Poetry in paint
画中诗意
Guardi, rather than Canaletto, holds the key to Venice’s heart
瓜尔迪比卡纳莱多更能把握威尼斯的精髓
Brilliant brush
妙手丹青
IT IS evening. The sky is a dirty blue, the wispy clouds a pinkish colour—and the gondolas lit up by the fading sun. In the distance, Venice’s cemetery island, San Michele, rises in the lagoon. This view of the city was painted by Francesco Guardi not long before he died in 1793. If Venice’s best-known painter, Canaletto, created imposing framed memories for Grand Tourists to enjoy back home, Guardi captured the city’s moods: its damp and heat or the drama of San Marcuola in flames.
傍晚时分，天色黯淡，一片灰蓝，缕缕云絮，淡淡粉红。夕阳之下，一艘艘贡多拉泛起点点金光。远处环礁湖上，威尼斯的公墓之岛San Michele映入眼帘。这幅威尼斯风景画是弗朗西斯科•瓜尔迪在1793年所画的，不久后他便去世了。若说威尼斯最负盛名的画家卡纳莱多将威尼斯的风貌令人印象深刻地定格在画框中，让游客们日后回味；那么瓜尔迪就抓住了这座城市给人的感觉：湿热的气候或是余辉下San Marcuola教堂的壮美。
Guardi is unsurpassed as Venice’s poet in paint. Last year a large view of the Rialto bridge sold for £26.7m ($42.7) at Sotheby’s, the second-highest auction price for an Old Master painting. Now, to celebrate the 300th anniversary of his birth, Guardi is the subject of two important exhibitions—a retrospective in Venice and a Paris show pairing and comparing him with Canaletto. Guardi has emerged from the shadows and his achievements glow.
瓜尔迪的画作诗意盎然，在威尼斯无人能及。去年，索斯比拍卖公司以两千六百七十万英镑的价格出售了一幅里亚托桥的大型风景画，这个价格在欧洲早期绘画大师的作品中位列第二。如今，人们举行了两场重要的瓜尔迪作品展来纪念其300岁诞辰。一场是在威尼斯的回顾展。另一场在巴黎举行，这场展览还展出了卡纳莱托的作品，与瓜尔迪的作品进行对比。瓜尔迪熬出头了，如今他的成就大放异彩。
Francesco Guardi was born and died in Venice. His father was a painter, as was his brother Giovanni Antonio. (Their sister Maria-Cecilia married another Venetian artist, Giambattista Tiepolo.) Guardi struggled financially. He was middle-aged before he achieved any recognition and old before he was sought after. Fame came only after his death. In the 19th century he was feted as the bridge to Impressionism; some called him the first modern artist.
弗朗西斯科•瓜尔迪生于威尼斯，也在威尼斯去世。他的父亲和哥哥乔瓦尼•安东尼奥都是画家（他们的妹妹也嫁给了另一位威尼斯画家金姆巴堤斯塔•提埃波罗。）瓜尔迪生活拮据，人到中年才获得认可，一把年纪才开始受人追捧，直到死后才功成名就。在19世纪，人们高度评价他为印象主义的先导，还有人誉之为第一位现代画家。
Archival information about Guardi’s life is scarce and his pictures are difficult to date. Controversies about attribution dogged his last retrospective in 1965. Subsequent scholarship has made authorship more certain. The retrospective now at Venice’s Museo Correr contains some 70 Guardi paintings displayed on ice cream-coloured walls of raspberry, lemon and pistachio, all flooded by natural light. In a suite of grey rooms with drawn blinds are about 50 drawings. The museum, in St Mark’s Square, faces the world-famous basilica. Visitors will be amused as their gaze shifts from Guardi’s views of the piazza to the identical view from the window, with tourists in T-shirts and shorts replacing Venetians in breeches.
关于瓜尔迪，记录在案的资料少之又少，其画作的年代也难以追溯。上次的1965年回顾展过后，便有人怀疑那些画并非出自瓜尔迪之手。而后来的学术研究进一步确定这些画是瓜尔迪所作。目前在威尼斯科雷尔博物馆举行的回顾展约有70幅瓜尔迪的作品。画作挂在紫红、柠檬黄、淡草绿的雪糕色墙上展示，一律自然采光。还有一系列拉上百叶窗的展厅，室内昏暗，里面展出了约50幅画作。博物馆位于圣•马克广场，对面就是世界著名的圣•马克大教堂。在瓜尔迪的画中，圣•马克广场上都是穿威尼斯马裤的威尼斯人；而在窗外，广场还是那个广场，上面却是个个T恤短裤的游人。游客们看看画，再看看窗外，定会觉得十分有趣。
The show begins with intimate interiors, and moves on to festivals crowded with a boisterous populace. There are too many works of similar size but uneven importance, which has a dulling effect on what should be the thrilling paintings that follow—Guardi’s poignant, evocative views of Venice and his fantastical charming capriccios with their romantic ruins and arching trees. The result is a historically informative but ultimately disappointing exhibition. By contrast, “Canaletto and Guardi” in Paris is a joyous eye-opener.
展览开始只展出室内起居画，后来又展出人声喧闹的节日画。大小相似的画作太多，质量却参差不齐。瓜尔迪的威尼斯风景画生动形象，他的城市幻想画描绘了富有浪漫气息的残垣断壁和盘虬卧龙的树木，充满魅力。但这些本应激动人心的画作却被安排在后面，失去了原有的魅力。结果，这成了一场具有历史意义但却让人失望的展览。相比之下，巴黎的“卡纳莱托与瓜尔迪”展则让人大开眼界。
This is a tightly focused show of 50 paintings, all Venetian views and capriccios. The freshness of Canaletto’s early works points to why his pictures were so prized. Guardi saw these paintings and was clearly influenced by them. As the exhibition unfolds the older artist’s vision hardens. Canaletto’s people are there not as individuals but to provide scale for the architecture. His buyers wanted to recollect the city’s beauty, not the life of its people. Guardi the artist, if not the family man with bills to pay, benefited from having few clients and therefore only himself to please. Canaletto’s Venice is a cold beauty, Guardi’s city a living dream. The visitor leaves the Paris show smiling, full of admiration for his painterly spirit.
这场展览只重点展出50幅画作，全是威尼斯的风景画和城市幻想画。卡纳莱托的早期作品风格清新，故被高度评价。瓜尔迪看过这些画，而且显然受到了影响。一路往下看，你会发现在瓜尔迪的画中这位前辈的风格越来越浓。卡纳莱托笔下的人物并非作为个体存在，而是用来衬托建筑物的恢弘。买他画的人想通过画作回忆的是威尼斯的美，而不是城市居民的生活。作为画家，瓜尔迪的画卖不出去，所以他可以随心所欲地画画，但这对一个要养家糊口的男人而言这就不是什么好事了。在卡纳莱托笔下，威尼斯美得冷人心脾；而瓜尔迪所画的威尼斯，如梦似幻，又生动逼真。看完巴黎的展览，游客定会会心一笑，对瓜尔迪的美术精神赞叹不已。
“Francesco Guardi, 1712—1793” is at the Museo Correr in Venice until January 6th. “Canaletto and Guardi: Two Masters of Venice” is at the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris until January 14th
“弗朗西斯科•瓜尔迪，1721-1793”正在威尼斯科雷尔博物馆展出，展期至1月6日。“两位威尼斯大师级画家：卡纳莱多与瓜尔迪”正在巴黎的安德烈博物馆展出，展期至1月14日。
经济学家
2012-10-18
经济学家
501次
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