字幕来源：网络 字幕合成&特效：yuki十三凉 YY八零前 牛斯特洛夫斯基小分队 向本剧字幕原创翻译者表示感谢！
艺术的力量究竟有多大 Just how powerful is art?
它与爱情和悲伤有相似之处吗 Can it feel like love, or grief?
它能改变我们的生活以及世界吗 Can it change your life? Can it change the world?
艺术的力量: 罗斯科
1970年2月25日 On February 25th, 1970,
美国艺术家马克.罗斯科的九幅作品 nine paintings by the American artist Mark Rothko
抵达了伦敦的泰特美术馆 arrived at London's Tate Gallery.
当日数小时前罗斯科的尸体被找到了 A few hours earlier, on the same day, Rothko's body was discovered,
人们发现他躺在市中心的工作室的浴室地板上 lying on the bathroom floor of his midtown studio.
这个画家 The painter,
花费了如此长的时间去探索死亡的世界 who'd spent so much time in his own mind in the realms of the dead,
最终却自杀了 had killed himself,
如今 伦敦的某些东西就像是他的陵墓 and now, had in London something like his own mausoleum.
这就是为什么在1970年的春季 Which is why, in the spring of 1970,
我并不急于去观看新近安置进来的那些作品 I didn't feel in much of a hurry to see the newly installed paintings.
这是另一个故去的美国抽象派艺术家的纪念碑 A monument to another fallen American abstract painter,
它带有如此多的敬意 it smacked too much of reverence.
但是在二十世纪七十年代 我们并没有对此带有更多的敬意 And we weren't into reverence that much, not in 1970.
我们对波普艺术着了迷 Andy Warhol是波普艺术的领袖 We were into playtime. Andy Warhol!
罗森奎斯特 列肯斯坦 威猛乐队 Shazam Rosenquist! Lichtenstein! Wham! Shazam!
很适宜于同时欣赏摇滚乐 Preferably while listening to rock and roll
虽然这并不显得怎么高贵 and getting, well, not high-minded at any rate.
那种认为艺术应该是严肃的应该适合于宗教的想法 The idea that art should be solemn was a turn-off,
从此就这样改变了 a bit like being made to go to church.
事实上 马克.罗斯科已经加入了一个自毁的抽象派画家的行列 The fact that Mark Rothko had joined the roll call of suicidal abstract painters by killing himself
他通过自杀使前途变得更具悲剧性 only made the prospect more funereal.
另一方面 我也迫切想去研究一下弗朗西斯.培根 On the other hand, I was keen to take another look at Francis Bacon.
所以在1970年春季的一个早晨 So, one morning, in the spring of 1970,
我来到了泰特美术馆 into the Tate Gallery I went,
来到这里 然后向右转了个弯儿 walked down here and took a wrong right turn.
它们正好就在那里等着我 And there they were. Lying in wait.
不 第一眼看上去它们一点也不可爱 No, it wasn't love at first sight.
罗斯科曾经坚持要让周围的灯光要暗一些 Rothko had insisted the lighting be kept almost pretentiously low.
这就像进入了电影院 It was like going into a cinema,
大家在昏暗里期待着 expectation in the dimness.
那里有某种东西在稳健的悸动着 Something in there was doing a steady throb, pulsing,
就像一个人的体腔 发紫的深红色 like the inside of a body part, all crimson and purple.
我感觉到仿佛被拖过那些黑色线条 I felt pulled through those black lines
进入到了宇宙的神秘地带 into some mysterious place in the universe.
罗斯科曾经说 Rothko said his paintings begin
他的绘画是在陌生地域地带开始的不知名的冒险 an unknown adventure into an unknown space.
我不确定自己是在什么地方 I wasn't sure where I was being taken.
我甚至不能确定自己想往哪里去 I wasn't even sure I wanted to go.
我唯一确定的是自己并没有选择 I only knew that I had no choice.
但目的地肯定不会是去野餐 And that the destination might not exactly be a picnic.
有人说艺术之后是金钱 They say that money follows art.
是啊 艺术也是钱财的仆从 Well, art quite likes money, too.
实际上画家最期望的莫过于一个富有的赞助人了 In fact, there's nothing a painter likes more than a wealthy patron.
所以罗马教皇拥有卡拉瓦乔 So, Papal Rome had its Caravaggio,
17世纪的阿姆斯特丹拥有伦勃朗 17th-century Amsterdam had its Rembrandt.
