后印象主义绘画(中英双语)

POST-IMPRESSIONISM,SYMBOLISM,AND ART

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后印象主义、象征主义和新艺术PAINTING Post-Impressionism绘画后印象主义

In1882,just before his death,Manet was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honor by the French government.This event marks the turn of the tide: Impressionism had gained wide acceptance among artists and the public—but by the same token it was no longer a pioneering movement.When the Impressionists held their last group show four years later,the future already belonged to the “Post-Impressionists.”Taken literally,this colorless label applies to all painter of significance in the1880s and1890s.In a more specific sense,it designates a group of artists who passed through an Impressionist phase but became dissatisfied with the limitations of the style and pursued a variety of directions.Because they did not share one common goal,we have no more descriptive term for them than Post-Impressionists.In any event,they were not“anti-Impressionist.”Far from trying to undo the effects of the“Manet Revolution,”they wanted to carry it further.Thus Post-Impressionism is in essence just a later stage, though a very important one,of the development that had begun in the1860s with such pictures as Manet’s Luncbeon on the Grass.

1882年，就在马奈去世之前，他被法国政府授予“荣誉团勋章”。这一事件标志着潮流的更迭：印象主义已经被艺术家和公众广泛接受——但同时它已不再是一个具有开创性的运动。四年之后，当印象派艺术家举办最后的联展时，未来已经属于“后印象派”。从字面上讲，这一苍白的标签适用于19世纪80至90年代所有重要的画家。具体地说，它指向一群经历了印象派时期但又对印象派的局限性感到不满而追求不同风格的艺术家。因为他们没有一个共同的目标，所以我们只好用“后印象派”来描述他们。不过，他们不是“反印象派”。他们完全没有想过去消除“马奈革命”带来的影响，而是要使之传扬下去。因此后印象主义在本质只是一个时间稍后的阶段，但也是很重要的一个阶段。它始于19世纪60年代，早期作品如马奈的《草地上的午餐》。

CEZANNE.

Paul Cezanne(1839-1906),the oldest of the

Post-Impressionists,was born in Aix-en-Provence, near the Mediterranean coast,where he formed a close friendship with the writer Emile Zola,later a champion of the Impressionists.A man of intensely emotional temperament,he came to Paris in1861imbued with enthusiasm for the Romantics.Delacroix was his first love among painters,and he never lost his admiration for him.Cezanne,however,quickly grasped the nature of the"Manet Revolution,"but utterly transformed it.

A Modern Olympia(fig.983)was painted in response to an Olympica by Manet featuring a prostitute whose frank nakedness scandalized the art world.As in Luncheon on the Grass,executed by Manet the same year as the Olympia,Cezanne's nude is in the company of a man wearing contemporary garb;his features are plainly those of Cezanne himself(see fig.984).Like many of his early works,A Modern Olympia is

塞尚.

保罗?塞尚(1839-1906),最早的后印象派画家,生于普罗旺斯地区艾克斯。在这个靠近地中海海岸的城市,他与作家埃米尔?左拉（后来成为拥护印象派的人）建立了亲密的友谊。塞尚是一个极度感性的人,1861年他来到了巴黎，满心向往浪漫主义。德拉克洛瓦是塞尚最初喜爱的画家，此人一直令他很钦佩。然而,塞尚很快抓住了“马奈革命”的本质,但又彻底改变了它。《现代奥林匹亚》(图983)的创作是对马奈的《奥林匹亚》作出的响应。马奈以妓女为题材，画中女子毫不掩饰的裸体使艺术界蒙羞。在创作《奥林匹亚》的同一年，马奈创作了《草地上的午餐》。和《草地上的午餐》一样,塞尚画中的裸女旁边陪着一个男人，身着当代的服饰；他的体貌特征显然是塞尚自己的

