傅伯星:重现南宋西湖三十景
2018-10-11马黎王平
马黎 王平
前几天,去了趟傅伯星先生家,主要为了送一张摄影师肖全给他拍的照片。
去年夏天,肖全来杭州拍200个杭州人,特意跑到了傅伯星家,“我请他转身坐在自己的画作面前,他的身体一半在南宋,一半在杂乱的书桌前,盯着我的镜头抿嘴一笑。南宋的遗风就在眼前。”肖全当时这样说。
重画南宋西湖三十景
一些老杭州应该知道傅伯星的名字。
上世纪80年代,傅伯星还在《浙江日报》做美术编辑,开始断断续续地画一些关于南宋的画。但一下笔,心里有点发虚:在纸上呈现的每一样东西,都需要有细节支撑,怎么办?他开始东奔西走收集南宋的文史资料,1990年提前退休后,长期从事插画和连环画创作,兼涉南宋史的研习与写作,出版了介绍南宋及杭州文史的图书十种。这么一写一画,三十多年就过去了。
我去送照片的那天早上,台风刚过,不算太热,但手机一查,实时温度也有31摄氏度。老傅家里没开空调,也没开电扇,很奇怪,我坐着居然不太热。
“越是天热,我状态越好。”
画桌上iPad亮着,微信开着,相册里放着各种画。
老傅今年79岁,平时一般6点多起来,8点开始画画,“上午凉快,状态好。”午睡起来后的活动:刷屏,烧饭,“调剂下情绪。”晚上看完本地电视上的“阿六头说新闻”就睡觉了。
他每天可以发五六条朋友圈,其中南宋考古和历史的新闻比较多,而老先生最近画了什么,看朋友圈就知道。比如我发现这段时间,他常常会贴一些新作,线描草稿,都是杭州著名的景点,然后配一段小日记——
草图构了三整天,不赶,慢悠悠地画,用放大镜看原图《西湖清趣图》,尽量按其所示画出当时原意,让人知道南宋此景点与今天的不同。由于开始画在旧熟宣上,且净寺画得太大,昨日上街复印两份,再回来重画净寺,今日再出复印得此。但构线已觉力不从心,已无法如当年般有定力,明日且勉力为之,千万不可心急!自勉。
这张《雷峰塔》,就摆在客厅的沙发上,画面绷完已经好多天了,迟迟没有继续下一步:打线。“精力不是很集中就不画,一定要养精蓄锐,很有把握了再来画。”
有时候,他也会发发牢骚:“辛辛苦苦画了三天,发现许多错误,暂时不改了,以后来劲了再改。”
看来,这段时间,老先生每天拿着放大镜,就做一件事:重画南宋西湖三十景,并发动他的学生一起画。
这三十景,是他自己从《西湖清趣图》里“抽”出来的。
这里有必要再补充下《西湖清趣图》的知识——现藏美国弗利尔艺术馆,为水墨设色纸本长卷。此前,对于作者和年代一直有争议,大部分专家认为,《西湖清趣图》表现的是南宋晚期的西湖人文景物,而且是写实的。
浙江省文物考古研究所研究员郑嘉励曾写过一文,结合文献记载和考古发现,他认为《西湖清趣图》描绘的是南宋末年或可稍晚至元初的西湖,且无论该画创作于元代、明代或更晚,均应该严格参考过南宋末的“粉本”。
老傅也认为,画中的西湖景观,应为宋末元初,他想通过“再画一遍”,来证实这件事。“我们现在对南宋西湖的风景,基本上是没有概念的,那时的风景,跟我们现在基本上不一样了,很多已经没有了。”
而重画还有一件有趣的事:纠错。
断桥,红栏红立柱白色桥墩
研究过《西湖清趣图》人应该都发现了,这个画家的技法很一般,用老傅的话说,“不是很到门”,比如画画最基本的透视原理都没掌握,很多桥、亭,都画得不对。
傅伯星觉得,这幅画可能带有导游图的性质,“游客或者买家可能有个要求,你要把西湖的所有景点都能正面显示出来。所以很多景点都拉平了,看到的都是正面,不符合透视。”
比如《西湖清趣图》里的西泠桥。这那是桥?明明是门啊。
傅伯星一笑,“我也觉得奇怪,最后对照了《武林旧事》里的方位才搞清楚,原来是西泠桥,桥上有门,但画者没有掌握复杂的透视原理,画成了我们看到的这模样。其实在南宋的时候,关于透视,很多画家掌握得非常好。严格来讲,他可能不是一个画家,而是一个刚入行的民间画工。”
傅伯星重新还原了一下,发现南宋的西泠桥比断桥更加通透秀逸,与孤山隐士林和靖、葛岭西下的古刹相得益彰,很有诗意。“因为桥下多排柱,也称之:多排柱桥。这一类型在涌金门城外还有一座,只是没有门。”
当然,我们现在的西泠桥已经大不一样了。“如果我不去画,没人去做这件事了,大家都不知道南宋时候的样子了。”
再说说我们熟悉的断桥。
这一次,畫家在技术上没出问题,但问题是,你能认出这是断桥吗?
