作为一个典型的中学生(在二战尚没有改变美国习俗的年代)我不曾想过麻烦自己去学习某种第二语言，从此，总是羡慕那些精通二外或三外的人，时常被那些从两个音节的空间交错更替于一个单词和文法的人搞得“头晕目眩”。

　　我确信绘画也同样是一种由其形式构成文法的语言。因而在此也为马欣乐所精通的两种绘画语言而目眩。这种无法辩解，悍然而来的二重奏使人震撼耳目，也促使我以二重奏的方法来赏析欣乐的绘画艺术。

　　对现代艺术的研究，我总结出当一个画家在一幅作品中融合了不同风格的时候，那么这位画家就自然地跻身于二十世纪深受文学和心理学意识流影响的创作流派。有代表性地说：这位画家在创作一种排列有序而并无视觉关联的拼贴美术。不过当画家将这些风格分别表现在系列的作品之中时，这个系列便是通常所谓的一个画家的创作时期，譬如毕加索的“蓝色时期”、“玫瑰色的时期”。

　　那么，我们如何评价马欣乐同时用两种全然不同的风格创作的作画方式？他没有做不同风格的“拼贴”，也没有使两种风格相互冲突，而是完全保持两种风格的不同特色，并以各自所需的传统工具进行创作。其作于传统宣纸上的水墨画—体现着书法艺术的浩瀚、遒劲及浓厚的笔墨情趣；而其作于油画布上的人物与静物作品则充满着西方油画那种富有色彩表现力的大气风度。得益于中国传统书法的水墨画，能够使所描写的形体游历于白色的背景，形成一个永恒的空间。

　　他的静物及人体写生显然使用文艺复兴时期的绘画技巧，包括以焦点透视和明暗变化来表现处于三度空间的物体。其第一种形式全然是表现象征性的美，而后者则是真实性的美。

　　然而，越是研究欣乐的绘画，越是觉得他的绘画风格不拘一格，我感到一种中西融合的第三种风格，我相信他的这种风格产生于使用另外一种绘画手法，将透明性的水彩娴熟地挥洒在纸面，且无视于物像轮廓的束缚，一种起源于文艺复兴时期画家用来速记构图，作写生前准备或对人物和景物构图的速写方法。

　　西方画家的速写本中常常画满此类写生，未完成的创作构图式的空白使背景的白色起着一个重要的视觉效果。随着十九世纪绘画的迅速发展，欧洲这种速写式绘画技巧脱离了速写本而转化为使用不同薄厚的笔触直接在画布上表现，每一个笔触漂浮在白色的背景上，每一笔表现一个气氛因素或者一束反光。如此画家也同时分享着东方的象征主义和西方的视觉主义—塞尚的作品即是代表。

　　或许塞尚并无意识到他散洒的笔触下面的空白具有着永恒空间的象征意义。然而马欣乐吮吸着这种表现象征意义的东方传统艺术的营养长大，他的作品扭转了西方画家在技巧上向东方同化的模式，在继承与发展其东方前辈技巧的同时又吸取了西方视觉主义表现手法的精华，中西合璧，创作了颇具影响力的佳作。他的水墨画的空白与其它作品中速写式的布白手法具有同等意义。

　　回顾自己的绘画生涯，早年起步于写实绘画，随即又试图作一个现代画家，与二十世纪的时代主流同步。我曾探索塞尚所经之路，而能纳入我对抽象艺术的理解，还是依赖于与印象画派的融合，这个融合使我从事印象派风景绘画。由于实景写生，手法也变得多于描绘而简于抽象。这段实践又促使我直接对人写生(因为画模特的方便，免于出外觅景)，因此感到自己也经历了像欣乐一样作为一个画家的成熟过程，一个语言的战斗。

　　他的这种双重的绘画风格，通过对形体及自然氛围的观察来直接创作的“现实主义”令我甚感欣慰。这也是近世纪西方绘画创作的主要传统。抽象主义在各种形式的绘画中已经变为主导，它巧于描写多类冲突的信息，给画家以极大的自由，而这种冲突信息中的大部分，又是逐渐摧毁西方传统绘画的因素。或许欣乐尚未意识到他所投入的是一场多么难以应对的挑战。

　　1998.10于纽约

　　（文章来源：马欣乐作品选）

　　PREFACE Ⅲ

　　by Philip Pearlstein

　　As a typical high school student (in the years before World War II changed the ethos of the USA), I did not bother to study a second language seriously. Ever since I have envied those who have mastered second and third languages. Often I have been dazzled by the way some people shift within the space of two syllables from one vocabulary and syntax to another. I believe that painting is also a language with its syntax defined by style; so I am dazzled by the mastery of the two languages I see in the paintings of Michael Xinle Ma. I am struck by duality boldly set forth without apology, and I feel that I must come to terms with that duality.

