Henri Matisse: Drawing with Scissors亨利·馬蒂斯：用剪刀作畫

They were dismissed as paper jokes， the pictorial maunderings of an old man—but the dazzlingly bright cutouts1 Matisse made in his last decade show a period of vitality and radical reinvention.

馬蒂斯在生命最后十年創(chuàng)作的剪紙作品在當(dāng)時(shí)頗受輕視，人們認(rèn)為那是拿紙剪著玩，不過是耄耋老人用圖畫形式在絮絮叨叨。而事實(shí)上，這些作品色彩明亮，令人嘆為觀止，足以看出馬蒂斯在那段時(shí)期爆發(fā)出蓬勃的生命力，對(duì)傳統(tǒng)進(jìn)行了徹底的顛覆。

At the start of the second world war， Henri Matisse found himself， for the first time in his life， confronted by an empty studio. France declared war in September and was swiftly invaded， defeated and occupied by German forces. Matisse fell gravely ill and spent much of the next two years struggling to survive recurrent crises that threatened his life. In 1943， when German armies poured down through France to meet allied forces fighting their way up through Italy， Matisse was a bedridden invalid2， living in a war zone in south-east France with German troops in his basement and allied shells exploding in the garden.

二戰(zhàn)爆發(fā)初期，馬蒂斯的工作室空空如也，沒有一件作品，這是他生平第一次遇到這種情況。同年九月，法國參戰(zhàn)，旋即遭到入侵，隨即戰(zhàn)敗，迅速被德軍占領(lǐng)。此時(shí)，馬蒂斯身患重疾，之后的兩年，病情反復(fù)，幾度病危，他大部分時(shí)間都在經(jīng)歷這樣的煎熬。1943年，德國大軍橫貫法國大陸，與穿過意大利奮力一搏的盟軍短兵相接。彼時(shí)，馬蒂斯纏綿病榻，住在法國東南部的一個(gè)戰(zhàn)區(qū)，寓所地窖中住著德軍，盟軍發(fā)射過來的炮彈就在花園爆炸。

It was at this point that he cut a man out of white paper， a drooping pinheaded figure， all sagging limbs and blazing red heart， mounted on a black ground with bombs detonating around him. He called it The Fall of Icarus， after the ancient Greek who fell to his death because he had tried to fly too near the sun， but Matisse’s Icarus marked a beginning， not an end. It turned out to be the first step in a process of radical reinvention that would see him abandon oil paints altogether in favour of new techniques based on cut and painted paper. His doctors had given him， at most， three years to live after an intestinal operation in 1941. His mobility from then on was minimal and his strength greatly diminished， but the work he produced in his final decade suggests inexhaustible imaginative power and vitality. He made an astonishing number of increasingly ambitious cutpaper compositions， setting up a production line after the war in what he called his factory in Nice， where studio assistants covered sheets of paper with gouache mixed to his own direction in colours almost blindingly bright. He said he was drawing with scissors， cutting directly into colour， abolishing the conflicts—between colour and line， emotion and execution3 —that had slowed him down all his life. “I do it in self-defence，” he said sadly， when Louis Aragon asked how work of such brilliant， reckless exuberance could have emerged from the darkest days of the war.

正是在這一階段，馬蒂斯在白紙上剪出一個(gè)人形：耷拉著小腦袋，四肢下垂，還有一顆火紅的心。小人嵌在黑色背景中，周圍是引爆的炸彈。馬蒂斯以古希臘神話故事《伊卡洛斯的墜落》為這幅畫命名——伊卡洛斯因?yàn)轱w近太陽而墜亡。不過與這個(gè)傳說不同，馬蒂斯的《伊卡洛斯》象征的不是終結(jié)，而是開端。馬蒂斯最后完全放棄油畫，轉(zhuǎn)向?qū)⒉眉艉屯可埾嘟Y(jié)合的創(chuàng)新手法，由此開啟一段徹底的革新之旅，而這幅作品就是他邁出的第一步。1941年，馬蒂斯接受了一次腸道手術(shù)，醫(yī)生當(dāng)時(shí)斷言他活不過三年。雖然手術(shù)后行動(dòng)能力大為受限，體力嚴(yán)重下降，但馬蒂斯在生命最后十年間的創(chuàng)作表明，他的想象力和生命力永不枯竭。他的剪紙作品規(guī)模越發(fā)宏大，而且數(shù)量驚人。二戰(zhàn)結(jié)束后，馬蒂斯在尼斯設(shè)立專門的生產(chǎn)線（他稱其為自己的工廠），工作室助手按照他對(duì)色彩的要求，將不同顏色的水粉混合，調(diào)制出近乎炫目的亮色，把一張張紙涂滿。馬蒂斯說過，他是用剪刀在作畫，通過直接裁剪色彩，使得色彩與線條的對(duì)立、激情與創(chuàng)作手法的沖突，都不復(fù)存在，而那些對(duì)立沖突一輩子都在拖慢他的創(chuàng)作。著名詩人路易·阿拉貢曾經(jīng)問他，這樣明亮鮮活、生機(jī)勃勃的作品為何會(huì)誕生于戰(zhàn)時(shí)最黑暗的日子，馬蒂斯不無傷感地說：“我是在自衛(wèi)?！?/p>

