The Great Artists: Johannes Vermeer 

大藝術家系列：約翰內斯?維米爾

We live in a world saturated with false glamour. In truth, the problem does not lie with glamour itself, but with the things we have collectively agreed to regard as glamorous. Progress wouldn’t be found in eradicating the whole idea of glamour from our lives. Instead, what we need to do is direct our admiration and excitement more wisely: to turn it upon the things which genuinely do deserve prestige.

我們生活的世界充斥著虛假的魅力。實際上，問題并不在于魅力本身，而在于那些我們一致認定的有魅力的事物上。然而，因此而摒棄生活里的一切魅力是不可取的。相反，我們需要更明智的定位我們的鑒賞目標和興奮點：專注于真正值得欣賞的事物上。

One of the fundamental things artists can do for us is turn the spotlight of glamour in the best – and most helpful – directions. They can identify things that we tend to overlook but which, ideally, we should care about a great deal. And by the tenderness, beauty, skill and wisdom with which they portray these things, we too can come to see their true worth.

藝術家可以為我們做的其中一件最基本的事就是把突顯魅力的聚光燈調整到最佳狀態，最好是，調整到最佳位置。我們總是會忽略一些值得我們用心關注的事物，而藝術家可以識別出這些事物。通過欣賞他們用溫情、美麗、技巧和智慧描繪出來的這些事物，我們也能看到它們真正的價值。

The Milkmaid, 1657-8 倒牛奶的女仆，1657-8 

Serving women – and bread and milk – were not regarded as especially exciting in the late 1650s, when Johannes Vermeer painted this picture. He didn’t seek out a model who was already highly admired. Instead he spent his time looking very carefully at a scene which he happened to love, but which most people at the time would have considered boring and not worth a moment’s consideration. 

17世紀50年代末，約翰內斯?維米爾創作了這幅圖畫，那時，女仆、面包和牛奶并不被認為是特別令人興奮的事物。維米爾并沒有找一個備受推崇的人物作為模特，相反，他傾其一生都在仔細觀察他所熱愛的那種場景，而這種場景對當時的大多數人來說是無聊的、不值得留意的。

Vermeer saw in the serving woman pouring milk something that he felt deserved prolonged contemplation and admiration. He thought something really important was going on. By worldly standards, it’s a pretty humble situation. The room is far from elegant. But the care with which she works is lovely. Vermeer is impressed by the idea that our true needs might be quite simple. Bread and milk are really rather satisfying. The light coming through the window is beautiful. A plain white wall can be delightful. 

維米爾從倒牛奶的女仆身上看到了一些他認為值得深思和欽佩的東西。他認為這一場景正醞釀著一些真正重要的東西。從世俗的標準來看，這是一個很不起眼的場景。房間很簡陋，但女仆小心工作的樣子很可愛。維米爾十分認同這一觀點：我們真正的需求可能很簡單，有面包和牛奶就足夠了。從窗戶透過來的光線很迷人，它使普通的白墻變得賞心悅目。

Vermeer is redistributing glamour by raising the prestige of the things he depicts. And he’s trying to get us to feel the same way. The milk maid is a kind of propaganda (or an advert) for homely pleasures. 

維米爾通過提高他所描繪的事物的名望來重新分配魅力。他也努力使我們有同樣的感覺。倒牛奶的女仆是一個宣傳家常樂事的形象大使。

The Lacemaker, 1669-1671 花邊女工 1669-1671

Consider the painstaking, skilful – and commercial – business of making lace: Vermeer paints the self-employed business woman with the devotion and care that would, traditionally, be paid to a military hero or a great political leader. 

想一想辛苦的、有技巧的、商業化的制作花邊的工作：維米爾傾注所有的耐心，專心致志地刻畫了一位正在編織花邊的個體戶女工，而依照慣例，只有在描繪一位戰斗英雄或是偉大的政治領袖時，一個畫家才會如此專注。

Vermeer was born in 1632 in the small and beautiful city of Delft, where his father was a modestly successful art dealer-cum-innkeeper. Vermeer stayed there most of his life. He never travelled away from Delft after his marriage (aged 21). He hardly even left his pleasant house. He and his wife, Catharina, had ten children (and many more pregnancies) and he did a great deal of painting in the front rooms on the upper floor. Vermeer was a slow painter and – in fact – not only a painter. He continued the family businesses of innkeeping and art dealing and he became the head of the local guild of painters. In contemporary terms, his career was not a huge success. He wasn’t especially famous during his lifetime. He didn’t make a lot of money. 

1632年，維米爾出生在美麗的小城代爾夫特，他的父親是小城里小有名氣的畫商和旅館老板。維米爾一生的大部分時間都住在那里。在他21歲結婚后，再也沒有離開過代爾夫特，甚至很少離開令他舒適的家。維米爾和他的妻子凱瑟琳娜有十個孩子（懷孕的次數更多）。他在頂樓的前廳里作了大量的畫。他作畫的速度很慢，但實際上，他不只是一個畫家。他繼承父業，繼續經營旅館和賣畫，同時也是當地畫家公會的領導人。在現在看來，他的事業不算很成功，因為他在世期間并不是特別有名，也沒有賺很多錢。

He was in fact an exemplary member of (in those days) a newly important kind of person: the middle-class individual. Vermeer was in his teens when Holland (or technically the Seven Provinces) became an independent state – the first ‘bourgeois republic’ in the world. In contrast to the semi-feudal aristocratic nations that surrounded it, Holland gave honour and political power to people who were not at the pinnacle of society: to merchants, administrators, prosperous artisans and entrepreneurs. It was the first country in the world to be recognisably modern. 

