如果山河可以訴說：大都會的詩意中國山水
如果你只見過灰塵漫天的北京，或者建筑幻境上海，你就不算見過中國。這個國家的大部分地方是青山綠水的開闊空間。幾個世紀以來，中國的城里人——被拴在辦公桌前的職員，混跡于勾心斗角的朝廷的文人官員——一心向往著世外桃源的生活。他們的夢想是坐在山中的亭臺飲茶作畫，聽著瀑布飛泉的鳴響，款待來訪的友人。不只是度個假那么簡單。要的是長久如此。
One way they could live the dream was through images of the kind seen in “Streams and Mountains Without End: Landscape Traditions of China” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The show, in the Chinese paintings and calligraphy galleries, is technically a collection reinstallation spiced with a few loans. But the Met’s China holdings are so broad and deep that some of the pictures here are resurfacing for the first time in almost a decade; one is finally making its debut a century after it was acquired. And there’s more than just painting on view.
要暢想這樣的夢幻生活，其中一個辦法是通過“溪山無盡——中國傳統(tǒng)山水”(Streams and Mountains Without End: Landscape Traditions of China)中展出的這種畫面。大都會藝術(shù)博物館(Metropolitan Museum of Art)在其中國書畫廳舉辦的這場展覽，嚴格意義上講只是對館藏的重新布置，另外點綴了幾件租借展品。然而大都會擁有廣博而深厚的中國收藏，以至于其中一些作品已有近十年沒有出現(xiàn)在公眾面前;有一件作品更是在一個世紀前收入館中，直到這一次才得到展出。此外本展收入的作品不只是繪畫。
A longing for the natural world, or some version of it, real or ideal, saturated Chinese elite culture. Images of it turned up everywhere — on porcelain vases, cloisonné bowls, silk robes and jade sculptures. The most effective medium for imaginatively entering a landscape, though, was painting, and specifically in two forms, the hanging scroll and the hand scroll, both traditionally done in ink on silk.
對大自然的向往——或某一種形式的大自然，無論是源自真實還是空想——深深浸透在中國精英文化之中。自然的圖景可見于陶瓷花瓶、掐絲琺瑯碗、絲綢袍服和玉石雕塑等等一切地方。然而要讓自己的想象力徜徉于風(fēng)景之中，最有效的媒介莫過于繪畫，具體來說有兩種形式——立軸與手卷，兩者傳統(tǒng)上都會采用絹本水墨作為媒介。
The show opens with a hanging scroll: vertical, monumental, as tall as a door; you can see it, and read it, from a long gallery away. Titled “Viewing a Waterfall From a Mountain Pavilion” and dated 1700, it’s by Li Yin, a talented jobber who supplied art for the Qing dynasty equivalent of McMansions. The scene depicted is a narrow rocky gorge in which we, as viewers, are positioned low and looking up. A bit above us is a peaked-roof pavilion on a rock. Two men stand on its terrace taking in the scene.
本展中首先看到的是一幅掛軸：豎向的大幅作品，有一扇門那么高;觀眾站在展廳另一頭，遠遠地就能看到它，讀到上面的字。這幅作于1700年的《高閣觀瀑圖》出自李寅之手，他是一位極具才華的清代職業(yè)畫家，畫了許多用來當大宅裝飾品的畫作，類似于美國人的麥克豪宅(McMansion)。畫中描繪了一道狹長的山谷，作為觀眾的我們被放置在景觀的下方，要抬頭仰望。一塊巖石上有一座尖頂?shù)臉情w。兩個男人站在亭臺上觀賞景色。
And quite a scene it is. Cliffs soar skyward; torrents stream down. This is a nature as a theater of big, dwarfing effects. And it’s charged with a weird, creaturely energy. Trees claw the air like dragons. The rock the pavilion rests on looks like some giant pachyderm. The world isn’t just alive here; it’s sentient, reactive. The men on the terrace appear unperturbed, but surely inwardly, like us, they’re thrilled.
而那景色又是何其壯美。高聳的懸崖;溪水在山澗奔流而下。自然景象制造了一種宏大的、令人自覺渺小的效果。其中充滿了一股怪異而鮮活的能量。樹的枝杈像龍爪在空中伸展。樓閣下的巖石像某種巨大的厚皮動物。這一切不僅是有生命的，還是有知覺與反應(yīng)的。亭臺上的男人看上去氣定神閑，然而在他們的內(nèi)心，想必和我們一樣目瞪口呆。
Hanging scrolls deliver their basic image fast — pow! — then leave you to sort out details. A second form of landscape painting, the hand scroll, operates on a different dynamic. When viewed as intended, slowly unrolled on a tabletop, one section at a time, it’s a cinematic experience, about anticipation, suspense, what’s coming next.
