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Heart of darkness
黑暗之心
Francisco Goya’s vision of war is powerful and urgent
弗朗西斯科·戈雅对战争的描绘既有力又紧迫
Bleak yet compassionate, his art feels as contemporary as ever
阴郁而富有同情心，他的艺术作品给人的感觉一如既往地现代
选自《经济学人》2022.12.20期Culture专栏
<hr/>The line of drably uniformed infantrymen, rifles aimed, forms a forceful diagonal across the right side of the painting, a machine of terror. Their target is a terrified rebel in a white shirt, his arms flung towards in vulnerability and defiance, imitating Christ on the cross. His comrades cover their faces. Several already lie inert on the ground in pools of blood.
一排穿着单一制服的步兵，拿着步枪瞄准，与画的右侧形成了强有力的对角线，画里弥漫着一种来自机器的恐惧。他们的目标是一个穿着白衬衫、被吓坏了的反叛者，他无助的张开双臂，充满蔑视的意味，模仿十字架上的耶稣。他的同志们捂着脸。还有几个人躺在血泊中，一动不动。
【1】 drably：单调乏味地
【2】 infantrymen：步兵
【3】 diagonal：对角线；斜线
【4】 vulnerability：弱点；易损性
【5】 inert：迟缓；呆滞；无效The subject of Francisco Goya’s “The Third of May 1808” (pictured), also known as “The Executions”, is the reprisals exacted by Napoleon’s troops after a rebellion by the populace of Madrid, portrayed in a companion painting, all slashing daggers and sabres. Yet it is also a universal indictment of violence. “It’s a work of today, of Ukraine, of all wars,” says Gudrun Maurer of the Prado museum in Madrid, where it hangs. “You could put it in a square in Kyiv and people would understand it.”
弗朗西斯科·戈雅的作品《1808年5月3日》(如图)，也被称为《处决》。这幅作品的主题是拿破仑军队在马德里民众叛乱后实施的报复行动。在这系列的画作里，所有人都在挥舞着短剑和军刀。然而，这也是人们对暴力的控诉。马德里普拉多博物馆的Gudrun Maurer说：“这幅作品呈现的就是今天发生的事，在乌克兰的发生的事，还有所有战争的场景。你可以把它放在基辅的一个广场上，人们会理解它传达的意思。”
【1】 reprisal：报复（行为）；报复性劫掠
【2】 indictment：指控，控告；谴责Almost two centuries after his death Goya seems ever more contemporary, especially amid a war in Europe. He was not the first war artist but no one has captured its horrors more powerfully. Many of his concerns—the exploitation of women, mental health, human rights and the treatment of prisoners, the power of false beliefs and fake news—resonate today. He was the first Western artist to paint his own ideas, visions, dreams and nightmares, not just external realities. In other words, he was “the first Modernist”, as Robert Hughes, an art critic, called him, and the first Expressionist. His eye is searching, often compassionate and ultimately bleak.
在戈雅去世近两个世纪后，他似乎更加与时俱进，尤其是在欧洲战争期间。他不是第一个战争艺术家，但没有人能比他更有力地捕捉到战争的恐怖。他所关注的事——对妇女的剥削、心理健康，人权和囚犯待遇，错误信念和假新闻的力量——在今天引起了共鸣。他不只是描述客观现实，而是第一个描绘自己想法、愿景、梦想和噩梦的西方艺术家。换句话说，正如艺术评论家罗伯特·休斯所说，他是“第一个现代主义者”，也是第一个表现主义者。他的视角一直在探索，通常充满了同情，最后阴郁不已。
【1】resonate：发出回响；引起共鸣Not surprisingly, Goya is in fashion, though he has rarely been out of it. The Fondation Beyeler in Basel staged a rare blockbuster show devoted to him in 2021. Next summer an exhibition in Oslo will pair works by Goya with those of Edvard Munch, whose masterpiece “The Scream” echoes some of the Spaniard’s images. For several contemporary artists, such as Jake and Dinos Chapman, Emily Lombardo and Michael Armitage, Goya is a direct point of reference. Last year Philippe Parreno, a French video artist, released “La Quinta del Sordo”, a 40-minute film showing Goya’s late “Black Paintings” in swirling hyper-close-ups, set to a soundtrack of interplanetary roars and moans. The effect is ghoulish and mesmeric. Two Goya portraits will be auctioned at Christie’s in January; they seem guaranteed to smash the record price for his work, currently $7.8m.
