PBS高端访谈:特纳的水粉画展览（在线收听）

AMNA NAWAZ: British painter JMW Turner was both prolific and wide-ranging in his work. He traveled throughout England and Europe, often with a small watercolor case at his side. Now a rare show of watercolors Turner made throughout his career is on view at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut through February. And it's the only North American stop these fragile works will make. Special correspondent Jared Bowen has our report. It's part of our weekly series on arts and culture, Canvas.

JARED BOWEN: JMW Turner moved from cathedrals to coasts, from the bright light of day to the deep dark of night, and from the moody tones of his native England to the luminescent glow of Venice, Italy. For the famed painter, they were wanders in watercolor.

DAVID BLAYNEY BROWN, Senior Curator, Tate Britain: I think some of his most original and expressive and experimental, groundbreaking work was actually in watercolor on paper.

JARED BOWEN: That medium is where his ideas formed and flourished with a fervor. Starting with the first watercolor he painted of this gorge at age 17, Turner painted more than 30,000 in his lifetime.

DAVID BLAYNEY BROWN: Drawing and, indeed, painting in watercolor was almost a compulsion. It was like a kind of a nervous tick. He just wasn't comfortable unless he was doing it.

JARED BOWEN: Turner scholar David Blayney Brown is a senior curator with Tate Britain, the London museum that holds the Turner bequest, a collection of tens of thousands of works, including these watercolors, that went to the museum after his death in 1851.

DAVID BLAYNEY BROWN: He certainly had a high opinion of himself. He wasn't a modest man. He realized that he was a great artist, and he wanted to leave a legacy to the nation, to the British nation.

JARED BOWEN: Now that legacy is getting some international burnishing. The watercolors, which are extremely susceptible to light damage, can only be shown once in a generation. After stops in Italy and Argentina, the show is making its only North American appearance at Connecticut's Mystic Seaport Museum.

STEVE WHITE, President and CEO, Mystic Seaport Museum: This is the most significant exhibition, I believe, that we have had in our 90-year existence.

JARED BOWEN: So significant that, five years ago, when the museum was building this new facility, its president, Steve White, says he told the architectural team:

STEVE WHITE: The conditions and the specs for the space have to be good enough for Turner, because that's the, that, for us, would be the most defining exhibition.

JARED BOWEN: So this, says White, is a dream come true, to marry Turner's lifelong interest in maritime painting with the Mystic River flowing just outside.

STEVE WHITE: This exhibition, because of Turner, because of his expression of the sea, his expression of landscapes, he brings the spirit of this place alive in a much different way.

JARED BOWEN: Do we have a sense of how he's working with movement here, or is it strictly, do you think, about color?

DAVID BLAYNEY BROWN: I think it's about movement as well, because the color has to move, doesn't it? I mean, this is a coastline. There's a storm approaching. The clouds are presumably moving quite fast. And the waves are crashing on the beach.

JARED BOWEN: Five years ago, in 2014, the Mike Leigh biopic Mr. Turner painted the artist as a frenzied storm of creativity.

DAVID BLAYNEY BROWN: That film was a movie, is what I will say.

JARED BOWEN: In truth, David Blayney Brown says, Turner was likely much more methodical.

DAVID BLAYNEY BROWN: He must have worked with great care and great precision, certainly in some of the images in this exhibition. They're extraordinarily finely worked. Some are minutely detailed. And instead of broad, sweeping surges of paint, there are just tiny little dots, you know, laid onto the paper, almost like setting tiny diamonds into a ring.

JARED BOWEN: While many of Turner's works appear ethereal and idealized, he was also fond of what art critics and historians have come to describe as litter, the little figures, animals and general stuff that frequently dot his foregrounds.

DAVID BLAYNEY BROWN: They can look very untidy. But, of course, the real world is often an untidy place. He wants to root things in reality.

JARED BOWEN: As an inveterate traveler, his work changed as often as his landscapes did, especially in Venice. The work he produced during his third and final trip there in 1840 prompted one critic to proclaim Turner a magician, with command over the spirits of earth, air, fire, and water.

DAVID BLAYNEY BROWN: The real thrill of Venice for him was probably the fact that it has this extraordinary aqueous light. For an artist who's very interested in luminous effects and how to bring light into pictures, the effect the light has and the way it seems to merge the sea and the sky is something I think that made an enormous impression on him.

JARED BOWEN: And made for one of his myriad masterstrokes. For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Jared Bowen of WGBH in Mystic, Connecticut.

