方聞：大都會博物館亞洲藝術收藏的塑造者

Wen C. Fong, a renowned scholar who helped the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York build one of the world’s most comprehensive collections of Asian art, died on Oct. 3 in Princeton, N.J. He was 88.

幫助紐約大都會藝術博物館建起世上最龐大的亞洲藝術收藏之一的著名學者方聞，于10月3日在新澤西州普林斯頓去世，享年88歲。

His wife, Constance Tang Fong, said the cause was leukemia.

方聞的妻子方唐志明稱死因為白血病。

A leading figure in the history of Chinese art, Professor Fong taught for 40 years at Princeton University, where in the 1950s he established the nation’s first doctoral degree program in Chinese art and archaeology.

作為中國藝術史領軍人物，方聞在普林斯頓大學任教40年，并于20世紀50年代在那里建立了美國第一個中國藝術和考古學博士學位項目。

Beginning in the early 1970s he was a driving force behind the Met’s ambitious effort to expand its collection of Asian art, including masterworks from China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia and India, and add space in which to display it.

從20世紀70年代初開始，他推動了大都會藝術博物館擴充亞洲藝術館藏的龐大計劃，其中包括來自中國、日本、韓國、東南亞和印度的杰作，并且增加了它們的展覽空間。

He counseled art collectors and philanthropists like Brooke Astor and Arthur M. Sackler, and persuaded the Met’s director at the time, Thomas Hoving, and the president of its board of trustees, the financier C. Douglas Dillon, to acquire a trove of ancient and modern art works from leading American collectors of Asian art, including C. C. Wang and John M. Crawford Jr.

他為布魯克·阿斯特(Brooke Astor)和亞瑟·M·薩克勒(Arthur M. Sackler)等藝術收藏家和慈善家提供咨詢，并說服當時的大都會藝術博物館館長托馬斯·霍文(Thomas Hoving)和其董事會主席、金融家C·道格拉斯·狄龍(C. Douglas Dillon)從美國著名亞洲藝術收藏家那里購入一系列古代和現(xiàn)代藝術作品，其中包括王己千和顧洛阜(John M. Crawford Jr.)。

Those efforts brought to the Met an enviable collection of Asian art — hanging scrolls, ancient bronzes, silk tapestries, Chinese paintings dating to the 8th century and more.

這些努力為大都會藝術博物館帶來了令人艷羨的亞洲藝術收藏——立軸、古代青銅器、絲織畫以及遠及公元8世紀的中國畫等等。

An immigrant who went to the United States at age 18, on the eve of the Communist takeover in China, Professor Fong earned a Ph.D at Princeton and then gained a reputation for being an empire builder, first at the Princeton University Art Museum and then at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

方聞是一名移民，在共產(chǎn)黨統(tǒng)治中國前夕離開那里來到美國，時年18歲。他在普林斯頓大學獲得博士學位，然后先后在普林斯頓大學藝術博物館和大都會藝術博物館獲得了一名帝國建設者的聲譽。

He educated and mentored a generation of Chinese art scholars, many of them now in posts at leading American universities and art museums. He curated some of the biggest exhibitions of Asian art at the Met, including, “Splendors of Imperial China: Treasures from the National Palace Museum, Taipei” in 1996 and “The Great Bronze Age of China.”

他教育和指導了一代中國藝術學者，其中許多人現(xiàn)在在美國一流大學和藝術博物館擔任職務。他在大都會藝術博物館策劃了一些關于亞洲藝術最大的展覽，包括1996年的“中華帝國的輝煌：臺北故宮珍品展”和“偉大的中國青銅時代”。

He also wrote, edited or contributed to more than a dozen books about Chinese art, including his seminal work, “Beyond Representation: Chinese Painting and Calligraphy 8th-14th Century,” which was jointly published by the Met and Yale University Press.

他還著寫、編輯或參與撰寫了十幾本關于中國藝術的書籍，包括他的開創(chuàng)性作品《超越再現(xiàn)——8世紀至14世紀中國書畫》，由大都會藝術博物館和耶魯大學出版社聯(lián)合出版。

Wen Fong was born in 1930 in Shanghai. His father owned a dry goods store. Wen took to art as a boy, even as chaos enveloped his city during the Japanese occupation in World War II and the civil war that brought the Communists to power.