毫不意外，戈雅一直追随潮流，几乎没有离开过。2021年，在巴塞尔，贝耶勒美术馆为他的作品举办了一场罕见的大型展览。明年夏天在奥斯陆举行的一场展览，主办方将把戈雅的作品与爱德华·蒙克的作品一起展出，后者的杰作《呐喊》与戈雅的一些作品相呼应。对于一些当代艺术家来说，比如杰克·查普曼和迪诺斯·查普曼，艾米丽·隆巴多和迈克尔·阿米蒂奇，戈雅是一个直接的参照点。去年，法国录像艺术家菲利普•帕雷诺发部了一段40分钟的电影，名为《Sordo的五分之一》。他以旋转的超特写镜头展示了戈雅晚期的“黑色主题绘画”，配乐是星际间的咆哮和呻吟。电影效果令人毛骨悚然，容易让人沉浸其中，不能自拔。今年1月，两幅戈雅的肖像画将在佳士得被拍卖;他们似乎肯定会打破他目前作品所保持的780万美元的纪录。
【1】 soundtrack：电影配音
【2】 ghoulish：残忍；毛骨悚然
【3】 mesmeric：睡眠术
【4】 smash：打碎；粉碎；猛击Goya was an extraordinarily versatile and innovative artist who lived a long life, dying in 1828 aged 82 in voluntary exile in Bordeaux. He was born in a village near Zaragoza to middle-class parents, his father a professional gilder. He was ambitious—and supremely confident of his abilities. Moving to Madrid, he became court painter to three successive monarchs and director of painting at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. His early work included the religious paintings that were obligatory for a budding artist. A breakthrough came with commissions for scores of cartoons for the royal tapestry factory portraying scenes of Spanish life. He became an insightful and sought-after portraitist.
戈雅是一位多才多艺、富有创新精神的艺术家。1828年，82岁的戈雅在波尔多的自愿流亡中去世，过完了自己漫漫的一生。戈雅出生在萨拉戈萨附近一个村庄的中产阶级家庭，父亲是一名职业的镀金工人。他雄心勃勃，对自己的能力充满信心。搬到马德里后，他成为了连续三任君主的宫廷画家和皇家美术学院的绘画主任。他早期的作品包括宗教绘画，这是一个崭露头角的艺术家时兴画的内容。为皇家挂毯工厂创作了几十幅描绘西班牙生活场景的漫画，这是一个突破。此后，他成了一位富有洞察力、广受欢迎的肖像画家。
【1】 versatile：多才多艺的
【2】 obligatory：有义务的，强制性的
【3】 tapestry：挂毯
【4】 sought-after：受欢迎的But he retained a lifelong appreciation of demotic tastes—bullfighting, hunting, the fiesta—even as he made friends among the intellectuals of the Spanish Enlightenment. His knowledge of those contrasting worlds, and affection for them, gave him a unique understanding when they came into conflict. “His art is always aimed at more than one side,” says Ms Maurer.
但是，戈雅一生都保有对大众趣味的欣赏，比如斗牛，狩猎，还有宗教节日。他还在西班牙启蒙运动的知识分子中结交了朋友。他了解那些鲜明的世界，也为此而着迷。所以，在它们发生冲突的时候，戈雅产生了独特的理解。毛雷尔女士说:“他艺术作品的落脚点不止一个。”
From the 1790s, two things happened to turn Goya into the artist so admired today. One was a mysterious illness, possibly lead poisoning from his paints, that left him deaf. That caused him to look inwards. His paintings began to deal with beliefs and transgressions. A great colourist, his canvases became almost monochrome, dominated by blacks and browns. One series denounced violence against women. Paintings now in the Academy detailed fanaticism in flagellants and the Inquisition, the phenomenon of witchcraft, the plight of prisoners and fantasies of the madhouse that mocked the “normal” world. Goya also became a prolific printmaker. In “Los Caprichos” (“The Caprices”) he lampooned the church and social hypocrisies.
