Arthur M. Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology at Peking University

　　英雄与神祗 西方艺术中的古典传统

　　——唐纳德·斯通教授捐赠版画展

　　“No civilization,” Richard Buxton writes in The Complete World of Greek Mythology, “has generated a richer or more abundant crop of myths than that of ancient Greece.” These ancient stories about the lives of deities and the struggles of heroes, about great adventurers and also the victims of fate or self-destructive behavior, form the core of the western Classical Tradition. In our exhibition you will see 55 artworks visualizing scenes from the Greek poets Hesiod and Homer, and also from the Roman poets Virgil and Ovid who transformed many of these myths into literary works of modern relevance. It would be comforting to think, while reading the Iliad, Homer’s epic poem about the war between Greece and Troy, that stories about tribal hatreds and human destructiveness are now outdated; but Matthew Arnold (in his 1861 lectures On Translating Homer) sadly agreed with the German poet Goethe’s view that Homer teaches us “that in our life here above ground we have, properly speaking, to enact Hell.” Yet Arnold also believed that those who read the ancient texts receive “a steadying and composing effect upon their judgment, not of literary works only, but of men and events in general” (from the 1853 Preface to Poems). In the case of the pictorial arts, the ancient myths inspired the imagination of painters like Botticelli and Raphael and Titian in the Renaissance, Rubens and Poussin in the 17th century, Fragonard and Boucher and Delacroix in the 18th and 19th centuries, and Picasso and Braque in the 20th century. In the work of these western artists, the old myths took on a memorable material reality. It is hoped that visitors to this exhibition will enjoy that mixture of insight and delight that the Roman author Horace deemed to be the aim of the poetic arts.

　　“没有任何文明，”理查德·布克斯顿在《希腊神话中的世界》里写道，“曾孕育过比古希腊更富有、更充裕的神话。”这些关于神的生活和挣扎中的英雄的故事，关于伟大冒险的故事，以及关于命运和自毁行为的牺牲品的故事，组成了西方古典传统的核心。本次参展的55件艺术品描绘了希腊诗人赫西奥德和荷马，罗马诗人维吉尔和奥维德作品中的场景，这些诗人将很多神话写成了具有现代相关性的文学作品。阅读荷马史诗《伊利亚特》中的特洛伊战争的时候，想到部落仇恨和人类毁灭的现象如今已经不复存在了，是很令人欣慰的事；然而马修·阿诺德（在他1861年的演讲《翻译荷马史诗》中）不情愿地同意了德国诗人歌德的观点，歌德认为荷马教给我们，“事实上，我们活在在现世，却不由自主地演绎着地狱里的事。” 阿诺德却也认为，对于读者而言，这些古老的文字“会持续而稳定地影响他们的评判力，不止是对文学作品，更是对广泛意义上的人和事。”（摘自1853《诗序》）对绘画作品而言，古代神话激发了很多画家的想象力，比如文艺复兴时期的波提切利、拉斐尔和提香，17世纪的鲁本斯和普桑，18、19世纪的弗拉戈纳尔，布歇和德拉克罗瓦，以及20世纪的毕加索和布拉克。在这些西方艺术家的作品中，古老的神话被赋予了令人难忘的具象存在。愿本次展览的参观者享受到灵感与愉悦的结合——据罗马诗人贺拉斯所言，这是诗的艺术的目标。