LCA/文 如何理解中國(guó)繪畫？牛津大學(xué)榮休教授柯律格（Craig Clunas）以南朝謝赫的“氣韻生動(dòng)”四字為引，用嚴(yán)謹(jǐn)細(xì)致的學(xué)術(shù)考證與直溯源頭的追蹤意識(shí)，完成了一部新穎、易讀且趣味十足的藝術(shù)史重磅新著——《回音室：1897—1935 年跨國(guó)的中國(guó)畫》。有關(guān)中國(guó)繪畫的部分答案，就藏在這本書中。

閱讀過(guò)這本著作，恰收到編輯部邀請(qǐng)，希望我與柯律格教授就《回音室》一書進(jìn)行一次采訪對(duì)話。在文景的協(xié)助下，對(duì)話得以順利進(jìn)行。我不是一個(gè)熟練的對(duì)話者，好在柯律格教授的回答足夠精彩，使這次交談呈現(xiàn)出了更多閃光點(diǎn)。

《回音室：1897—1935年跨國(guó)的中國(guó)畫》

以下是莫一奧與柯律格教授的對(duì)話內(nèi)容，希望對(duì)大家有所啟發(fā)：

莫：《回音室》是一個(gè)十分有意思也非常形象的書名。當(dāng)一個(gè)人站在回音室里發(fā)出聲響，聲音將會(huì)來(lái)回穿梭，進(jìn)而形成一個(gè)音域場(chǎng)。這個(gè)聲音的每一次折返與再傳播，都會(huì)有所變化，正是這種變化，使回音室變得豐富、復(fù)雜、有趣。在本書中，在理清這些回音及其傳播路徑時(shí)，您使用的寫作方式，似乎也是“回音式”的——文字在中西文獻(xiàn)、事例與討論中來(lái)回穿行、驗(yàn)證，以追根溯源（當(dāng)然，這種視野廣闊的寫作方式，在您以往的著作中一直有出現(xiàn)，而在《回音室》里，“回音式”的寫作方式與文字內(nèi)容，似乎尤為契合）。這樣理解新著《回音室》的書名和您的寫作方式，是否合理？

柯：I think that captures very neatly and very accurately what I am trying to say here, I could not have put it better myself. “Rich, complex, and engaging” is most definitely what I am aiming for, because I am trying to do justice to see what I see as essentially a very rich, complex, and engaging history, in the exchanges between artists and viewers of art in different parts of the world at the period which the book covers. So thank you very much for that. Whether the actual writing has an “echoic” style is maybe something that readers can judge for themselves better than I can. I don’t think I can claim to have set out deliberately to write in such a manner, but I’m very pleased if you detect that in the text. I certainly have set out to write an account which has a number of actors and a number of locations, and which tries to give substance to the idea – which is just a simple historical fact – of the mobility and interaction of artworks, texts, and people at this time. Hence the idea, which is reflected the chapter titles, of Kang Youwei being ‘in Rome’ (which he literally was), but also of Xie He being somehow ‘in Calcutta’, which he obviously was not in a literal sense, any more than Cezanne actually visited Shanghai, but in both cases their work was being read or viewed and discussed in those locations.

我認(rèn)為這非常巧妙、準(zhǔn)確地捕捉到了我想要在這本書里表達(dá)的精髓，我自己都想不到比這更好的措辭。“豐富、復(fù)雜和有趣”絕對(duì)是我想要實(shí)現(xiàn)的目標(biāo)，因?yàn)槲宜噲D展現(xiàn)的，就是通過(guò)在這本書所涵蓋的時(shí)期內(nèi)世界各地的藝術(shù)家和藝術(shù)受眾相互交流的過(guò)程，去公允地呈現(xiàn)我認(rèn)為本質(zhì)上非常豐富、復(fù)雜和有趣的一段歷史。所以非常感謝你的這個(gè)解讀。至于實(shí)際的寫作方式是不是“回音式”的，也許讀者比我有更好的判斷。我不覺得我是刻意用這種方式寫作的，但如果你在文中發(fā)現(xiàn)了這一點(diǎn)，那我很高興。不過(guò)我確實(shí)設(shè)定了要記敘一段包含多個(gè)人物和多處地點(diǎn)的場(chǎng)景，并試圖通過(guò)這段記敘，使當(dāng)時(shí)的藝術(shù)、文字和人物相互流動(dòng)、交流的這個(gè)概念具象化——當(dāng)然這只是一個(gè)簡(jiǎn)單的歷史事實(shí)。恰如章節(jié)標(biāo)題所反映的那樣，康有為“在羅馬”（他確實(shí)去過(guò)），以及謝赫不知何故“在加爾各答”，但實(shí)際上他顯然沒有去過(guò)，又如塞尚在上海，但不管他有沒有去過(guò)，他們的作品都在這些地方被閱讀、觀看和討論過(guò)。

