3 June6 月 3 日
Paris, France法国巴黎
As a huge art fan, I knew exactly what I was looking forward to most about my trip to Paris: visiting the Musée d’Orsay. Housed in an old railway building, this world – famous art museum features some of the best – known paintings from the Impressionist movement of the 19th century.
作为一个狂热的艺术爱好者，我深知巴黎之行最期待什么：参观奥赛博物馆。这座举世闻名的艺术殿堂坐落于一栋古老的火车站建筑内，珍藏着 19 世纪印象派运动中一些最负盛名的画作。
As I wandered through the Impressionist gallery, I appreciated masterpieces like The Ballet Classand The Card Players. Even though I had admired them hundreds of times on my computer screen, nothing could have prepared me for the wonder I felt when I finally laid eyes on the real thing. While it was hard to pick a favourite painting out of so many amazing works, the artists who made the deepest impression on me were two of the greatest Impressionist painters, Claude Monet and Pierre – Auguste Renoir.
漫步于印象派画廊之中，我细细品味着《舞蹈课》与《玩纸牌者》等杰作。尽管曾在电脑屏幕上无数次欣赏过这些画作，但当我终于亲眼目睹真迹时，那种震撼之感仍超乎想象。在众多惊艳作品中虽难以抉择最爱，但给我留下最深刻印象的艺术家，当属印象派两大巨匠 —— 克劳德・莫奈与皮埃尔 – 奥古斯特・雷诺阿。
I could see from Monet’s works that he was greatly inspired by nature. In the last three decades of his life he painted mostly scenes from his garden. One of these scenes is shown in the famous piece Blue Water Lilies, which I studied for quite a while in the gallery. I couldn’t believe it when I heard he did around 250 paintings of the same water lily pond, all in different colours and styles. It is amazing that every time Monet studied this simple scene, he brought the pond’s beauty to the canvas in a unique way.
从莫奈的作品中，我能看出他深受大自然的启发。在他生命的最后三十年里，他主要描绘自己花园中的景致。其中一幅便是名作《蓝色睡莲》所展现的场景，我在画廊里对这幅画端详良久。当我得知他竟以同一片睡莲池为题材创作了约 250 幅画作，且每幅色彩风格各异时，简直难以置信。令人惊叹的是，莫奈每次描绘这看似简单的景致，都能以独特的方式将池塘之美呈现在画布上。
Renoir, I noticed, preferred to paint scenes of everyday life. For me, the most interesting of his paintings is his 1876 masterpiece Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette，which shows life in a busy neighbourhood of Paris on a Sunday afternoon. When I saw it up close, I was struck by the small areas of light across the painting, and the way the soft edges of the figures seemed to mix together. There’s so much going on, but so little clear detail. This effect makes the lively movement of the dance almost jump out at the viewer.
我注意到，雷诺阿偏爱描绘日常生活场景。在他众多作品中，最令我着迷的是 1876 年的杰作《煎饼磨坊的舞会》，这幅画展现了巴黎某个街区的周日午后生活。当我近距离观赏时，画布上细碎的光斑和人物柔和的轮廓相互交融的手法令我震撼。画面看似纷繁热闹，细节却朦胧含蓄 —— 这种独特的处理方式让舞动的欢快气息几乎要跃出画面，直扑观者眼前。
Although the paintings had very different settings, it was their similarities that stayed with me long after I left the Musée d’Orsay—similarities which can be seen throughout the Impressionists’ paintings. Monet and Renoir, along with other like-minded artists, sought liberation from the rules of the old style. Everyday subject matter was the main focus of their works, as opposed to the history paintings that had traditionally dominated European art. They employed free brushwork and used colours to show the effect of light on things, creating paintings that were far less realistic than the works that came before. To me, these techniques are the essence of the Impressionist view of art. Impressionist artists did not try to paint every detail in a scene—just a brief “impression” they had at that moment, burning with vivid colours and light, before it disappeared.
尽管这些画作的场景迥异，但真正在我离开奥赛博物馆后长久萦绕心头的，却是它们共通的特性 —— 这种特性贯穿于所有印象派画作之中。莫奈与雷诺阿，连同其他志同道合的艺术家们，追求着对旧式艺术规则的突破。他们的作品聚焦于日常题材，而非传统欧洲艺术中占据主导的历史画。他们运用自由的笔触，以色彩展现光线在物体上的瞬息变幻，创造出远比前人作品更不写实的画作。对我而言，这些技法正是印象派艺术观的核心所在。印象派画家并不试图描绘场景的每个细节 —— 只捕捉那一刻转瞬即逝的 “印象”，用炽烈的色彩与光线将其定格，在消逝前化为永恒。
The Impressionists’ vision inspired a whole new generation of Post-Impressionist painters such as Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, whose works are also displayed at the Musée d’Orsay. It is also worthy of note that Post-Impressionist painters were not the only ones to be influenced by Impressionism—the movement has had a lasting influence on modern art, encouraging artists to look at the world from an entirely new point of view. It certainly left a lasting impression on me too!
印象派的视野激发了后印象派画家如梵高和保罗・高更等全新一代的创作灵感，他们的作品同样在奥赛博物馆展出。值得注意的是，后印象派画家并非唯一受印象主义影响的群体 —— 这场运动对现代艺术产生了深远影响，激励艺术家们以全新的视角观察世界。它无疑也在我心中留下了难以磨灭的印记！