在1958年 当加拿大饮料公司Seagram When, in 1958, the Canadian liquor company Seagram's
寻找一名画家来为纽约总部作装饰工作时 wanted a painter to decorate their New York headquarters,
他们心目中的人选只有一个 那就是马克.罗斯科 there was only one possible choice, Mark Rothko.
此时正是这位年逾55岁的画家的巅峰时刻 The 55-year-old painter was at the peak of his fame.
其作品代表美国参加了在威尼斯双年展 (全球闻名的当代艺术和先锋艺术的展览 逢奇数的年份 从6月中旬到夏末） Representing America at the Venice Biennale,
他另外五幅作品正在欧洲巡回展出 another five of his paintings were on tour in Europe
这证明了美国不仅仅是虚有其表 也有一定的深度和内涵 to prove to the world that the United States had depth and not just dazzle.
罗斯科是美国在世画家中最著名的一个 He was the greatest living American painter.
人们都认为 Or so they said.
情况也许是这样 In 1958, maybe,
但是在1958年他已经经历了30年之久的财务窘境 but he had gone through 30 years of financial hardship
他的内心一直在挣扎 一个重大问题一直困扰着他 and mental struggle, wrestling with the biggest question of all,
艺术究竟能做些什么 ''What could art do?''
它能洞穿那些平淡的日常生活吗 Could it cut through the white noise of daily life?
我们心底的那些原始情感 狂喜 痛苦 欲望 恐惧 Connect us with the basic emotions that make us human,
正是它们令我们成为所谓的人类 艺术能使我们与它们联系起来吗 ecstasy, anguish, desire, terror?
西格拉姆大厦的建筑师找到罗斯科 The architect of the Seagram Building
他希望罗斯科能为大厦的四季餐厅创作一些装饰作品 approached Rothko to do something for the Four Seasons,
这幢豪华饭店将会矗立于曼哈顿 the ritzy restaurant that would occupy the ground floor of the Manhattan skyscraper.
这幅作品的尺寸将会有500-600平方英尺 In exchange for some 500-600 square feet of paintings,
他们允诺会支付35000美元作为报酬 they agreed to pay Rothko $35,000.
这笔钱相当于现在的250万美金 That's about two and a half million dollars today.
这笔佣金可谓是史无前例的高 As commissions go, they didn't come any bigger.
放在其他任何一个画家身上 他们肯定会惊得跳起来 Anyone else would have jumped at such an offer.
但是罗斯科没有 But not Rothko.
他再三思量 思量再三 He thought long and hard about it, talked to all his friends,
告诉了所有的朋友 turned it over and over in his mind.
为什么呢 因为他心里很矛盾 这不仅仅是因为这笔佣金 Why? Because he was ambivalent, and not just about the commission,
还有美国的资本主义 but about American capitalism,
以及自己的美国成功之路 about his own American success story.
1903年他出生于俄罗斯 Born in Russia in 1903,
后来他说在他孩时的记忆里 Rothko would later say that as a child he could remember
当地的哥萨克人最喜欢的事情就是 the local Cossacks indulging in their favourite activity...
痛殴犹太人 Beating up Jews.
二十世纪最初的几年 In the first years of the 20th century,
正如其他数百万计的其他犹太人一样通过了爱利斯岛 （曾经是美国的移民检查站） America opened its arms to the Rothkowitzes from Dvinsk,
美国也对德文斯克的Rothkowitzes一家张开了怀抱 as it did to millions of other Jews coming through Ellis Island
他们来到了一个金色的麦地纳 一座金色的城市 to the goldene medina, the golden city.
如今在美国的犹太人分为两种 Now, there were two kinds of Jews in America,
一部分纵身商海争名逐利 those who plunged into the muck and mayhem of business,
一部分恪守旧世界传统 and those who brought with them from the Old World
细心呵护着心中最宝贵的东西 文化 the most precious thing they had, culture.
罗斯科维兹属于第二种 他是个心怀梦想爱好读书的药剂师 Rothkowitz Senior was the second kind. A dreamy, bookish pharmacist,
与整理账目相比 happier talking to his children about Dostoyevsky and Dickens
他更高兴去和自己的孩子们谈论 狄更斯和陀思妥耶夫斯基(俄国小说家) than doing the accounts.
他省吃俭用攒下了足够的钱 把小马克斯和家里其他人 He scraped enough together to bring little Marcus and the rest of the family
都带离了那个充满苦痛的旧国家 out of the miseries of the old country
六个月后他死于癌症 and died of cancer six months later.
后来Rothkowitz的孩子们是被他们的母亲安娜带大的 The Rothkowitz children were brought up by their mother, Anna.