掛軸山水會以迅猛之勢將它們的基本意象傳達給你——嘭!——然后讓你自己去梳理其細節(jié)。另一種山水畫形式——手卷則有著不同的內(nèi)在機制。畫作被置于桌面上，緩慢地轉(zhuǎn)動畫軸，每次只能看到一部分，這是一種電影式的體驗，關(guān)鍵在于期待、懸念，接下來會看到什么。
There’s a classic 15th-century example in the show’s opening gallery called “The Four Seasons,” by an unidentified artist. If “Viewing a Waterfall From a Mountain Pavilion” is a dramatic ascent, “The Four Seasons” is a cross-country hike. Over its horizontal length of almost 36 feet it takes you countless miles and through a full year. At the Met, it’s displayed unrolled, so you get the idea of a panorama right away. But the real pleasures lie in walking the walk.
在本展的開幕展廳里就有一件十五世紀的典范之作，出自佚名畫家的《四時山水卷》。如果說《高閣觀瀑圖》是一次震撼人心的登頂，那么《四時山水卷》就是一場徒步越野。全畫長近36英尺，呈現(xiàn)的是時間跨度為整整一年的景色。在大都會的展覽上，畫作是完全打開的，因此你可以將全畫盡收眼底。然而真正的樂趣是沿著畫作行走。
The journey starts from the far right. It’s spring, and sights come fast — a tiny waterfall, budding trees, a curl of smoke. Then you see summer workers hauling a boat by a whisker-fine rope. Mountains loom, contoured like muscles; they’re worth a pause. Then openness. Sky, sky, sky, until its whiteness shades into autumn mist, which shades into what may be an iced-over lake. Winter: scratchy trees; hunkered-down houses; lamps in windows. And all the way to left, at the scroll’s edge, a bridge ends mid-arch, leading where? Back to Spring.
旅程的起點是畫作右端。此時是春天，看點有很多——一個小小的瀑布，幾棵新生的樹，一縷煙霧。然后到了夏天，纖夫用細細的繩索拖著船前行。巍然屹立的高山有著肌肉般的輪廓，足以令你駐足。接下來是一片空曠地帶。遼闊的天空白蒙蒙的，一眼望不到頭，直到漸漸被秋日的霧靄蓋過，而取代那霧靄的，則似乎是一個冰封的湖泊。冬天來了：枯瘦的樹木;低矮的房屋;窗前的燈火。到了卷軸左端的邊緣，有一座只有一半的拱橋，它通往何方?春天。
The stylistic variations possible within these two formats are practically endless. So are the thematic uses — personal, historical, political and practical — to which landscape images can be put. Joseph Scheier-Dolberg, an assistant curator in the museum’s Asian art department, has designed the show to give a sense of all this.
這兩種形式帶來的風(fēng)格變化是無窮的。山水的題材用途也有無限可能性——可以是個人的、歷史的、政治的、實用的。大都會亞洲藝術(shù)部助理主任史耀華(Joseph Scheier-Dolberg)就是希望通過這場展覽的策劃，讓人們領(lǐng)略到這些。
In a section called “The Poetic Landscape,” he links nature painting to Chinese literary tradition. Common to both was a goal of making mood — existential atmosphere — primary content. A 14th-century hanging scroll by the Yuan painter Tang Di is based on a couplet by the famed poet Wang Wei (A.D. 699-759). Wang’s poem is telegraphically stark:
在“詩意山水”部分，他將山水畫與中國文學(xué)傳統(tǒng)聯(lián)系起來。二者的共同之處在于以“意”——一種關(guān)乎存在的氛圍——作為主要內(nèi)容。展中的一幅14世紀掛軸是元代畫家唐棣根據(jù)著名詩人王維(公元699–759)的詩句創(chuàng)作的。王維的詩歌是簡練的白描：
I walk to where the water ends
行到水窮處，
And sit and watch as clouds arise.
坐看云起時。
Tang’s landscape, gnarly, dark and Gothic, catches the couplet’s depressive tread.
唐棣的山水畫粗獷、幽暗、陰森，將詩句的頹喪步態(tài)呈現(xiàn)了出來。
Some poem-picture pairings play with contrasts. Another great early poet, Li Bo (701-762), wrote about a journey he took to Sichuan, anciently known as Shu. The trip, as he described it, was a killer, up hellish mountains, along terrifying, sheer-drop paths. But a painted response to his poem by the 18th-century artist Gu Fuzhen makes the experience feel festive, fun. In Gu’s hand scroll “The Road to Shu,” the mountains are toasty brown and shaped like scones, sweet enough to eat.
一些詩與畫的搭配則是在對比上做文章。另一位古代大詩人李白(701-762)曾在詩中描寫自己前往四川(古稱蜀)的旅行。在他筆下，這段旅行難于上青天，要攀登高山，走過險峻的道路。但是，18世紀畫家顧符稹為這首詩創(chuàng)作的畫讓這一過程顯得如同節(jié)慶，充滿樂趣。在顧符稹的手卷《蜀道圖》中，群山呈現(xiàn)吐司片般的棕色，形狀則像是司康餅，堪稱秀色可餐。
No culture has ever been more history-obsessed than China’s. And as time went on, landscape images were less and less based on nature observed and more and more on old paintings. The Ming dynasty artist and theorist Dong Qichang (1555-1636) systemized a practice of simultaneously channeling and customizing the work of past masters. And in a section of the show, “The Art-Historical Landscape,” Dong presides over a star-studded echo chamber of acolytes, who emulate him emulating earlier art.