sexually charged,albeit in a curiously ambivalent way that suggests why he never formed a durable relationship.While the setting is a boudoir,the picture is one of the first to treat what was to become one of the recurring themes in modern art:the artist and his model,a subject often fraught with erotic overtones. He sits in mute adoration of the young woman,whose sumptuous surroundings suggest that she is indeed a modern goddess.Yet the juxtaposition of the two figures is strange indeed.Although separated in space, they are placed so near each other on the picture plane that she seems almost to recoil from his dark presence! Equally disturbing is the brushwork,which communicates the turbulent passion repressed by the seemingly impassive artist.Never before have we seen such brusqueness,not even in Cezanne's ideal, Delacroix.The subtitle The Pasha pays homage to the Orientalism of Delacroix,whose Odalisque(fig.889) nevertheless has a sensuousness absent from Cezanne's Olympia.This artist-as-potentate can admire,but not possess,his"harem girl."(见图984)。跟他的许多早期作品一样,《现代奥林匹亚》充斥着色情,但又以一种异常飘忽的方式暗示他为什么从来不和女人长久保持关系。画中背景是一个闺房,而此画则是最早以“画家和他的模特”为题的作品之一。此后，这一主题在现代艺术中反复出现，常常充斥着色情的意味。画中男子端坐着，静静地欣赏年轻的女子,其奢华的环境表明,她的确是一个摩登女神。然而,两个人物的位置关系却很奇怪。虽然在空间上是分开的,但在投影面上他们靠得很近,看上去她几乎被他的黑影掩盖了。同样困扰人们的还有其画法,因为它既传达出一种狂躁的情欲，却又被这个看似冷漠的画家压制着。此前我们从未见过这般“无厘头”，即使在塞尚崇拜的画家德拉克洛瓦的画中也没见过。副标题《帕夏》是向德拉克洛瓦的东方主义致以崇高的敬意。然而，德拉克洛瓦的《大宫女》(图889)具有一种感性，这在塞尚的《奥林匹亚》中却不存在。这个“主宰一切”的画家能欣赏他的“后宫嫔妃”,但却不能拥有她。

After passing through this Neo-Baroque phase, Cezanne began to paint bright outdoor scenes with Pissarro,but he never shared his fellow Impressionists' interest in"slice-of-life"subjects,in movement and change.About1879,when he painted the Self-Portrait in figure984,he had decided"to make of Impressionism something solid and durable,like the art of the museums."His Romantic impulsiveness of the1860s has now given way to a patient,disciplined search for harmony of form and color.Every brushstroke is like a building block,firmly placed within the pictorial architecture,which creates a subtle balance of"two-D"and"three-D."(Note how the pattern of wallpaper in the background frames the rounded shape of the head.)The colors,too,are deliberately controlled so as to produce"chords"of warm and cool tones that reverberate throughout the canvas.

经历了新巴洛克阶段之后，塞尚和毕沙罗开始画起了明亮的户外景观。同时期的印象派画家的兴趣在于“反映现实”的题材，在于运动与变化，但是塞尚的却大不一样。1879年前后，他创作了《自画像》（图984），他已经决定“赋予印象主义一种坚固耐久的品质，使之堪比博物馆里面的艺术品”。19世纪60年代他曾经对现实主义产生冲动，如今他抛掉了冲动，转而耐心专注地追求形式和颜色的和谐统一。（在此油画中），每一次落笔，就像一块建筑材料，牢牢地嵌入那幢画卷般的建筑物之中，使得“二维”和“三维”巧妙地平衡起来。（注意观察背景中的壁纸图案如何衬出头部的圆形）同时，颜色的掌控别具匠心，以至于冷暖色调如琴弦一般，在油画上跳跃起来。

In Cezanne's still lifes,such as Still Life with Apples (fig.985),this quest for the"solid and durable"can be seen even more clearly.Not since Chardin have simple