我知道和他一起长大的这种孩子 I knew this kind of kid, grew up with him.
他进入希伯来人的学校学习 He went to Hebrew school,
他如饥似渴的阅读任何一本能得到的书籍 read every sort of book he could get his hands on,
闲暇把玩之物不仅有小提琴而且还有曼陀林 played not just the violin but the mandolin. Wow.
年长的孩子们称他为chochom 无所不知的人 Grownups called him a chochom, a know-it-all.
马克天资聪慧 是个心中有梦想的孩子 Mark was the smart one, the one who was going to make it.
他也想让自己的妈妈快乐 And he wanted to please his mother.
他只是一个受教育充分 感情丰富但很木讷的犹太人 He was just your super-educated, ungainly, sentimental Jew,
他心中攫有强大的信念理想并渴望与人分享 in the grip of mighty ideas and desperate to tell you all about them.
他不安的坐在沙发上 挥舞着双臂 Fidgeting on the sofa and waving his arms around,
伟大的抱负与雄辩的口才是相伴的 a big heart and a big mouth to match.
你应该知道这种人的 You know the type.
罗斯科赢得了一份去耶鲁大学深造的奖学金 Rothko won a scholarship to Yale University,
但是耶鲁还不确定是否让一个犹太人入校 所以就规定了一个限额 but Yale wasn't even sure it wanted Jews at all and introduced a quota.
于是罗斯科迅速的意识到了 虽然没有身挎长刀的哥萨克人在身旁 Rothko quickly realised you didn't need a sabre-wielding Cossack
你也能感受到自己并未被人喜爱 to feel unloved.
于是他放弃了这份奖学金 He dropped out.
但是他从来都不是那种想成为律师或者股票经纪人的犹太人 But he never was the kind of Jew who wanted to be a lawyer or a stockbroker.
他属于另一种 渴望去创造些什么 He was the other kind, the one with the creative itch.
他认为艺术会改变世界 The one who thought art could change the world.
事实正是如此 30年后他更加确信了这一点 It's precisely because he really believed this that, 30 years later,
他的身心深深的投入到了这份工作中 he couldn't walk away from the Seagram job,
这可以说是他艺术生涯中面临的最大挑战 the greatest challenge of his career.
罗斯科租下了一个大地方 Rothko rented a vast space
地点是鲍威利区222号一个旧体育馆 at 222 Bowery, in an old gym.
1958春天开工伊始 As he started work in the spring of 1958,
罗斯科把西格拉姆大厦的那面墙壁设想为一种无言的教导 Rothko envisaged the Seagram murals as a kind of wordless teaching.
对琐碎的现代生活的一种矫正 An antidote to the triviality of modern life.
但是他们会说些什么呢 But what could they say?
他们又如何去说呢 And how could they say it?
最主要的问题在于这幅作品的尺寸 One of the basic problems of the commission was its sheer size.
罗斯科先前的作品最大也就是成人大小 而且都是私人客户 Everything that Rothko had done so far had been on a human scale. Personal.
但是这幅作品是面向公众的 整个曼哈顿都在看着呢 But this was public. And Manhattan was watching.
它可以借此机会实现自身的跨越 A picture lives by companionship,
在那些敏锐的参观者眼中悸动复生 expanding and quickening in the eyes of the sensitive observer.
同样 它也可能会因此而遭受挫折 It dies by the same token.
因此如果把它展示于世人面前 It is therefore a risky and unfeeling act
这可以说是个危险的举动 to send it out into the world.
当他于二十世纪二十年代又回到这里时 当然没有人注意到 When he arrived here back in the 1920s, of course, no one noticed.
他只不过是又一个在爵士时代的纽约不为人知的灵魂 He was just another lost soul in jazz-age New York.
但是当时他并没有颓废沉沦 But then, he wasn't really into bootleg and boogie-woogie.
更像马克思和莫扎特 More like Marx and Mozart,
他心中有种冲动 要做些与现代世界有关的事情 he was burning to do something about the modern world.
与伯克利城市氛围相违的事情 Something in the opposite mood to Busby Berkeley.
罗斯科曾于1923年来到纽约 Rothko had come to New York in 1923
对此他后来描述道是“带着饿扁的肚子四处徘徊游荡” to ''wander around, bum about, and starve a bit,'' he later said.
他加入了一个艺术团体来补贴生活之用 He enrolled in an art class and, to make ends meet,
在一个犹太人社区中心给孩子们上课 taught kids at a Jewish community centre.
当他站在位于布鲁克林的教室里 一切看起来挺容易的 When he stood in the Brooklyn classroom, it all seemed so easy.