傅伯星画完后,又发了一个朋友圈——
这是南宋时的断桥!终于在《西湖清趣图》看到他的真实形象。红栏、红立柱(桥下),白色桥墩,在青山绿水中鲜明夺目。桥面有石阶,桥两头各一对风向标杆,与《清明上河图》中虹桥两端的风向标杆一脉相承。以后拍南宋西湖电视时,别再套用今桥,勿忘勿忘!
我们说说区别。
南宋的断桥没有亭子,而我们现在的桥畔有一座著名的“云水光中亭”;
桥墩设有两对华表,也就是老傅说的风向标。桥堍华表,是两宋常见的名物。《清明上河图》虹桥两侧,也有同类的华表。但现在的断桥上没有了;
画中的桥有三个桥洞,上面有台阶,比较陡。而我们现在的断桥长而平。
最重要的是,南宋的断桥居然是红色的。
“这个断桥多少好看,当年‘西湖西进时,我们不知道这个图,不然可以建议恢复。”傅伯星说。
红色?会不会是画家的艺术创作?
我们来读诗——南宋诗人董嗣杲《西湖百咏·断桥》:“绣毂青骢骤晚风,柳丝翠袅石栏红。彩篙刺水停飞鹢,华表侵云截卧虹。”
可知断桥的华表、勾栏均作红色,与画中的断桥设色一致,也证明了《西湖清趣图》所绘为南宋末年的西湖。
“这些知识如果不单独拎出来,杭州老百姓永远都不会知道。”傅伯星说。
西湖中的小船也不一样。傅伯星还请学生在PDF里做了一个比较,包括临水矮墙——
小船,仅三小间,无首尾舱。船工摇橹以行,此外还有无舱的小舟,划桨行舟。这些小舟中有两款有小舱者一插红旗,一插白旗。
傅伯星从相关记载推测,红者可能是水警,因当年有个机构叫“排岸司”,专管内河水上秩序,其船漆红。白者可能是水上售货(酒食)船、白旗原来可能有字,但因旗子画太小了没法写入。“卷中凡临水地面,几乎皆有矮墙和栅栏,是为警示和防止游人不慎落水。”
还有一座瞭望塔——
这是火警瞭望塔,上世纪50年代吴山火警瞭望塔的形制与它基本一致。
把已经消失的风景画回来
如今已经消失的西湖风景,傅伯星都要把他们还原出来。
有一座建筑,叫“德生堂”,估计大部分人都没听过。
老傅拿放大镜仔细地在孤山周围看了一圈,发现《西湖清趣图》南北二山(包括孤山)凡面向西湖的山坡上,竟然排列着众多高台建筑,约今天望湖楼的地方,整个山坡被包装成了一座巨大的高台基,台上就建了五开间的德生堂。
傅伯星说,这超大体量的建筑并不是什么朝廷或首都的重大建筑,仅是一处公共场所:每年四月初八日在此举办佛祖诞辰纪念礼拜活动。
“如果临安府没有充裕雄厚的财力基础,没有周边众多高台建筑的成功示范,要建成这样一座并无经济实效的‘民心工程,几乎是绝无可能的。如果你不把它单独画出来,我们无法知道当时还有这么一个建筑。所以,我要用今天的技术把它画清楚。我一开始以为是两层高台,画了以后才知道,这个不是高台,而是高台的顶平面。像这种缺点就要把它纠正过来,不然别人看不懂,也会造成误解。”
还有三座岛——请注意,不是我们熟悉的“湖中三岛”。
“这里有个非常要紧的事情,南宋外西湖上是没有岛的,杭州人熟悉的小瀛洲、湖心亭、阮公墩,都是明清时期形成的。但是,苏堤西侧从南第一桥到南第三桥,有三座半岛或小岛,都以岛上的主建筑命名。”老傅对照了周密的《武林旧事》“湖山胜概”一节,“一个个对下去,就找到了它们”,依次为先贤堂、湖山堂、三贤堂。
“写西湖的诗词里,经常会提到它们,但没有人知道样子,我也想画过好几次,都是凭自己瞎想,后来看到这个才知道原来是怎么事情。”
傅伯星说,三贤堂是白居易、林逋、苏轼的纪念馆,岛面积显然比湖山堂岛小许多,但入口处外,木衡门两侧筑白墙围成左右竹园,内各一亭,颇有文人高逸潇洒的风范。过桥后的建筑也量体裁衣,特别紧凑,就东向正堂后屋各一間外加坊门廊屋,曲折而围成一院。唯院内外南北两端临湖各建一水堂。
