文明（2018）

Civilisations S01E03

Part 5 Feb. 24, 2021, 4:15 p.m.

Bruegel himself was no brush-wielding yokel.
勃鲁盖尔自己不是一个不会写字的庄稼汉
He was learned and well-travelled.
他很有学识游历四方
He'd taken a trip over the Alps to Italy, sketching as he went.
他曾越过阿尔卑斯去意大利旅行同时画草图
Some of those Alpine peaks appear, incongruously,
有些阿尔卑斯山峰出现在了他所描绘的
alongside depictions of his low-lying, Flemish home.
地势低洼的佛兰德斯故乡旁边很不和谐
But that only increases the telescopic sense of deep space
但这也只是为了增加外层空间的景深感
Bruegel gives us, using those tree lines
通过这些林木线和远方山峰的曲线
and the curve of the peaks to send our vision plunging,
勃鲁盖尔把我们的视觉向下引导
like the flight of that bird,
就向那只鸟的飞行方向一样
from huge vistas to the smallest detail.
从宏伟的远景拉到最细节的部分
Along with that optical drama,
除了这种戏剧性的视觉效果外
we get another kind of perspective,
还有另一种视角
a philosophical confrontation
伴随着我们与大自然本身关系的
with our relationship to nature itself -
一种哲学上的冲突
unsentimental, rugged, which demands a closer look.
无情又曲折需要细细观察
I know you've all seen this on countless Christmas cards,
我知道你们都曾在无数圣诞卡片上见过这个
but was there ever an image less brimming with Yuletide cheer.
但这些画是如此冷清完全没有任何节庆气氛
Those hunters haven't got much to show for their trouble.
这些猎人费了好大力气却没有什么收获
A skinny fox suspended from their poles.
一只干瘦的狐狸悬挂在他们的杆子上
The exhausted dogs,
精疲力尽的狗
trying to lift their legs out of the heavy snow,
试着从厚厚的积雪中把腿拔♥出♥来♥
feel the pain as much as their masters.
他们能感受到跟他们主人一样的痛苦
Bruegel painted these compendious,
勃鲁盖尔画这些简洁有力
visually inexhaustible masterpieces
视觉上取之不尽的杰作
after the coldest, most frigid Flemish winter
是在佛兰德斯最寒冷的一个冬天之后
that anybody could remember in their lifetime.
每个人一生中都会记得那个冬天
But he also painted them on the cusp of a long, terrible civil war
但他作画的时候也处于漫长而残酷的内战中
that would divide the Netherlands between
这张内战要将荷兰分♥裂♥成
Protestant and Catholic, north and south,
新教和天主教北部和南部
the Spanish Empire and the free Dutch Republic.
西班牙帝国和自♥由♥的荷兰共和国
And Bruegel would actually find himself right in the middle
勃鲁盖尔发现他自己正处在
of all those troubles.
这种种争端的中间
But, while we're looking at these glorious landscapes,
但当我们看这些美丽的风景画时
none of that history seems to matter.
那段历史都不重要了
For Bruegel, the natural world
对勃鲁盖尔来说自然世界
is a consolation for the traumas afflicting civilisation.
是对这充满创伤和痛苦的文明的一个安慰
Whatever happens in our human world,
无论人类世界发生了什么
the God-given seasons will still roll around,
上帝赐予的四季仍在有序轮回
the cattle will still return to their winter pasture.
牛仍要回到他们的冬季牧场
Let's just think for a minute
让我们来想一想
about the way he wants us to look at these paintings.
他希望我们如何来看待这些画作
It's a dialogue, in a way,
从某种程度上讲这是一场
between the universal and the particular.
宇宙和个体之间的对话
On the one hand, wherever the eye travels,
一方面无论我们看向哪个角落
we are invited into a wealth of detail of work and play.
我们都能享受到一场劳作嬉戏的细节盛宴
The trudge through the snow,
有雪地猎人的艰难跋涉
the glide of the skaters across the ice.
有冰上轻盈灵动的溜冰者
And wherever we travel with our eye through the landscape,
无论我们的目光在画作的风景中如何穿梭
we're carried to dramatically different places.
总能被带到一处截然不同的场所
From a Flemish village huddled against the hillside,
从弗兰德斯聚集在山腰上的村落
out to a storm-tossed river estuary,
到风雨欲来中的河口
out to the broad, open sea.
再到宽广无垠的大海
An experience of looking at these paintings becomes, surely,
看这幅画心中感受着变换百态
like the experience of all of our lives.
简直就像人生的境遇
On the one hand, we're immersed in the here and now.
而另一方面我们沉浸在这片土地这个时空
We have no choice. We go from minute to minute,
别无选择我们按部就班
hour to hour, task to task. It's our daily routine.
循规蹈矩溺于琐事安于故俗
But, then, something else happens.
但突然之间起了变化
We stop and we contemplate and we look at the whole picture,
我们止步沉思我们注视着整个图景
like that one bird, perching on that naked, leafless branch.
仿佛这只栖于萧条树枝上的鸟儿
And everything, somehow, is pulled together.
万事万物间仿佛忽然有了联♥系♥
The whole of our life is laid out in front of us, and, with it,
