《修道院的小船》

文/保羅·克勞瑟譯/林小審訂/愛藝

《修道院的小船》

文/保羅·克勞瑟譯/林小審訂/愛藝

這幅畫（布面油畫，59厘米×36.5厘米，約1880年）中的人物明顯是修女，正因這一點，其象征意義遠比馬拉姆拍賣公司所起的那個名字復雜得多。該畫背景為一處真實所在，即坐落在肯特郡梅德斯通附近梅德韋河岸邊的艾爾斯福德修道院。該修道院曾是加爾默羅修士會所在地，直到1538年被查封，當時亨利八世頒令沒收修道院。此后，修道院轉歸私人，先后由不同的家族掌管，直到1949年才重回加爾默羅修士會手中。休斯以其豐富的想象力將這座建筑重新解讀為修女院——而它從來不曾是。［圖見本期封底］

The iconography1iconography象征手法。of the picture (oil on canvas, 36.5cm x 59cm, c. 1880) is much more complex than the Mallams title2這幅畫2008年由馬拉姆拍賣公司賣出時的名稱是River landscape with fi gure in traditional dress looking across towards a cloaked and hooded fi gure in a punt with cottage beyond。suggests, if only because the figures in it are clearly nuns. The actual setting of the picture is Aylesford Priory on the banks of the River Medway near Maidstone in Kent. Aylesford Priory had been a seat of the Carmelite3〈天主教〉（12世紀創立于敘利亞卡邁爾山的）白袍修士。Friars until 1538, when it was suppressed as part of King Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries44亨利八世在位期間，促使議會頒布一系列法令推行宗教改革，其中包括廢除修道院制度，從而使英國教會脫離羅馬教廷。. Thereafter it was in private hands (under various different families) until 1949, when the Carmelites re-acquired it. Hughes offers an imaginative reinterpretation of the building as something it never was—a nunnery.

[2]當前這幅作品或與1874年在英國皇家美術學院展出的一幅同名敘事畫有關。人們確實產生了種種有意思的疑問，比如該作是否是早期那幅畫作的續作。早期作品展現的是一個悲戚的家庭目送女兒乘小船擺渡到對岸，進入修女院。當前畫作中，一名年輕的修女拿著籃子站在河岸邊，等待另一名修女撐平底船過河接她。修女院外觀也與早期那幅大不相同，外墻上攀爬的植物如今長得極為茂盛，遮蓋了原先的入口和幾扇窗戶。這一不同引發了諸多解讀。例如，有人認為現作只是展現了涉及同一所“修女院”的某個場景，因為這很可能是休斯在前作完成多年后所畫，所以植被變得更加茂密。換句話說，該作呈現的場景取自同一座虛構的修女院，而并沒有更深的敘事意圖。也有人認為，休斯所要傳達的內容是：等待擺渡的年輕修女就是前作被送入修女院成為初學修女的那個女孩。她等候之處就是前作中她的家人站立的地方，現作以此暗示她已與其他修女建立起家人般的姐妹情誼。

[2] The present work may be related to a narrative picture with the same title exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1874.Interesting questions arise, indeed, as to whether it is a narrative sequel to the earlier picture. The earlier work presents a sad family watching as one of their daughters is ferried away to enter a nunnery. In the present picture, a young nun with a basket waits on the banks of the river, as a punt5punt方頭平底船（用篙撐）。(steered by another nun) approaches to ferry6ferry渡運；擺渡。her across. The nunnery has a very different appearance from the earlier work, in that the vegetation7vegetation（尤指某地或環境的）植被；草木。growing on its walls has now become extremely dense, with the old entrance and several windows no longer visible. This invites a number of interpretations. It may be, for example, that the present picture merely represents a scene involving the same‘nunnery’, but—since it was presumably done by Hughes a number of years after he had done the earlier painting—the foliage had become more overgrown. It is a scene from the same imagined nunnery, in other words, but with no narrative intention over and above8over and above除……以外。that. Alternatively, it may be that Hughes intended that the young nun waiting to be ferried is the same girl who was taken into the nunnery as a novice in the earlier picture. Since she is waiting at the same place occupied by her family in the earlier work, the implication is that she has now found a new family in the sisterhood.

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[3]有一種解讀更加深入，似乎也更為陰郁：現作中平底船上弓腰的修女就是前作中那個女孩多年之后的樣子。如今，在河對岸等候她的只有一個人，那是同一修女會的姐妹。她原本的家人早已成為前世的記憶。□

[3] There is a further—somewhat darker—reading. It is that the stooped9stoop彎腰。nun in the punt is the girl from the original picture, shown to us many years later. Now the only person who awaits her on the other side of the river is another member of the same order10order（按照一定的規范生活的）宗教團體；（尤指）修會。. Her original family have long gone into the past.

The Convent Boat

ByPaul Crowther