一場(chǎng)講述“中國(guó)如何成為中國(guó)”的展覽

No one does epic better than the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It brought Pergamon to New York last spring and got the balance of giant and delicate right. It flew in medieval Jerusalem, and kept its multicultural sprawl intact. Now, in the exhibition “Age of Empires: Chinese Art of the Qin and Han Dynasties (221 B.C.-A.D. 220),” it brings us China becoming China in a big-picture take as strange and warm as life.

在講述史詩(shī)方面，誰(shuí)也比不上大都會(huì)藝術(shù)博物館(Metropolitan Museum of Art)。去年春天，它把帕加馬帶到了紐約，在宏大和微妙之間取得了平衡。它還把中世紀(jì)的耶路撒冷空運(yùn)到了這里，完整地呈現(xiàn)它龐大的多元文化。現(xiàn)在，在“帝國(guó)時(shí)代：中國(guó)古代秦漢文明”(Age of Empires: Chinese Art of the Qin and Han Dynasties[221 B.C.-A.D. 220])展覽中，它以宏大的畫(huà)面向我們展示中國(guó)成為中國(guó)的過(guò)程，如同生活一樣奇特而溫暖。

We love life, of course, all the details: sparrows in the forsythia; books and lamps and late-night coffee; the voice of a friend on the phone. The ancient Chinese loved it, too, and wanted it to last forever. China’s first emperor believed it might.

我們當(dāng)然熱愛(ài)生活，熱愛(ài)它的所有細(xì)節(jié)：連翹枝頭的麻雀;書(shū)籍、臺(tái)燈和深夜的咖啡;電話(huà)里一位朋友的聲音。中國(guó)古代人也熱愛(ài)生活，想讓它永遠(yuǎn)繼續(xù)下去。中國(guó)的第一位皇帝相信那是有可能的。

He viewed death as a kind of power nap, from which he’d awake refreshed in a tomb that was like an earthly home, but better, more fun. He designed his mausoleum as an underground Mar-a-Lago, with countless pavilions, great feng shui and a major security force. For light, there were candles, the most expensive money could buy, guaranteed to keep burning after he’d moved in — he died in 210 B.C. — and the doors had shut for the last time.

他將死亡視為一種恢復(fù)力量的小睡，自己會(huì)在陵墓中醒來(lái)，充滿(mǎn)活力。他的墳?zāi)购蛪m世的家一樣，只不過(guò)更好、更有趣。他把自己的陵墓設(shè)計(jì)得好像一座地下馬阿拉歌莊園(Mar-a-Lago)，擁有無(wú)數(shù)的亭臺(tái)、極佳的風(fēng)水和強(qiáng)大的武裝力量。至于照明，它用的是蠟燭，那是當(dāng)時(shí)能買(mǎi)到的最昂貴的照明工具，保證在他搬進(jìn)去之后能一直燃燒。他死于公元前210年，那時(shí)，陵墓的門(mén)最后一次被關(guān)上。

Those lights are still burning in the Met’s hypnotic, glow-in-the-dark exhibition of 160 objects from 32 museums in China, which opens on Monday. Of the museum’s several presentations of Chinese antiquities over the past 20 years, this one is probably the most dramatic visually and the most accessible emotionally. There’s a certain amount of the type of art the Met is too comfortable with: imperial bling. But here even this material feels purposeful, because it dates from a time in China when the idea of empire and corporate branding through art was experimental.

在周一開(kāi)幕的大都會(huì)博物館的這場(chǎng)展覽上，黑暗中閃爍著光芒，令人如癡如醉，展出的160件物品來(lái)自中國(guó)的32家博物館。在過(guò)去20年里該博物館對(duì)中國(guó)古代文物的幾次展覽中，這一次很可能是視覺(jué)上最具沖擊力的，也是情感上最可親近的。有一種藝術(shù)類(lèi)型是大都會(huì)博物館最擅駕馭的：皇家珠寶。但是這一次，就連這些東西也顯得目的性十足，因?yàn)樵谒匪莸闹袊?guó)的那個(gè)時(shí)代，通過(guò)藝術(shù)推廣帝國(guó)和企業(yè)品牌的概念還處于實(shí)驗(yàn)階段。

By the third century B.C., the long-lived Zhou dynasty had run its course, and turf wars broke out among smaller regional states. One of those states, the kingdom of Qin (pronounced CHIN), overcame all rivals and brought much of China under one rule for the first time. It did this partly through armed strength, but also through a sort of management savvy taught in business schools today.

