Art-Archaeology
分享学术思想，凝聚人文精神
书名：魅感的表面——明清的玩好之物
（Sensuous Surfaces: The Decorative Object in Early Modern China）
作者: [美] 乔迅 （Jonathan Hay)
出版社: 中央编译出版社
译者: 刘芝华 方慧
出版时间: 2017-4
内容简介
在《魅感的表面 : 明清的玩好之物》中，乔迅对明清时期中国的装饰艺术进行了系统的介绍，展示了明清时期中国装饰艺术从个人物品到整体住宅室内布置的各个层面，建立了在非宗教性的装饰背后一个松散变化的、不成文但仍不失连贯的体系。
第一部分“玩好之物”，首先介绍了生产和消费物品的社会环境。
第二部分“表域资源”，考察了单个器物所利用的表面处理的主要形式资源。
第三部分“从表域到物境”，描绘了单个器物的表面组合在一起时营造出的室内整体物境。
本书关注的时间段跨越了将近三个世纪，主要侧重于重建装饰艺术不断变化的、深层次的认知框架，同时也不会忽略魅感的表面：明清的玩好之物讨论时代的差异。
书中约有280幅彩图，将带给任何对装饰艺术、对中国艺术感兴趣的人士一种前所未有的愉悦体验。
序言
第一部分 玩好之物
1 装饰就是奢侈
品位的政治
生产的地理
显示奢侈
2 与我们同思的器物
“器物—身体”和表域
超越结构—纹饰二元对立
装饰品如何与我们同思
关联的思考
3 表面，触动，隐喻
表面的体验
触动和隐喻
表域的资源
第二部分 表域资源
4 单色的光滑
内显的色调
外显的色调
5 物质的纹理
天然纹理
人造纹理
6 特意设计的纹样
借鉴于纺织品的纹样
石制品的纹样
仿古
跨文化的纹样
7 图绘
图像
浮雕雕刻和模制
造型的图绘
图绘和主体性
8 铭文
文人性的铭文
非文人性的铭文
9 虚拟的表面
戏剧化的虚幻
错视
10 多元化的表面
压缩
分配
所有者对于表面的转化
第三部分 从表域到物境
11 重叠的层次
房间的功能
等级的区分
共鸣的层次
12 器物的景观
景观的展示
景观性单元
作为景观的室内布置
13 表面的氛围
有生命的物品
时间、温度、光照
香味和声音
特殊的场合
14 装饰的魅惑机制
注释
参考书目
术语表
致谢
致谢图片提供者
索引
序 言
中国艺术品是西方收藏家最为熟悉的异域风情之一，上至稀有的成窑瓷，下至唐人街贩卖的造型陶器，都可以被涵盖在这一概念之内。对大多数西方人来说，“中国艺术品”并不具有历史性维度，他们所看到的每一件器物都代表着一个“永恒不变的”中国。然而事实上，中国装饰品的基本模式进入西方视觉文化并不早，大约发生在1570年至1840年间。本书将主要讨论这一时期。在这绵延近三个世纪的时期内（直到1800年），中国是全球手工艺品进出口贸易的主导力量。这一过程也最终促成了西方所熟知的“中国装饰艺术”这一概念的形成。自17世纪早期开始，中国装饰品逐渐成为西方视觉文化中越来越重要的一部分。它们起初是进口的物品或少数访华者的旅行纪念品，在时移世易中慢慢变成了古董。18世纪，西方在“想象中的中国”的刺激下发展出了所谓的“中国风”这一艺术风格（chinoiserie，直到今天，中国风的装饰仍是西方室内装饰的标志性元素），再此之上加上对一些具体的中国装饰观念的借鉴，拓展了其装饰艺术的理论和实践。
