《不为人知的杰作》与绘画中的“古今之争”

“The Unknown Masterpiece” and the “Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns” in Painting

巴尔扎克的短篇小说《不为人知的杰作》中隐含着一条文学研究中容易忽略的线索,即对绘画技法和规律的讨论。顺着这一线索,我们会发现围绕绘画本质问题的"素描与色彩"之争,是小说的要旨所在,也是理解小说主人公弗朗霍斐的象征性身份与精神实质的一把钥匙。本文通过对法国17世纪绘画中的古今之争的梳理,将这一问题回溯到意大利文艺复兴时期对绘画基本概念的辨析,并结合艺术史家沃尔夫林赋予色彩派的巴洛克式革新精神,重新阐释小说的内涵。本文指出弗朗霍斐身上体现出的巴洛克艺术家的感性、怀疑和永不倦怠的革新热情,也是巴尔扎克小说创作的深层动力所在。

Balzac’s short story "The Unknown Masterpiece"contains a thread that is easily overlooked in literary research,namely the discussion of painting techniques and laws. Upon further pursuit of this narrative thread,we realize that the "debate between drawing and color"( Poussinists and Rubenists) regarding the essence of painting is the main idea of the story while holding a key for understanding the symbolic identity of the protagonist Frenhofer. This article,by exploring the debate between the ancient and the modern schools in seventeenth-century French paintings,traces this issue back to basic concepts defined by painting theorists during the Italian Renaissance.