當時，他實際上是新興而重要的一類人的典型代表——個體的中產階級。維米爾十幾歲的時候荷蘭成為了一個獨立的國家（嚴格意義上說，只有七省獨立）——世界上第一個資產階級共和國。不同于周圍的半封建貴族國家，荷蘭把尊榮和政治權利給予了那些不屬于社會頂層的人：商人、管理人員、正在發展壯大的工匠和企業家。荷蘭是世界上第一個公認的現代化國家。

The Girl with the Pearl Earring, 1665 戴珍珠耳環的少女，1665

A great insight of Christianity – which is ultimately detachable from the surrounding theology – is that everyone’s inner life is important, even if on the outside they do not seem particularly distinguished. The thoughts and feelings of an apprentice tailor count for as much (from a spiritual point of view) as those of a General or an Emperor. 

基督教教義里有一條十分深刻的見解——這一見解完全可以脫離神學而存在，它認為每個人的內心世界都是很重要的，即使在外面的世界里他們看起來不是那么出眾。從精神學的角度講，一個學徒裁縫的思想感情同一個將軍或一個國王的思想具有同等的價值。

Vermeer paints The Girl with the Pearl Earring with the same kind of consideration. She isn’t anybody famous or important in the eyes of the wider world. She isn’t rich. The earring that she wears is nice, but it is a minor trinket by the standards of the fashionable world. It is the one rather pricey thing she owns. But she’s not in need of justice – she’s not downtrodden or badly treated by the world. She is (for want of a better term) ordinary. Yet, of course, in herself she is (like everyone) not in the least ordinary: she is uniquely, mysteriously and profoundly herself. 

The Little Street, 1657-8 小街，1657-8 

The picture which best sums up Vermeer’s philosophy, The Little Street, has become one of the most famous works of art in the world. It has pride of place in Amsterdam’s great Rijksmuseum; it is insured for half a billion euros and is the subject of a mountain of learned articles. 

《小街》已經是世界上最著名的畫作之一了，這幅畫最好的總結了維米爾的哲學思想。它被放在阿姆斯特丹國家博物館里最顯眼的位置，投保金額為五億歐元，同時它也是眾多學術論文討論的主題。

Yet the painting is curiously – and pointedly – out of synch with its status. Because, above all else, it wants to show us that the ordinary can be very special. The picture says that looking after a simple but beautiful home, cleaning the yard, watching the children, darning cloth – and doing these things faithfully and without despair – is life’s real duty. 

但是，很奇怪，這幅畫描繪的場景和它高貴的地位很明顯的不一致。這是因為，這幅畫最想要傳遞給我們的思想是：平凡之事也有十分特別的意義。它告訴我們，踏踏實實的做好這些家庭瑣事——照看簡樸而美好的家，打掃庭院，看顧孩子，織補衣物——且保留平和的心態，才是真正地履行生活的責任。

It is an anti-heroic picture: a weapon against false images of glamour. It refuses to accept that true glamour depends on amazing feats of courage or on the attainment of status. It argues that doing the modest things, that are expected of all of us, is enough. The picture asks you to be a little like it is: to take the attitudes it loves, and to apply them to your life. 

它是一幅反英雄主義的畫作：是一種武器，來反對代表虛假魅力的形象。它不認同這一觀點：擁有令人驚嘆的勇氣或崇高的地位才擁有真正的魅力。它認為，只要我們大家做好應該做的各種小事就足夠了。這幅畫期望我們采取它所提倡的態度并應用于實際生活。

If a good, decent society had a founding document, it could be this small picture. It is a central contribution to the world’s understanding of happiness. 

如果一個文明良好的社會有一個奠基性文件的話，那么非這幅小畫莫屬。在幫助世界人民理解幸福的定義上，它做出了重要貢獻。

Vermeer did not live long. He died in 1675, still only in his early forties. 

維米爾英年早逝。他死于1675年，那時他才剛四十出頭。

View of Delft, 1660-1 代爾夫特城風光， 1660-1

But he had communicated a crucial – and hugely sane – idea: much of what matters to us is not exciting, urgent, dramatic or special. Most of life is taken up dealing with things which are routine, ordinary, humble, modest and (to be honest) a touch dull. Our culture should focus on getting us to appreciate the average, the everyday and the ordinary. 

但是他卻傳達給我們一個至關重要的、相當明智的思想：許多對我們來說重要的事都不是令人振奮，緊張刺激，扣人心弦或是尤為特別的。我們生命的大部分光陰都遵循既定的路線，用來做那些平常、普通甚至有些枯燥的小事。我們的文化應該教我們學會欣賞平凡的人，平凡的日子和平凡的事情。

When Vermeer painted the town where he lived he didn’t choose a special day; the sky is neither very overcast nor especially sunny. Nothing is happening. No celebrities are around. Yet it is, as he has taught us to recognise, all very special indeed.

當維米爾描繪他居住的小鎮時，他并沒有選擇一個特別的日子；天空既不是特別陰暗又不是特別晴朗。沒有特殊的事情發生。周圍也沒有名人出現。但是，正如維米爾教給我們的那樣，畫里的一切又都很特別。