沒有任何一種文化比中國文化更加癡迷于歷史。隨著時間推移，山水畫漸漸擺脫了對自然的觀察，更多地轉(zhuǎn)向?qū)女嫷姆伦?。明代畫家和理論家董其?1555-1636)將臨摹過去大師作品的做法進行了系統(tǒng)化總結(jié)。在展出的“藝術(shù)史山水”環(huán)節(jié)中，董其昌的理論引出眾多大名鼎鼎的追隨者，他們都效仿他對古人的作品進行模仿。
As cities grew larger and more crowded, and a socially aspiring merchant class came to power, the age-old custom of building private formal gardens — enclosed, compressed, designer landscapes — gained popularity. Such gardens became frequent subjects of paintings, and two examples in the show are notable.
隨著城市規(guī)模越來越大，人口越來越多，商人階層開始崛起，建造私家園林的習(xí)慣日益興盛。這些封閉、濃縮的設(shè)計師景觀也日益成為繪畫題材，本展中有兩個范例值得留意。
One, a small, crinkly hand scroll by a 19th-century artist named Yang Tianbi is on first-time view at the Met, though it’s been in the vaults for ages. It was the first Chinese painting the museum ever acquired, though it did so almost by accident. The painting made an inconspicuous arrival in 1902, rolled up and stuck in a brush holder that had come with a cache of jade carvings. Now, 115 years later, it takes a public bow.
一幅是19世紀畫家楊天璧的手卷，這幅發(fā)皺的小畫已由大都會收藏多年，此次卻是頭一回展出。它是博物館收藏的第一幅中國畫，不過幾乎純屬意外。1902年，它被卷著塞在一個筆筒里，悄無聲息地和一批玉雕一起來到這里。如今，115年后，它終于重見天日。
A second, much larger hand scroll, by the contemporary Beijing painter Hao Liang (born 1983), came to the collection just this year, and it’s an arresting sight. An extended, ghostly-gray, almost anime-style vision of mythical gardens past — including Wang Wei’s — it ends with a garish 21st-century development: a garden as an amusement park, with an immense, robotic Ferris wheel spewing riders off into space.
另一幅手卷要大得多，是來自北京當代畫家郝量(1983年出生)的一幅引人入勝的作品，于今年加入館藏。畫面上是綿延的、如同幽靈般的灰色，一個個動漫風(fēng)格的神秘花園出現(xiàn)在眼前——其中也包括王維的花園——卷軸最后是花哨俗氣的21世紀風(fēng)情：被用作玩樂之用的花園里，一個巨型機器人般的摩天輪把游客送往太空。
The art in the show’s concluding section, “The Riverscape,” is historical but feels familiar, like recently heard news. No more poetry, or, not much. Here the image of nature is a political tool: a survey map, a surveillance device, a deed of ownership. In a supersized 18th-century hand scroll, one of a set of 12 titled “The Qianlong Emperor’s Southern Inspection Tour,” documents a real event, an imperial tour that took place in 1751.
展覽結(jié)尾部分名為“河景”，其中的展品雖年代久遠，卻又令人感覺熟悉，就像前不久聽到的新聞一樣。不再有詩歌，至多只有寥寥幾句。自然的意象在這里成了一種政治工具：一份測繪地圖、一件監(jiān)視裝置，一份所有權(quán)契據(jù)。展品中還有一件18世紀巨幅手卷，屬于一套由12幅畫組成的《乾隆南巡圖》的一部分，記載了1751年皇帝出巡的真實歷史事件。
In the painting, the great ruler shows up in the provinces, somewhere along a rain-swollen Yellow River, to ceremonially review a flood prevention project. The visit draws a strangely dutiful, cheerless local crowd. It’s as if everyone knows what’s really happening — a leader is reasserting a claim to his realm; to his own, personal streams and mountains without end. And yet, as everywhere in this lovely show, nature has a final word. The emperor, doing his emperor thing, is little more than a dot against the river behind him, which rolls on.
在這幅畫中，這位偉大的統(tǒng)治者出現(xiàn)在遭受澇災(zāi)的黃河流域各個省份，儀式性地視察了防洪工程。一群順從得有些古怪、神情黯淡的百姓前來圍觀。好像所有人都知道真正發(fā)生的事情是什么——一個領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者正在重申對疆土的所有權(quán);這些廣袤無垠的山川河流都是他一個人的。然而，和其他地方的這類可愛作秀一樣，最終還是由大自然說了算?；实圩鲋实墼撟龅氖虑椋欢砗蟊简v不息的河流相比，他只不過是一個小小的點。