　　From my study of the history of modern art, I have concluded that when an artist mixes styles in painting in a single work, that artist is creating in the mainstream of twentieth century art, which has largely been influenced by the literary/psychological idea of " stream of consciousness." Typically that artist creates a collage of juxtaposed, unrelated images. However, when the artist keeps those styles separate in a sequence of works, those sequences are usually referred to as " Periods" in the artist' s development. An example of that would be the " Blue" and " Rose" periods of Picasso.

　　What, then, are we to say of Michael Ma' s practice of working in two separate styles at the same time? Michael Ma does not juxtapose these styles, or play them against each other. He keeps them completely separate, and each manner of working is conceived in its respective traditional materials. The ink paintings masterly displays of calligraphic virtuosity - are done on paper scrolls. The ambitious studies of still life objects and human figures are painted in canvas in atmospherically descriptive oil color. The calligraphic ink paintings use the Eastern tradition of allowing the figurative elements to float against the white background, which, I believe, is symbolic of the space of eternity. The studies of still-life objects and the nude human figures use the whole range of Western Renaissance techniques, including linear perspective and chiaroscuro to present the figures in the space defined by the walls of a room. The first style is purely symbolic; the second aims to create the illusion of reality.

　　However, the longer I study Michael Ma' s paintings, I see that his Western mode is not as completely self-contained as I first thought. I sense a resolution in a third technical tradition in which the duality I outlined above is brought together. This tradition, I believe, grew out of the use of another painting medium: transparent water colors brushed freely onto the paper so that confining outlines of drawing are often ignored. This method originated in the Western Renaissance period with the artists' practice of making quick notations of compositional ideas, and in the preliminary studies or sketches of figures or landscapes for those compositions. The sketchbooks of Western artists are filled with such studied, which, by their improvisatory unfinished openness, allow the white paper background to play a primary role in the visual effect. Increasingly throughout the development of 19th-century European painting, this open sketch technique escapes the sketchbook and translates into freely brushed oil paint strokes, both thick and thin, on white canvas. Individual brushmark float against the white background, each brush mark descriptive of a bit of the atmosphere or of light reflecting off a particular surface, so that the artist partakes of both Eastern symbolism and Western illusionism: this is typified by the work of Cezanne.

　　Probably Cezanne did not know that the white surface behind his scattered brushmarks carried the symbolic value of eternal space. But Michael Ma grew up breathing the Eastern tradition of painting that embodies that symbolism. His paintings reverse the equation in which Western painters have assimilated technically towards the East. Ma' s mastery of his inherited Eastern techniques assimilates Western illusionism. And that is what makes his oeuvre fascinating. The white paper of his ink paintings and the bits of sketchiness that imply glimpses of white canvas in his realist paintings are functioning the same way.

　　In looking back over my own developments as an artist, I see that, when very young I started as a realist painter, but when I made the attempt to be a modernist painter, to at least travel parallel to the mainstream of twentieth century art, I explored the path of Cezanne, but as adapted to my own understanding of abstraction, relying on expressionism to fuse the two approaches. That fusion led me to paint expression landscapes, which gradually became more descriptive and less abstract as I painted directly on landscape sites. This, in turn, led me to paint the human figure directly from observation (as being more convenient than landscapes- the people who are my models come to my studio, rather than my going out of the city). So I feel that I have gone through a maturing process as a painter related to that of Michael Ma' s; a battle of languages.

　　It pleases me very much that he has chosen as his dual painting style, " Realism," painting directly from visual observation the forms and atmosphere of nature, It is the most traditional of Western painting in recent centuries. And it is the most embattled in this century. Abstraction in its many variations has become dominant and allows artists great freedom in the expression of many conflicting messages, most of which would undermine traditional Western art. Perhaps Ma has not yet realized what an uncomfortable battle he has joined.

　　New York