方聞1930年生于上海。他的父親開有一家干貨店。他從少年時代就開始喜歡藝術，盡管在二戰(zhàn)日據(jù)期間以及最終令共產(chǎn)黨上臺的內(nèi)戰(zhàn)期間，混亂籠罩著他的城市。

Tutored at home, he was given a classical Chinese education, at one time by the renowned calligrapher and scholar Li Jian. By age 10 he was giving public exhibitions of his calligraphy.

他在家接受中國古典式教育，一度師從著名書法家和學者李健。十歲時，他的書法作品已經(jīng)得到公開展出。

Resisting his parents’ wish that he study science, he decided to pursue his interest in art by leaving for the United States to study at Princeton. There he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in medieval European art history and a Ph.D in art history, with a focus on ancient China.

為了反抗父母讓他學習科學的愿望，他決定通過前往美國普林斯頓讀書來追求他對藝術的興趣。在那里，他獲得了中世紀歐洲藝術史的學士及碩士學位，以及專攻古代中國的藝術史博士學位。

His doctoral work became the basis for his first book, “The Lohans and a Bridge to Heaven,” a study of two Chinese scrolls hanging at the Freer Gallery in Washington that he identified as belonging to a famous Sung dynasty set of 100 depicting the Buddhist deities known as Lohans.

他的博士論文為他的第一本書《羅漢與天橋》打下了基礎，是對華盛頓弗里爾畫廊(Freer Gallery)里懸掛的兩幅中國卷軸的研究，他認為它們屬于一套包含100幅畫的著名宋代羅漢畫集，該畫集描繪的是被稱為羅漢的佛教神明。

At Princeton, Professor Fong educated generations of students in connoisseurship, teaching them how to examine objects closely. To him, that meant not paging through old books and viewing slides or photographs but encountering the actual works of art, getting a feel for their texture, contours and brush strokes, and then contemplating their meaning and power.

在普林斯頓，方聞教育了幾代學生如何鑒賞，教會他們?nèi)绾巫屑殞徱晫ο蟆λ?，這意味著不止于翻閱古書、查看幻燈片或照片，還要面對藝術作品本身，感受它們的肌理、輪廓和筆觸，然后思考它們的意義和力量。

“He’d unroll a scroll on a table and just sit there like a Zen master and say: ‘The object is always right. You’ve got to see what it’s trying to tell you,’ ” recalled Maxwell K. Hearn, who studied under Professor Fong at Princeton and is now chairman of the Asian art department at the Met.

“他在桌子上展開一個卷軸，就像禪師一樣坐在那里說：‘對象永遠是對的。你必須看到它試圖告訴你的內(nèi)容，’”曾在普林斯頓跟隨方聞學習，現(xiàn)任大都會藝術博物館亞洲藝術部主任的何慕文(Maxwell K. Hearn)說。

Professor Fong and a colleague, Frederick W. Mote, set up the nation’s first doctoral program in Chinese art and archaeology at Princeton in 1959.

方聞和同事牟復禮(Frederick W. Mote)于1959年在普林斯頓大學設立了美國第一個中國藝術和考古博士課程。

To deepen his own appreciation of art, Professor Fong was a faculty curator at the Princeton University Art Museum in the 1960s, which he described as a “laboratory” for his study of ancient forms. He organized special exhibitions and helped the museum strengthen its holdings of photography and Asian art. Among its major acquisitions during that time was the John B. Elliott Collection of Chinese Calligraphy, widely considered one of the finest collections of ancient calligraphy outside of Asia.

為了加深自己對藝術的欣賞，方聞于1960年代開始擔任普林斯頓大學藝術博物館的教師策展人，他將其描述為他對古代藝術形式研究的“實驗室”。他組織了特別展覽，幫助博物館強化了攝影和亞洲藝術方面的藏品。在那段時間的重大收購中，約翰·B·艾略特(John B. Elliott)的中國書法藏品被廣泛認為是亞洲以外最好的古代書法收藏之一。

Then, in 1971, on the eve of President Richard M. Nixon’s opening to China, the Metropolitan Museum of Art asked Professor Fong to help revamp and upgrade its Asian art collection. At the time, the Met’s Asian holdings were narrow and hardly notable, consisting mainly of jade, a few prized ceramics, and Buddhist sculptures and Japanese prints.

1971年，在理查德·M·尼克松(Richard M. Nixon)總統(tǒng)向中國開放前夕，大都會藝術博物館要求方聞幫助改造和升級其亞洲藝術收藏品。當時，大都會的亞洲館藏范圍狹窄，幾乎沒什么名聲，內(nèi)容主要包括玉器、一些珍貴的陶瓷、佛像和日本版畫。

Over the next 30 years, as a special consultant to the Met, Professor Fong helped build one of the most comprehensive collections of Asian art and antiquities in the world.

