《X-Only》

Dainty, ferocious and extravagant
很美很凶很奢华（陈继龙 草译）
Mar 13th 2008 | FLORENCE
From TheEconomist print edition

Italy's Renaissance jewel is a fine setting for treasures from China's golden age
中国盛世的珍品在意大利文艺复兴时期瑰宝的映衬下熠熠生辉



IT HAS already been billed as Renaissance squared—China's golden age meets Italy's era of glory. But this exhibition is far more ambitious than that.
有人认为这是文艺复兴时期的重现——中国的盛世邂逅了意大利的光荣时代，不过，此次展览会的着眼点远高于此。

More than 200 Chinese paintings, sculptures and works of art—among them pieces never before seen in the West—are on display at the magnificent arcaded Palazzo Strozzi in the centre of Florence. Its focus is the art of the Tang dynasty, the high point of Chinese cosmopolitan culture.
佛罗伦萨市中心宏伟的斯特罗兹宫展出了来自中国的至少200件绘画、雕塑及其它艺术品，其中不少都是首次在西方国家展出。展会最引人瞩目的是唐代艺术，而唐代也是中国多民族文化融合最盛的时期。

The Tang emperors ruled from 618 to 907, but the earliest pieces in the show date from 700 years before that. Sabrina Rastelli, the curator, who lectures in Chinese art at the University of Venice, has chosen to include these and other works from the period before the Tang came to power to illustrate how a traditional interpretation of Chinese history is gradually being revised.
自618年至907年，唐朝皇帝君临天下，而此次展出的艺术品中，年代最久的却比这一时间还要早700年。萨布里纳•拉斯泰利（Sabrina Rastelli）是斯特罗兹宫的负责人，也是威尼斯大学中国艺术专业讲师。他这次之所以将唐代及唐代之前的艺术品同时展出，是希望展示对中国历史的一贯理解正在发生着怎样的变化。

It has long been believed that the centuries between the Han and Tang dynasties were China's Dark Ages—a time as devoid of cultural merit as Arabia's Empty Quarter is of trees. Ms Rastelli is among the scholars now arguing that there existed innovators during those volatile, fragmented centuries on whose work Tang artists were able to build.
长期以来人们一直以为，汉唐之间的数百年是中国的黑暗时代，其时中国一如寸草不生的阿拉伯鲁卡哈利沙漠，在文化上纯属一片空白。不过，包括拉斯泰利在内的学者如今却认为，动荡不定、诸侯割据的凡此数百年，并不乏改革创新者，也正是他们的劳动，才让唐朝艺术家有了创作基础。

By the eighth century, the Silk Road linking China with the Mediterranean and the maritime routes around China itself had brought to its capital Chang'an (now Xian, and then the biggest city in the world) dancers and musicians from central Asia; long-legged horses; Persian, Arab, Turkish and Jewish merchants; and acrobats and boxers from Java.
到8世纪，通过连接中国与地中海的丝绸之路和中国周边的海上航线，中亚地区的舞蹈和音乐，长腿马，波斯、阿拉伯、土耳其和犹太的商人，以及爪哇国的杂技和搏击，都纷纷来到唐都长安（即现在的西安，当时世界第一大城市）。

During its 300 years of relative peace, works of extraordinary elegance, grace and power were made. A solitary, 36.2cm (14.3-inch) pottery Tang woman wearing a hooped head-dress is especially seductive. There are literally dozens of other memorable Tang objects—some dainty, others ferocious, extravagant or meditative—beginning with a four-tonne, smiling Buddha in the palace courtyard.
在相对太平的300年间，人们创作了很多有着非凡韵味、美感和魅力的艺术品。展品中有一件高36.2厘米、戴头巾的单个女陶俑尤为诱人。令人难忘的唐代文物实在还有很多，有的小巧精致，有的则凶神恶煞；有的尽显奢侈之风，有的则作沉思之状，其中给人印象最深的是宫殿大厅中的一座重达4吨的弥勒佛像。

Buddhism reached China from India in the first century but only in the fourth—after the collapse of the Han—did it spread rapidly through the country. The growth of Buddhist iconography in the Tang era is a persuasive part of the argument that China's golden age did not rise suddenly from the ashes of the chaos preceding it, but was built on the inventions and creations of the tumultuous years before.
早在1世纪，佛教就已自印度传入中国，但直到4世纪，也就是汉朝灭亡之后，佛教才迅速传遍整个国家。唐代佛雕艺术的发展在一定程度上表明，中国的盛世并非是继之前那段混沌年代灰飞烟灭之后的横空而至，而恰恰是这段动荡岁月中的发明和创新为盛世的到来奠定了基础。