在塞尚的静物画中，例如《苹果静物》（图985），这种对于“坚固而耐

久”的追求更加清晰可见。自从夏尔丹

everyday objects assumed such importance in a painter's eye.Again the ornamental backdrop is integrated with the three-dimensional shapes,and the brushstrokes have a rhythmic pattern that gives the canvas its shimmering texture.We also notice aspects of Cezanne's mature style that are more conspicuous here than in the Self-Portrait and may puzzle us at first.The forms are deliberately simplified and outlined with dark contours,and the perspective is "incorrect"for both the fruit bowl and the horizontal surfaces,which seem to tilt upward.The longer we study the picture,the more we realize the Tightness of these apparently arbitrary distortions.When Cezanne took these liberties with reality,his purpose was to uncover the permanent qualities beneath the accidents of appearance.All forms in nature,he believed,are based on the cone,the sphere,and the cylinder.This order underlying the external world was the true subject of his pictures,but he had to interpret it to fit the separate,closed world of the canvas.（去世）之后，简单的日常物品再也没有得到画家的青睐。（在此画中）同样可以看出，装饰性的背景被融入三维图形中，而画家的次次落笔富有韵律，给油画增添了一抹亮彩。我们同时也注意到，在此画中，塞尚成熟画风的方方面面均比《自画像》中的更明显，这起初也许会让人感到不解。静物的外形被刻意简化，仅仅勾勒出模糊的轮廓，且其视角对于果盘和水平面都是错误的，因为它们似乎向上倾斜了。我们对此画研究越久，就越能体会到这些表明看来随意的扭曲是合理。当塞尚随心所欲地描绘现实时，他的目的是为了揭示那些表面上偶然的事件背后永恒的品质。他认为，自然界中的所有形状都是以圆锥、球形和圆柱为基础的。这一个奠定了外部世界的规则是他绘画的真正主题。但他需要阐述一番，使之融入那片孤立而封闭的油画天地。

To apply this method to landscape became the greatest challenge of Cezanne's career.From1882on, he lived in isolation near his hometown of

Aix-en-Provence,exploring its environs as Claude Lorraine and Corot had explored the Roman countryside.One feature,the distinctive shape of a mountain called Mont Sainte-Victoire,seemed almost to obsess him.Its craggy profile looming against the blue Mediterranean sky appears in a long series of compositions,such as the monumental late work in figure986.There are no hints of human presence here---houses and roads would only disturb the lonely grandeur of this view.Above the wall of rocky cliffs that bar our way like a chain of fortifications,the mountain rises in triumphant clarity,infinitely remote yet as solid and palpable as the shapes in the foreground.For all its architectural stability,the scene is alive with movement;but the forces at work here have been brought into equilibrium,subdued by the greater power of the artist's will.This disciplined energy,distilled from the trials of a stormy youth, gives the mature style of Cezanne its enduring strength.

将这种方法应用于风景画成为塞尚绘画生涯的最大挑战。从1882年起，他在家乡——普罗旺斯地区的埃克斯附近离群索居，像克劳德?洛林和卡洛特探索罗马田园风光一样探索当地风景。其中一个景物—一座名叫圣维多利亚山的独特外形，似乎让塞尚深深着迷了。它的峭壁在蓝色的地中海天空的映衬下隐约可见，出现在他的一系列作品，例如后期创作的那幅杰作（图986）。画中没有人类的迹象；如果有房屋和道路，那将破坏这一壮丽无比的景象。陡峭的石壁像一道防御链阻挡了我们的去路，石壁之上是山峰，高傲挺拔,遥不可及，却又像近景中的形物一样，让人感觉到它的真实存在。尽管画作具有建筑意义的稳定性,但画面却充满了动态感；而在画家更强大的意志力的控制之下，各种动态力量又得到了平衡。这

种能量是在青年时期不畏打击几经尝试提炼而来，而今已收放自如，使塞尚成熟的风格具有恒久的力量。

VAN GOGH.