莫：《回音室》僅有三個(gè)章節(jié)。僅用三個(gè)章節(jié)去書寫一部學(xué)術(shù)類著作，意味著這是一部極為細(xì)致、考驗(yàn)細(xì)節(jié)的書，同時(shí)，它也意味著作者對(duì)每個(gè)章節(jié)的內(nèi)容，有著更加充分的討論與延展。章節(jié)少而內(nèi)容充分的結(jié)構(gòu)設(shè)置，是否會(huì)給您帶來(lái)更大或更自如的寫作空間？

柯：The structure of the book, with its three chapters, each of which foregrounds two individuals and the locations in which they were active – that comes directly from the fact that the book has its origins in three lectures delivered in person in Beijing in 2019 for the OCAT Institute. Maybe you can call this just laziness, that I did not seek to restructure what I had to say for publication, but I was quite satisfied with the way the structure worked in terms of the lectures, and the response from the audience was positive enough to make me think that this could work. As a result of many years of working with students on the structuring of their dissertations and theses, I have come to be quite sceptical about the existence of any sort of perfect structure for a piece of writing, it’s very much the content rather than the structure that matters for me. Maybe there could have been six shorter chapters instead of three longer ones, but part of what I’m trying to get across is an account that takes notice of things happening simultaneously, at the same time. So for instance, Kang Youwei is in Rome at the same time as the Six Laws of Xie He are being translated into English for the first time – that already seems interesting to me. I suppose this come out of deep distrust (which I would say is pretty standard now among British art historians of my generation, it’s not some individual trait of mine) of the Gombrichidea of a singular ‘Story of Art’, in which things succeed one another in a neat sequence. I find much more satisfying a history which accounts for the messiness of actual history, of things happening across and against and in relation to one another.

這本書有三個(gè)章節(jié)，其中每個(gè)章節(jié)都突出了兩個(gè)人物及其活動(dòng)地點(diǎn)。這種構(gòu)思直接源于我 2019 年在北京為 OCAT 研究中心進(jìn)行的三場(chǎng)講座。也許你可以稱之為偷懶，因?yàn)槲也]有因?yàn)橐霭婢蛧L試重新組織我要發(fā)表的內(nèi)容，但我對(duì)演講時(shí)候這個(gè)結(jié)構(gòu)的反響非常滿意，而且觀眾的反應(yīng)也十分積極，所以我認(rèn)為這種結(jié)構(gòu)方式是可行的。在與學(xué)生們一起研究學(xué)位論文、專題論文的結(jié)構(gòu)多年后，我開始對(duì)一篇文章是否存在一種完美的結(jié)構(gòu)這件事產(chǎn)生了懷疑。于我而言，內(nèi)容比結(jié)構(gòu)更重要。也許這本書可以由六個(gè)較短的章節(jié)組成，而不是三個(gè)較長(zhǎng)的章節(jié)，但我想要傳達(dá)的一部分內(nèi)容就是，我察覺到了在同一時(shí)期同時(shí)發(fā)生的多個(gè)事件的視角（所以長(zhǎng)章節(jié)或許更合適）。例如，康有為在羅馬的同一時(shí)期，謝赫的“六法”正首次被翻譯成英文——這對(duì)我來(lái)說(shuō)已經(jīng)是很有意思的事情。我想這是出于對(duì)貢布里希的《藝術(shù)的故事》中單線敘述的深度懷疑（我想說(shuō)這在我們這一代的英國(guó)藝術(shù)史家中是相當(dāng)普遍的，這不是我的個(gè)人特質(zhì)）。貢布里希的《藝術(shù)的故事》認(rèn)為，事情會(huì)按照整齊的順序一個(gè)接一個(gè)地發(fā)生。而我發(fā)現(xiàn)，能夠解釋真實(shí)歷史的混亂，描述交叉、對(duì)立或彼此關(guān)聯(lián)的多個(gè)視角的歷史，更能令人信服。

