The Annunciation《天使報喜》

愛藝

The Annunciation brings together many of the themes， both iconographic and philosophical， that engaged Magritte during his stay in Paris from 1927 to 1930， a period in which he was closely associated with the French Surrealists. The painting shows an unlikely combination of objects. Two large bilboquets1 stand next to an oddly shaped piece of paper with a decorative cut-out pattern. Behind them looms a grey metal “curtain”， hung with sleigh bells. Despite its incongruity， this collection of objects seems disconcertingly “at home” in the rock-strewn landscape beneath the grey clouds in the blue sky. The size of the painting （it is one of the largest the artist ever executed）， together with its traditional composition and subtle allusions to paintings of Old Masters like Leonardo da Vinci， El Greco， and Caravaggio， are signs of the ambitiousness of the work.

Annunciation， the title given to the painting by the time of its first public showing in March 1931， seems unrelated to the subject matter of the painting. However， its religious connotations seem strangely appropriate to the work’s serious mood： there is no Mary， or Archangel2， yet the strange stillness of the imagery suggests that something momentous either has just happened or is about to， and that what we see is， in fact， some sort of vision （in his letter to Mesens， Magritte described the central grouping of objects as an “apparition”）. Sylvester once wrote， “There are numerous instances of the sublime in Magritte’s art， but nothing else as numinous3 as this... ‘The Annunciation’ impresses through its majesty， its solemnity， its luminosity， its silence”.

《天使報喜》集肖像學和哲學的多種主題于一身，1927年至1930年馬格利特在巴黎逗留期間，這些主題一直吸引著他。那段時間他與法國超現實主義文藝家關系密切。這幅畫展示了一種現實中不太可能出現的物體組合。畫面上豎著兩個巨大的“棒接球”玩具狀物體;旁邊是一張奇形怪狀的紙，紙上鋪滿裝飾性的剪紙圖案;它們后面隱約可見灰色的金屬“幕布”，上面掛著雪橇鈴。藍天灰云飄浮，地面巖石遍布——盡管之前的那一組合很怪異，但它們在這樣的環境中似乎“怡然自得”，令人困惑。此畫的大尺寸（這是馬格利特最大尺幅的畫作之一），加上其傳統的構圖，以及對列奧納多·達·芬奇、埃爾·格列柯和卡拉瓦喬等早期繪畫大師作品的微妙暗示——這些都表明了這幅畫有著不凡的寓意。

此畫1931年3月首次公開展出時，所示畫名即《天使報喜》——這一名字似乎與畫作主題無關。然而，其宗教內涵似乎又與呈現的嚴肅氛圍出奇吻合：沒有圣母馬利亞，沒有報喜的大天使，畫面那種異樣的靜謐暗示有什么大事不是剛剛發生就是即將發生，暗示我們所看到的其實只是某種幻象（在寫給好友梅森的信中，馬格利特將畫面中央那一組物體描述為“幻影”）。藝術評論家西爾維斯特曾評論道：“馬格利特在很多作品中描繪過高妙之物，但這一幅最為神圣……《天使報喜》傳遞出威嚴、莊重、光亮和靜默，給人留下深刻印象。”

1 bilboquet比爾博凱特，意為“杯和球”。這是起源于11世紀的一種游戲，最初設計是杯子下面用繩拴一個球，把球甩起，用杯子接球，后來杯子演變成木棒。馬格利特用該詞形容自己所畫的虛構物體，其實看起來更像木制欄桿或國際象棋的棋子。

2 archangel天使長;大天使。這里指大天使加百列，《圣經》人物，負責守護天堂，傳信為其職能之一。? 3 numinous神圣的;超自然的。

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