在接下來的30年里，作為大都會的特別顧問，方聞幫助其建立了世界上最全面的亞洲藝術品和古董收藏之一。

A man of boundless energy, he hired new Asian specialists at the Met, including Mr. Hearn; he tutored the Met’s board on landmark pieces from Chinese history that might be acquired; and he negotiated with collectors on loaning, donating or selling their works to the museum.

他是一個精力充沛的人，為大都會聘請了新的亞洲專家，其中就包括了何慕文;他就可能購入的中國歷史上具有里程碑意義的作品向大都會董事會做了介紹;他與收藏家就向博物館借款、捐贈或出售進行談判。

Rather than pursue one piece at a time, Professor Fong often sought to acquire large portions or even entire holdings from a collector. At his urging, for instance, in 1973 the Met acquired 25 Chinese paintings dating from the 11th to 14th centuries from Mr. Wang, a New York collector. It also obtained the 421 works in the Harry C. Packard Collection of Japanese Art, which included some of the finest in the United States; the John M. Crawford Jr. Collection of Chinese Paintings and Calligraphy; and 19th- and 20th-century Chinese paintings from the Robert H. Ellsworth Collection.

方聞經(jīng)常試圖從收藏家那里獲得他們的大部分甚至全部藏品，而不是一次追求一件作品。例如，在他的敦促下，大都會于1973年從紐約收藏家王己千手中收購了可追溯到11世紀至14世紀的25幅中國畫。該博物館還獲得了哈里·C·帕卡德(Harry C. Packard)日本藝術收藏中的421件作品，其中一些是在美國能找到的最精美作品;此外還有顧洛阜的中國書畫收藏;以及安思遠收藏(Robert H. Ellsworth Collection)中的19世紀和20世紀中國畫。

Among the most notable pieces now at the Met are “Riverbank,” a colossal Tang dynasty scroll attributed to the 10th-century painter Dong Yuan, and “Summer Mountains,” a Song dynasty landscape painting. Some scholars questioned the authenticity of “Riverbank,” but Professor Fong insisted that it was the real thing, a masterpiece of Chinese painting.

目前大都會的最著名館藏包括《溪岸圖》，一部尺幅巨大的唐代卷軸，作者是10世紀畫家董源;以及宋代山水畫《夏山圖》。一些學者質(zhì)疑了《溪岸圖》的真?zhèn)危铰剤猿终J為它是真品，是一件中國畫的杰作。

Many of the purchases were financed by the Met or the Dillon Fund, a foundation set up by Mr. Dillon, a Wall Street financier and longtime museum trustee and benefactor who was Treasury secretary under President John F. Kennedy.

許多購買都是由大都會或狄龍基金會(Dillon Fund)資助的，后者是由華爾街街金融家、大都會博物館長期信托者和捐贈者狄龍設立的基金會，他還曾擔任約翰·F·肯尼迪(John F. Kennedy)總統(tǒng)的財政部長。

In 1979, Professor Fong traveled to China with Ms. Astor, another trustee, to conduct research for a new project. Along with Mr. Hearn, Professor Fong had conceived the idea of creating an indoor version of a Chinese scholar’s garden at the Met. It was built with the help of Ms. Astor’s money and is now the Astor Chinese Garden Court.

1979年，方聞教授與另一名董事阿斯特一同前往中國，為一個新項目進行研究。他與何慕文一起構思了在大都會創(chuàng)建室內(nèi)中國文人園林的想法。它是在阿斯特的幫助下建造的，現(xiàn)在成了大都會內(nèi)的阿斯特中國庭院(Astor Chinese Garden Court)。

By the time Professor Fong retired from the Met, in 2000, his imprint was on everything from conservation and the planning of exhibitions, to the more than 50 permanent galleries that are now devoted to displaying Asian art.

方聞于2000年從大都會退休，他留下的印記無處不在，從館藏維護和展覽規(guī)劃，到50多個致力于展示亞洲藝術的固定展廳。

In addition to his wife, Professor Fong is survived by three children, Laurence, Peter and Serena; and two grandchildren.

除了妻子，方聞在世的親屬還包括三名兒女——勞倫斯(Laurence)、彼得(Peter)和塞麗娜(Serena);以及兩名孫輩。