Amidst Great Art Not Much Focus
參觀羅浮宮 重量不重質
PARIS – Spending an idle morning watching people look at art is hardly a scientific experiment, but it rekindles a perennial question: What exactly are we looking for when we roam as tourists around museums? As with so many things right in front of us, the answer may be no less useful for being familiar.
花一個上午啥也不做，只是觀察人們如何觀賞藝術品，這稱不上什麼科學實驗，卻再次勾起一個一直存在的問題：當我們以觀光客身分在博物館裡四處逛時，我們到底在找什麼？就和呈現在我們眼前的許多事物一樣，答案也許很老套，卻照樣管用。
At the Louvre recently, in the Pavillon des Sessions, two young women meandered through the gallery. They paused and circled around a few sculptures. They took their time. They looked slowly.
最近在羅浮宮的會議館內，兩位年輕女子慢慢逛。她們停下腳步，在幾座雕像前後繞圈子，她們不趕時間，慢慢欣賞。
The women were unusual for stopping. Most of the museum’s visitors passed through the gallery oblivious. A few tourists glanced vainly in guidebooks or hopefully at wall labels, as if learning that one or another of these sculptures was three centuries old or maybe four might help them see what was, plain as day, just before them.
這兩位女子停下腳步很不尋常。博物館內的參觀者多半會漫不經心地直接穿過展覽廳。幾位觀光客徒然地瀏覽導覽書，或抱著希望看牆上的簡介，彷彿得知其中一兩座雕像有300年或400年歷史，也許就有助於他們了解清清楚楚擺在他們眼前的雕像。
The pavilion puts some 100 immaculate objects from outside Europe on permanent view. Feathered masks from Alaska, ancient bowls from the Philippines, Mayan stone portraits and the most amazing Zulu spoon carved from wood in the abstracted S-shape of a slender young woman take no back seat, aesthetically speaking, to the great Titians and Chardins upstairs.
這間展覽廳大約陳列了100件歐洲以外地區完美無瑕的永久展品。阿拉斯加的羽毛面具、菲律賓的古缽，馬雅族的石雕人像，以及最令人驚喜的祖魯人木雕湯匙，刻的是一位纖細年輕女孩的抽象S形，在美學上來說，不遜於樓上的提香和夏丹的偉大作品。
Almost nobody, over the course of that hour or two, paused before any object for as long as a full minute. Only a 17th-century wood sculpture of a copulating couple, from San Cristobal in the Solomon Islands, caused several tourists to point, smile and snap a photo, but without really breaking stride.
在那一兩小時內，幾乎沒有一個人在這些展品前停留一整分鐘。只有來自於索羅門群島聖克里斯托巴島、一座描繪一對正在交媾情侶的17世紀木雕，吸引幾個觀光客指指點點、會心一笑和拍照，卻未真正停下腳步。
Visiting museums has always been about self-improvement. Partly we seem to go to them to find something we already recognize, something that gives us our bearings: think of the scrum of tourists invariably gathered around the Mona Lisa.
參觀博物館一向是自我進修課程。我們進博物館，似乎多少是在找尋一些我們原已認得的東西，一些給我們方向讓我們不致迷失的東西：總有大批觀光客聚集在「蒙娜麗莎的微笑」旁就是個例子。
Travelers across Europe during the 18th century bore sketchbooks in which to draw and paint – to record their memories and help them see better. Cameras replaced sketching by the last century, and many people no longer felt the same urgency to look. It became possible to imagine that because a reproduction of an image was safely hidden away in a camera or cell phone, or because it was eternally available on the Web, dawdling before an original was a waste of time, especially with so much ground to cover.
18世紀的歐洲遊客帶著素描簿來畫素描或油畫，記錄他們的記憶，並幫助他們看得更清楚。到了上世紀，相機取代了素描，許多人不再感到那麼急於欣賞。可以想見，由於複製的圖像安全地藏在相機或手機裡，或在網路上永遠找得到，在原作前消磨太久變得可能是在浪費時間，更何況有那麼多地方要參觀。
We could dream about covering lots of ground thanks to expanding collections and faster means of transportation. Millions of images came to compete for our attention. So tourists now wander through museums, seeking to fulfill their lifetime’s art history requirement in a day, wondering whether it may now be the quantity of material they pass by rather than the quality of concentration they bring to what few things they choose to focus upon that determines whether they have “done” the Louvre. It’s self-improvement on the fly.
