9

Beauty

美麗的含義

1. Does beauty give birth to love or does love give birth to beauty? Did I love Chloe because she was beautiful or was she beautiful because I loved her? Surrounded by an infinite number of people, we may ask (staring at our lover while they talk on the phone or lie opposite us in the bath) why our desire has chosen to settle on this particular face, this particular mouth or nose or ear, why this curve of the neck or dimple in the cheek has come to answer so precisely to our criterion of perfection? Every one of our lovers offers different solutions to the problem of beauty, and yet succeeds in redefining our notions of attractiveness in a way that is as original and as idiosyncratic as the landscape of their face.是美麗引發(fā)了愛情，還是愛情創(chuàng)造了美麗？是因?yàn)榭寺灏利愇也艕鬯€是因?yàn)槲覑鬯琶利?？在茫茫人海之中，我們（凝視著正在打電話或躺在我們?duì)面沐浴的心上人）也許會(huì)發(fā)出這樣的疑問：為什么這特定的一張臉、一片唇、一彎鼻、一輪耳會(huì)滿足我們的欲望？為什么她脖子的曲線、顏靨的酒窩正好符合我們給完美定出的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)？每一位心上人都能使我們得到美麗的不同詮釋，都能圓滿地重釋我們各自的情愛美學(xué)，其方式既新穎別致，又富有個(gè)性，有如她/他們臉上的風(fēng)景一樣。

2. If Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) defined love as 'the desire for beauty', in what ways did Chloe fulfil this desire? To listen to Chloe, in no way whatever. No amount of reassurance could persuade her that she was anything but loathsome. She insisted on finding her nose too small, her mouth too wide, her chin uninteresting, her ears too round, her eyes not green enough, her hair not wavy enough, her breasts too small, her feet too large, her hands too wide, and her wrists too narrow. She would gaze longingly at the faces in the pages of Elle and Vogue and declare that the concept of a just God was ?in the light of her physical appearance ?simply an incoherence.如果馬西略·費(fèi)奇諾把愛情定義為“對(duì)美麗的欲望”，那么克洛艾是怎樣滿足了我的欲望？克洛艾自己說，沒法滿足。我費(fèi)盡口舌也不能說服她，她一點(diǎn)也不丑。她執(zhí)意認(rèn)為，自己的鼻子太小、嘴巴太大、下頜死板、耳朵太圓、眼睛不夠綠、頭發(fā)不飄灑、胸太小、腳太大、手太粗、腕太細(xì)。她會(huì)無限向往地盯住《ELLE》和《時(shí)尚》雜志里的一張張臉宣稱，從她的長相來看，說上帝公平簡直就是胡言亂語。

3. Chloe believed that beauty could be measured according to an objective standard, one she had simply failed to reach. Without acknowledging it as such, she was resolutely attached to a Platonic concept of beauty, an aesthetic she shared with the world's fashion magazines and which fuelled a daily sense of self-loathing in front of the mirror. According to Plato and the editor of Vogue, there exists such a thing as an ideal form of beauty, made up of a balanced relation between parts, and which earthly bodies will approximate to a greater or a lesser degree. There is a mathematical basis for beauty, Plato suggested, so that the face on the front cover of a magazine is necessarily rather than coincidentally pleasing.克洛艾相信美麗可以根據(jù)一個(gè)客觀的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)來衡量，而她自己完全不符合這個(gè)標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。盡管克洛艾并不承認(rèn)，但她已經(jīng)堅(jiān)定地與柏拉圖的美麗觀站到了一起，這是她和世界時(shí)尚雜志的編輯們都接受的一種美學(xué)觀點(diǎn)，這觀念會(huì)令人每天坐在鏡子前時(shí)產(chǎn)生一種自我厭棄的感覺。根據(jù)柏拉圖和《時(shí)尚》編輯的觀點(diǎn)，普通人的身體或多或少有點(diǎn)接近。柏拉圖說，任何被認(rèn)為是美麗的東西都部分具有美的基本形式，因此肯定展示了普遍的特征。從一個(gè)美麗的女子身上，可以發(fā)現(xiàn)美麗包含數(shù)學(xué)的基本原理，是一種天生的均衡，比古代神廟建筑中發(fā)現(xiàn)的不會(huì)少。在柏拉圖看來，雜志封面上的臉像更接近完美的形式（克洛艾正為此而崇拜不已。我還記得她坐在床上一邊晾頭發(fā)，一邊翻雜志，扭動(dòng)著臉部肌肉，夸張地模仿模特們輕松自在的姿勢(shì)。）克洛艾為自己的鼻子與厚薄不一的嘴唇不搭配而感到羞愧。她的鼻子很小，嘴唇過厚，這意味著她的臉的中心部位產(chǎn)生了柏拉圖所謂的不和諧。柏拉圖曾說，只有各個(gè)部分均衡的搭配才能創(chuàng)造一種動(dòng)態(tài)的靜止和自在的完滿，這正是一般人所缺少的。如果柏拉圖說只有“尺寸（計(jì)量）和比例（對(duì)稱）的適宜才能組成美麗和卓越”，那么克洛艾的臉肯定既不美麗也不卓越。