From the summer of 1946， a steady stream of images invaded Matisse’s walls， starting with the bedroom of his Paris flat where he cut a swallow out of white writing paper to cover up a scuffmark4 on the shabby brownish wallpaper. It was succeeded by a fish， then a second and a third， until gradually the whole width of the wall was submerged under a swell of marine life surfacing from buried memories of a trip to Tahiti made 16 years earlier. Seabirds， fish， shells， sharks， strands and curlicues of seaweed eventually covered two walls （later transposed by a resourceful young textile-maker， Zika Ascher， on to two silkscreen panels， Oceania， the Sea and Oceania， the Sky）.

從1946年夏天開始，各種圖樣源源不斷地出現(xiàn)在馬蒂斯的墻上。先是在他巴黎公寓的臥室墻上，一只白色信紙剪成的燕子蓋住了破舊的褐色墻紙上一處磨損痕跡，后來出現(xiàn)了一條魚，接著又有了第二條魚、第三條魚。慢慢地，整面墻都貼滿了游弋的海洋生物，這些海洋生物是從16年前塔希提島之旅的塵封記憶中浮現(xiàn)出來的。到最后，海鳥、魚類、貝殼、鯊魚、海帶、海藻整整覆蓋了兩面墻（年輕的紡織品制造商齊卡·阿舍爾心思活絡(luò)，后來將這些剪紙移到了兩塊絲網(wǎng)印刷面板上，成為《大洋洲，海洋》和《大洋洲，天空》兩幅作品）。

They were followed by a tidal surge of cutouts flooding Matisse’s interiors， sweeping round corners and over doorways， immersing fixtures and fittings5 under successive waves of fruit and foliage， acrobats， dancers and swimmers diving， floating and swooping round the rooms from floor to ceiling. Images took over all available space， commandeering salons， dining rooms， bedrooms and studios wherever Matisse went from his Parisian apartment to the little suburban house he rented on the outskirts of Vence in wartime. The stained-glass windows for the chapel at Vence—a project that took Matisse four years to complete at the height of his powers—were designed from his bed entirely in cut and coloured paper.

這之后，大量剪紙貼滿馬蒂斯的房間，墻角周圍和門廊上方布滿剪紙，家具四周也圍繞著一波又一波的剪紙作品，有水果和枝葉、雜技演員、舞者，還有或跳水、或漂浮、或俯沖的泳者，上至天花板，下至地面，布滿各個(gè)房間。馬蒂斯所到之處，不論是巴黎的公寓還是二戰(zhàn)期間他在旺斯郊區(qū)租的小房子，在客廳、餐廳、臥室、工作室，剪紙圖樣占據(jù)了所有能貼剪紙的地方。馬蒂斯在其藝術(shù)創(chuàng)作巔峰時(shí)期曾花四年時(shí)間修建了旺斯禮拜堂，教堂的彩色玻璃窗就出自他臥床期間僅用彩紙進(jìn)行裁剪的設(shè)計(jì)。

Matisse grew old but his work did not. People who visited him in his late 70s and early 80s described him sitting up against his pillows with scissors and paper， twisting and turning the coloured sheets beneath his blades to release a steady stream of fragile spiralling shapes that floated down to subside6 on the bedspread below like flotsam washed up by the sea. The paper scraps were retrieved， pieced together and meticulously pinned in place according to the artist’s instructions. “He knew what he was looking for，” said one of his assistants， “but we didn’t.” The hypnotic7 quality of the whole operation reduced those who watched it to stupefied silence， among them Picasso， who came regularly with his girlfriend to check up on his old rival. What baffled Picasso and enchanted his companion was the streamlined ease， speed and cutting-edge modernity of the entire procedure.

馬蒂斯日益衰老，但他的創(chuàng)作依然年輕。在他80歲前后的幾年時(shí)間里，上門探望的人這樣形容他：背靠枕頭而坐，手拿剪刀和紙，彩紙扭動(dòng)翻轉(zhuǎn)，就見剪刀下流淌出一連串纖巧的螺旋形狀，緩緩落到下面的被罩上，好像被海水沖上岸的漂浮物。助手把這些紙片收起來，按照馬蒂斯的指示拼合，再小心翼翼地用大頭針固定。他的一位助手說：“他清楚自己想要什么效果，而我們毫無概念?！闭麄€(gè)操作過程有種迷人的特質(zhì)，讓旁觀者不由自主地屏息靜默。畢加索也經(jīng)常攜女朋友來看望自己這位老對(duì)手，眼前這個(gè)高效流暢又快速先進(jìn)的流程，讓畢加索困惑不解，卻讓他的女友陶醉著迷。

Matisse had given his life to projecting an inner reality strong enough to withstand the competing claims of the external world. Now the seagulls he had watched circling the sewage outlet on the Nice seafront， the doves that once flew freely in his studio， were internalised in the sensation of flight that drove the path of his scissor-blades. Forests of red， blue， black and ochre fronds sprang up around him. He sketched a garden snail， holding it between thumb and forefinger， and recreating it afterwards in the vast shell-shaped spiral of coloured blocks that make up the Tate’s mural， The Snail. Nothing could stop him. His eyes gave out （the optician said his retina could not keep up with the pace at which his brain processed colour）， his hands swelled up， weakness shortened his days， pain and delirium8 swallowed the nights. More than one of his young assistants reached the verge of collapse， but all of them agreed in retrospect that the atmospheric tension of Matisse’s studio had been as exhilarating as it was exhausting. “It was a race，” said another of them， “an endurance course that he was running with death.”