然而，晚明（约1570—1644年）至清代早中期（1644—约1840年）中国的外销商品往往不同于面向本土市场的装饰艺术品。后者，即针对国内市场的产品是本书的讨论重点。当然，有一些外销产品与内销产品并无差异，这在18世纪以前尤为普遍。特别值得注意的是，远销至西方、日本、南亚、东南亚和伊斯兰世界的装饰艺术品与内销的装饰艺术品在形制和表面处理上有着众多的共同特征。固然，我不会武断地认为只有内销产品才是正宗的“中国品位”，而外销的就是掺水的假货。然而我们仍然可以肯定地说，以国内市场为导向的装饰艺术虽然与以国外市场为导向的装饰艺术有着部分重叠，但二者整体上是不同的。本书的第一、二部分指出，为中国本土消费者生产的物品遵循着约定俗成的装饰规则。这一套不断演变的规则制约着这些雅玩物件表面的形势布局（topographic configuration）和其表面鲜明的存在。这些规则是如何被运用于外销品生产中并进一步发展这一问题在此不作讨论。本书第三部分将展示，明清时期单一器物的装饰规则是与影响了器物表面组合的一整套室内装饰的不言自明的规则紧密地联系在一起的。对这两种惯例或者规则来说，任何一方只有在参照另一方的情况下才能被全面地理解。
奢华的装饰包括了种类繁多的工艺品和实践行为，但我的兴趣集中在17世纪伟大的剧作家、小说家和鉴赏家李渔所谓的“玩好之物”上，这些玩好之物最初所存在的物理环境是社会精英的住宅内。李渔的“玩好之物”概念与现代西方观念下世俗装饰艺术的概念大致相符，包括了室内装饰的各个要素。因此，我们将主要讨论人的身体和建筑之间的空间，在这一空间之内装饰既不从属于人体，也不从属于建筑结构。相反，这些物件表面的装饰在物品的陈设和使用过程中构成了一个属于它们自己的稍纵即逝的环境。
本书集中讨论这些问题，是为了在物品的表面之于装饰的重要性这一问题上作出连贯的探讨。为了实现这种连贯性，本书也令人遗憾地无法兼顾另外一些重要的话题。首先，“玩好之物”的观念排除了全部的宗教仪式性装饰，而后者需要一个视角更为广阔的、涉及更多概念性问题的探讨。佛教和道教的仪式是奢华的，这从道士、僧侣的长袍到装饰寺庙的各种幢幡及其他织物中可见。宫廷正殿的装饰同样是壮观的，它们同宗教装饰一样，由同一类负责室内装饰的工匠制作而成。2毫不意外的是，众多影响了表面的构成和其物质性的共同惯例在宗教和世俗的装饰中都发挥了作用。但宗教装饰与世俗装饰之间仍存在着明显的差异。某些具体的功能性的要求决定了特定器物的相应外观，如覆盖寺庙供桌的纺织品必然不同于居室厅堂中覆盖普通桌子的纺织品。其他的差异则贯穿于表面的设计之中。在宗教装饰中，纹样为了适应宗教仪式而倾向于带有象征意义。譬如，佛教的纺织品通常采用莲花的图像，这跟大乘佛教的重要法典《法华经》有关。另一方面，在世俗的装饰中，带有纹样的表面常常采用吉祥图像，让人联想起繁荣、快乐和富饶等概念。虽然我们充分意识到宗教性装饰在室内装饰这一范畴中的重要地位，但本书将不对之进行讨论。正如大量插图和绘画的记载所展示的，私人的住宅空间在节日、婚庆、葬礼和祭祖的场合中是作为宗教性场所被使用的。世俗性装饰的正常规则在这些场合中都被悬置，以便暂时营造出神圣的、寺庙般的空间。因本书的主题并不是室内空间布置本身，这一仪礼原因所促成的的装饰的转换将留待另文讨论。
此外，即使是在世俗性室内装饰这一狭窄的范围内，本书也只将覆盖其中的一部分。因本书的主要关注对象是可移动的小件器物（portable objects），那些因佩戴在人身上而可以在室内移动的装饰以及隶属于建筑本身构件（尽管它们饶有意义）的装饰除了略有涉及之外，将不纳入详细讨论的范围之内。对于前者，我将跳过服饰和饰品（包括折扇、首饰、挂件和鼻烟壶）的讨论。对于后者，我对窗户、门、栏杆、柱子、天花板和地板的永久性装饰处理不作任何讨论，如有涉及，只是为了帮助说明那些可移动的器物。同样，出于对连贯性和重点的考虑，我还将忽略那些跟阅读和书写有关，但又不单独被用于展示的世俗性装饰——譬如插图书籍中的装饰成分，或者优雅通信中所使用的奢华信笺。这一讨论将集中于跟家居相关的非宗教性展示品。虽然显得广度不足，但代之以深度。我相信，本书所采取的研究思路以及在后文中得到的针对中国装饰的众多结论只需要稍加修改，便可被推广运用于本书所未能集中讨论的中国装饰品的领域。