莫：書中提到，南朝時(shí)期謝赫提出的“氣韻生動(dòng)”在歐洲受到關(guān)注，與 20 世紀(jì)初 Rhythm（韻律）一詞的流行有關(guān)，而謝赫理論的傳播，更是帶動(dòng)了西方學(xué)者對(duì)中國(guó)古代繪畫的重視與贊揚(yáng)。我們是否可以這樣理解，藝術(shù)及藝術(shù)理論的傳播（及因傳播而形成“回音室”效應(yīng)），常常受制于隱性但強(qiáng)大的時(shí)代背景？

柯：I would start by stressing that the degree of interest shown in Europe in Xie He and his ideas, and particularly in the central notion of 氣韻生動(dòng)was (and indeed remains) really very limited, restricted almost entirely to the very small number of specialists in Chinese art at that time. There might be a few more such specialists today, but the absolute number is still tiny, and so this is by no means a widely-discussed or quoted idea. Certainly by comparison with the key modernist idea of ‘Rhythm’, which is everywhere in European literature, including in art crticicism, at this period. But what the book argues is that the specific ways in which 氣韻生動(dòng)was translated into European languages were deeply affected by ideas (including but not limited to ‘Rhythm’) that were already beginning to be in circulation at the end of the nineteenth century, as European art and literature were swept by the waves of change which we often bundle together under the label of ‘modernism’. This seems to me a very standard, and not particularly complex, pattern in world history. When a new idea comes along, people tend to try and make sense of it by relating it to things they already know, often saying, ‘Oh, so this new thing we have just learned about is a bit like….(an old thing we already know about).’ So I would absolutely agree with your proposition that ‘the background of the times’ has a very powerful determining effect on the reception of art and art theory. Remember that the late nineteenth century is a period in western art when all sorts of appropriations are going on, for instance in the reception of African sculpture in Paris, something where ‘the background of the times’ is inseparable from the progress of western imperialism in Africa. That has to also be seen as part of the background of the relationship with China too. One of the big differences is that western viewers (or at least some of them) become aware at this time not just of Chinese art, but of the existence of a body of theoretical writing about that art from within China itself.