从18世纪90年代，在戈雅身上发现了两件事，帮助他成为今天受人钦佩的艺术家。第一件事，是他得了一种不治之症，可能是绘画颜料所导致的铅中毒，致使他失聪。这件事使戈雅开始审视自己。他的绘画内容开始涉及宗教和犯罪。作为一个伟大的配色师，他的画布几乎变成了单色，以黑色和棕色为主。他其中一个作品系列谴责针对妇女的暴力行为。现在，在学院的画作详细描述了苦修和宗教法庭的狂热、巫术现象、囚犯的困境以及对“正常”世界的嘲笑。戈雅也是一位多产的版画家。在《Los Caprichos》(《反复无常》)中，他讽刺了教会和社会的虚伪。
【1】 fanaticism：狂热；着迷
【2】 flagellant：苦修者；鞭挞自罚的人
【3】 witchcraft：巫术
【4】 madhouse：精神病院；极为吵闹的场所
【5】 mock：欺骗The second turning-point was the French revolution, with which he sympathised, and Napoleon’s invasion of Spain and the long Peninsular war that followed. The ensuing brutality forced him to review his ideas. “Goya goes from being a follower of the Enlightenment who believes in the capacity for regeneration to a person whose experience leads to despair,” according to Javier Portús, the chief curator for Spanish painting at the Prad.
第二件事，是他所同情的法国革命，以及拿破仑入侵西班牙和随后旷日持久的半岛战争。随之而来的残酷现实，迫使他重新审视自己的想法。普拉德的西班牙绘画首席策展人哈维尔Portús说：“戈雅从一个相信复兴能力的启蒙运动的追随者，变成了一个由自身经历而导致的绝望的人”。
This bleak vision was expressed in the “Black Paintings”, executed as frescoes on the walls of La Quinta del Sordo, Goya’s country house, and now occupying Room 67 of the Prado. They were painted for himself, not the public or the court. They are peopled by nightmare figures, crones and paupers in rags, their mouths gaping cavities. It is as if dead souls returned to haunt the living. Yet they are recognisable in the homeless people found in the streets of post-pandemic cities.
戈雅乡村别墅墙上挂着的壁画，表达了这种凄凉的景象。现在，这幅作品占据了普拉多美术馆的67号展厅。这些画是为他自己画的，不是为公众或法庭画的。画作里呈现了噩梦般的人物——老妪和衣衫褴褛的乞丐，他们的嘴巴张得大大的。这就好像死去的灵魂回到活人身边。然而，在后疫情时期，城市街头那些无家可归者的人群中，人们可以认出这些人来。
【1】 pauper：乞丐；穷人；靠救济度日者
【2】 in rags：衣衫褴褛There was despair, too, in a series of prints, “The Disasters of War”, not published until 1863: body parts strewn on trees, piles of corpses, people being clubbed to death. “I saw it,” he wrote on two of the prints. He certainly visited the ruins of Zaragoza after the French siege, and he lived through the famine in Madrid in 1811-12 in which perhaps 20,000 died. Yet the power of his portrayal of war is not as a literal record, but that it cuts to the essence. It is war seen close-up, never heroic.
在直到1863年才出版的《战争灾难》系列印刷品中，也有展现绝望气氛的主题:尸体部位挂在树上，成堆的尸体，人们被棍棒打死。他在其中两幅印刷品上写道，“我亲眼看到了这一切，” 当然，他在法国围城后参观了萨拉戈萨的废墟，他还经历了1811年至1812年马德里的饥荒，那次饥荒造成大约2万人死亡。然而，他对战争的描写并不像字面记录的那样，而是切中本质。这是近距离特写的战争，绝非英雄主义。
Each age sees what it wants in Goya, Mr Portús notes. That testifies to his genius in communicating ideas and images. He was of his time; other Enlightenment artists shared his concerns. But he alone transcended that time to speak universal truths about the human condition so directly. ■
Portús先生指出，每个时代都能从戈雅身上看到自己想要的东西。这证明了他在传达思想和图像方面的天赋。他属于那个时代;其他启蒙运动艺术家也有同样的担忧。但只有他超越了那个时代，如此直接地说出了关于人类状况的普遍真理。■ |
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发表于 2023-3-4 15:04:12