到公元前3世紀(jì)，年邁的周朝走完了自己的旅程，諸侯國(guó)之間不斷爆發(fā)爭(zhēng)奪地盤(pán)的戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)。其中的秦國(guó)打敗了所有的對(duì)手，第一次統(tǒng)一了中國(guó)的大部分地區(qū)。這在一定程度上靠的是武力，但也是通過(guò)一種如今的商學(xué)院所教授的管理智慧。

The Qin ruler, born Ying Zheng, decided that the most effective means of control was to promote team spirit: Get everyone on the same civic page, and keep them there. To that end, he instituted a unified currency and a single standard of weights and measures. He decreed the use of a universal written script, which let him control the political conversation. And he initiated construction of the Great Wall, a brick-and-mortar statement of Us versus Them.

秦朝的統(tǒng)治者名為嬴政，他認(rèn)定，最有效的控制手段是宣揚(yáng)團(tuán)隊(duì)精神：讓所有人擁有同樣的公民身份，并保持那樣的身份。為此，他統(tǒng)一了貨幣和度量衡。他下令使用統(tǒng)一的書(shū)寫(xiě)文字，這讓他控制了政治話(huà)語(yǔ)權(quán)。他開(kāi)始修建長(zhǎng)城，用磚塊和灰漿宣告“我們”和“他們”的對(duì)立。

The effect of all this was to create a rudimentary sense of shared identity within a diverse population; a sense of Qin-ness or — to use a modern English word that may derive from Qin — Chinese-ness.

所有這些的作用是在不同的人群中創(chuàng)造了一種基本的共同身份感，一種秦人的身份感——或者用可能源自“秦”的現(xiàn)代英語(yǔ)的說(shuō)法，一種中國(guó)人的身份感。

The M.B.A. thinking worked, or did for Ying Zheng himself. He became the first Chinese ruler to assume the heaven-kissed title of emperor — Qi Shihuangdi, or First Emperor of Qin — and built a tomb near Xian, in northwestern China, to match its grandeur. We have only written accounts of what’s in the tomb (the pavilions, the candles; it’s never been excavated). But its presence yielded one of the late-20th-century’s great art historical finds when, in 1978, on a tip from local farmers, archaeologists uncovered an army of some 7,000 life-size terra-cotta figures buried nearby.

這種工商管理碩士的思路奏效了，或者說(shuō)對(duì)嬴政本人奏效了。他成了中國(guó)的第一位皇帝，給自己封了一個(gè)至高無(wú)上的稱(chēng)號(hào)——秦始皇——并在中國(guó)西北部的西安附近修建了一座陵墓，以彰顯自己的顯赫。至于墓里有什么，只有文字記載(亭臺(tái)、蠟燭等，它從未被發(fā)掘)。但是，它的存在造就了20世紀(jì)晚期的一項(xiàng)偉大的藝術(shù)歷史發(fā)現(xiàn)。1978年，考古學(xué)家根據(jù)當(dāng)?shù)剞r(nóng)民的指引，發(fā)現(xiàn)了陵墓附近埋葬的一支由約7000尊真人大小的陶制士兵組成的軍隊(duì)。

Five of those figures, four standing, one kneeling, open the Met show (along with two modern reproductions of buried chariots found with them). They, or their like, have been endlessly circulated for display, but they’re still magnetic, with their blocklike bodies and personable faces, mold-cast and customized. Even more striking, and less familiar, is another figure found in a different part of the tomb site, this one a beefy court entertainer, nude to the waist, with every fold of flesh and swell of muscle precisely rendered.

其中五個(gè)——四個(gè)站立，一個(gè)跪著——揭開(kāi)了大都會(huì)博物館這場(chǎng)展覽的序幕(以及和他們一起被發(fā)掘出來(lái)的兩輛被埋藏的戰(zhàn)車(chē)的現(xiàn)代復(fù)制品)。他們或者他們的同伴被不停地巡回展出，但依然充滿(mǎn)魅力——結(jié)實(shí)的身體，個(gè)性化的面孔，是用模具造出來(lái)的，但又有所變化。更令人震驚的是在墓地另一部分發(fā)現(xiàn)的一個(gè)不太常見(jiàn)的人物雕塑，那是一個(gè)強(qiáng)壯的宮廷藝人，上身袒露至腰部，肉體的每一個(gè)褶皺，肌肉的每一處膨脹都被精細(xì)地呈現(xiàn)了出來(lái)。

There was no precedent in China for any of this, the scale, the naturalism. So what was the source? Historians point to a likely one: the Hellenistic art that was introduced by Alexander the Great to Asia — at Pergamon, for example — and filtered over trade routes to China. Whatever its origins, the new sculpture adds another facet to the profile of Qin-ness: cosmopolitan taste. But for all its innovations, or maybe because of them, Qin rule was brief, 15 years. The emperor spent a lot of time on the road, surveying his domain but also on a quest for life-extending elixirs. His sudden death unleashed an opera-worthy drama of assassinations, suicides and civil war, until another imperial power, called Han, took its place, and held it more than four centuries.

