岩壁上的第一抹色彩：绘事的起源与神话叙事 / The First Strokes on the Rock Wall: The Origin of Painting and Mythological Narratives

三万年前的中国西北，宁夏中卫的大麦地山沟里，一群旧石器时代的先民正围着火堆烤肉，篝火的光映在赭红色的岩壁上，一个年轻的猎人捡起一块磨尖的燧石，蘸着混合了动物油脂的赭石粉末，在岩壁上画下了一头奔跑的黄羊。他的动作很快，线条粗犷，黄羊分叉的角、绷紧的四条腿、微微上翘的尾巴都清晰可见，旁边还画了一群手持长矛的人，正追着黄羊跑——这是他今天猎杀的第一头黄羊，他要把这个场景留在岩壁上，祈求下一次狩猎也能满载而归。在他画完之后，部落里的老人拄着骨杖走过来，在岩壁的角落画了一个光芒四射的太阳符号，又画了一排大小不一的手印：那是整个部落成年人的手，按在岩壁上留下的印记，仿佛在向天地宣告：我们在这里，我们活着。 Thirty thousand years ago, in the arid valleys of Zhongwei, Ningxia, a group of Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers huddled around a crackling fire, roasting game over the flames. The firelight gilded the ochre-stained rock walls of the Dawendi cave complex, where a young hunter picked up a sharpened flake of flint, dipped it into a paste of ochre powder mixed with animal fat, and drew a running gazelle across the stone surface. His strokes were rough and urgent: the gazelle’s forked horns, taut legs, and slightly raised tail were rendered in bold, unpolished lines, next to which he drew a group of figures holding spears, chasing the animal. It was the first gazelle he had hunted that day, and he wanted to leave the scene on the rock wall to pray for a successful hunt next time. After he finished, the tribe’s elder walked over with a bone cane, drew a radiant sun symbol in the corner of the wall, and then added a row of handprints of different sizes: marks left by every adult in the tribe, as if announcing to heaven and earth: we are here, we are alive.

这些留在岩壁上的线条，就是中国绘画最早的萌芽。不同于后世文人画里讲究的笔墨意趣，这些岩画没有任何“审美”的刻意追求，它们是最直白的精神表达：先民把对狩猎的祈愿、对太阳的崇拜、对族群存在的确认，都刻进了坚硬的岩石里。中国目前已发现的岩画遗址超过1200处，分布在全国20多个省市自治区，最早的可以追溯到旧石器时代晚期，距今3万年以上，比欧洲最著名的拉斯科岩画还要早近1万年。除了宁夏大麦地，内蒙古阴山的岩画、广西花山的岩画、新疆阿尔泰的岩画，都保留了大量旧石器时代到新石器时代的绘事痕迹，它们共同构成了中国绘画最原初的叙事。 These lines left on the rock walls are the earliest sprout of Chinese painting. Unlike the deliberate brushwork and aesthetic pursuits of later literati painting, these rock paintings have no intentional “aesthetic” pursuit: they are the most straightforward spiritual expressions. The hunter-gatherers etched their prayers for hunting, their worship of the sun, and their confirmation of the tribe’s existence into the hard rock. China has discovered more than 1,200 rock art sites distributed across more than 20 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, the earliest of which can be traced back to the Upper Paleolithic era, more than 30,000 years ago – nearly 10,000 years earlier than the famous Lascaux cave paintings in France. In addition to Dawendi in Ningxia, rock art sites in the Yinshan Mountains of Inner Mongolia, the Huashan cliffs of Guangxi, and the Altai Mountains of Xinjiang all preserve a large number of painting traces from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic era, which together constitute the most original narrative of Chinese painting.

在这些岩画里，最普遍的不是写实的狩猎场景，而是手印。考古学家在全球各地的岩画遗址里都发现了大量手印，它们是人类最早的精神“签名”：先民把手按在岩壁上，然后用颜料把轮廓填满，或者直接用嘴含着颜料喷出手掌的形状，留下自己身体最直接的印记。这种行为的本质不是“画画”，而是“存在证明”：在先民的认知里，岩石是永恒的，而人的生命是短暂的，把自己的手印留在岩壁上，就等于把自己的生命延续到了永恒里。这种“以痕迹证明存在”的本能，恰恰是中国绘画最核心的精神基因：从一开始，绘画就不是为了模仿现实，而是为了表达人的精神、信仰和认知。 Among these rock paintings, the most common motif is not the realistic hunting scene, but the handprint. Archaeologists have found a large number of handprints at rock art sites around the world, which are the earliest spiritual “signatures” of human beings: hunter-gatherers pressed their hands against the rock walls, then filled the outlines with pigment, or directly sprayed the shape of their palms with pigment held in their mouths, leaving the most direct mark of their bodies. The essence of this behavior is not “painting”, but “proof of existence”: in the cognition of the hunter-gatherers, rocks are eternal, while human life is short. Leaving their handprints on the rock walls is equivalent to extending their own lives to eternity. This instinct of “proving existence through traces” is exactly the core spiritual gene of Chinese painting: from the very beginning, painting was not intended to imitate reality, but to express human spirit, beliefs and cognition.