先贤堂,大约是今天的花港公园,但是,后二岛不知何故在元代就消失了,从此退出了人们的记忆,再无人知其大概。如果说,《西湖清趣图》让消失长达约六百年的堤西二岛重新浮出水面,那么傅伯星用画,让它们真实地出现在我们面前。
消失的风景,还有一座“显应观”。
“灵芝寺,就是现在的钱王祠,旁边是显应观,也是一个非常有名的地方。过去一直不知道到底在什么地方,看完画以后才搞清楚原来就在钱王祠的旁边。这块地现在还在,就是建筑没有了。”
更有意思的是,南宋西湖的导游,曾设计过一个“南宋西湖一日游”。对照着画,我们来听听古风“导游”傅伯星先生的解说词,回到南宋初夏的一天——
先南后北,从涌金门外上船,向南在船上观赏灵芝寺(今钱王祠)、显应观、聚景园等一应景点的外貌,至长桥折西在夕照山前上岸,游雷峰塔、净慈寺,回船稍前折西,沿苏堤东侧湖山堂前泊舟上岸,刚好时近中午。
画中此处前后停泊着五六艘大型画舫,岸上西边排列着四座简单的棚屋,靠入口木衡门处还飘着一面“招幌”(广告旗),但字迹不清。此处即为游人购买点心小吃和土特产品的湖上市集。
过了堤西小石桥,迎面是白坊门和白墙围成的院落。院内外桃红柳绿,兼有小亭。其西巨杉高松中有歇山顶红墙数段,朝南排列,可能为湖山堂主体建筑。上述院落之左,地面向西退入,又有坊门二进院落,屋皆东向,唯南向面湖之处有两排屋面特长,并改为坐北朝南。其最前一屋,可能就是记载中颇受称道的、面宽十一间的水阁。因透视所限,作者无法作正面描绘,不过总算找到了它的下落。
南宋三十景,傅伯星希望年底可以画完,再调整一下,争取明年公开展览,“让杭州人见识一下真实的南宋西湖。”
“画这些风景,最难的是识别。因为有些不合理的,要搞清楚为什么出错。”老傅说,像《雷峰塔》,第二天上午,他只准备用淡墨勾后面的山,“一天只能做这件事,多做肯定做坏了。”
拜访这天,太太正好出去了。而前几天,老傅在朋友圈里发了张照片,他一个人在画画,一只小狗趴在他的凳子下,陪着。狗狗是女儿带来的,在老爸家寄放了几天。
“一个人画画时,有人在旁边呢,嫌烦,特别是我画得很仔细的时候,她突然提出一个问题……哎,我这个老太婆会猛然提出一个问题,恼火得很。”他笑,“但有时候呢,画都很累,想要讲话的时候,又没有人讲,那狗在旁边,就跟它讲讲话。
Fu Boxing is a name some senior readers of Zhejiang Daily may remember clearly. Now 79 years old, Fu used to work as an illustrator for the paper. In the early 1980s, he needed to create some drawings that portrayed the Southern Song (1127-1279), a dynasty seated in Hangzhou. The artist found many uncertainties while trying to insert details. He began to collect texts and images about the dynasty. By the time his premature retirement in 1990, he had published ten books on the Southern Song.
