艺术的力量（2006）

I realised that I was much influenced subconsciously
我深深的受到了那座中世纪图书馆
by Michelangelo's walls in the staircase room
楼梯间中米开朗基罗创作的壁画的影响
of the Medicean library in Florence.
他所达到的正是我所苦苦追寻的
He achieved just the kind of feeling I'm after.
他令那些参观者感受到了
He makes the viewers feel
他们被困在一个房♥间里 那里的门窗都被砖块封住了
they are trapped in a room where all the doors and windows are bricked up.
所以他们能做的只有拿自己的头去撞墙
So all they can do is butt their heads against the wall
永远
forever.
这种感觉正是罗斯科想要带给
That was the feeling Mark Rothko wanted to give to the people
那些将在曼哈顿最漂亮的饭店里用餐的那些观众的
who'd soon be eating in Manhattan's smartest restaurant.
罗斯科以及纽约的其他艺术家们审视着美国
Rothko and the other New York artists looked at America
他们发现了一个嵌于炸♥弹♥政策与超级市场之间的国家
and found a country caught between the bomb and the supermarket,
朝鲜战争以及冷战
Korea and the Cold War,
性格偏执 精神涣散
paranoia and distraction.
这是一个人为制♥造♥的不真实的生活方式
It was an unreal, manufactured way of life.
所以他们的作品必须得做出反击
So their paintings would fight back.
他们要把人们与
They'd reconnect people with physical reality,
真实的自然界以及人类何以为人类的真♥相♥重新联♥系♥起来
with the truth of what it was to be human.
而且他们的行事方式也是全新的
And they'd do it in a totally new way.
罗斯科说道 经历了大屠♥杀♥和原♥子♥弹♥爆♥炸♥
''After the Holocaust and the atom bomb,'' Rothko said,
你就不能去绘画那些肢体健全的人们的形象
''you couldn't paint figures without mutilating them.''
那么 能否只用颜色和形状
So, could just colours and shapes
就能像米开朗基罗那样去感动人们呢
move us the way Michelangelo had?
De Kooning Pollock以及罗斯科都是这么认为的
De Kooning, Pollock and Rothko all certainly thought so,
他们都舍弃了把事物作为创作的主体 而是去争取一个全新的纯粹的感情表达方式
abandoning painting things to strive for a new, pure expression of feeling.
它们极具视觉效果 且带有一定的启示性
At once visionary and revelatory,
在艺术历史中还从没有出现过类似的情况
and like nothing in the history of art,
于是一个崭新的艺术形式出现了
a new world on the canvas.
当这些作品在二十世纪五十年代于曼哈顿首次展出时
When they were first shown in Manhattan in the 1950s,
在人们眼中
these big, spellbinding paintings were immediately recognised
这些极具迷惑性的大幅作品立刻被当作了
as a body of work that made the case for
美国绘画艺术新的诠释方式
American painting in an utterly new way.
它表现的情绪激荡人心 令人欲罢不能
Emotionally stirring, sensuously addictive.
悬挂的画布上布满了对比强烈的各色条块
Big vertical canvases of contrasting bars of colour.
它们依次向上层层叠加
Panels of colour stacked up on top of each other,
闪着微光 生机勃勃
shimmering, glowing,
渐渐的把你引入某种深邃且不确定的巍巍发光的远处
beckoning you into some sort of deep, undefined radiant yonder.
就像他心目中的两个偶像伦勃朗和特纳
Rothko had become the maker of paintings as powerful and complicated
罗斯科也能够使绘画构图错综复杂且拥有强大的力量
as anything by his two gods, Rembrandt and Turner.
对于我来说 他已经可以与那些大♥师♥前辈比肩而立了
For me, these paintings are the equivalent of those old masters.
就像先辈大♥师♥的作品一样 这些作品也散发出了一个奇妙的力场
Like them, they emanate an uncanny force field, so strongly magnetic
这个富有吸引力的立场是如此的强大 以至于当你要转身离去的时候
that when you turn your back on them or leave the room,
你仍然能感到它们的存在
you can still sense their presence.
