梅丹理 中国上苑艺术馆
Mair, Denis, Shangyuan Art Museum
原文Original
Pregnant Lines: The Visual-Verbal Nexus in Four Modern Chinese Poems
In traditional literati culture, one often encounters statements about the interpenetration of painting and poetry. I believe that the intersection of verbal imagery and visual imagery persists today as an important feature of modern Chinese poetry, and that traditional, uniquely Chinese ways of discussing images can still yield fruit when applied to modern poetry. I have chosen my approach as a ‘Sinological experiment,’ because I believe that Sinology is not exhausted by use of Western methodology, and that one part of Sinology should be to test our own ability, as Sinologists, to apply Chinese methodologies. To give a concrete, practical demonstration of this assertion, I will discuss the imagery in three poems by the poet-painter Yan Li— ‘A Dog Poem for Tomorrow,’ ‘Arc of a Holiday,’ and ‘Forgetting to Remember.’ I will also discuss imagery in a poem by another poet-painter—‘My Tree-Branch Girl Friend’ by Sun Lei. In order to explore what I see as the synergy of verbal and visual imagery in Chinese aesthetics, I would like to step back and look at some ‘cultural genes’ that make this intersection so characteristic of artistic practice in China.
There are many valid objects of thought that can only be represented through images because they are deep and we are still exploring them—their meaning is still ‘under construction.’ Chinese thinkers have recognized this and given a high importance to images in their thinking. This habit of thinking has helped inform the aesthetic characteristics of traditional Chinese art—suggestive, rich in implication, with much open space for interpretation. Chinese visual art has been influenced by this aesthetic, and so has Chinese poetry.
An aesthetic based on open-ended images is being now extended into modern forms in Chinese poetry. Since a poet like Yan Li works with expressive resources that are native to the Chinese language, his work preserves the continuity of this important feature, despite departures from tradition in his forms of expression and the thought-realms he explores.
译文Translation
诗句的“孕味”：四首现代诗中的诗画意味
在传统文人文化中，“诗情”与“画意”的交融是一种理想的状态。我认为，文字意象和视觉形象的融合今时今日仍为中国现代诗的重要特征。因此中国传统的讨论意象的独特方式依旧可以用来解读现代诗歌，并且可以取得丰硕的成果。我选择了一种类似于“汉学实验”的读解方法，因为我觉得，汉学不应局限于使用西方的方法论，而应该充分运用中国的方法论，这也可以帮助我们这些汉学家检验自己的研究能力。
为了具体阐释我的观点，我将讨论诗人画家严力的三首诗歌中的意象问题，这三首诗是《明天的一首狗诗》、《节日的弯度》、和《遗忘》。我讨论的对象还包括另一位诗人画家孙磊的诗作《我女友名字叫树枝》。中国美学崇尚文字和视觉意象相互配合，中国艺术实践以“诗情画意”为典型特征，为了探究这种特征的形成，我将追溯到一些“文化基因”。
人类思维中尚有许多对象只能通过意象来呈现。因为它们的涵义深奥莫测，至今仍在研究和建构之中。中国的思想者意识到了这一点，于是在思考过程中将形象置于十分重要的地位。这种思维习惯能够帮助人们了解中国传统艺术的美学特性——含蓄隽永、意味深长、韵味无穷。中国的视觉艺术和诗歌都深受这种美学的影响。
一种以开放式意象为基础的美学，已经发展成中国诗歌的现代表现形式。尽管严力的表达方式及关注领域已经与传统大相径庭，但是他运用的表现资源扎根在汉语之中，所以他的作品延续了中国传统的美学特征。