4. Whatever mathematical errors there were in her face, Chloe found the rest of her body even more unbalanced. Whereas I loved to watch soapy water running over her stomach and legs in the shower, whenever she looked at herself in the mirror she would invariably declare that something was 'lopsided' ?though quite what I never discovered. Leon Battista Alberti (1409-72) might have known better, for he believed that any beautiful body had fixed proportions which he spelt out mathematically after dividing the body of a beautiful Italian girl into six hundred units, then working out the distances from section to section. Summing up his results in his book On Sculpture, Alberti defined beauty as 'a Harmony of all the Parts, in whatsoever Subject it appears, fitted together with such proportion and connection, that nothing could be added, diminished or altered, but for the worse'. But according to Chloe, however, almost anything about her body could have been added, diminished, or altered without spoiling anything that nature had not already devastated.除了臉部的不和諧，克洛艾發(fā)現(xiàn)自己身體的其他部分更不勻稱。雖然洗澡時(shí)我樂于欣賞泡沫流過她腹部和腿部的曲線，但每當(dāng)克洛艾在鏡子里看見自己和身材時(shí)，總是說“某個(gè)部位不勻稱”——盡管我從來沒有發(fā)現(xiàn)有什么不勻稱的。萊昂·巴蒂斯塔·阿爾貝蒂也許對(duì)此更在行一些，因?yàn)樵谒磥?，雕塑家?yīng)該明了，美的體型有一些固定的比例，從而找到各部分之間的理想距離。在《論雕塑》一書中，阿爾貝蒂將美麗限定為“無論主體如何呈現(xiàn)，所有部分依照這樣的連接比例和諧地組裝，分毫不爽，增一分太多、減一分嫌少，任何改變則使其破壞”。但是在克洛艾看來，幾乎她身形的任何部位都被增了一分、減了一分或被修改，就此而言，她完整地保存了上帝饋贈(zèng)給她的一切不完美。

5.Clearly Plato and Leon Battista Alberti had neglected something in their aesthetic theories, for I found Chloe excessively beautiful. Did I like her green eyes, her dark hair, her full mouth? I hesitate to try and pin down her appeal. Discussions of physical beauty have some of the futility of debates between art historians attempting to justify the relative merits of different artists. A Van Gogh or a Gauguin? One might try to redescribe the work in language ('the lyrical intelligence of Gauguin's South Sea skies...' next to 'the Wagnerian depth of Van Gogh's blues...') or else to elucidate technique or materials ('the Expressionist feel of Van Gogh's later years...', 'Gauguin's Cezanne-like linearity...'). But what would all this do to explain why one painting grips us by the collar and another leaves us cold? The language of the eye stubbornly resists translation into the language of words.但是柏拉圖和萊昂·巴蒂斯塔·阿爾貝蒂（不論他們計(jì)算的多么準(zhǔn)確）的美學(xué)理論中顯然忽視了一些東西，因?yàn)樵谖铱磥?，克洛艾美麗無比。我說.不產(chǎn)出到底是什么如此吸引我。是喜歡她綠色的眼眸、黑色的頭發(fā)、飽滿的嘴唇？我不知道，因?yàn)檠赞o不能描述為何一個(gè)人有吸引力而另一個(gè)人卻沒有。我可以說是由于她鼻梁上的雀斑或她脖子的曲線，但是這又怎能說服那些不覺得她有魅力的人呢？美麗畢竟不是可以通過說服別人來接受的啊。美麗不是數(shù)學(xué)公式，不可以得出一個(gè)無可置疑的結(jié)論。關(guān)于男人和女人魅力的爭論，類似于藝術(shù)史家試圖說明為什么一幅畫優(yōu)于另一幅畫的爭論。是一幅凡·高的畫更優(yōu)秀、還是一幅高庚的畫更優(yōu)秀呢？惟一的比較方法就是通過語言描述作品（“高庚《南方的?！防锏奶炜照故靖星楸挤诺奶觳拧边d于“凡·高運(yùn)用藍(lán)色達(dá)到的瓦格納式的深度……”），或通過繪畫技巧和材料來闡釋（“凡·高后期作品的表現(xiàn)主義感覺……”“高庚那些塞尚式的直線……”）。然而在解釋為何一幅作品能感動(dòng)我們，令我們感受到美的真諦時(shí)，它們又能起到什么真正的作用？如果說畫家歷來就不屑于藝術(shù)史家跟隨其后的評(píng)論，那么與其說這是出于反向的勢(shì)利，還不如說是出于一種感覺，即繪畫的語言（美麗的語言）無法用人類的話語來表達(dá)。

