莫奈有东方韵味的《睡莲》

Monet's East Asian Styled Water Lilies

莫奈晚年不断探索、不断创作的系列油画《睡莲》突破了他多年遵循的"印象派"框架,为西欧超现实主义和北美抽象表现主义艺术开了先河。值得注意的是,引导莫奈成为现代主义先驱的不是新世纪的欧美抽象画,而是13至18世纪的中日文人画。他生前收藏了二百三十一幅日本浮世绘,他从中学会了如何显现"绘画的物质层面",对"物质层面"的探究让他成为抽象表现主义绘画的先行者。从日本大师那里,他还学到了中日文人画家惯用的对角构图和"残山剩水"的布局。莫奈间接接受了中国文人画的影响,追求虚幻的构思、表现静谧的主题,这又为超现实主义艺术开辟了新径。

In the last decades of his life, French impressionist master Monet broke from the impres-sionist standard. His Water Lilies series prefigures European surrealism and American abstract ex-pressionism. Curiously late Monet owed his abstract qualities less to twentieth-century European ab-stract art than to the Japanese ukiyo-e that decorated his home. From Japanese masters he learned how to bring out the physicality of painting, which made him a precursor to abstract expressionism. From the Japanese masters Monet also learned the one-corner composition of Ma Yuan. Monet indi-rectly received the influence of Chinese literati painting whose dream-like composition reflective of a serene state of mind helped him break ground for surrealism.