馬蒂斯畢生致力于呈現(xiàn)內(nèi)心真實(shí)的感受，這種感受強(qiáng)大有力，能夠使其頂住來自外部世界的各種爭論。尼斯海濱排污口周圍盤旋的海鷗，在他畫室里自由飛翔的鴿子，這些觀察形成了他對(duì)飛翔的感知，引領(lǐng)著他手中剪刀的走向。他的周圍很快冒出了紅色、藍(lán)色、黑色、褚石色的棕櫚樹林。他勾勒出一只庭院蝸牛，用拇指和食指捏住，后來重新創(chuàng)作的版本用了巨大的貝殼形彩紙片，按螺旋狀排列拼貼，成就了如今掛在倫敦泰特美術(shù)館的《蝸牛》。沒有什么能夠讓他停止創(chuàng)作，哪怕眼睛昏花（眼科醫(yī)生說馬蒂斯的視網(wǎng)膜跟不上他的大腦處理色彩的速度），雙手浮腫，哪怕身體虛弱導(dǎo)致白天工作時(shí)間有限，晚上又因病痛和譫妄難以入睡。馬蒂斯的年輕助手中，不止一位接近崩潰，但事后回想起來，所有人都表示，工作室的緊張氛圍雖然讓人筋疲力盡，卻也令人興奮愉悅。還有一位助手說：“那是賽跑，是他在和死神比拼耐力?！?/p>

Matisse himself talked of abstraction and the absolute， saying he wanted to distil each image down to its bare essence， and insisting that， however incomprehensible it might seem in its day， his latest work would speak to the future. Sure enough， 60 years after his death， the curators of Henri Matisse： The Cut-Outs talk of proto-installation and proto-environment art， an improvised and interactive work-in-progress9 that involves the viewer and invades his or her space.

馬蒂斯談到抽象和絕對(duì)真實(shí)兩個(gè)概念時(shí)表示，他希望提煉出每個(gè)圖像最本質(zhì)的東西，堅(jiān)信他的創(chuàng)作不管在當(dāng)時(shí)有多么難以理解，未來必定能找到知音。事實(shí)的確如此，在他去世60年后，“亨利·馬蒂斯的剪紙藝術(shù)展”策展人就以原初裝飾藝術(shù)和原初環(huán)境藝術(shù)為主題，將展覽設(shè)定為半成品性質(zhì)，需要觀展人參與即興互動(dòng)，突破他們與作品之間的空間界限。

“It breathes， it responds， it’s not a dead thing，” Matisse said of one of his cutouts.

馬蒂斯曾這樣評(píng)價(jià)自己某一幅剪紙作品：“它會(huì)呼吸，給人回應(yīng)，不是件死物。”

The dazzling virtuosity of the photo album Jazz sprang from paper cutouts. “It keeps its life of paper，” Matisse’s neighbour André Rouveyre wrote in a blunt letter， describing his shock on seeing the originals flattened and desiccated10 by their transfer to the printed page. Matisse agreed with him that Jazz—generally acknowledged today to be one of the 20th-century’s greatest art books—had drained the life out of his cutouts. “What absolutely ruins them is the transposition11， which removes their sensitivity …”

《爵士》作品集令人驚嘆的藝術(shù)正是源自剪紙。藝術(shù)家安德烈·魯韋爾是馬蒂斯的鄰居，在看到《爵士》中的原作經(jīng)過壓平、干燥，然后印刷出來，感到非常震驚，在一封信中直言不諱地說：“馬蒂斯的藝術(shù)保留了紙張自身的生命力?！彪m然人們普遍認(rèn)為《爵士》是20世紀(jì)最偉大的藝術(shù)書籍之一，馬蒂斯本人卻和魯韋爾所見相同，認(rèn)為這部作品集讓他的剪紙作品失去了生命力。在他看來，“遷移完全毀了這些作品，原先的敏感性消失殆盡……”。

（譯者為“《英語世界》杯”翻譯大賽獲獎(jiǎng)?wù)?；單位：南京曉莊學(xué)院）

1 cutout（尤指可豎立起來的）剪下的圖樣。" 2 invalid病弱者。

3 execution創(chuàng)作手法。" 4 scuffmark磨損痕跡。" 5 fixtures and fittings固定裝置和附加設(shè)備。

6 subside下陷，沉降。" 7 hypnotic有催眠作用的；讓人著迷的。

8 delirium譫妄，神志失常。

9 work-in-progress半成品。" 10 desiccated脫水的；干燥法保存的。" 11 transposition置換，遷移。