人生种种都浮现在眼前由此而上
the entirety of human society.
更是得以一窥世间百态
And we're very, very lucky.
我们真是无比幸运
It all adds up, the whole human condition,
全体人类的境况与我们身在其中
and our particular, special, little place inside it.
那独特微小的地位全都串联在了一起
Bruegel was an encyclopaedist of the human comedy,
勃鲁盖尔是人类喜剧百科全书的撰写者
and, as we cross the frozen pond, we find, for me,
在我们穿过这片冰冻的池塘时我找到了
one of the most unforgettable characters in all of European art.
所有欧洲艺术作品中最令我难忘的人物形象
A tiny, stooped figure, an old woman,
一个躬身的微小身影一位老妇
bent with the burden of branches,
背负着沉重的树枝
meant for fuel or thatching,
向她家中的冬日暖炉蹒跚而去
plodding home to her winter hearth,
那树枝或是填了炉灶或是补了漏屋
the prospect of which makes that burden just about bearable.
心有期盼连沉重的柴枝似乎也轻盈了起来
It's a lesson in the perseverance of the poor.
她教会了我穷♥人♥的隐忍♥与坚持
For what alternative does she really have?
毕竟她除了坚忍♥ 别无选择
Through these landscape paintings, what Bruegel is really doing
通过这些风景画勃鲁盖尔其实是想
is offering us a profound glimpse not into the natural world,
让我们深刻地感知到人类的境况
but into the human condition.
而非窥视大自然的风景
Bruegel died in 1569, spared the worst of a war
勃鲁盖尔逝于1569年躲过了荷兰
for religious and local liberty in the Netherlands.
因信仰和地方独♥立♥所起战乱最惨烈的日子
《残杀无辜》(约1565-69)
老彼得·勃鲁盖尔
He couldn't know it would last for 80 years.
他从没料到这一战就是八十年
But he evidently feared the worst.
但他阴差阳错地预见到了最糟的情况
A painting pretending to be a Biblical massacre of the innocents
一幅描绘圣经中残杀无辜的画作
is done in contemporary dress,
画中人却穿上了当代的衣服
with a documentary awareness
这正是西班牙军队到来后
of what was in store for those countryfolk
等待着这些村民的悲惨下场的
when Spanish troops arrived.
真实写照
What happened was what always happens in such calamities -
在这样的人为灾难中该发生的总会发生
a frantic, mass migration of refugees.
惊慌失措的难民大量的迁移
The Netherlands became split
荷兰沿着战线
along the lines of the military slog -
一分为二
Protestant north, Catholic south.
新教♥徒♥在北天主教♥徒♥在南
But, as so often in our story,
但人类历史中总不乏这样一幕
the most astonishing flowerings
最令人艳羡的花朵
happen in the midst of human disaster.
总是在苦难中悄然开放
In the Protestant Dutch Republic,
在新教♥徒♥的荷兰共和国中
as art was purged from churches branded as idolatry,
艺术被打上了崇拜邪教的标签而被清出教堂
it simply shifted location into other places,
却只是换了地方暗自生长
especially private homes.
尤其是在私人家中
In the years when they were most beleaguered by war,
在战火烧得最凶的那几年
the Dutch became most prolific at buying pictures
荷兰人非常热衷于购买♥♥画作
which reminded them of what they were defending.
让画作提醒自己所守卫的土地
It was the first mass-market for landscape art,
这是风景画第一次有了大众市场
precisely the kind of low art which Italians condescended to.
准确的说是意大利人看不上的低俗艺术品
《牲渡》(1622)
埃萨亚斯·凡·德·维尔德
Willow-hung streams.
柳枝低垂的小溪
The life of the rustics.
乡下人的生活
《沙丘小屋》(1627)
彼得·德·莫林
It was what the Dutch were most passionately attached to.
这正是荷兰人心中最牵动心弦的所在
《玉米地》(1638)
萨洛蒙·凡·雷斯达尔
The simple face of their homeland.
这是家乡简朴的脸庞
Now, the reason why the Dutch felt so emotionally invested
荷兰人之所以对这种风景投入了如此多的感情
in this landscape was because they had been responsible
是因为为了让这片土地呈现如今的景致
for physically making so much of it.
他们付出了相当多的努力
There's this old saying that God made the world,
有句老话说上帝创造了世界
but the Dutch made Holland.
而荷兰人创造了荷兰
And exactly at the time where they reinvent landscape painting,
而就在他们重新发明了风景画的那段时间里
this was literally true.
这句老话说的一点没错
This was an area called the Beemster.
这个区名叫贝姆斯特尔
200,000 acres of what had been the inland sea of the Zuiderzee
1607至1612年间八百平方公里土地
were turned into this glorious pasture between 1607 and 1612,
从曾经的内海须德海变做了繁茂的牧场
while the Dutch were at war.
此时荷兰尚处于战争期间
It was reclaimed with the aid of 43 windmills,
当时全靠这四十三座风车磨坊
pumping the water out.
排水造陆
This wasn't just topography, wasn't just land,
这不只是地貌不只是土地
it was their homeland.
这是他们的家园
So, when the Dutch felt that, under God's protection,
当荷兰人觉得在上帝的保护下
they were making a part of Holland,
他们建造了荷兰的一部分时