首先我要強(qiáng)調(diào)的是，歐洲對(duì)謝赫及其思想，特別是對(duì)“氣韻生動(dòng)”這一核心概念的關(guān)注度在過(guò)去（現(xiàn)在仍然）非常有限，幾乎完全局限于當(dāng)時(shí)中國(guó)藝術(shù)領(lǐng)域的極少數(shù)專家范圍內(nèi)。現(xiàn)在可能有更多這類專家，但絕對(duì)數(shù)量仍然很少，因此這絕不是一種被廣泛討論或引證的觀點(diǎn)。當(dāng)然，這與歐洲文學(xué)以及這一時(shí)期的藝術(shù)評(píng)論中無(wú)處不在的“韻律”這一現(xiàn)代主義關(guān)鍵思想形成了對(duì)比。但本書想要表達(dá)的是，“氣韻生動(dòng)”被翻譯成歐洲語(yǔ)言的具體方式深受 19 世紀(jì)末已經(jīng)開始流行的思想（包括但不限于“韻律”）的影響，因?yàn)楫?dāng)時(shí)的歐洲藝術(shù)和文學(xué)被變革的浪潮所席卷，而我們通常將這種變革捆綁在“現(xiàn)代主義”的標(biāo)簽下。在我看來(lái)，這是世界歷史上一種非常標(biāo)準(zhǔn)、并不特別復(fù)雜的變革模式。當(dāng)一種新的思想出現(xiàn)時(shí)，人們往往會(huì)試圖通過(guò)將其與他們已知事物相聯(lián)系來(lái)理解它，我們經(jīng)常聽到說(shuō)，“哦，我們剛剛了解的這個(gè)新事物有點(diǎn)像……（一種我們已經(jīng)知道的舊事物）”。因此，我完全同意你的觀點(diǎn)，即“時(shí)代背景”對(duì)藝術(shù)及藝術(shù)理論的接受程度會(huì)產(chǎn)生非常強(qiáng)大的決定性作用。別忘了19世紀(jì)末是西方藝術(shù)進(jìn)行各種挪用的一個(gè)時(shí)期，例如巴黎接受了非洲雕塑，這與西方帝國(guó)主義在非洲擴(kuò)張的“時(shí)代背景”是密不可分的。在與中國(guó)關(guān)系的時(shí)代背景部分，也必須看清楚這一點(diǎn)。但其中一個(gè)很大的區(qū)別是，這一時(shí)期的西方觀眾（或至少其中一些人）不僅開始了解中國(guó)藝術(shù)，而且意識(shí)到了中國(guó)自身內(nèi)部存在的大量關(guān)于藝術(shù)的理論著作。

莫：《回音室》里隱含有一種變化，即歐洲人對(duì)中國(guó)藝術(shù)和日本藝術(shù)態(tài)度的變化。這種變化，似乎跟梵·高等 19 世紀(jì)末的藝術(shù)家接受日本浮世繪藝術(shù)，與康定斯基等活躍于 20 世紀(jì)初的藝術(shù)家贊揚(yáng)中國(guó)藝術(shù)，有一定關(guān)聯(lián)。如果這種關(guān)聯(lián)存在，那這種變化，在多大程度上影響到了凡·高和康定斯基的藝術(shù)創(chuàng)作？

柯：It’s definitely a part of the bigger context in which the book is set, a broad change on European’s perception of the art of China and Japan, both in relation to each other and in relation to western art. You can see this quite clearly for instance in the collections of certain older museums, like the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, where I began my career. In 1870, say, the view of curators there would have been much more favourable to Japanese than to Chinese art, but by 1920, fifty years later, that would have reversed, and Chinese art would have been held in higher esteem. There’s been quite a lot of interesting scholarship on this shift, which obviously does not have one single or simple cause. I’m not a scholar of European painting, so my understanding of this is certainly limited, but it seems to me that by the 1920s the whole interest in Japan which we subsume under the name ‘japonisme’ seemed old fashioned to artists working then. But I’m not sure that this interest was simply replaced by an interest in China – there were so many other possibilities as well by then, in the art of Africa, of the Pacific, of pre-Columbian South America, the sort of things you can see in the sketchbooks Henry Moore (1898-1986) made in the British Museum as a student in the 1920s.

這絕對(duì)是這本書設(shè)定的一個(gè)更大的背景，即歐洲人對(duì)中國(guó)藝術(shù)和日本藝術(shù)看法的普遍變化，無(wú)論是其彼此之間的關(guān)系還是與西方藝術(shù)的關(guān)系。你可以在一些老博物館的藏品中非常清楚地看到這一點(diǎn)，比如我開始個(gè)人職業(yè)生涯的倫敦維多利亞與艾伯特博物館。比如說(shuō)，1870 年，比起中國(guó)藝術(shù)，那里的策展人對(duì)日本藝術(shù)更為青睞，但到了 50 年后的 1920 年，這種情況發(fā)生了逆轉(zhuǎn)，中國(guó)藝術(shù)會(huì)受到更高的尊重。關(guān)于這一轉(zhuǎn)變，有很多有趣的學(xué)術(shù)研究，但轉(zhuǎn)變顯然不是出于單一或簡(jiǎn)單的原因。我并不是研究歐洲繪畫的學(xué)者，所以我對(duì)這一點(diǎn)的理解當(dāng)然是有限的，但在我看來(lái)，到了 20 世紀(jì) 20 年代，對(duì)日本的全部興趣——我們稱之為“日本風(fēng)”，對(duì)當(dāng)時(shí)的藝術(shù)家來(lái)說(shuō)似乎已經(jīng)過(guò)時(shí)了。但我不確定這種興趣是否只是單純被對(duì)中國(guó)的興趣所取代——那時(shí)有非洲、太平洋、前哥倫布時(shí)代的南美洲各種藝術(shù)可以選擇，因而還有很多其他的可能性，這些你可以在 20 世紀(jì) 20 年代亨利·摩爾（ 1898—1986 ）作為學(xué)生時(shí)在大英博物館制作的寫生集中看到。

