永遠的異鄉人－－The Eternal Outsider

前一篇寫有關奧賽美術館的文章，讓我絞盡腦汁，不過因為我很喜歡這一類的東西，寫的時候，腦海裡浮現很多過去逛畫展時的想法或者聽聞。所以忍不住想從巴黎跳出來寫一下。

之前就提過我很喜歡印象派的畫作，我最喜歡的畫家就是莫內。（在奧賽美術館一文裡，我提莫內提得很少，是因為打算留到後面寫。）

It took me so much time and effort to finish my previous blog entry regarding Musée d'Orsay, I felt compelled to leave my Paris journey aside briefly to write about my thoughts and information obtained for some art exhibitions I have been to.

I have mentioned that I am a big fan of the Impressionism, and my favorite painter is Monet. (I wrote very little about Monet in the said blog entry because I plan to further illustrate it in a later article.)

印象派可以說是古典派、文藝復興和巴洛克風格等的反叛者，淵遠流傳下來色彩的運用，變成了一種定論，白就是白，陰影就是灰，人的肉體一定要是象牙白等等。這一切規則，到了印象派被打破了。印象派畫家在實地作畫時發現，雪地裡陰影的色調是偏藍而不是灰的，人的肌膚在陽光掩映下是呈現各種色彩的，橘的、紅的甚至綠的、藍的。對他們而言，過去制式的構圖、光線與色彩原則，已經不符合他們的觀感，因此走出新的趨勢。

一直延續下去，到印象派末期時，出現了所謂的點畫派，點畫派的原則顧名思義就是畫圖都用點的，用一個小點一個小點組成一幅畫。因為這樣的作法很費工，點畫派畫家其實多數是在戶外先畫一個概念，再回到畫室裡完成整幅畫。

The Impressionism is, at some degree, the rebel of the Classical paintings, Renaissance and Baroque for which there was a fixed rule of color application, white is white, shadow is grey, human flesh shall be cream and so on. All such rule was broken by the Impressionists who, upon painting in the open air, found that shadows on a snowy ground did not look grey but a light blue color, and human skin actually reflected a spectrum of colors under the sun, such as orange, red or even green and blue. The long established rules of composition, lights and shadows and colors no long applied to them. Therefore, they sought the new techniques and revolutionized the painting concept.

By the end of the Impressionism, the so-called "Pointillism" was born. As the name suggests, Pointillists applied small dots with pure color to form a painting. Such time-consuming technique had prevented the Pointillists to complete their paintings in the open air; thus, they usually just outlined the painting and finished the paintings in the studio.

值得一提的是，雖然印象派的筆觸，一比一畫較過去畫派來得短，且表面上看來點畫派好似印象派的延續，但絕大多數印象派大師並不認同點畫派的技巧。莫內甚至說過「自然不是用點構成的。」

It is worth mentioning that although the Impressionists applied a shorter stroke comparing to previous painting styles, and Pointillism is seemly the offspring of the Impressionism, most of the Impressionism masters did not appreciate the Pointillism. Monet once even said "Nature has no dots."

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印象派的畫作最初展出時，所使用的都是白色的畫框，因為他們認為這是最合襯的畫框。但隨著時間久遠，這些畫框多受損，而改以其他畫框替代。

When the Impressionists first exhibited their paintings at the exhibition organized by themselves, all the paintings were framed in white frames, because this was what the Impressionists believed to compensate the paintings the best. As time goes by, the original white frames were damaged and replaced by other frames. 

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前幾天去看奧地利知名建築師百水先生的畫展，看到他說了一句很有趣的話：「直線不是神的產物。」所以他的作品通常都有很多不直的線哩，但這就留待以後再說吧...

Couple days ago, I went to the exhibition of the well-known Austrian architect, Hundertwasser, and read an interesting quote of his: "Straight line is god-less." No wonder he used a lot of non-straight lines in his work! I will talk about it in later blog entries dedicated to Hundertwasser!