Footnotes

Provenance
Marlborough Fine Art Ltd., London
James H. Clark Collection, Dallas, Texas, USA
Clark Gallery, Lincoln, Massachusetts, USA
Acquired from the above by the present owner

林壽宇
全灰
油彩畫布
1970年作

簽名：RICHARD LIN 1970（背面底板）
底板貼有馬勃羅畫廊標籤

來源
英國倫敦馬勃羅畫廊
美國德州達拉斯James H. Clark 收藏
美國馬薩諸塞州林肯市Clark 畫廊
現藏家得自上述來源

To many artists, a white canvas is a starting point. To Richard Lin, however, it is both the starting point and the destination.

Completed in 1970, All Grey is an oil work from the mature period of Richard Lin's artistic career. Presented entirely in white, the picture is deceptively simple. Upon close examination, viewers would notice that the artist had meticulously painted layers of rectangles in an orderly fashion. The sense of balance and stability exuded from these rational and minimalistic lines are reminiscent of the Bauhaus school of modernist architecture.

When viewers gaze at one particular rectangle, they will perceive it as white. Yet, when they view the background in conjunction with the rectangles, they will realise that the foreground and background are of different shades. This effect asserts that there are no absolute white in the picture—all shades of white are relativistic. As a result, the myriad shades of white create a gradient palette of greys—hence, the title "All Grey", and not "All White".

In Eastern ink painting, it is theorised that "Ink has five shades". That is to say, ink can be used to represent various degrees of black. Black is not a singular hue—it is an element from which a spectrum of shades can be derived. The drawing discipline as well as black and white photography in Western art share a similar approach in this regard—they all endeavour to explore the nuances in the monochromatic palette. In All Grey, Richard Lin's approach is grounded in Chinese traditional culture. Following the Taoist philosophy, the artist rids the work of any traces of representations, imageries, brushworks, and hues in an attempt to achieve a state of nothingness. The polar opposite of black is white, and the concept of white has a very important place in Chinese ink painting. Liu Bai ("leaving white") is the technique of not painting certain parts of the work in order to stimulate the imagination. Richard Lin masterfully manipulates the textural quality of the oil painting medium to synthesise a state in which "White has five shades". All Grey perfectly utilises the rationality of geometric abstraction to express Eastern aesthetics and philosophies.

In 1966, Modernist master Joan Miró said the following in praise of Richard Lin, "In the world of white, you are without equal". It succinctly sums up the extraordinary achievement of Richard Lin's artistic career.

對很多畫家來說，白色的畫布是創作的起點。然而在林壽宇的眼中，白色既是起點，亦是終點。

《全灰》是林壽宇創作於1970年的油畫，屬於他的成熟時期風格。整個畫面看來只有單純的白，看似簡單，其實畫家非常仔細地以白色油彩一層疊一層，描繪出多個排列整齊的長方形。構圖整體對稱安定，線條理性簡約，流露出包浩斯式的現代建築風格。

當觀眾獨立地凝望某一個長方形時會覺得它是白色的，然而當眼球同時觀看背景時，便會發覺實際上是有深淺之分。亦即是說畫面上沒有絕對的白，而是相對的白，因而在整體視覺上產生灰階變化的效果，呼應了作品名為「全灰」，而非「全白」。

東方水墨藝術有「墨分五色」之說，即是指墨的黑色可以表現為不同程度的黑。黑色在畫面上不只是一種顏色，而是可以衍生出獨立的光譜變化。西方藝術的素描和黑白攝影方面其實也有共通之處，均講求在單色調中尋覓微妙的差異。然而林壽宇在《全灰》中則更多從中國傳統文化出發，以老莊虛無的思想為依歸，去除一切的形象、筆觸和色相，嘗試以西方的油畫物料去表現虛無的境界。黑的對立面是白，白在中國水墨中是非常重要的部分，「留白」其實令人可以想像更多。林壽宇善用了油彩物料可產生質感的特性，在畫布上營造出獨特的「白分五色」意境，完美地以理性的幾何元素去表現東方的美學和哲學精神。

西方現代藝術大師米羅在1966年曾經這樣形容林壽宇: 「在白色的世界中，無人能及。」一句簡單的話總結了林壽宇一生的非凡藝術成就。