在此，我还希望解释一下古董在本书中的地位。在明清住宅的室内布置中，当代的器物通常与古董组合起来陈设展示。一般的规则是，藏家越富有，把古董作为室内装饰的可能性就越大。因此，本书第三部分在不涉及古董的情况下难以重建决定室内整体景观的准则。尤其因为明清时期的作者通常选择通过讨论古董（它们在室内装饰 中占据特别显要的地位）来介绍装饰品展示的一般惯例。但考虑到本书的主要讨论对象是早期现代的装饰实践，而不是收藏，并且本书的讨论的装饰品的时间上限始于早期现代，将不会过多地牵涉到对于古董的讨论。虽然从某种程度上讲，古董的表面装饰不同于那些新近生产的器物，但当时的人往往是用同一眼光审视，用相同的术语讨论这两者的。并且，不要忘了从晚明开始许多被认为是古董的器物实际上是新近制作的仿品，它们的外形和表面装饰大部分符合当时的装饰规则。另一方面，我们同时也需要考虑到古董对室内布置的表面构成有着特殊的贡献。岁月的痕迹——使用和磨损所带来的器物表面的视觉转变——为整个房间带来了一种特别的时间感。天然的物体，如石头的表面所带有的岁月痕迹是受到高度赞赏的，而古董表面的岁月痕迹所展示的是文化的历史。不同年代出土的古董很早便受到历代收藏家的青睐。它们的表面既带有埋藏于地下时与泥土接触后所留下的痕迹，也带有前一任藏家上蜡和上漆处理所留下的痕迹。正如传教士利玛窦对中国古铜器收藏的评论所言：“他们希望它们有着某种程度的锈迹。”多种多样的效果使得鉴赏者只能依照当下的品位为古董的美观度和诱惑度排名。5至17世纪，古铜器的范围已经扩大，包括了从唐代以来生产的仿古铜器以及17世纪生产的宣德香炉，后者因为让人联想到15世纪宫廷作坊制作的宣德炉而有着特别的高贵地位。“岁月痕迹”这一参考标准也被扩展用于其他的古董，其中最为重要的是那些用有机材料雕刻的物品。
……
第一部分，“玩好之物”，为本书设置了基本的讨论场景。这一部分首先介绍了生产和消费奢侈物品的社会环境。然后更为详细地展开主题，即装饰品通过跟愉悦相关的魅感的表面所带来的隐喻和触动的可能性来与我们一同思考。第二部分，“表域资源”，考察了单个器物所利用的表面处理的主要形式资源，每一资源都有着各自隐喻和触动的可能性。第三部分，“从表域到物境”，描绘了单个器物的表面组合在一起所营造出的室内整体的物境。因为本书关注的时段跨越了将近三个世纪，我将主要侧重于重建装饰艺术变化的连续性背后的深层结构的、认知的框架，但不会忽略讨论时代之间的差异。阅读至第三部分的末尾，读者将会逐渐认识到，在那些非宗教性的奢侈装饰背后，其实存在着松散变化的、不成文的、但仍不失连贯的一个体系（这一体系对于汉人和满人的精英阶层而言都是重要的文化资本）。本书最后一章将尝试回答贯穿了整本书的问题——当人们在装饰中获得愉悦时，到底与装饰发生了什么样的精神的和身体的互动。这一结尾完善了我强调应该用人的经验性体验去认识装饰这一理论观点。这本书有志于成为当代读者在体验明清的玩好之物时可借用参考的一个“系统”或者“工具箱”。考虑到这是一本小书，我不得不避免针对特定器物的过于冗长的解释。
本书大约三分之一的插图是展示装饰品如何在明清日常生活中被使用的绘画或者木刻版画，同时也采用了不少表面描绘有装饰品的器物的图片。这些插图把单个工艺品还原到当时所处的种种环境之中，同时提示我们明清的观者是如何关注装饰的。这些图片为读者提供了大量可供参考的具体器物；“参见图片”则指出了相关的，位于文中其他地方的插图。当然，认真的读者可以自己在文字和图像之间建立起更进一步的联系。这些不同器物的图像也有助于抵消插图中景德镇瓷器占相对多数的问题。我在选择单个器物的插图时，故意集中在某种特别的器型上，而不是着意涉及所有该器物的形制，因为在一本讨论表面这一问题的书中，关注一种基本器物形制能承载的多样的表面处理是很有意义的。瓶、碗、杯、茶壶、酒壶、笔筒和香炉是最常见的形制。在决定讨论哪种材料类型时，我遵循了同一个原则，更多地关注黏土、硬木、竹子、漆器、丝绸、硬石（包括玉）和铜合金这些材料。