莫：《回音室》里有非常多有趣的信息，如錢鍾書對(duì)“氣韻生動(dòng)”翻譯的評(píng)價(jià)，如獻(xiàn)給收藏家弗利爾的刻意炮制的收藏圖錄，又如羅伯特·維維安·登特在《北華捷報(bào)》對(duì)塞尚的批評(píng)。當(dāng)這些本沒有直接相關(guān)性的信息，被放置到一本由“氣韻生動(dòng)”貫穿起來(lái)的著作里時(shí)，總會(huì)使讀者嘴角上揚(yáng)。在翻閱資料過(guò)程中，您會(huì)因?yàn)榘l(fā)現(xiàn)類似這樣的信息而感到驚喜嗎？

柯：All the time! One of the most rewarding parts of research for me is coming up with that new nugget of fact, or that new source. Being surprised, often by unexpected connections, is what keeps the process of research stimulating. I have always tried to look away from the received story to the details which catch our eye at the edge of the picture. There are clear ways in which this is now easier than it was when I started out as a scholar, most notably in the digitisation of early newspapers and periodicals. So the whole debate about the work of Cezanne in the English-language newspapers published in interwar Shanghai, that is something I would neverhave found in the days before such newspapers were digitized, and hence searchable. If you search with imagination, and persistence, there is so much more material that we used to have, and it often brings to the surface people or events which were relatively important at the time, but which have been ‘written out’ of standard mainstream histories. I am constantly being surprised in the process of research, that is the main thing that keep is interesting, keeps me wanting to do it.

總是如此！對(duì)我來(lái)說(shuō)，研究中最有收獲的一部分就是挖掘出這種新的事實(shí)寶藏，或發(fā)現(xiàn)新的信息來(lái)源。我通常因?yàn)榘l(fā)現(xiàn)意想不到的聯(lián)系而感到驚喜，這也是研究過(guò)程鼓舞人心的部分。我一直試圖把目光從接收到的故事信息轉(zhuǎn)移到畫面邊緣吸引我們眼球的細(xì)節(jié)信息上。顯然現(xiàn)在有了一些更容易發(fā)現(xiàn)信息的方法，比我剛開始做學(xué)者時(shí)要好得多，最明顯的就是早期報(bào)紙和期刊的數(shù)字化發(fā)展。因此，在兩次世界大戰(zhàn)期間，上海出版的英文報(bào)紙上關(guān)于塞尚作品的全部爭(zhēng)論是在這些報(bào)紙被數(shù)字化處理之前的我永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)的，而之后可以搜索到了。如果你帶著想象力，堅(jiān)持不懈地去搜尋，你會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)我們過(guò)去擁有如此之多的材料，而且那些在當(dāng)時(shí)相對(duì)重要的人物或事件，已被主流歷史覆蓋了。研究過(guò)程不斷給我?guī)?lái)驚喜，這是讓我一直有興趣的主要原因，是這個(gè)驚喜讓我一直想做這件事。

