Chapter 6 dark silhouette

Walking in the new park and seeing a "silhouetted" middle-aged man. The booth he set up is very small, and the tools are very simple, only a pair of small scissors and a few sheets of paper, but he is very skilled in silhouette. It only takes three or two minutes to cut a person's image on the paper, and most of them are very cool likeness.If you look carefully, there are only two or three lines in his silhouette, and a person's expression and facial features jump out vividly in those three or two lines. It was a cold afternoon in winter, even in the park, there were few people. Occasionally passers-by looked curiously at Silhouette’s booth, and then left silently; it took a long time before some people hugged the temporary Trying to get him a silhouette, because twenty yuan a piece is much cheaper than taking a failed photo in a photo studio.

I was sitting on the iron chair opposite the Silhouetter, and seeing his slow business, I couldn't help but feel that he was a lonely person in the world.He used scissors and paper to capture the expressions on people's faces all day long, and those people just flowed past him like a river. Except for some particularly vivid silhouettes of famous people who he placed on the shelf as samples, he almost nothing.Going forward, I asked the Silhouetter to cut a side profile for me. When he was working, I said lightly: "Is the business not so good?"He said that since photography became popular, the business of silhouettes can hardly continue, because photography is in color, so real and clear; while silhouettes are black and white, with only a few small lines.

He said: "When people rely heavily on photography, the world loses some imaginable beauty. No matter how innocent a person is, when he stands in front of the camera, he becomes false and uncomfortable. Therefore, photography Often only the image of a person is left, but it cannot really have a person's spirit; the silhouette is not like this, it only captures the spirit, and does not pay much attention to the image." I think there is a deep truth in what the lonely silhouette said , especially the kind of photos taken by people sitting under the lights of a photo studio. He quickly cut my silhouette, and I looked at my black silhouette, and felt that "shadow" was strange, with a kind of melancholy that I couldn't even believe myself, because "he" closed his mouth , Frowning deeply, I asked the silhouetter, and he said: "I just saw you sitting on the chair opposite, and I thought you were a melancholy person. You know that to cut out a person's image, technology is important, but more important The thing is to observe. "

Silhouetter has been engaged in the silhouette industry for twenty years, and has been living a nomadic life. He used to make silhouettes for tourists in various tourist areas. Later, the tourist areas were replaced by photographers, so he had to travel from one small town to another. A small town sells his skills. His emotion is not only about life, but "the more places I go, the more people I see, the more mature my silhouette skills are, and I can capture the most vivid faces of people. It's a pity. My business is getting worse day by day, and sometimes in the southern countryside, less than ten people come to my door a day.” As a silhouetter, his greatest interest is observation, at first it was the observation of people, and then the business was slow, he started Try to figure out the nature, cut flowers, birds and trees, and cut the scenery of mountains and rivers. "Isn't that the same as paper-cutting?" I said.

"Silhouette is a kind of paper-cut. The difference is that paper-cut should be fine and colorful, which is a Chinese realistic painting; silhouette should be simplified, only black and white, just like freehand." Because he boasted that anything can be silhouetted , I asked him to cut a shadow titled "Darkness".The silhouetter used black paper and scissors to cut out a small first-quarter moon and a few stars shining as stars. He told me: "Originally, there is no moon and stars in the real darkness, but there is no real darkness in the world. We can always in the corner

Where there is a ray of light, darkness would not be darkness without light. " When I left Silhouette, I couldn't help thinking about what he said over and over again.It is because of the contrast of light that darkness appears terrible. If there is no light, what is the fear of darkness?The question is, how can a person maintain a longing for the light in the darkest moment. Now this silhouette named "Darkness" is placed on my desk, the stars and moon are sparsely buried in the black paper, as if I don't care about it, "Brightness" may be just like this, and it is not for a certain person. A specific object shines, but every caring person can pursue it.

Later, I went to the park a few times to look for the silhouetted person, but there was no trace of him anymore. I knew that he continued to live a wandering life in a certain corner, capturing the appearance of light or dark people. Maybe he forgot to cut my shadow, it doesn’t matter at all, the important thing is that we met in a leisurely afternoon, and he told me through twenty years of wandering: “there is no real darkness in the world.” This is true even of silhouettes that are left untouched. ——February 23, 1983