人们立志成为一名艺术史家的原因各不相同，但我想我绝不是唯一一个因为被艺术所带来的众多愉悦感所吸引而进入这一领域的人。因此，在最初的学习过程中，我发现作为学科的艺术史并不鼓励针对愉悦感的讨论，这是一件多么使人震惊的事！30 年过去了，在学习执教辗转于几个国家之后，我发现这一切仍然鲜有变化。我终于逐渐明白，“愉悦感”在现代艺术史的知识体系下是另一个研究的盲点。在现代的艺术史知识体系中，学者们只有悬置“愉悦感”才能在一个二元对立的体系里（主体—客体、中央—边缘、真品—赝品等等）书写艺术史，而这种二元对立仍然在左右着现代艺术史这一学科。如果不能跳出这些二元对立，我们是无法考查愉悦感在艺术鉴赏中的重要性的。所以在艺术史这门学科的认识论终于得到彻底反思的今天，愉悦感应该自然地被纳入我们讨论的范围之内。考虑到在艺术实践中装饰是产生愉悦感的最重要的手法，本书专注于讨论器物表面的装饰，望能对（作为现代重要人文学科之一的）艺术史的学科建设尽一分力。同时，就个人而言，这本书也是我把从每日流连在艺术品中所获得的愉悦感融入到历史书写中的一次迟到的尝试。
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Publication Date: 2010
In Sensuous Surfaces: The Decorative Object in Early Modern China, Jonathan Hay strives to understand how the human body senses and interacts with ornament, or “pleasurable things,” as the essayist and comic writer Li Yu (1610–1680) put it. Hay imagines how the hand and eye connected with the shape and texture of a decorated cup or figurine, how a moving body experienced an “object landscape” in a residential interior where luxury goods were displayed and used. Moving outside conventional studies in connoisseurship and technology, Hay juxtaposes objects made from a variety of materials, ranging from ceramics and paintings to textiles and furniture, from inkstones and rocks to carvings in rhinoceros horn and jade. Turning nearly every page of this book reveals an object of astonishing craft. And among the hundreds of objects chosen for publication, many are unfamiliar, culled from auction catalogues, an effort for which Hay must be commended. The only restriction to which he adheres is chronological, for he concentrates on objects produced from the late sixteenth through mid-eighteenth centuries.