在1949年 这种抒发感情的新式语言突然安静了下来
Quite suddenly, in 1949, the new language of feeling
罗斯科已经苦苦探索了20年
Rothko had been groping towards for two decades
最终他找到了
finally revealed itself.
对于欧洲的旧的艺术世界
To the Old World of art, Europe,
在那里现代主义的先锋人物 如萨尔瓦多.达利 毕加索
where the veterans of modernism, Salvador Dali, Picasso,
他们仍旧在现代主义的道路上磨磨蹭蹭 影响日渐衰微
were still pottering around to ever less effect,
而罗斯科的作品
Rothko's paintings seemed to give the lie
则令那些谴责美国文化浅陋的人都闭上了嘴
to anyone accusing American culture of shallowness.
因为无论这些作品代表什么东西 它们都非常深刻而富有内涵
For whatever else these throbbing paintings were, they were unmistakably deep.
这完全是罗斯科的原创
Rothko had accomplished something utterly original.
这并不是作品的颜色赋予了作品意义
It's not what the colours are that makes the paintings work on our senses,
这应该是罗斯科的功劳
it's what Rothko makes them do.
然而初次看上去 这些作品显得如此的沉静
While at first sight these paintings seem so still and composed,
但是如果认真看了一阵子 你会发现这些作品发生了变化
hang around for a moment and you'll see they're anything but.
它们仿佛在运动 看起来在呼吸起伏
They're in motion, they seem to swell and breathe,
就像在风中胀满了的风帆
and fill like sails catching the wind.
它们并不是被动的等待观众来欣赏
They're not paintings that just dumbly wait to be watched.
它们是有目的而来 而目标就是我们这些观众
They come and get us.
而我们则处于它们的包围之中
And we surrender to total immersion.
罗斯科在谈话的时候经常像一个超越人类认识的哲人一样
Often talked about as some kind of transcendental philosopher,
罗斯科从来都不认为自己的作品属于神秘主义
Rothko was at pains to deny ever being a mystic.
他说道 不 我给予你们的 我所爱的
''No,'' he said, ''what I'm giving you, what I love,"
是我的人生体验
''is material experience,"
是对这个多彩世界的认知感觉
''the sensuousness of the world in all its richness.''
而且这些吸引人眼球的手段并没有起什么作用
And none of this tantalising of the eye
因为在所有的画家中 罗斯科的作品边缘并不是最模糊粗糙的
would work had Rothko not been the most soft-edged of all painters.
这些作品粗糙的边缘是多么的重要啊
Look at how important those ragged borders are.
在作品的边缘地带
Both at the perimeter of the whole picture,
以及作品里面割裂的各个部分的边缘
and in those torn seams he cuts between the big colour zones.
内部发出的光亮 神秘而有力
That inner light, mysterious and potent.
当人们注视着它长达数小时后 他们心中再无旁物
When people beheld it, for hours they could hold nothing else in their mind's eye.
1954-1957三年间罗斯科的作品价格涨了两倍
Between 1954 and 1957, the prices for Rothko's paintings trebled.
当初作为他的工作室的那间博物馆
The big museums down the street from his studio,
在20世纪30年代他曾经在那里工作
that he'd attacked in the 1930s,
如今也想得到与他有关的一些东西
now all wanted a piece of him.
那些喜欢收藏美国现代主义大♥师♥的作品的人们
Buyers who were busy creating collections of modern American masters,
就像拥有Pollock、de Kooning和Kline的作品一样
now had to have a Rothko
如今也得拥有罗斯科的作品才算得上是名副其实
along with their Pollocks, their de Koonings and their Klines.
那么 这样就意味着罗斯科最终可以休息放松一下了吗
So, did this mean that Mark Rothko finally could relax a little?
在成功的光环下晒晒太阳吗 他才不会呢
Bask in the glow of his success? Did it hell!
对于他来说他的作品并不是镇静催眠剂 这一点非常重要
It was vital to him that his pictures were not sedatives.
在20世纪50年代 人们经常相互告知要放松修养
In the 1950s, people were always being told to relax.
但是罗斯科并不想让自己的作品成为一种按♥摩♥
Well, Rothko didn't want his pictures to be like a massage.