他告诉孩子们不要太在意规则 He'd tell the children not to mind the rules.
他说绘画应该像歌唱一样自然 它应该与音乐是相通的 Painting, he said, was as natural as singing. It should be like music.
但是当他开始尝试时 结果却差强人意 But when he tried, it came out as a croak.
这是一份棘手且痛苦的想象力工作 It's the work of a painfully knotted imagination.
麻烦在于他在做的事情是孩子们没有做过的 The trouble is he was doing something the children didn't do,
那想象起来太困难了 thinking too hard.
所以 他涉足了表现主义 So, he dabbled in expressionism.
浓厚的黑色颜料 hick dark paint.
粗犷的线条 Sketchy lines.
不 这不太好 No, not very good.
这些树根抓的是什么? ''What are the roots that clutch"
从这些乱糟糟的东西上面伸展出来的又是什么？ ''What branches grow out of this stony rubbish?"
孩子啊 你们说不上来也猜不出 ''Son of man, you cannot say or guess"
因为看到的只是一堆支离破碎的图画 ''For you know only a heap of broken images, where the sun beats"
阳光所及之处 那棵死树的枝丫光秃秃的 也没有给蟋蟀提供庇护的场所 ''And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief"
干涸的石头 没有水流的迹象 ''And the dry stone no sound of water. ''
罗斯科的“地下铁系列” The Subway series
是不经意间首次引起人们注意的作品 were the first paintings by Rothko that catch you off-guard.
作品里充满了TS.艾略特的“Waste Land”中冷漠的男女形象 Full of the bleak alienation of men and women in TS Eliot's Waste Land,
他们都表现出了明显的陌生感 they have a compelling strangeness.
他捕捉到了都市日常生活的一瞥 He took an everyday urban scene
然后承载以冷淡的情感 and loaded it with a clammy sensation of doom.
这些来自布鲁克林的往返者 Are these commuters from Brooklyn
或者游荡的灵魂难道是陷入了炼狱之中 or wandering souls trapped in purgatory?
俄耳甫斯(太阳神阿波罗之子) 正在四等列车上寻找欧律狄斯(俄耳甫斯之妻) Orpheus looking for Eurydice on the uptown D train.
地下铁的建筑构造 合着一列列悲伤的柱子 The architecture of the subway, with its mournful rows of columns,
阻碍了他的视线 snagged his attention.
但是从色调来看 真正的行动还在继续 But the real action is going on with the colours themselves.
站台的边缘是醒目的深红色 Look at the platform edge, that brilliant crimson smear,
当罗斯科施展颜色表现方式时你会明白他的用意 and you can see what Rothko meant when he called his colours performers.
这是一场生动的启程 It was a dramatic departure but getting there as a painter
但是作为一名画家 到达终点却要花费20年 would take him another 20 years.
1958年 在工作进行了3个月后 In 1958, three months into the Seagram commission,
罗斯科作了一场演讲 Rothko gave a lecture.
这是他最后一次阐述他对艺术的理解 It was the last time he'd have anything to say about art
同样这也是我们对他是如何看待自己作品最真切的了解 and it's the closest insight we have as to how he saw his painting.
作品的悲剧性主题 The tragic notion of the image
经常萦绕在我的脑海里 is always present in my mind.
我不太能说的上来 I can't point it out.
因为那里没有太过确切的东西 There are no skull and bones.
他说道 艺术最基本的问题 ''The whole problem of art,'' he said,
是关于在这个特别的文明中建立人类的价值观 ''is to establish human values in this specific civilisation.''
他否认自己的作品与心理上 启示性或者内部因素有关 Denying there was anything psychological or internal or revelatory about his work,
他说道 不 不 这是关于世界的 he said, ''No, no. It's about and of the world.''
然后从感性到讽刺再到死亡等方面 Then he went on to list all the ingredients that make up a Rothko painting
他罗列出了罗斯科式作品的所有组成元素 from sensuality through irony to death.
他说道 当我创作的时候 一种悲剧性的感觉时常伴随着我 ''A sense of the tragic,'' he said, ''is always with me when I paint.''
正是对人类悲剧的这种无法忍受的沉重感觉 And it was this unbearably weighty feeling for human tragedy
令罗斯科把它表现在了作品之中 that Rothko wanted to bring into the Four Seasons.
我只对如何表现人类最基本的情感感兴趣 I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions.
悲剧 狂喜 厄运等等 Tragedy, ecstasy, doom and so on.