除了手印，岩画里最常见的就是动物纹和太阳神符号。大麦地岩画里的黄羊、北山羊、马，都是先民日常狩猎的对象，它们被画得格外生动，有的甚至带有夸张的鹿角、粗壮的蹄子，显然不是为了写实，而是为了祈求狩猎成功。而太阳神符号则出现得更早，先民把太阳画成带光芒的人形，周围环绕着星辰和动物，显然是把太阳当成了最高的神祇，画在岩壁上是为了祈求风调雨顺、族群繁衍。这些岩画的功能从来不是“装饰”，而是“巫术”：先民相信，画在岩壁上的形象会变成真的，画了猎物就能捕获猎物，画了太阳神就能得到神的庇佑，这种“画以通神”的功能，成为中国绘画最早的功能定位。 In addition to handprints, the most common motifs in rock art are animal patterns and sun god symbols. The gazelles, wild goats and horses in Dawendi rock art are all objects of daily hunting for the hunter-gatherers. They are drawn vividly, some even with exaggerated antlers and thick hooves, obviously not for realism, but to pray for a successful hunt. The sun god symbol appeared even earlier: the hunter-gatherers painted the sun as a human figure with rays, surrounded by stars and animals, obviously regarding the sun as the highest deity, painted on the rock wall to pray for good weather and the reproduction of the tribe. The function of these rock paintings was never “decoration”, but “witchcraft”: the hunter-gatherers believed that the images painted on the rock walls would become real. Painting prey would allow them to catch prey, and painting the sun god would bring the protection of the gods. This function of “painting to communicate with gods” became the earliest functional positioning of Chinese painting.

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> 💡 侧边栏：岩画颜料的秘密 / Sidebar: The Secret of Rock Art Pigments > 先民使用的颜料全部来自天然矿物：赭石（氧化铁）磨成粉是红色，代表血液和生命；木炭或锰矿石磨成粉是黑色，代表夜晚和神秘；方解石或石灰磨成粉是白色，代表光明和纯洁。他们会把矿物粉和动物油脂、植物汁液混合，做成粘稠的颜料，画在岩壁上之后，矿物的颗粒会渗进岩石的缝隙里，几万年都不会脱落。直到今天，大麦地岩画上的红色手印、黑色动物纹，依然清晰可见，仿佛先民的体温还留在岩壁上。 > The pigments used by the hunter-gatherers all came from natural minerals: ochre (iron oxide) ground into powder is red, representing blood and life; charcoal or manganese ore ground into powder is black, representing night and mystery; calcite or limestone ground into powder is white, representing light and purity. They mixed mineral powder with animal fat and plant juice to make thick pigment. After painting on the rock walls, the mineral particles would seep into the gaps of the rocks and would not fall off for tens of thousands of years. Until today, the red handprints and black animal patterns on the Dawendi rock paintings are still clearly visible, as if the body temperature of the hunter-gatherers is still left on the rock walls.

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到了新石器时代，先民从游牧定居下来，开始种植作物、制作陶器，绘画的载体也从坚硬的岩壁变成了柔软的陶土，绘事的功能也从“通神”慢慢变成了“记事”和“祭祀”。距今7000到5000年的仰韶文化是中国新石器时代最重要的文化之一，其核心分布区在黄河中游，半坡遗址就是仰韶文化的典型代表。1953年考古学家在西安半坡村发掘半坡遗址的时候，出土了上万件彩陶，其中近三分之一都带有纹饰，最常见的就是鱼纹。 In the Neolithic era, hunter-gatherers settled down from nomadism, began to grow crops and make pottery, and the carrier of painting changed from hard rock walls to soft clay. The function of painting gradually shifted from “communicating with gods” to “recording events” and “sacrifice”. The Yangshao Culture, which dates back 7,000 to 5,000 years ago, is the most important Neolithic culture in China, with its core distribution in the middle reaches of the Yellow River. The Banpo site is a typical representative of the Yangshao Culture. When archaeologists excavated the Banpo site in Banpo Village, Xi’an in 1953, they unearthed more than 10,000 pieces of painted pottery, nearly a third of which had patterns, the most common of which was the fish pattern.

半坡人住在黄河边上，捕鱼是他们重要的食物来源，所以鱼纹成为他们最熟悉的符号。但半坡的鱼纹从来不是对真实鱼的写实描绘：真实的鱼有鳞片、有鱼鳍、有复杂的身体结构，但半坡的鱼纹被简化成了圆形的头部、三角形的身体、简单的鱼鳍，甚至有的鱼纹只有两条弯曲线条，就代表了鱼。这种简化不是先民“画不好”，而是他们根本不想写实：在他们眼里，鱼不是一种动物，而是繁衍和生命的象征——鱼产卵的数量极多，先民相信，把鱼纹画在陶器上，就能让族群里的人丁兴旺，作物也能像鱼一样多产。 The Banpo people lived by the Yellow River, and fishing was an important source of food for them, so the fish pattern became their most familiar symbol. But the fish pattern of Banpo was never a realistic depiction of a real fish: real fish have scales, fins and complex body structures, but the Banpo fish pattern was simplified into a round head, triangular body and simple fins, and some fish patterns were represented by only two curved lines. This simplification was not because the hunter-gatherers “could not draw well”, but because they did not want to