I visited Fu the other day, bringing him some photos taken in the summer of 2017 by portrait photographer Xiao Quan. That summer, Xiao photographed 200 Hangzhou residents, part of his ambitious portrait project. “I asked him to turn around to face me from a painting beside him. He turned. It was as if half of him was in the Southern Song and the other half was before the disorderly desk. He smiled at the camera. The elegance of the Southern Song surfaced in that smile,” Xiao recalled the moment.
Nowadays, Fu follows a rigorous and simple timetable. He gets up about six oclock in the morning and begins to draw at 8. This summer, he worked in the morning as it was cooler and he was in a better form. After a nap in the afternoon, he surfs internet and cooks. He goes to bed around 9:30 after watching local news on television.
Fu is now fully engaged in an ambitious project of recreating the 30 scenic highlights of the West Lake in the Southern Song. His recreation project is based on , an ancient painting scroll in the traditional Chinese style, now in the collection of the Freer Gallery of Art in USA. Who was the original artist and when it was painted are open to discussion. Most experts agree that the masterpiece, which is about 20 meters long, is a copy of the attractions of the West Lake during the last decades of the dynasty or the early decades of the Yuan. Even though experts cannot agree with each other even about in which dynasty the attractions were painted, they tend to agree that it must have been based on the attractions of the Southern Song.
Fu supports the idea that the attractions in the painting must have been around in the last years of the Southern Song and the early years of the Yuan. “We have no idea what the West Lake looked like in the Southern Song. The attractions of the yesteryears are essentially different from what we see today. Some attractions are long gone.”
Another purpose of Fus ambitious project is to make corrections of the original painting. Those who have examined the original painting must be aware of the poor skills of the artist. In Fus opinion, the skills were “lousy”. The artist didnt seem to understand perspective. Bridges and pavilions in the painting look absurd. It is known that some artists in the Southern Song Dynasty understood and were able to present perspective perfectly. From this, Fu guessed the artist must have been at an essential level. Fu tends to believe that the painting was probably commissioned by someone who wanted a guide map for a lake tour.
In addition to correcting mistakes in the original painting and putting the highlights in right perspective, Fu wants to restore the 30 attractions of the Southern Song Dynasty.
Take Broken Bridge for instance. The famous attraction of the West Lake looked totally different in the 11th century. In Fus painting, the broken bridge has balustrades and piers painted in red. At the either end of the bridge is a wind vane. A flight of steps goes to the top of the bridge. The bridge has three arches. The piers have two pairs of ornamental columns. In the Southern Song, the bridge did not have a pavilion either on the top of the bridge or by the bridge. Nowadays, at one end of the bridge stands a pavilion.
The red bridge has nothing to do with the imagination of the artist. A poem by Dong Sigao of the Southern Song mentions the red stone balustrades and red ornamental columns of the bridge. “If these historical facts were not singled out and highlighted today, residents of Hangzhou would never know,” remarked Fu. “Had we known about these facts when the western expansion project of the West Lake was underway, we could have probably done something about the West Lake,” wondered Fu.
Fu not only wants to restore what some attractions of the West Lake looked like in the Southern Song but also wishes to bring back some attractions that have been long gone. Take Desheng Hall for instance. Most people today even do not know the tall building once existed on the West Lake. It was not an architectural landmark. It was just a public place where a ceremony was held annually on April 8th on the lunar calendar in commemoration of the birthday of Buddha.
For Fu, the most challenging job is to recognize what is wrong in the original painting. He studies details of the copy of the painting with a magnifying glass.
Fu expects to conclude the project by the end of 2018. He will do some adjustments here and there to make the 30 attractions harmonized. He will work to see if it is possible to hold an exhibition so that the public will have an opportunity to see what the West Lake looked like in the Southern Song.
His wife was not at home the day I visited Fu. I asked about a photo he uploaded into a social media in which he was painting and a dog was lying near his feet. Fu and his wife were temporarily babysitting the dog for their daughter for a few days. “I like to be left alone when I paint. I feel upset if someone hovers around. I would feel extremely frustrated if someone suddenly disrupted me. My wife cant care less. She will throw a question at me very often at such a moment. But sometimes I feel tired and want to talk. If no one is around, I talk with the dog and it keeps good company.”