6. It was not beauty that I could hope to describe, only my personal response to Chloe's appearance. I could simply point out where my desire had happened to settle, while allowing the possibility that others would locate comparable perfection in quite other beings. In so doing, I was forced to reject the Platonic idea of an objective criterion of beauty, siding instead with Kant's view, as expressed in his Critique of Judgement, that aesthetic judgements are ones 'whose determining ground can be none other than subjective'.因此我能夠描述的不是美麗，而只是我自己對(duì)克洛艾外表的一種主觀感受。我不能說要建立一個(gè)具有普遍效驗(yàn)的美學(xué)理論，只能指出我的欲望最終的歸宿，同時(shí)允許他人認(rèn)為克洛艾并非十全十美。于是我不得不反對(duì)柏拉圖的美麗有客觀標(biāo)準(zhǔn)的論點(diǎn)，而同意康德的說法（表達(dá)在《判斷力批評(píng)》一書中），即美的判斷是一個(gè)“決定性的基礎(chǔ)只能是主觀的”判斷。

康德的美學(xué)觀認(rèn)為，身體的比例并不像欣賞身體的主觀方式那么重要，否則我們?cè)趺唇忉專瑢?duì)于同一個(gè)人，為何有人看來美麗動(dòng)人，而有人則認(rèn)為丑陋不堪？

7. The way I looked at Chloe could have been compared to the famous Muller-Lyer illusion, where two lines of identical length will appear to be of different sizes according to the nature of the arrows attached at their ends. The loving way that I gazed at Chloe functioned like a pair of outward arrows, which give an ordinary line a semblance of length it might not objectively deserve.美麗在于觀者，這個(gè)現(xiàn)象可比作是著名的繆勒-萊爾幻像，由于兩端的箭頭方向不同，兩根相同長度的直線看起來卻長短各異。如果把長度比作美麗，那么我注視克洛艾時(shí)的情形就像指向直線末端的箭頭一樣，使得克洛艾的臉看起來與眾不同，比那些客觀地看幾乎是同一張臉的人顯得更為美麗（直線更長）。我的愛就像放在同一根直線兩端的箭頭，它產(chǎn)生了一種與眾不同的印象，不論其多么不真實(shí)。

8. A definition of beauty that more accurately summed up my feelings for Chloe was delivered by Stendhal. 'Beauty is the promise of happiness,' he wrote, pointing to the way that Chloe's face alluded to qualities that I identified with a good life: there was humour in her nose, her freckles spoke of innocence, and her teeth suggested a casual, cheeky disregard for convention. I did not see the gap between her two front teeth [see figure] as an offensive deviation from an ideal arrangement, but as an original and most love-worthy redefinition of dental perfection. I was not simply indifferent to the gap in between the teeth: I positively adored it.斯湯達(dá)曾經(jīng)給美麗下過一個(gè)著名的定義：美麗即“幸福的允諾”，這與柏拉圖所謂的部分與部分之間完美和諧的刻板觀點(diǎn)實(shí)在大異其趣?？寺灏苍S不能被認(rèn)為是完美無缺，但是她依然美麗。是她的美麗令我感到幸福，還是她令我感到幸福才美麗？這是一個(gè)自我確認(rèn)的循環(huán)：當(dāng)克洛艾令我感到幸福時(shí)，她是美麗的；她是美麗的，這又令我感到幸福。

我被吸引的特別之處在于，它并非建立在欲望傾注的明確目標(biāo)之上，同樣也不是建立在克洛艾的眾多特征——從柏拉圖的觀點(diǎn)來看，也許并非完美和特征——之上。在克洛艾面部不美麗的特征之中，其他人不會(huì)看上一眼的特征之中，我找到了自己渴望看到的東西，這令我油然而生一種自豪感。例如，我并不認(rèn)為她兩顆門齒之間的縫隙不好看，不符合完美的排列，恰恰相反，我覺得它獨(dú)特?zé)o比，是最值得愛的完美牙齒。我不僅對(duì)牙齒之間的縫隙漠然處之，相反，我十分欣賞。

