Paris Through the Window《窗外的巴黎》

愛藝愛藝

“Paris！” Chagall wrote in his autobiography. “No word sounded sweeter to me！” By 1911， at age 24， he was there， thanks to a stipend of 40 rubles a month from a supportive member of the Duma， Russias elective assembly， who had taken a liking to the young artist.

After Marc Chagall moved to Paris from Russia in 1910， his paintings quickly came to reflect the latest avant-garde styles. In Paris Through the Window （oil on canvas， 135.8 cm × 141.4 cm， 1913）， Chagalls debt to the Orphic Cubism of his colleague Robert Delaunay is clear in the semitransparent overlapping planes of vivid color in the sky above the city. The Eiffel Tower， which appears in the cityscape， was also a frequent subject in Delaunays work. For both artists it served as a metaphor for Paris and perhaps modernity itself. Chagalls parachutist might also refer to contemporary experience， since the first successful jump occurred in 1912. Other motifs suggest the artists native Vitebsk. This painting is an enlarged version of a window view in a self-portrait painted one year earlier， in which the artist contrasted his birthplace with Paris. The Janus1 figure in Paris Through the Window has been read as the artist looking at once westward to his new home in France and eastward to Russia. Chagall， however， refused literal interpretations of his paintings， and it is perhaps best to think of them as lyrical evocations.

Years after Chagall painted The Soldier Drinks he stated that it developed from his memory of tsarist soldiers who were billeted with families during the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese war. The enlisted man in the picture， with his right thumb pointing out the window and his left index finger pointing to the cup， is similar to the two-faced man in Paris Through the Window in that both figuratively mediate between dual worlds—interior versus exterior space， past and present， the imaginary and the real. In paintings such as these it is clear that the artist preferred the life of the mind， memory， and magical symbolism over realistic representation.

Paris Through the Window is currently exhibited at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum， New York.

夏加爾曾在自傳中感嘆：“巴黎！天底下最美好的字眼！”1911年，24歲的夏加爾就置身此城，俄國杜馬（俄文“議會”之意）的一名議員很喜歡這個年輕的畫家，每月給他40盧布的津貼，他得以維生。

1910年馬克·夏加爾從俄國遷居法國巴黎后，他的畫作很快就反映出最新的前衛風格。在《窗外的巴黎》（布面油畫，135.8厘米×141.4厘米，1913年）一畫中，夏加爾借鑒了同行羅伯特·德勞內的俄耳甫斯立體主義（又譯奧費主義）技法，這一點在城市上空層層疊疊、半透明的鮮艷色塊中表現得十分明顯。埃菲爾鐵塔出現在背景市景中，那也是德勞內作品的常見主題。對這兩位畫家來說，鐵塔象征巴黎，或許也象征現代本身。夏加爾畫中的那個跳傘者可能也是對當時生活的呈現，因為人類首次成功跳傘就是在1912年。其他的圖案暗示了夏加爾的故鄉維捷布斯克。這幅畫是一年前一幅自畫像的放大版，在那幅自畫像中，夏加爾將自己的出生地和巴黎進行了對比。此畫中還有一個兩面神，被解讀為畫家一面向西眺望法國的新家，一面向東眺望俄國。不過，夏加爾拒絕用文字解讀自己的畫作，或許最好把它們看作富有詩意的重現。

在畫完《喝酒的士兵》多年后，夏加爾曾表示，他是根據對沙俄士兵的記憶描繪的，那些士兵在1904至1905年日俄戰爭期間被安排與家人同住。畫中的那個士兵，右手拇指指向窗外，左手食指指著杯子，與《窗外的巴黎》中的雙面人類似，兩者都是象征性調和著雙重世界——內部空間與外部空間、過去和現在、想象和現實。在諸如此類的畫作中，夏加爾明顯更喜歡表現精神生活、記憶和神奇的象征，而非描繪現實。

《窗外的巴黎》現藏于美國紐約的所羅門·R.古根海姆博物館。? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?□