他认为自己的作品起到的作用恰恰相反
They were, he said, the opposite of restful.
展现悲剧 暴♥力♥ 牺牲
Tragic performances, violent, sacrificial,
激发关于厄运和狂喜的最基本的情感
evoking the most extreme sensations of doom and ecstasy.
他并不为学生或者历史学家绘画
One does not paint for design students or historians
而是为了人类
but for human beings.
呣？
Hmm?
而且人们观看作品后的反应
And the reaction in human terms
才是唯一能使艺术家满足的东西
is the only thing that is really satisfactory to the artist.
我想他最害怕的事情莫过于
I think what he feared most of all
被告知他的作品看起来是多么的美丽
was to be told how very beautiful his pictures were,
即使这些作品的确很美丽
even though they were, and are, exactly that.
因为这“B”字母打头的单词就像敲响了一盏警钟
Because the ''B'' word rang alarm bells that they might be treated as no more
它意味着人们会把这些作品当作富人的私人装饰品来看待
than interior decoration for the rich.
那些看了我的作品会哭泣的人们
The people who weep before my paintings
体验到了当我创作这些作品时自身的体验
are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them.
那么关于这份西格拉姆大厦内部装饰的合约
So, what was he doing, signing up for the ultimate job in interior decoration,
他究竟为四季餐厅创作了什么样的作品呢
supplying paintings to the Four Seasons restaurant?
关于这个地方 他是这样描述的
The place where he said,
纽约最富有的私生子将会到那里进餐炫耀
''The richest bastards in New York would come to feed and show off.''
这算得上是对自己一惯坚持的原则的一次背叛吗
Was it a shameful sellout of all his most adamantly held principles?
或者实际上说是罗斯科扔下防护手套说道（前面有决斗一说）
Or was Rothko, in effect, throwing down the gauntlet,
好吧 把这个吃了
saying, ''Right, eat this!''
如今 四季餐厅并不是富人阶层胡吃海喝挥霍炫耀的地方
Now the Four Seasons isn't just a guzzling trough for the Tiffany classes.
这个餐厅占据了整幢大厦的第一层
It occupies the ground floor of a skyscraper
其设计者是大家喜爱的国际风格现代主义大♥师♥
designed by the darling of the modernist International Style,
密斯·凡·德·罗
Mies van der Rohe.
不管你会对西格拉姆大厦说什么
Whatever else you can say about the Seagram Building,
这里是加拿大饮料巨头的公♥司♥总部
the corporate headquarters of the Canadian liquor giant,
你怎么也不会说它庸俗
it isn't vulgar.
它苗条的身材 锐利的边缘 在曼哈顿繁华区鹤立鸡群
Slender and razor sharp, the building broods over midtown Manhattan.
而在大厦内部的四季餐厅
Inside, the Four Seasons itself,
半陷落的地板 无花果树 波光粼粼的水池以及现代主义风格的家具
its half-sunken floor, fig trees, reflecting pools and modernist furniture
隐隐的带有些许新古典主义风格
aspire to a kind of understated Neo-classicism.
一座透着时尚的都市别♥墅♥
An urban villa for the Vogue set.
但是它并不是这么简单
But it wasn't quite that simple.
关于这份合同 还有讨人喜欢的一面 而且也也有其积极意义的一面
There were things about the commission that were flattering, challenging in a positive way.
事实上现在那些装饰有他的作品的房♥间
The fact that there were now all those glamorous apartments with his pictures in them
加剧了罗斯科在其它公众场所创作的需要
sharpened Rothko's need to work in some sort of public space.
然后把这些地方变成“另一个地方” 他的地方
Make it over into what he called ''a place', his place.
那里会有更大的考验吗
What bigger test could there be?
如果用高级美食和艺术--他的艺术相比较
If it was haute cuisine versus art, his art,
小鸡炖蘑菇一定是毫无胜算
the truffled sole menuitem didn't stand a chance.
艺术会击败食欲
Art would vanquish appetite.
他的暗光系列作品紧紧地裹在一起
His series of darkly glowing paintings, tightly packed together,
挂在墙上 离地4.5英尺