辛亥祭奠的死亡表达——黄花岗七十二烈士墓骷髅符号释读

The Expression of Death in Memorial Ceremony of the 1911 Revolution: Interpretation of the Symbol of Skull at the Cemetery of the Huanghuagang 72 Martyrs

民国初年修建的黄花岗七十二烈士陵园曾存在一条饰有骷髅雕塑的墓道,学界对此的零星讨论多止于陵园设计者潘达微的个人偏好。事实上,死亡文化在清末民初十分盛行,象征死亡的骷髅符号因此而成为常见的视觉语码,并随着时局变化衍生出多种语义。在辛亥革命前,骷髅主要象征民众苦难和为了改变此种现状的志士义举,到了民国初年,政局混乱,民不聊生,现实苦难并没有因为举义成功而有所改变,志士的牺牲根本无法获得革命话语所预设的价值兑现,象征民众苦难的骷髅意涵由此延续,而象征志士义举的情感意蕴则发生了极大逆转——由视死如归的胆气和希望转变为生命虚无的失落与彷徨。黄花岗七十二烈士墓的骷髅设计,正是在这样一个动态的意义网络中,通过凸显先烈之死的惨烈与惊怖,追问个体生命的终极价值和辛亥革命的根本意义。

There is a path decorated with sculptures of skulls in the cemetery of the Huanghuagang 72 Martyrs built in the early Republican years.Most of the existing scholarship interprets these sculptures as the personal preference of Pan Dawei,the architect of the cemetery.In fact,the death culture was quite popular in the late Qing and early Republican period,so the symbol of skull became a commonly seen signifier,which had multiple meanings at that time.Before the 1911 Revolution,skulls mainly represented people's suffering and brave action of the revolutionaries to change people's misery.In the early Republican years,due to the political chaos,people's suffering was not relieved by the success of the revolution;therefore,the revolutionaries'sacrifice would not lead to the realization of their revolutionary ideal.As a result,the meaning of skull was also transformed from bravery and hope to the emptiness of life.The symbol of skull at the cemetery of the Huanghuagang 72 Martyrs,the revolutionary heroes,thus was imbedded in this dynamic network of meanings.Through the expression of cruelty and scary in the martyrs'death,the design of the cemetery urges people to question the ultimate value of individual life and the fundamental meaning of the 1911 Revolution.