While Cezanne and Seurat were converting

文森特·梵高。当塞尚和修拉将印象主义变成一种更严肃、古典的风格之

Impressionism into a more severe,classical style, Vincent Van Gogh(1853-1890)pursued the opposite direction.He believed that Impressionism did not provide the artist with enough freedom to express his emotions.Since this was his main concern,he is sometimes called an Expressionist,although the term ought to be reserved for certain later painters.Van Gogh,the first great Dutch master since the seventeenth century,did not become an artist until 1880;as he died only ten years later,his career was even briefer than Seurat's.His early interests were in literature and religion.Proroundly dissatisfied with the values of industrial society and imbued with a strong sense of mission,he worked for a while as a lay preacher among poverty-stricken coal miners in Belgium.This same intense feeling for the poor dominates the paintings of his pre-Impressionist period,1880-85.In The Potato Eaters(fig.992),the last and most ambitious work of those years,there remains a naive clumsiness that comes from his lack of conventional training,but this only adds to the expressive power of his style.We are reminded of Daumier and Millet(see figs.892and897),and of Rembrandt and Le Nain(see figs.795and806).For this peasant family,the evening meal has the solemn importance of a rite.时，文森特?梵高（1853-1890）却反其道而行之。他认为印象主义没有给艺术家提供足够的自由来表达情感。由于这是他主要关心的问题，他有时被称为表现派画家，但是这个词应该留给后来的某些画家（见761页）。梵高，这位十七世纪以来第一个伟大的荷兰大师，直到1880年才成为艺术家；由于他十年后便去世了，他的绘画生涯甚至比修拉的更为短暂。他早期的兴趣在于文学与宗教。由于他对工业社会价值观的极度不满，且被灌输了一种强烈的使命感，有一段时间他在比利时给饱受困苦的煤矿工人业余传教。这种对穷人的强烈情感在其前印象派时期（1880-85）的绘画作品中占据主导地位。在那些年创作的最后一幅最为大胆的作品《吃土豆的人》（图992）中，存在一种天真的拙朴。这一品质是因为他缺乏常规的绘画训练造成的，但这恰恰增强了其风格的表现力。这使我们想起杜米埃和米勒（见图892和897）以及伦勃朗和勒南（见图795和806）。对这个农民家庭而言，晚餐如宗教仪式般庄重。

When he painted The Potato Eaters,Van Gogh had not yet discovered the importance of color.A year later in Paris,where his brother Theo had a gallery devoted to modern art,he met Degas,Seurat,and other leading French artists.Their effect on him was electrifying. His pictures now blazed with color,and he even experimented briefly with the Divisionist technique of Seurat.This Impressionist phase,however,lasted less than two years.Although it was vitally important for his development,he had to integrate it with the style of his earlier years before his genius could fully unfold. Paris had opened his eyes to the sensuous beauty of the visible world and had taught him the pictorial language of the color patch,but painting continued to be nevertheless a vessel for his personal emotions.To investigate this spiritual reality with the new means at his command,he went to Aries,in the south of France. It was there,between1888and1890,that he produced his greatest pictures.

当梵高画《吃土豆的人》时,他尚未认识到颜色的重要性。一年后他到了巴黎,在他弟弟西奥（1857-1891）的一个专营现代艺术的画廊里,他遇到了德加、修拉和其他法国的艺术先驱。他们对他的影响令人惊喜。此时，他在作品中采用了光鲜的颜色,甚至还一度尝试修拉的点彩画法。然而,这个尝试印象派画法的阶段维持不足两年。虽然这对他的发展至关重要,但是在他的才华充分展现之前，他还得在把这种画法同早期的风格整合起来。巴黎使他见识了有形世界的声色之美,也教他学会了调色板具有的形象化语言,但是绘画仍然不过是他抒发个人情感的一个渠道。

为了运用新掌握的方法去探究精神世界,他去了法国南部的阿尔勒。就在那里，梵高创作了他最伟大的绘画作品，时间是1888年到1890年。

Like Cezanne,Van Gogh now devoted his main energies to landscape painting,but the sun-drenched Mediterranean countryside evoked a very different response in him:he saw it filled with ecstatic movement,not architectural stability and permanence. In Wheat Field and Cypress Trees(fig.993),both earth and sky pulsate with an overpowering turbulence. The wheat field resembles a stormy sea,the trees spring flamelike from the ground,and the hills and clouds heave with the same undulant motion.The dynamism contained in every brushstroke makes of each one not merely a deposit of color,but an incisive graphic gesture.The artist's personal"handwriting"is here an even more dominant factor than in the canvases of Daumier(compare figs.892and893).Yet to Van Gogh himself it was the color,not the form, that determined the expressive content of his pictures. The letters he wrote to his brother include many eloquent descriptions of his choice of hues and the emotional meanings he attached to them.He had learned about Impressionist color from Pissarro,but his personal color symbolism probably stemmed from discussions with Paul Gauguin,who stayed with Van Gogh at Aries for several months.(Yellow,for example,meant faith or triumph or love to Van Gogh, while carmine was a spiritual color,cobalt a divine one;red and green,on the other hand,stood for the terrible human passions.)Although he acknowledged that his desire"to exaggerate the essential and to leave the obvious vague"made his colors look arbitrary by Impressionist standards,he nevertheless remained deeply committed to the visible world.

