乏图像印证的记忆，而20岁以后我的记忆都有摄影作为印证。摄影是对记忆的档案式储存。摄影不是目的，而是手段。

Finally, I'd like to share my views on the animation creation. For me, animation has always been time-based painting, and painting-based writing. Putting paintings on the timeline to form meanings is the way I think about creating works. Most of my paintings are reminiscent of memories about people, language, and space. Before 20 years old, my memory lacks image records. Afterwards there came photography, an archive of memories, offering a means instead of a purpose.

此外，我还做过很多传统技法的绘画，包括黑白画、丝网版画、丙烯画、水彩等。我的想象必须依靠图像才可以展开。而我动画中的美术可能并不是大众意义上美的作品，还可能有点丑。我希望像现代主义画家那样思考关于绘画和形式的问题，同时像作家那样将图像写作成时间。

I made attempts on traditional painting techniques, including monochrome, silkscreen, acrylic, and watercolor. My imagination only unfolds at the sight of graphics. The art in my animated works may not echo with the popular aesthetics, rather, it might be ugly. I expect to ponder over painting and form like a modernist painter, while composing images into time like a writer.

电梯一日，动画短片，13min，卫诗磊，王丹

One Day in Lift by Wei Shilei, Wang Dan, animated short film, 13min

电梯一日，动画短片，13min，卫诗磊，王丹

One Day in Lift by Wei Shilei, Wang Dan, animated short film, 13min

补色，动画短片，9min，卫诗磊

The Complementary Color by Wei Shilei, animated short film, 9min

补色，动画短片，9min，卫诗磊

The Complementary Color by Wei Shilei, animated short film, 9min