而且有些看了我的作品的人们 And the fact that people break down
会感到崩溃并放声大哭 and cry when confronted with my pictures
这表明我传达出了那些最基本的人类情感 shows that I communicate those basic emotions.
但是对于罗斯科来说艺术之路却充满坎坷 But it always had been uphill for Rothko.
在纽约 三十年代确实不是艺术家的黄金时期 The '30s hadn't exactly been the best time to be an artist in New York.
那里没有适合画家的一个市场氛围 Not much of a market for painters, struggling or otherwise.
他去现代艺术博物馆观看每一次展览 With every show he went to at the Museum of Modern Art,
36岁的达达 39岁的毕加索 Dada in '36, Picasso in '39,
这些现代主义艺术大师令他感到气馁踌躇 the modern masters made him feel worse, floundering.
除了马蒂斯的红色工作室 Only Matisse's Red Studio,
当时是1949年 最终他内心某处的开关被打开了 which he saw in 1949, finally switched something on.
也许这与马蒂斯所做的有关 Maybe it had something to do with what Matisse did
因为马蒂斯把色彩从某些特殊物体上解放出来了 to liberate colour from specific objects.
事物不再有颜色 绘画也是如此 Things no longer have a colour, the painting does.
但是回溯到三十年代 But back in the '30s,
罗斯科仍然得绞尽脑汁去创作这件作品 Rothko was still thinking too hard to paint like this.
他并没有依自己的直觉行事 而是到书本中寻求解答 Instead of following his instinct, he went back to his books.
希腊悲剧 莎士比亚悲剧 尼采的“悲剧的诞生” Greek tragedy, Shakespearean tragedy, Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy.
烟雾缭绕中 他搜寻着伟大构思的每一个组件 Great monolithic slabs of the big ideas he chain-smoked his way through.
然后他尝试着去找到那种悲剧残忍性的感觉 And then he tried to get the sense of tragic brutality,
这也是人类一而再再而三在做的事情 this is what humans do over and over again,
这一起都表现在了画布上 down on canvas.
我们很容易就能在这些图画中找到悲剧元素 No problem finding the tragic in these pictures.
神化与怪兽 叙利亚公牛 埃及雄鹰 Myths and monsters, Syrian bulls, Egyptian hawks,
嘶嘶作响的半人半兽边爬边啄 half-men, half-beasts slither, hiss and peck,
就像一件古老的法兰绒 like an ancient frieze.
屠杀 祭祀 挖心掏肺 Slaughter, sacrifice and disembowelment by the yard.
但是罗斯科在死亡之地的考古之旅 But Rothko's archaeological excursions in the land of the dead
被现实世界发生的事情打乱了 were overtaken by the real world.
战争爆发了 The war happened.
但这并没有影响到罗斯科 Not for Rothko, classified 4F,
他因为高度近视而不适合服役 unfit for service due to acute short-sightedness.
但是罗斯科意识到对于艺术来说 这次冲突就像一个十字路口 But Rothko knew the conflict was a crossroads for art.
现代文明面临被消灭的危险 With civilisation facing annihilation,
美国必须要站出来把西方文明从法西斯的魔爪中拯救出来 it was up to America to save Western culture from fascism.
美国不仅要庇护来自欧洲的艺术家 Not just by offering safe haven to refugee painters from Europe,
而且还要拿出英勇的新的行动 but by doing something brave, something fresh,
而且这些行动要跟得上当时的时代 something equal to the times.
但这是说着容易做起来难 而且美国已经说的够多了 Easier said, and they said it a lot, than done.
巴内特.纽曼是罗斯科最亲近的朋友之一 Barnett Newman, one of Rothko's closest friends,
他发表了另一个宣言 总结了一条整个艺术团体认为的道路 issues another manifesto that sums up the way the group felt.
他说道 在世界废墟上发生的这场道德危机中 ''In the moral crisis of a world in shambles,'' he says,
已经不再有什么可能性仍去绘画旧的事物 ''it was no longer possible to go on painting the old stuff."
比如花朵裸体之类的 ''Flowers, reclining nudes.''
所以纽曼封笔不再创作 时间长达四年之久 So Newman just gives up painting, for four years.
到了1959年的春天 By the spring of 1959,
罗斯科差不多已经完成了“西格拉姆”的订单 Rothko had almost completed work on the Seagram job.
由于精力几近耗竭 Exhausted by his endeavour, he took a three-month vacation to Europe
他携妻女去欧洲度了三个月假 with his wife and daughter.
我们可以从已经发表的 We get an insight into how he was feeling
他在跨大西洋班机的酒吧中 from a reported conversation he had at the bar
进行的一次谈话中了解他内心的感受 on the transatlantic ocean liner.