莫：《回音室》引言中，有關(guān)《中國(guó)章節(jié)》這本小冊(cè)子的簡(jiǎn)短文字，非常有趣。之所以對(duì)《中國(guó)章節(jié)》感興趣，是因?yàn)樗刮以诘谝粫r(shí)間想起了威尼斯雙年展。近些年，威尼斯雙年展開幕時(shí)，當(dāng)?shù)匾矔?huì)出現(xiàn)非官方的“平行展”，這使人感慨，當(dāng)代藝術(shù)的某些組織方式，似乎與一個(gè)世紀(jì)前“當(dāng)代藝術(shù)”的組織方式，有些相似。在《誰(shuí)在看中國(guó)畫》一書中文版第一章的開篇，您曾提到藝術(shù)家黃永砅，據(jù)我了解，您對(duì)當(dāng)代藝術(shù)一直有深入研究。那么，對(duì)古代藝術(shù)的研究和對(duì)當(dāng)代藝術(shù)的研究，彼此之間會(huì)有哪些互相啟發(fā)、幫助的可能，或者有哪些微妙連接？

柯：I certainly would not consider myself ‘a(chǎn)n expert on contemporary art’, and I have quite deliberately written almost nothing on this topic. In some ways I feel a bit bad about this – the very distinguished American art historian who was head of department when I got my first teaching job was very insistent that it was the moral dutyof the art historian to engage with the art of their own time, as well as with the art of the past. Maybe it is a lack of confidence in my own critical judgement, but it is also the fact that in some ways it is much harderto write about contemporary art and maintain the kind of distance which I feel is necessary for the historian. People (artists, galleries, critics) are all necessarily making their case, arguing for their importance, and I’m sort of more interested in what happens when that advocacy is sifted through by time. I agree in some ways with your perception that contemporary art now shows similarities in its organisation with that of a century ago, but the vast explosion of attention and interest in recent decades is quite unprecedented, I think. And I’m conscious that there are many real specialists who can write about this with so much more conviction and insight than me.

我當(dāng)然不認(rèn)為我是“當(dāng)代藝術(shù)的專家”，而且我?guī)缀鯖]有刻意寫過(guò)任何關(guān)于這個(gè)主題的內(nèi)容。在某種程度上，我對(duì)此感覺有點(diǎn)慚愧。在我從事第一份教學(xué)工作時(shí)，當(dāng)時(shí)的系主任是一位非常杰出的美國(guó)藝術(shù)史家，他堅(jiān)持認(rèn)為，藝術(shù)史家的道德責(zé)任是研究他們自身所處時(shí)代的藝術(shù)，當(dāng)然也要研究過(guò)去的藝術(shù)。也許不寫當(dāng)代藝術(shù)是因?yàn)槲覍?duì)自己的批判性判斷缺乏信心，但事實(shí)上，寫當(dāng)代藝術(shù)的同時(shí)還要保持距離感，確實(shí)更難（我認(rèn)為距離感對(duì)藝術(shù)史家來(lái)說(shuō)是很有必要的）。大家（藝術(shù)家、畫廊、批評(píng)家）都在闡述自己的觀點(diǎn)，為自己的重要性辯護(hù)，我更感興趣的是，當(dāng)這些主張經(jīng)過(guò)時(shí)間篩選后會(huì)發(fā)生什么。我在某些方面同意你的觀點(diǎn)，即當(dāng)代藝術(shù)在組織方式上與一個(gè)世紀(jì)前有相似之處，但我認(rèn)為，近幾十年來(lái)激增的對(duì)藝術(shù)的極大關(guān)注度和興趣是前所未有的。我知道有很多真正的專家比我更有見地和洞察力，可以寫出關(guān)于當(dāng)代藝術(shù)的文章。

莫：在過(guò)往的研究中，您寫到過(guò)太多中國(guó)古代畫家，包括在《回音室》里，也涉及很多藝術(shù)家——陳師曾、金紹城、林風(fēng)眠、徐悲鴻等，您最喜歡哪幾位？

柯：The issue of personal taste and the writing of history is an interesting question. Do you have to like work to write about it in an insightful way? Can you do good historical work on art you really do not care for that much? There are certainly major figures whose art does notmove or inspire me in any significant way, and people whose work I find consistently surprising or interesting. I am very struck by the sad coincidence that Chen Shizeng and Jin Cheng both died relatively young in the 1920s, when they were in their forties. They were both hugely significant figures in the course of painting in China, as theorists and organisers as well as artists, and I wonder what might have been the course of painting if they had lived longer lives. History is full of such accidents.