One charming and effective illustration of this is a display of several groups of small, ceramic figures. All were excavated; none is more than 30cm high. The earliest group, celadon-glazed in the mid-third century, consists of four attendants about 15cm high, flanking a seated musician. Two ladies with large heads and sculptural hats follow. They are from the late third century. Next there are four seated female musicians, dating from the late fourth century, each holding her instrument and wearing identical blunt bobs. Two female attendants from the early fifth century are slightly more elaborate, the clay here incised with details of clothing and hairdos. Finally there are four Tang dancers who seem to be swaying to a tune. Suddenly all the other figures seem static and mute. Visitors need no words to understand that for many centuries craftsmen were drawn to similar themes, handling them with progressive sophistication until in the Tang dynasty they leapt up to become art.
对于这一点，几组小陶俑给出了漂亮的实证。全部陶俑都是出土文物，均不到30厘米高。年代最久的一组为青瓷釉，产于3世纪中叶，展现的是4个约高15厘米的侍从站在一个坐着的乐师两侧。其次是两个大头女像，各雕有一顶帽子，出自3世纪末期。接下来是4世纪末期的4个女乐师的坐像，每人手里都拿着乐器，留着一色的平头短发。出于5世纪早期的两个侍女雕像制作则略为精细，衣服和发式的细微之处都通过陶土得以表现。最后是四个唐代的舞姬，她们似乎正随着一首乐曲摇曳身躯，霎那间让人放佛觉得其他所有的陶俑都变得静寂无声。唐朝之前的数百年里，工匠们所追求的主题几乎一成不变，但手艺却不断精进，至唐朝才终于成为艺术。就这一点而言，无需多说，观赏者自能心领神会。

Romeo Gigli, an Italian fashion designer, installed the show. Many of the three-dimensional works are displayed on a series of large, amorphously shaped islands that resemble flat-topped, pale yellow sand dunes. Initially this seems odd. Almost everything on view comes from tombs, Buddhist cave monasteries or buried treasure. But the sandy colour suits the muted colours of many of the objects. The labelling is also well done. Best of all, there are none of the glass cases that can be such a deadening barrier to viewers.
负责此次布展工作的是意大利时装设计师罗密欧•吉利（Romeo Gigli）。立体艺术品多数都陈列在一连串巨大的形状各异的展台上，这些展台很像是淡黄色的平顶沙丘，这一布置起先看上去很怪。几乎所有的展品都出自墓穴、佛教洞窟或者地下宝藏，不过那种沙子的颜色正好能与多数文物的柔和色调相一致。标签设计得也很出色。最妙的地方在于，所有的展品都没有用可能损及文物美感的玻璃容器罩起来。

Wall paintings, of interest because so little Tang painting on silk survives, are among the show's highlights. Unlike frescoes, the ground applied to walls was dry when Tang painters set to work. (The nature of this ground is still not known.) Some are amusing, like the animated picture of a woman playfully teasing an indignant goose. One of the most moving is a larger painting of two grooms struggling to lead a beautiful white horse who does not want to move. It was found at the entrance to the tomb of Precious Consort Wei, a great horsewoman. Ms Rastelli rightly describes it as a work of “stupefying quality”.
壁画是此次展览的亮点之一，其吸引人的原因在于存世的唐代丝绸画作非常罕见。与湿壁画不同的是，唐代画工创作时在墙上打的画底是干燥的（该画底特性至今仍无人知晓）。有些画十分有趣，比如有一幅画描绘的是一女正逗弄一只怒鹅，栩栩如生。有一幅巨大的壁画也极为令人触动，它表现的是两名马夫正在与一匹不愿动弹的漂亮白马较劲。该画出土自韦贵妃（尤擅骑）墓入口处，拉斯泰利称之为“惊艳之作”，这不难理解。

This exhibition is part of an ongoing series of major loan shows through which China is educating foreigners about its culture. These are now so numerous that the Chinese authorities have introduced a rationing system for lending artefacts from their museums. National treasures are never loaned; everything else is categorised according to its perceived importance. The proportion of the best work that is given to any one show is limited to around 20%. Happily, the quality of art in this exhibition is far higher than this system of allocation suggests.
此次展览是中国正在举办的文物出国巡展之一。借助这些展览，中国得以向国外输出本国文化。由于展会众多，中国相关方面现已对出国文物实行了配给制度。国宝一级的文物绝不允许出国，而其他所有文物都要根据其重要程度进行分类，而且任何一次展会的展出品中，顶级文物所占比例最多只能是20%左右。幸好，此次展出的艺术品，其水准要大大高于这种配给制。

Empty Quarter： “空旷的四分之一区” ，即鲁卡哈利（Rub al Khali）沙漠，阿拉伯半岛东南境内的沙漠地区。实际上没有任何水，也没有人居住，1932年英国探险者首次到此的，但一直没有被完全开发。

摘自：http://www.ecocn.org/forum/viewthread.php?tid=9896&extra=page%3D1