他再次以“狗娘养的”去称呼那些鄙视自己作品的人 He railed against the ''sons of bitches'' who'd be dining beneath his art,
希望自己的作品令他们食欲不振 hoped his paintings would ruin their appetite.
渐渐的 他开始把这件作品当作是一场斗剑决斗 Increasingly, he'd come to see the commission as a gladiatorial contest,
马克 VS 曼哈顿 Mark versus Manhattan.
长久以来 罗斯科一直希望能给自己的作品注入那些前辈大师们的情感力量 Rothko had always wanted to give his paintings the emotional force of the old masters.
在先前1950年的那次欧洲之旅中 他游遍了欧洲 On a previous trip to Europe in 1950, he'd done the grand tour.
在佛罗伦萨 他参观的某个地方激发了创作西格拉姆大厦壁画的主要灵感 And in Florence, he'd visited what was to be a major inspiration for the Seagram murals.
在圣洛伦佐教堂里的米开朗基罗图书馆 Michelangelo's library in the Church of San Lorenzo.
在我工作了一段时间以后 After I'd been at work for some time,
我意识到在潜意识中 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 would hang four and a half feet up on those walls,
在就餐者上方发出微光 吞噬着这些食客 looming over the diners, swallowing the swallowers.
他的愿望是用作品取代周遭的墙壁 His whole desire was to replace those restaurant walls altogether.
在这些苍白空洞的墙壁上代之以意义深远的事物 Something profound would happen to the vain and the shallow
而在食客们蘸着鱼子酱大嚼龙虾之时 as they tucked into their caviar and their lobster thermidor,
他们已经向艺术--他的艺术的力量投降了 as they surrendered to the power of art, his art.
1959年初 就像一个无所不能的魔术师一样 Early in 1959, like some omnipotent sorcerer,
罗斯科创作了“栗色上的红色” Rothko painted Red on Maroon,
这是为四季餐厅创作的壁画中最生动的一幅作品 one of the most dramatic of the murals destined for the Four Seasons.
在他眼中 米开朗基罗的封闭的窗户激起了想象 With the vision of Michelangelo's blind windows burnt on his retina,
他则把自己的作品放在边上 he turned his paintings on their side.
不是竖直向上 而是水平放置向两边扩展 Instead of uprights, they were now expansive horizontals.
这些如同百叶窗般明暗交错的作品 What had been shutter-like bars of darkness and light
成为了有附载有某些东西的条柱状事物 became something akin to load-bearing columns.
它们载负的是人类的历史 And the load they were bearing was human history.
那年秋天 在大厦餐厅开业后过了几个月 That autumn, months after the glamorous opening,
罗斯科携夫人梅尔来此就餐 he and his wife, Mell, went to eat at the Four Seasons.
在罗斯科看来 一顿饭花费超过五块钱就是不道德的 Rothko was someone who thought it was immoral to spend more than five bucks on a meal,
经常一份中式外卖就能满足他 and was often perfectly happy with a Chinese takeaway,
越便宜越好 the cheaper the better.
但是当他们夫妇落座于百万富翁之间 他的心情与信心一点点的沉了下去 But as he sat among the millionaires with Mell, his heart and his confidence sank like a stone.
任何一个吃得起那种饭菜的人 Anybody who will eat that kind of food for that kind of money
都不会对我的作品看上一眼的 will never look at a painting of mine.
次日早晨 他观看了大约30幅作品 The next morning, he looked at the 30 or so paintings,
这些作品是多么的美丽动人啊 some of the most beautiful and moving things
它们的创作者不仅仅是罗斯科 还有其它现代主义艺术大师 not only Rothko but any modern artist had ever created,
他所看到的只有对这些作品的羞辱破坏 and saw only the ruin of a great project.
他的作品将不会悬挂在这里 His paintings would never hang in the Four Seasons.
曼哈顿挫伤了马克.罗斯科 Manhattan had beaten Mark.
抑或是艺术战胜了金钱 Or had art triumphed over money?
毕竟 我们所知道的许多艺术家中 After all, how many artists do you know
又会有几个会对250万美金说不呢 who would say no to two and a half million dollars?
罗斯科知道合约规定如果作品不再受欢迎的话 Rothko had made sure his contract gave him ownership of the pictures
这些作品的拥有权将属于他自己 if the job went sour.
看起来他好像很是期待那一天的到来 It was almost as if he always hoped that one day,
也许在其它某个地方 somewhere else perhaps, he would be able to resurrect his idea
他将会用自己的信念之力把那个地方变成自己的地方 to make a space his space.