Hay divides Sensuous Surfaces into three interrelated parts. In part 1, he establishes the theoretical structures that will inform his narrative. He notes that the objects with which he is concerned embody three different systems of taste, which sometimes overlap, but coincide for the most part with successive historical periods: an ostentatious “urban” taste for spectacle characterized the late sixteenth through late seventeenth centuries (27), and encouraged a proclivity for the display of accumulated goods (309); a concurrent scholarly taste for understatement embraced pleasures “previously associated with women” (32) and “ostensibly eschewed expensive materials” (310); and a taste for display that emerged in the 1690s at the Qing court reworked the “urban spectacle,” adding a new emphasis on technology and technique (39), as well as an interest in framing objects and experiences (312). Hay also asserts that these systems of taste exhibited an “effort of self-fashioning,” which he considers a sign of modernity. Thus, both the consumers and the producers of “novel” (qi) luxury goods in Ming-Qing China, who were “expert in psychophysical experience and non-verbal communication of pleasure,” expanded the “realm of interiority” (40–42) on which self-fashioning, in his view, was predicated.
Equally important is Hay’s affinity with the political theorist and philosopher Brian Massumi. Imagining how the human body connects with a decorative object through sensory perception and visceral awareness, Hay proposes that the object’s ornamented surface draws the viewer-handler into a separate space, where she or he experiences the artisanal work that produced the affective surface (77–78). The craftsman thus worked and thought on a par with the elite viewer-handler for whom the objects were produced. Juxtaposing two views of a gilt bronze vessel, for instance, Hay demonstrates how the double-handled wine cup invited the hands to hold it and lift it to the mouth, while the eye was seduced to look closely at its pictorial surface (62–63). Regarding a jade paperweight carved in the shape of a tiger, Hay asserts that the tiger “asks, as certain pebbles do, to be enclosed and turned in the hand” (62, 64). Using language derived from Massumi’s writings, Hay emphasizes that the “mesoperceptive” awareness of the surface of an object—its skin—transcends visual perception and rational thought (78–80). However, Hay also argues that the affective surfaces of things evoked states of mind, such as stillness and decorum, which are surely bound with specific cultural practices (95–99).
Hay’s theoretical approach will delight or bewilder. Whichever the case, Hay seems bound to contradict himself, for Massumi, unlike Hay, engages questions that surround new media art and technology. (Hay later disputes this point on page 382.) Can it be that Hay’s theoretical model in Deleuzian notions of connection almost forced him to claim that the “implicit epistemology” of decoration fits contemporary notions of virtual movement and change (380)? Furthermore, Hay does not distance himself from social history and other standard modes of thinking, such as periodization and semiotics, which are not wholly compatible with affect theory. (Compare the questions raised by James Elkins in “Response: The Mottled Discourse of Chinese Studies,” The Art Bulletin 89, no. 3 [Fall 2007]: 482–86.) Is not the difficulty of Hay’s enterprise well represented in the ekphrases that accompany each object in his book? The eye strains to re-create a physical encounter with the pictured object, but the distant, mechanical language in the captions tends to dampen the affective response that is celebrated in the primary text.
In part 2, Hay explores eight forms of ornamentation, which he refers to as the “topography of sensuous surface,” or “surfacescape” for short (67). These include: “monochrome smoothness,” that is, fields of color, either glossy or soft, that suspend “the body’s proprioceptive impulse to move” (169); and the “fictive surface,” by which Hay refers to pictorial illusions, especially trompe l’oeil (216). Throughout, Hay juggles the diverse theoretical approaches with which he began. For instance, three details of stylized floral motifs, which exemplify the surfacescape of “formal pattern,” serve as a “sensitive barometer” of the changes in taste that occurred from the sixteenth through mid-eighteenth centuries (145, fig. 78). However, returning to Massumi, Hay proposes that a repetitive, abstract pattern “stages movement in an endless flux of dissolution, resolution, dissolution, etc.”; and this movement “allowed formal pattern to seduce the body into decorum” (145). Yet Hay insists that luxurious surfacescapes “always conveyed positive meanings and always had a relation to social status” (192). For the decorated surface addressed a “psycho-social need for coherence in the face of urban insecurity and uncertainty” (85; see also p. 193), a condition Hay has previously associated with modernity, but which remains ill defined.