它的大小和自然主義風(fēng)格在當(dāng)時(shí)的中國(guó)是前所未有的。那么它的來(lái)源是什么呢?史學(xué)家們指出了一個(gè)可能的來(lái)源：亞歷山大大帝(Alexander the Great)帶入亞洲(比如到了帕加馬)、而后經(jīng)商路滲入中國(guó)的希臘藝術(shù)。不管起源是什么，這件新雕塑展現(xiàn)了秦人風(fēng)貌的另一個(gè)側(cè)面：世界性的品味。但是，盡管它有這么多創(chuàng)新，或許也正是因?yàn)檫@些創(chuàng)新，秦的統(tǒng)治十分短暫，只有15年。這位皇帝花了大量時(shí)間去旅行，巡視自己的疆土，但也是為了尋找不死仙丹。他的猝死引發(fā)了戲劇性的暗殺、自殺和內(nèi)戰(zhàn)，堪比一出大戲，直到另一個(gè)名為漢朝的皇權(quán)取代了秦朝，并延續(xù)了四個(gè)多世紀(jì)。

Han artists built on Qin precedents in art, but with adjustments. For a while they maintained an interest in realism, but seemed to shift the emphasis from the human figure to the natural world. The big personalities in Han sculpture in the show are animals: horses as majestic as gods; elephants, foreign to China, closely observed. Even common barnyard creatures — chickens, goats and pigs — are portrayed with empathy; you can almost hear them clucking and snuffling.

漢代藝術(shù)家追隨秦代先人的步伐，但也有所調(diào)整。有一段時(shí)間，他們保持著對(duì)現(xiàn)實(shí)主義的興趣，不過(guò)似乎將重點(diǎn)從人轉(zhuǎn)向了自然界。本次展出的漢代雕塑中的最具個(gè)性的作品是動(dòng)物：像神一樣雄偉的馬;栩栩如生的大象，雖然它對(duì)中國(guó)來(lái)說(shuō)屬于外來(lái)物種。甚至連常見(jiàn)的家畜家禽——雞、山羊和豬——也都用移情手法進(jìn)行描繪;你幾乎能聽(tīng)見(jiàn)它們?cè)诳┛┙谢蚝暨旰暨甏瓪狻?/p>

The Han further refined the policy of centralized imperial rule and expanded its reach outward, globally, evident in the steady increase in material richness and variety seen as you move through the show, past granulated gold work, amethyst necklaces and luxury textiles brought overland and by sea from Afghanistan, India, Persia, nomadic Eurasia and the Mediterranean.

漢朝進(jìn)一步完善了中央集權(quán)的帝國(guó)統(tǒng)治，對(duì)外向全球擴(kuò)張疆域。這一點(diǎn)在參觀展覽的過(guò)程中能明顯看出來(lái)，物質(zhì)的豐富性和多樣性在不斷增長(zhǎng)，比如經(jīng)陸地和海洋從阿富汗、印度、波斯、歐亞大陸的游牧地區(qū)和地中海帶來(lái)的鑲金首飾、紫水晶項(xiàng)鏈和奢華的紡織品。

Some of the most exotic items are from China itself. An eye-stopping, fantastically sophisticated bronze cowrie shell container, swarming with tiny figures in what looks like a raucous Bruegelesque market scene, was produced by the Dian culture in what is now Yunnan province, people that Han court records referred to as “southwestern barbarians.”

一些最奇特的作品來(lái)自中國(guó)本身。一件引人注目的精美青銅寶螺容器上鑲滿(mǎn)小巧的人物，很像勃魯蓋爾畫(huà)中的喧鬧集市景象，它是滇文化的產(chǎn)物，在如今的云南省，漢代宮廷記錄將那里的人稱(chēng)為“西南蠻人”。

Was that imperialism or provincialism speaking? They can be the same thing. And they can equally motivate people to shape an exclusive group identity. The Han were intent on doing so, though this didn’t prevent them from borrowing heavily from other cultures, including their immediate predecessors.

這是帝國(guó)主義還是地方偏狹觀念在作祟呢?它們可能是一回事。它們都能激勵(lì)人們塑造一個(gè)排他的團(tuán)體身份。漢朝人就是這樣打算的，盡管這并未阻止他們大量借鑒其他文化，包括前代先輩。

As with the Qin, Han society, at least at elite levels, focused on the hereafter. Most items in the Met show came from graves. Many objects were specifically for funerary use. Like much art everywhere, the underlying inspiration was political and personal. Art promoted and shored up the hierarchies on which a culture was built. It also answered to a human need to keep life going.

