墨非墨：李振明創作集

17 raveling aesthetics. In his opinion, only by getting rid of the barrier and value judgment of the rational knowledge and returning to the experience of sensibility, perception, feeling, awareness, and sentimentality can we return to the original world and find the purest self. Only by returning to sensibility, believing in instincts, and seeking the present contingency and pure encounter can we release creativity and make it freely and naturally occur. These paintings correspond to Deleuze’s flowing aesthetics. The painting topics and the colors of the lines are full of the fun of flowing and Zen of randomness. II. Totem and Illustrated Handbooks There are many symbols similar to totems in Lee Cheng-ming’s paintings, such as the frequently-seen cattle, goats, birds’ skulls, nest’s eggs, red persimmons, Buddha’s head in the crack of stone, shells in different shapes, pinecones, flowers, and water birds. These objects appear in the different combination in the paintings. They look meaningless, but they seem to tell some kind of connection. The British modernist poet T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) applies the concept of “Objective Correlative” in his writing. He writes about a series of objects, conditions, and incidents, making their mutual relationship naturally yield certain corresponding connection. In other words, through a series of descriptions of the things seemingly independent, the poet creates a special emotion. These objects have their corresponding references. But the readers, based on their own reading experiences and abilities, can combine these totems and symbols on their own, establish their connections, and make a variety of organic meanings. Instead of “telling” the stories, the poet adopts the way of “showing” so that the readers can organize by themselves and absorb and understand the attempts of the poems. Lee’s paintings share the same traits. He places a variety of totems and symbols in the picture and invites the viewers to get involved in the production of the meaning of the painting. Due to the difference in the viewers’ literacy and angles of appreciation, one picture will have various interpretations, and one hundred people will see one hundred versions of pictures. The viewers need to look for a line connecting these totems and symbols in the picture and link them into the relation with some meanings. To certain degree, to appreciate Lee’s paintings is like to test whether the viewers can find an invisible line from the things looking irrelevant. This line gives everything the order of before/after, inside/outside, left/right, and up/down and the central point for the chaos to diffuse layer by layer. A good viewer will see a three-dimensional network composed of points, lines, and planes and a knowledge system with the historical depth rather than some fragment objects. In other words, these paintings with the strong openness challenge the viewers’ appreciation taste. Lee also handles the picture in the surrealistic way by creating the abruptness and ambiguity on the canvas. For example, in “Goat’s Triumph,” the overhead gold foils, solemn Buddhist statue, and goat’s skull are made in a line on the central axis of the picture. In “Opposites,” the central axis is also arranged with the head of Buddha in the crack of stone, nest and eggs, and two seals. The painter’s autograph just falls on the center of the picture, which diverts from normality. On the bottom of the picture is the transcribed text of “The Heart Sutra.” On the left and right sides, two delicately depicted water birds are added symmetrically. Such layout of the images, characters, and seals seems abrupt at the first look. However, the overall picture also achieves the so-called “harmonious madness” by the poet P.B. Shelly and creates some charm. This unreasonable image manifests the tension of the content and form. They both repel and attract each other. The painter is dealing with ambiguity, playing with abruptness, creating tension, and brewing a sense of beauty. The painter adopts the indirect strategy to create the so-called “difference” by Jacques Derrida, which is, in other words, postponing the viewers’ direct pleasure on the two dimensions of time and space and forming a “process of aestheticization.” The viewers’ mind also achieves the highest point of satisfaction as a result of the postponed relief. Difference is the pursuit of “signifier” for “signified,” which can only be neared without being accomplished. Therefore, there is always much to be desire in the process of aestheticization, which is always full of charisma. Another characteristic of Lee’s aesthetics is the practice of the concept of the illustrated handbook. Like the illustrated handbooks, he does the imitation of the fish, plants, and birds. Recording ecology is an education of ecological consciousness. The illustrated handbooks can assist the public in getting acquainted with the local species. Lee has a strong sense of mission toward the ecology of Taiwan. Hence, for decades he has showed concern for the land where he was brought up with the ink creation. He transforms his care for ecology into the artistic performance and develops the different style from the traditional ink painting. The traditional ink painting only has a general depiction of the species of flowers, birds, fish, and insects because they are only the objects for the literati to nourish their nature and make poems. These images only serve as the prelude of the poems. Their true images are not the top priority. For example, in “Sighting of Spring,” Du Fu said, “Current affairs have me deep in sentiments, and tears overcome me at the sight of flowers,/Detesting separation from family so much, even the twitter of birds frightens me.” But we never understand what flower and what bird he saw made him so worried. Wang Bo has the famous quotes from “Preface to Teng Wang Ge”: “Sun-set glowing clouds and lone bird together fly/One are the Autumn water and the skies on high!” But we never know whether the lone bird is a wild duck or a nightingale. In “Sentiments on a Night on Board,” Du Fu mentions, “I've been roaming without much of a purpose, what says that of me?/No more than a gull with no fixed abode on earth prowling the skies.” How beautiful it is! But we neither have any idea what kind of gull there is. The traditional humanities and aesthetics focus on the conception and expression instead of the scientific precision. With the background of the precise realistic training, Lee combines the opposite science and humanistic art and adds the perspective of knowledge to the artistic creation through the precise painting of the illustrated handbook, which enriches the content of the paintings. In “Li Shi-zhen’s Eight Prescriptions of Herbal Medicine,” he precisely depicts the eight indigenous plants of Taiwan, Yushan Angelica, Taiwan