個(gè)人品味和書寫歷史的課題是一個(gè)有趣的問(wèn)題。你一定要喜歡上某件藝術(shù)作品才能以一種有見地的方式來(lái)評(píng)述它嗎？你能在自己不那么感興趣的藝術(shù)內(nèi)容上做好歷史研究嗎？當(dāng)然會(huì)有些重要人物的藝術(shù)作品并不能深深地打動(dòng)或激勵(lì)我，而有些人的作品卻一直讓我感到新奇或有趣。陳師曾和金紹城都在 20 世紀(jì) 20 年代英年早逝，當(dāng)時(shí)他們才四十多歲，這一悲傷的巧合讓我非常震驚。作為理論家、組織者和藝術(shù)家，他們都是中國(guó)繪畫史上非常重要的人物，我想知道如果他們活得時(shí)間更長(zhǎng)，繪畫史將會(huì)被如何改寫。歷史上總是充滿了這樣的意外。

莫：作為一位藝術(shù)史家，從事藝術(shù)史研究，人生中的許多時(shí)間沉浸在藝術(shù)之中，會(huì)給您帶來(lái)怎樣的變化？

柯：Having been, one way or another, a professional art historian, as museum curatoror university teacher, for forty-five years now, I find it very difficult to think of my life as being something which is separate from thinking about or writing about art. So I can’t really say how it has changed my life, it just ismy life, or at least such a major part of my life that I can’t really imagine a life separate from it. I feel hugely privileged that I have had the opportunities I have had to travel and to see great art in so many places, and I am constantly finding out about new things I had no notion of. I would say that my interests have changed too. I certainly did not start out as scholar of Chinese painting, but worked much more on the history of 工藝美術(shù). And even before that I was a student of Chinese literature, that was my first strong interest. So maybe there is still time for another change of direction!

我作為（以這樣或那樣的方式）一名藝術(shù)史家、博物館策展人、大學(xué)教師，已經(jīng)四十五年了，我發(fā)現(xiàn)很難把自己的生活與所思所想或藝術(shù)寫作分開。所以我無(wú)法說(shuō)它是怎么改變我的生活的，它就是我的生活，或者至少說(shuō)，它是我生活中非常重要的一部分，以至于我無(wú)法想象沒有它的生活。我很榮幸有機(jī)會(huì)去旅行，去那么多地方看偉大的藝術(shù)，并不斷發(fā)現(xiàn)我以前完全沒概念的新事物。我想說(shuō)我的興趣也發(fā)生了變化。起初，我研究的是工藝美術(shù)史而非中國(guó)繪畫，在我學(xué)中國(guó)文學(xué)之前，工藝美術(shù)是我最初的強(qiáng)烈興趣。所以，也許我還有時(shí)間再一次改變方向！

莫：研究中國(guó)藝術(shù)史的人，似乎大都會(huì)有習(xí)書法、畫水墨的愛好，您是否也是如此？

柯：The simple answer is no. I have no artistic talent, and certainly no artistic training. It’s a very distinctive feature of the Chinese academic world that – especially in the twentieth century – many of the key writers of art history were themselves significant artists (I have a sense this may have changed somewhat in the last forty years), but such a tradition never really established itself in the academic world of the west. I can’t think of any of the major figures, right back to the founders of the discipline of art history in the nineteenth-century German-speaking world, who had any serious engagement with art practice. I suppose that means that I am not as embarrassed by my failure to practise as an artist as I would be if I was working in a Chinese context. But it is an interesting intellectual question why this state of affairs came about – in Britain, in order to be taken seriously as a historian of music, you would definitely have to have some degree of skill as a musician, so why do art historians not make art? The answer must lie on the ongoing tension between our discipline as art history(i.e. we are basically historians, who most definitely do not‘make history’), and as arthistory (i.e. a subset of the practice of art making).