像塞尚一样，梵高此时把他的主要精力放在风景画上,但阳光灿烂的地中海农村吸引了他，使他作出一个完全不同的反应：他发现那里没有建筑意义的稳定性和持久性，而是充盈着令人着迷的动感。在《麦田和柏树》中(图993),地球和天空颤动着一种强烈的湍流。麦田像波涛汹涌的海面,树木像火焰一样在地面上跳跃，山峦和云彩做着相同的波状运动。每一次运笔所蕴含的爆发力使其不仅仅是一个储色点,还是一个清晰明快的绘画动作。跟杜米埃的油画相比(比较图892和893)，梵高的个人“笔迹”在这里是一个更具主导性的因素。然而,对于梵高来说，决定他的绘画表现内容的是颜色而不是形式。在他写给弟弟的信中，有很多动人的描述涉及他所选的色调，以及他赋予那些色调的情感意义。他已经从毕沙罗那里学到了印象派的用色原理,但他个人的色彩象征手法可能源于与保罗?高更的讨论(见下文),后者曾与梵高在阿尔勒住了几个月。(例如，对于梵高而言，黄色意味着信仰、胜利或爱,而深红色意味着精神,深蓝色意味着神圣，另一方面,红色和绿色则代表可怕的人类激情。)尽管他承认,他有“夸大本质并使显眼的东西模糊化”的欲望，这使他的颜色看起来表达不够明确（以印象派的标准来衡量的话）,但是他依旧深深致力于表达有形的世界。

Compared to Monet's The River(see fig.948),the colors of Wheat Field and Cypress Trees are stronger, simpler,and more vibrant,but in no sense"unnatural." They speak to us of that"kingdom of light"Van Gogh had found in the South,and of his mystic faith in a creative force animating all forms of life a faith no less ardent than the sectarian Christianity of his early years.His Self-Portrait(fig.994)will remind us of Durer's(fig.714),and with good reason:the missionary had now become a prophet.His emaciated, luminous head with its burning eyes is set off against a whirlpool of darkness."I want to paint men and women with that something of the eternal which the

和莫奈的《河》(见图948)相比,《麦田和柏树》的颜色更浓，更简单，也更充满活力,却一点都不“矫情”。那些颜色向我们述说梵高在南方发现的“光的王国”,还揭示了他的神秘的信仰——一种创造力能把灵性带给所有形式的生命。这种信仰很强烈，不亚于他早年传播基督教的热情。他的《自画像》(图994)会让我们想到杜勒的(图714)，原因就在于：传教士已经成为一个先知。（在画中），他的头部置于一个黑暗漩涡样的背景中，削瘦而光亮，目光炽热。梵高写道,“过去常常用光

halo used to symbolize,"Van Gogh had written, groping to define for his brother the human essence that was his aim in pictures such as this.At the time of the Self-Portrait,he had already begun to suffer fits of a mental illness that made painting increasingly difficult for him.Despairing of a cure,he committed suicide a year later,for he felt very deeply that art alone made his life worth living.晕来象征永恒，而我就想用那种东西来描绘男人女人,”他试图为弟弟定义人的本质，而本质就是他在绘画方面追求的，正如这一幅画体现的一样。创作《自画像》的时候,他已经开始遭受精神疾病的折磨,这使他的创作越来越困难。一年之后,由于对治疗已感绝望,他自杀了，因为他深信唯有艺术能使他活有所值。