那年过后 一位艺术馆馆长邀请他在德国的卡塞尔艺术节上展出自己的作品 Later that year, a curator came to invite him to exhibit in the Kassel art fair in Germany.
当我还很年轻的时候 When I was a younger man,
对于我来说 艺术是孤独的 art was a lonely thing.
无所谓什么画廊 什么收藏家 No galleries, no collectors,
也没有所谓的艺术评论 no critics.
当然也不涉及金钱 No money.
然而那却是我的黄金时代 Yet it was a golden age.
因为我们没有什么东西可失去 也没有什么东西期望去得到 For we all had nothing to lose and a vision to gain.
如今 事情不一样了 Today, it is not quite the same.
现在吹牛的人满天飞 It is a time of tonnes of verbiage,
人们活动频繁 消费繁荣 activity, consumption.
也许这种情况更适合于这个世界 Which condition is better for the world at large,
我并不想冒昧的去讨论这些 I will not venture to discuss.
但是我知道 But I do know
那些对这种生活趋之若鹜的人 that many of those who are driven to this life
他们的内心深处是渴求这些静默的作品蕴含的意境的 are desperately searching for those pockets of silence,
只有在那里扎根 我们才能成长 where we can root and grow.
我们必须都去期望着能够找到它们 We must all hope we find them.
这个认为艺术高于金钱的人给那个德国人提了个建议 The man who'd taken a stand for art over money made the German an offer.
他说 如果你肯为大屠杀赎罪去建一座小教堂 ''If you build a chapel of expiation for the Holocaust,'' he said,
这应该很容易就能做到 我将为你免费创作一幅作品 ''it need only be a tent, I'll paint you something for free. ''
这个提议没有成功 It never happened.
接下来的十年间 Mark Rothko spent the next ten years, all that he had left of his life,
罗斯科一直致力于寻找那个美丽的路边小教堂 searching for that perfect wayside chapel
在那里他能够实现在四季餐厅受挫的理想 where he could realise the vision that had been frustrated at the Four Seasons.
1961年在现代艺术博物馆的一场个人展出 A one-man show in 1961 at the Museum of Modern Art,
他每天都会去那里 他都会得到一些喝彩 which he went to every single day, brought him some cheer.
他的作品销售势头也很好 And his work was selling better than ever.
但是伴着成功 他的生活却日渐拮据 But with success, his life actually got shabbier.
他贪恋杯中之物 每天早上十点就开始开怀畅饮 His tippling, which began at 10:00 in the morning,
最终导致了严重的酒精中毒 developed into serious alcoholism.
而且他烟瘾很大 结果导致心肺功能受损 And his chain-smoking, a lifelong habit, brought him heart and lung problems,
他的第二次婚姻也破裂了 and his second marriage was breaking up.
他日渐忧郁 其作品也更加黑暗浓重了 Shadowed by melancholy, his work got darker and more intense,
正如现代主义艺术也渐渐的变得流行一样 just as modern art was going pop.
在罗斯科看来 对于通俗文化 绘画应该是另一个选择而不是其同谋 For Rothko, painting had always been an alternative to pop culture, not its accomplice.
但是现在看来这有点合乎了那些画廊的需求 But this seemed to be what the galleries wanted now.
独自创作绘画 15年来都是如此 Stuck in the mode of painting he'd been doing for 15 years,
他变得有些自闭易怒 he was defensive, angry.
所以当他摆脱了惯常的生活方式 So when he did break out of his old style,
他的作品开始变得黑暗起来 黑得就像得州的石油一样 it was to go raven black. As black as Texas oil.
得克萨斯最终提供了这个机会 Texas finally provided Rothko
在那里罗斯科终于实现了在四季餐厅受挫的事业 with the chance to realise the vision thwarted in the Four Seasons.
艺术资助人约翰和多米尼克.德.门奈尔 Art patrons John and Dominique de Menil commissioned him to produce a set of murals
委托他为将于1965年建成的一座位于休斯敦的教堂创作一系列壁画 for a chapel to be built in Houston in 1965,
他们没有什么要求 罗斯科可以放开手脚去做 giving Rothko freedom to install exactly what he wanted.
如果那些为四季餐厅创作的作品是在另一个世界做出的一种姿态的话 If the Four Seasons paintings were content to make a gesture at the other world,
休斯敦的这座教堂则会把你埋进一个坟墓 the Houston chapel buries you in a tomb.