最簡(jiǎn)單的答案是：不是。我沒有藝術(shù)天賦，當(dāng)然也沒有受過(guò)藝術(shù)訓(xùn)練。中國(guó)學(xué)術(shù)界有一個(gè)非常鮮明的特點(diǎn)（尤其是在 20 世紀(jì)），即許多重要的藝術(shù)史家本身就是重要的藝術(shù)家（我覺得這在過(guò)去的四十年里可能已經(jīng)有所改變），但西方學(xué)術(shù)界從未真正有過(guò)這樣的傳統(tǒng)。哪怕追溯到 19 世紀(jì)德語(yǔ)世界藝術(shù)史學(xué)科的創(chuàng)始人，我也想不出任何一個(gè)重要研究者曾經(jīng)從事過(guò)真正的藝術(shù)實(shí)踐。我想這意味著，我不必因?yàn)樽约翰皇撬囆g(shù)家而感到羞愧，而如果我在中國(guó)環(huán)境下工作，可能就不一樣了。不過(guò)這是一個(gè)有趣的知識(shí)性問(wèn)題，為什么會(huì)出現(xiàn)這種情況——在英國(guó)，要想成為一名真正的音樂(lè)史家，你必須具備一定的音樂(lè)家技能，那為什么藝術(shù)史家就不用藝術(shù)創(chuàng)作呢？答案肯定在于我們這門學(xué)科到底是藝術(shù)的歷史（即我們基本上是歷史學(xué)家，我們絕對(duì)不會(huì)“創(chuàng)造歷史”）還是藝術(shù)的歷史（即藝術(shù)創(chuàng)作實(shí)踐的一個(gè)子集），這兩種觀點(diǎn)，一直存在著沖突。

莫：LCA 有眾多藝術(shù)愛好者和藝術(shù)史讀者，是否可以給他們一些建議？

柯：I suppose I would advise people not to pay too much attention to what somebody like me might think, but rather to pursue what seems meaningful and interesting to you as an individual. It’s ok to not be impressed by the writing of a ‘famous’ scholar, or the work of an ‘important’ artist, if it doesn’t work for you then it doesn’t work, and that’s the end of it. But the flip side of that is I would say it isgood to expose yourself to as much as possible, and keep an open mind, so you can find out what that thing you like is. Books and exhibitions are obviously one great way to do this, but there are also large amounts of interesting material out there on social media of various kinds – LCA is just one outstanding example. People today have access to images of art to a degree far in advance of what used to be available only a short time ago, so it is easy to get swamped, that’s why I think it is necessary to give yourself permission to not pay attention to everything that is going on. And your interests will evolve over time, certainly mine have, so give yourself permission to change.

我會(huì)建議大家不要太在意像我這樣的人的看法，比起我的建議，去追求對(duì)你個(gè)人來(lái)說(shuō)有意義、有趣的東西更重要。對(duì)一位“著名”學(xué)者或一位“重要”藝術(shù)家的作品不感興趣，是完全可以的，你對(duì)它沒有感覺就是沒有感覺，事情到此為止即可。但另一方面，我想說(shuō)的是，讓自己盡可能多地接觸藝術(shù)，保持開放的心態(tài)，這樣你就能找到你喜歡的東西。書籍和展覽顯然是很好的方式，但在各種社交媒體上也有大量有趣的材料—— LCA 就是一個(gè)突出的例子。現(xiàn)在人們接觸藝術(shù)圖像的數(shù)量，遠(yuǎn)超之前，所以圖像本身極為容易被淹沒。這就是為什么我允許自己不必關(guān)注正在發(fā)生的每一件事。你的興趣會(huì)隨著時(shí)間的推移而變化，當(dāng)然我也是，所以允許自己去改變吧。

我們的對(duì)話—— 對(duì)話藝術(shù)史家與學(xué)者，讓思想和知識(shí)被看見。

受訪者：柯律格（Craig Clunas），著名藝術(shù)史家，牛津大學(xué)藝術(shù)史系榮休教授，英國(guó)國(guó)家學(xué)術(shù)院院士。

采訪者：莫一奧，藝術(shù)史研究者，寫作者。

LCA X 世紀(jì)文景