In part 3, Hay turns his attention to the role of the owner in the display of decorative objects and the “ephemeral topographical interactions of object surfacescapes in residential interiors” (273). His discussion of the various aspects of interior architectural spaces is extensive, ranging from the hierarchical arrangement of rooms to different forms of display and the creation of atmosphere with flowers and animals. Throughout this part of the book, Hay cites narrative fictions, in addition to the commentaries of essayists such as Li Yu and Shen Fu (1763–1809?), to warrant his thesis that a furnished room connected with its inhabitants and resonated with their senses, creating a layer of space that separated the individual from the social hierarchies that structured the house as a whole (273, 316).
Hay concludes with a provocative chapter entitled “The Erotic Economy of Decoration.” Addressing how seventeenth-century writers, in particular, conceptualized the pleasure afforded by decorative objects, Hay asserts that “resonance” (yun) determined a surfacescape’s quality. He defines yun as the “over-determination of connection in a decorative object—its capacity to bring thoughts, feelings, surfaces, and things of different kinds into relation with each other through pleasure” (382–83). Putting aside the awkward use of a psychoanalytical term to explain the relationship between the viewer-handler and the decorative object, I question the aptness of translating yun as “resonance” in this context (415, n. 3). Although the primary sense of the word is harmonious sound, it also denotes “elegance” (ya). A collector is more likely to have used the word in the latter sense to describe a possession; pleasure does not seem to have played a role in the elegance of yun. Nonetheless, with a nod to environmental criticism, Hay further asserts that the means by which yun-induced pleasure lay in the appreciation of the human labor, the “purposeful waste” (383), that the decorative object evidenced. Earlier, following Massumi, Hay argued that pleasure also “undoes ideological framing and threatens power” (85) (which presumably allows pleasure to undo the conventions of art history as well (15)). With this claim, Hay drifts far from the Chinese texts with which he began.
The erotic aspect of connective thinking brings Hay to consider briefly the significance of the representation of attractive women (meiren) on the depictive surfaces of decorative objects (393–96). Asserting that the meiren functioned as a metaphor for the decorative object, Hay suggests, for instance, that a woman pictured at her boudoir, like the decorative object on which she might appear, both share a “capacity for thinking-with” the viewer-handler (396). Further, like a decorative object, a demure young woman shown looking at a love letter also “serves to focalize the pleasure-taking attention of the beholder” (396). Hay exemplifies the pleasure offered to the attentive beholder with an archaistic bronze incense burner highlighted with gold “splashing” (395, fig. 229): the lobed body, which gently swells out, evokes for him a “human posterior,” a surfacescape that “appeals to the hand’s touch” (395). Although Hay carefully avoids identifying the gender of the beholder who reaches out to caress the censer’s rounded body, it is difficult to disentangle his description of the censer from the adjacent text in which he presents his argument about the meiren depicted on decorative objects. This brings me to question whether the relation between the woman and the viewer-handler in Hay’s connective field can be understood as anything other than one of submission.
Perusing this remarkable book, I wondered whether the uncertain identity of the book’s readership contributed to the restlessness that is apparent not far beneath the surface of Hay’s writing. The number of illustrations stands in contrast with the brevity of the citations; the glossary of Chinese characters is slight. Who requires that the construction of a hand scroll be defined? (337) Would greater clarity on the point of readership have brought theoretical harmony to this densely written yet intensely decorative book-object?
Anne Burkus-Chasson
Associate Professor,
School of Art and Design,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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