阿姆纳·纳瓦兹：英国画家特纳一生作品无数，所涉及的领域也很广泛。他遍历英格兰和欧洲，无论何时，总是随身携带一个便携水彩包。现在康涅狄格州的神秘海港博物馆正破天荒地展出他职业生涯中所做的水彩画，此次展览将持续到2月。这些珍贵的水彩画在北美唯一驻足的驿站就是康涅狄格州。下面请听我台特派记者杰瑞德·鲍恩发回的报道。本期节目是帆布系列艺术与文化主题的每周系列报道内容。

杰瑞德·鲍恩：特纳从教堂走到海岸，从白天走到黑夜。从故土英格兰忧郁的风格走到意大利威尼斯的冷光风格。对这位举世闻名的画家来说，这个游历的过程也是他水彩画经历不同时期的过程。

大卫·布朗，泰特英国美术馆高级馆长：我认为，特纳最开始的实验性作品具有重大的开创性，表现力极强，这些作品是在纸上所做的水彩画。

杰瑞德·鲍恩：纸作为一种媒介助力了特纳想法的迸发和实现。特纳第一幅水彩画作于17岁的时候，自那之后，特纳一生共作了3000多幅水彩画。

大卫·布朗：作画，或者说作水彩画几乎是一定要做的事情。这就像是让人紧张的滴答声。只要不作画，他就觉得不舒服。

杰瑞德·鲍恩：专门研究特纳的学者大卫·布朗是泰特英国美术馆的高级馆长，这家位于伦敦的博物馆里珍藏着特纳的遗作——上万幅画作，包括这些在特纳1851年死后就来到博物馆的水彩画。

大卫·布朗：特纳对自己也赞誉极高，他不会掩饰自己的才能。特纳意识到自己是一名伟大的艺术家，他想给英国留下一份遗产。

杰瑞德·鲍恩：现在，这份遗产已经在全球绽放光彩。这些水彩画很容易在光照下受损，几十年才能见天日一次。在意大利和阿根廷驻足后，这场展览首次在北美康涅狄格州的神秘海港博物馆停驻。

史蒂夫·怀特，史蒂夫·怀特的主席兼CEO：我想，这应该是我们馆成立90年来举办的最伟大的一场展览。

杰瑞德·鲍恩：这场展览有多重要呢？5年前，这家博物馆刚刚建造起展览的设施，那时候，史蒂夫·怀特说他曾告诉建筑团队。

史蒂夫·怀特：博物馆空间里的条件和规格必须要足够好，好到可以支持特纳的作品在这里举办展览，因为这将是我们馆最有决定意义的一场展览。

杰瑞德·鲍恩：怀特说，这是一场梦的实现，是将特纳毕生对海洋画作的兴趣跟外面流淌的神秘和相连。

史蒂夫·怀特：因为特纳，因为特纳对海洋别具一格的表达方式以及对景色的表达方式，特纳将这个地方的精气神以另一种方式焕发出来。

杰瑞德·鲍恩：我们是否知道特纳是如何体现海洋变化的吗？还是特纳只专注于描绘颜色呢？

大卫·布朗：我想这也与变化有关，因为颜色是会变化的，不是吗？毕竟这里是海岸。如果有暴风雨要来，那么云就会移动得很快。波浪会不断冲刷海滩。

杰瑞德·鲍恩：5年前，也就是2014年，迈克·李执导的特纳传记片将这位艺术家描绘成了富有创造力的狂暴风暴。

大卫·布朗：我会将它评价为一部电影。

杰瑞德·鲍恩：实际上，大卫·布朗说，特纳很有可能是更注重方法的。

大卫·布朗：他工作的时候一定是心思细密、极其注重细节的，这些也能从展览里的而一些图片中看出。这些作品都画得很精细，有些作品极其注重细节的刻画。

他并没有大幅运用波浪，而只是用了一些小圆点，把这些小圆点点缀到之上，就像戒指上的钻石一样。

杰瑞德·鲍恩：虽然特纳的许多作品都很优雅、很理想化，但特纳很喜欢用的是手段在评论家和历史学家口中变成了没用的点缀，那些小人物、动物、前景里频繁出现的大体点缀。

大卫·布朗：这些点缀看起来很杂乱无章。不过，当然啦，现实世界通常都是杂乱无章的，而特纳正是要从根本上描绘现实。

杰瑞德·鲍恩：作为一生游历各地的画家，他的作品会随着所游历之地的地形而发生变化，尤其是威尼斯。1840年，他的第3次也就是最后一次到访期间，他创作了一幅作品。一位评论家看了这幅作品后说，特纳是一位魔术家，可以完美驾驭土地、空气、火、水。

大卫·布朗：威尼斯对特纳的真正魔力搭嘎就是这里的水光。对于这样一位专注于发光效果和在图片中体现光的画家来说，我想，光的作用和光与海洋和天空的结合，这是让人对他印象深刻的地方。

杰瑞德·鲍恩：这也成就了他的大量主要作品。感谢收听杰瑞德·鲍恩从康涅狄格州发回的《新闻一小时》。