喷洒的一罐罐墨水好像在说服我们 Tanks of ink have been spilled trying to persuade us
这里并不像坟墓本身那么黑暗 that this place is not as dark and funereal as it seems.
在罗斯科那些最伟大的作品之中 A systematic dimming of the light that had always burned intensely
都有这些系统性的微光在燃烧 in Rothko's greatest works.
但是 说实话 坐在这里 我们会感到欢快美丽吗 But, quite honestly, sitting here, do we feel bright and beautiful?
我可不确定 I'm not sure.
那些波浪般的边缘 光之火焰在燃烧跳跃 Those rippling edges, flaring with light,
它们曾给予罗斯科的作品如此多的动感 都不见了 which gave Rothko's pictures so much of their movement, have gone.
代替它们的是一片漆黑 In their place, an inky night
他好像是在创作的道路上在探索自己究竟能把光亮表现的多么黑暗 It's almost as though he's painting to see how dark he can make the light.
祝你好运 Good luck
还是晚安 and good night?
堕入无尽的黑暗里 他不停的画啊画啊 Then, into the blackness, in painting after painting,
出现了一条乳白带有灰色的闪光带 came a luminous zone of milky grey.
就像被月亮照亮的星球的轮缘 Like the rim of a planet lit by the moon.
罗斯科好像已经离开了 As if Rothko was already gone, off into deep space,
他驾奴着转瞬即逝的创造力进到了遥远的宇宙之中 presiding over the moment of creation.
他把光明从黑暗中 把地球从天堂中分离了出来 Dividing the light from the darkness, the earth from the heavens,
然后施以英雄般的烈火中的涅磐 bent on heroic self-cremation.
你看到了 我完全弄错了 在1970年的那个早上 So you see, I got it all wrong, that morning in 1970.
我曾经认为看了西格拉姆大厦的作品 就像是一次抽象的墓地之旅 I'd thought seeing the Seagram paintings would be like a trip to the cemetery of abstraction.
所有恭敬的尊重 只不过是一个死亡的结局 All dutiful reverence. A dead end.
再看看这个 你看到了什么 Look at this one. What do you see?
在两根柱子之间悬挂的一片幕帐 A hanging veil suspended between two columns?
抑或一个召唤或拒绝进入的入口 An opening that beckons or denies entrance?
再或一个封闭的窗户 A blind window?
对于我来说 这是一条通道 For me, it's a gateway.
如果那些入口锁上了的话 If some of those portals are blocked,
罗斯科谈论的其它那些通往未知空间的通道就会打开 others open into the unknown space that Rothko talked about,
艺术会引领我们通过 the place that only art can take us.
远离尘世的喧嚣 Far away from the buzzing static of the moment
去聆听动人的天体乐章 and towards the music of the spheres.
罗斯科为这些作品所做的每一件事情 Everything Rothko did to these paintings,
这些柱子似的形式在暗示而非吸引 the column-like forms suggested rather than drawn,
散在的墨斑都使作品显得是那么的暧昧 the loose stainings, were all meant to make the surface ambiguous.
如此的松散 Porous.
或许可以慢慢的渗透过去 Perhaps softly penetrable.
也许我们就是来自那个地方 A space that might be where we came from,
抑或我们将会在那里终结 or where we will end up.
它们不是在拒绝而是在召唤我们 They're meant not to keep us out, but to embrace.
那是来自一个高度称颂艺术的艺术家的称呼你为人类的呼唤 From an artist whose highest compliment was to call you a human being.
处在泰特现代博物馆的中心 Can anything be less cool than this room
世界上还有其它比此地更凉爽的地方吗 in the heart of Tate Modern?
远离同时代那些眼花缭乱的艺术风格 Further away from the razzle dazzle of contemporary art,
以及现世疯狂的拥挤喧嚷 the frantic hustle of now.
这不是关于现在 而是关于永恒 This isn't about now, this is about forever.
这里是这样一个地方 This is a place where you come to sit in the low light
你坐下来 伴着微弱的灯光 感受着周围起伏摇摆的永恒气息 and feel the aeons rolling by,
悄悄的被带到通往永恒不朽开端的入口 to be taken towards the gates that open onto the thresholds of eternity,
感受着来来往往的人们的辛酸往事 to feel the poignancy of our comings and our goings,
我们来了又去 去了又来 生生死死 死死生生 our entrances and our exits, our births and our deaths.
子宫 坟墓 以及二者之间的每一件事情 Womb, tomb and everything between.
艺术能否更加的完善有力 Can art ever be more complete, more powerful?
我并不这么认为 I don't think so.