拜收藏擴增和更快速交通工具之賜，我們可以夢想參觀很多地方。數以百萬計的圖像爭相吸引我們的注意力。因此，現在觀光客逛博物館，想要在一天之內完成他們畢生的藝術史必修課程，心想是否或許現在該由他們所經過展品的量，而不是他們對擇定的少數幾件重點展品專注欣賞的質，來決定他們是否「逛完了」羅浮宮。這是急就章的自修課。
The art historian T. J. Clark has written a book about devoting several months of his time to looking intently at two paintings by Poussin. Slow looking, like slow cooking, may yet become the new radical chic.
藝術史學家克拉克寫了本書，描述花幾個月時間細細欣賞兩幅普桑畫作。慢慢欣賞，像是慢慢烹飪，也許遲早會成為新的前衛時尚。
Until then we grapple with our impatience and cultural cornucopia. Recently, I bought a couple of sketchbooks to draw with my 10-year-old in St. Peter’s and elsewhere around Rome, not because we’re any good, but to help us look more slowly and carefully at what we found. Crowds occasionally gathered around us as if we were doing something totally novel, as opposed to something normal, which sketching used to be. I almost hesitate to mention our sketching. It seems pretentious and old-fashioned in a cultural moment when we can feel almost ashamed just to look hard.
在那之前，我們得設法克服我們的沒耐心並應付大量豐富的文化。最近我買了幾本素描簿，帶著10歲大的孩子在聖伯多祿大教堂和羅馬附近的其他地方作畫，不是因為我們畫得很好，而是要幫助我們更慢、更仔細地觀看我們發現的東西。我們身旁偶有人群聚集，好像我們正在做一件新鮮事，而不是很平常的事，而畫素描過去正是很平常的事。我幾乎不願提我們畫素描這檔事。在連仔細欣賞都讓我們感到難為情的文化氛圍下，這顯得矯揉造作或很老派。
Artists fortunately remind us that there’s in fact no single, correct way to look at any work of art, save for with an open mind and patience. If you have ever gone to a museum with a good artist you probably discovered that they don’t worry so much about what art history books or wall labels tell them is right or wrong, because they’re freed to look by their own interests.
幸好藝術家提醒我們，欣賞任何藝術作品，除了抱持開放的心態和拿出耐心之外，其實都沒有唯一正確的方法。如果你曾和一位優秀的藝術家一起逛過博物館，你應該會發現，他們對藝術史書籍或牆上簡介對好壞的論斷並不那麼在意，因為他們已能自由自在，依自己的興趣去欣賞。
Back to those two young women at the Louvre: aspiring artists or merely curious, they didn’t plant themselves forever in front of the sculptures but they stopped just long enough to laugh and cluck and stare, and they skipped the wall labels until afterward.
回到羅浮宮的兩位年輕女子：不管她們是努力向上的藝術家或只是好奇心使然，她們並非一直站在雕像前，停下來的時間剛好夠她們大笑、嘖嘖稱奇和凝視，然後才看牆上的解說。
They looked, in other words. And they seemed to have a very good time.
換言之，她們仔細欣賞，而且似乎樂在其中。
Leaving, they caught sight of a sculptured effigy from Papua New Guinea with a feathered nose, which appeared, by virtue of its wide eyes and open hands positioned on either side of its head, as if it were taunting them.
她們要離開時，看到一座巴布亞紐幾內亞的人偶雕像，鼻子以羽毛裝飾，雕像睜著大眼，兩隻手張開放在頭的兩側，似乎在逗弄她們。
They thought for a moment. “Nyah-nyah,” they said in unison. Then stuck out their tongues.
她們想了一會兒，一起回嗆了一聲，接著伸出了舌頭。
關鍵字句
1. 本文提到幾種參觀博物館的方式，第1 段用roam（漫無目標地亂逛），例如Tourists roam around museums.（ 觀光客漫無目標地在博物館內到處亂逛）。第2 段用meander（悠閒地逛），例如，They meandered through the gallery.（ 他們在展覽廳內悠閒地慢慢逛）。第7 段用dawdle（閒晃、消磨時間），例如A woman dawdled before an original work.（一名女子在一件原作前晃來晃去，久久不離去）。第8 段用wander（漫遊），類似roam，例如Tourists wander through museums.（觀光客在博物館內亂逛）。倒數第4 段plant oneself（站著不動），例如They plant themselves in front of the sculptures.（他們在雕像前站著不動）。
2. 本文用了一些成語，例如第3 段的plain as day（一目了然）、第4 段的take no back seat（不遜於）、第9 段的on the fly（匆忙地）、倒數第2 段的by virtue of（藉著）。