和秦代人一樣，漢代人，至少是上層社會(huì)的人，把注意力放到了來(lái)世上。這場(chǎng)展覽的大部分物品來(lái)自墳?zāi)?。許多物品是專(zhuān)門(mén)用于殯葬的。和世界各地的很多藝術(shù)一樣，基本的靈感包括政治和個(gè)人兩個(gè)方面。藝術(shù)宣揚(yáng)和強(qiáng)化了文化的根基，也就是等級(jí)制度。它也回應(yīng)了人類(lèi)想要長(zhǎng)生不老的心理需求。

The Han elite spared no expense to ensure their continuance. The survivors of a Han princess named Dou Wan encased her corpse in a jumpsuit made from 2,000 jade plaques linked with gold threads, jade being a stone thought to have preservative properties. The suit is in the show, and as we approach through a passageway in Zoe Florence’s theatrical exhibition installation, it looks like a sleeping extraterrestrial, a space traveler patiently waiting to be beamed up. Yet everything in the surrounding galleries seems designed to anchor the traveler to life on earth: a little hand-warmer in the form of a carved jade bear; a silk pillow woven with the words “extend years”; a vogueing earthenware dancer with ankle-length sleeves; and a jeroboam-size wine jar that, when discovered in 2003, still held Han wine. There’s even a luxury high-rise, or a model of one, and lamps to light it, including one shaped like a tree sprouting ducks and dragons like spring buds.

漢代的精英不惜花費(fèi)重金，以確保自己能夠存續(xù)下去。一個(gè)名叫竇綰的漢代王妃的親屬將她的尸體裝進(jìn)一件連體衣中，它是用2000顆用金絲連起來(lái)的玉塊做成的，玉石當(dāng)時(shí)被認(rèn)為具有防腐作用。本次展覽展出了這件連體衣，我們穿過(guò)佐伊·弗洛倫斯(Zoe Florence)戲劇化的展覽裝置作品的通道時(shí)，那件連體衣看起來(lái)像一個(gè)沉睡的外星人，一個(gè)耐心等待被喚醒的時(shí)空旅行者。然而，周邊展廳里的一切似乎都是為了安置這位旅行者在地球上的生活：刻成玉熊的小暖爐;繡著“延年益壽”字樣的絲質(zhì)枕頭;一個(gè)正做著舞蹈動(dòng)作的袖子長(zhǎng)及踝部的陶制舞者;一個(gè)大酒壇子，它2003年出土?xí)r里面還盛放著漢代的酒。甚至還有一幢豪華的高大建筑，或者說(shuō)建筑模型，以及可以照亮它的燈具，其中一盞燈像一顆樹(shù)，它像春天發(fā)芽那樣長(zhǎng)出了鴨子和游龍。

At the end of the show — organized by Zhixin Jason Sun, a curator of Chinese art at the Met, assisted by Pengliang Lu, a curatorial fellow — there’s a low closed door, carved from stone, made for a tomb, and painted with figures that could be earthly or celestial. If you passed through the door, which life would you be entering, or leaving, and is there a preference?

這場(chǎng)展覽是由大都會(huì)博物館的中國(guó)藝術(shù)策展人孫志新(Zhixin Jason Sun)在策展員陸鵬亮的協(xié)助下組織的。展覽結(jié)束處有一個(gè)低矮的關(guān)閉的門(mén)，它是為墳?zāi)怪谱鞯?，用石頭刻成，并繪有來(lái)自人間和天上的人物畫(huà)像。如果你穿過(guò)那扇門(mén)，你將進(jìn)入或離開(kāi)哪一個(gè)世界?你是否偏愛(ài)其中一個(gè)?

An answer may lie in an object hanging on the exhibition’s exit wall. It’s a round gilt-bronze mirror with an inscription embossed on its rim: “May the Central Kingdom be peaceful and secure, and prosper for generations and generations to come, by following the great law that governs all.” Central Kingdom meant China. And for the Qin and the Han, wherever you went, in this world or the next, you were there.

答案可能存在于懸掛在展覽出口墻上的一件物品中。它是一個(gè)圓形鎏金銅鏡，邊緣刻著的文字寫(xiě)道：“中國(guó)大寧，子孫益昌。黃裳元吉，有紀(jì)綱。”對(duì)秦漢人來(lái)說(shuō)，無(wú)論你去了哪里，在此生還是來(lái)世，你都在中國(guó)。