9.I took pride in finding Chloe more beautiful than a Platonist would have done. The most interesting faces generally oscillate between charm and crookedness. There is a tyranny about perfection, a certain tedium even, something that asserts itself with all the dogmatism of a scientific formula. The more tempting kind of beauty has only a few angles from which it may be seen, and then not in all lights and at all times. It flirts dangerously with ugliness, it takes risks with itself, it does not side comfortably with mathematical rules of proportion, it draws its appeal from precisely those details that also lend themselves to ugliness. As Proust once said, classically beautiful women should be left to men without imagination.我欣賞自己心中的秘密，崇拜自己欲望的與眾不同，以及無人知曉克洛艾的牙齒在我眼中的意義。在柏拉圖的信仰者們看來，克洛艾也許并不美麗，甚至?xí)腥苏J(rèn)為她很丑，但是在她的美麗之中有些東西并不為那些所謂的柏拉圖式的完美臉龐所有。在丑陋和經(jīng)典式完美之間的地帶可以找到美麗。一個(gè)讓上千艘船只下了水的斜坡從建筑學(xué)上看并不一定正規(guī)，也許很不牢靠，就像在兩種顏色之間旋轉(zhuǎn)的物體一樣，只要不停下來，將會(huì)產(chǎn)生第三種顏色。完美有一種專橫的味道，也有一種枯竭的感覺，它甚至否定在創(chuàng)造完美的過程中觀者的作用，它用明確的教條武斷地發(fā)表評(píng)價(jià)。真正的美麗并不可測(cè)量，因?yàn)槊利愂橇鲃?dòng)變化的。美麗只有從某些角度才為人所見，而并非所有的角度，并非永遠(yuǎn)都能看見。美麗危險(xiǎn)地隱現(xiàn)在丑陋之間，有被人當(dāng)作丑陋的可能。美麗并沒有恰當(dāng)?shù)胤媳壤臄?shù)學(xué)原則，美麗產(chǎn)生吸引力的地方正是可能使自己顯得丑陋的地方。美麗也許需要承受與丑陋共存的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。

普羅斯特曾經(jīng)說過，絕代佳人不會(huì)給人們留下想象的空間。

10.My imagination enjoyed playing in the space between Chloe's teeth. Her beauty was fractured enough that it could support creative rearrangements. In its ambiguity, her face could have been compared to Wittgenstein's duck-rabbit, where both a duck and a rabbit seem contained in the same image. Much depends on the attitude of the viewer: if the imagination is looking for a duck, it will find one, if it is looking for a rabbit, it will appear instead. What counts is the predisposition of the viewer. It was of course love that was generously predisposing me. The editor of Vogue might have had difficulty including photos of Chloe in an issue, but this was only a confirmation of the uniqueness that I had managed to find in my girlfriend. I had animated her face with her soul.也許是因?yàn)榭寺灏难例X留給我想象的余地，所以才那么富有吸引力。我的想象力被她齒間的縫隙激發(fā)了：合上，分開，要我的舌頭伸入。縫隙使我能夠重新安排克洛艾的牙齒，她的美麗是斷裂的，可以創(chuàng)造性地重新組合。因?yàn)樗哪樇扔忻赖捏w現(xiàn)又有丑的特征，于是我的想象需要去這不穩(wěn)定的美。因?yàn)檫@種美與丑的模棱兩可，克洛艾的臉可比作是維特根斯坦的“鴨-兔”圖，同一幅畫中包含了鴨子和兔子，就如同從克洛艾的身上可以同時(shí)看到兩張臉孔。

維特根斯坦的例子在很大程度上依賴觀者的態(tài)度：如果想找的是一只鴨，尋就會(huì)找到一只鴨；如果想找的是一只兔，那么同樣會(huì)出現(xiàn)一只兔。兩幅圖像都可以找到根據(jù)，關(guān)鍵是觀者的傾向和意念。當(dāng)然是愛使我把克洛艾想象成美麗的人（而非鴨子）。我覺得這種愛更為純真，因?yàn)樗皇钱a(chǎn)生于一張按明顯確鑿的比例分配的臉蛋?！稌r(shí)尚》的編輯也許不愿意把克洛艾的照片登在他們的雜志上，然而，滑稽的是，這反而增強(qiáng)了我的渴望，因?yàn)檫@似乎證實(shí)了我一直想從克洛艾身上找到的她與眾不同之處。發(fā)現(xiàn)一個(gè)完全符合比例的人的“美麗”又怎么算得上富有創(chuàng)造性？在牙縫之間發(fā)現(xiàn)美麗肯定需要更大的努力、更多的普羅斯特式的想象。我不是從顯眼處出發(fā)尋找克洛艾的美麗，而是從別人看不到的特征中發(fā)現(xiàn)她的動(dòng)人之處；我已經(jīng)領(lǐng)悟了她的靈魂，于是覺得她的臉龐生動(dòng)無比。

11. The danger with the kind of beauty that does not look like a Greek statue is that its precariousness places much emphasis on the viewer. Once the imagination decides to remove itself from the gap in the teeth, is it not time for a good orthodontist? Once we locate beauty in the eye of the beholder, what will happen when the beholder looks elsewhere? But perhaps that was all part of Chloe's appeal. A subjective theory of beauty makes the observer wonderfully indispensable.這種看似不同于希臘雕塑的美麗存在一種危險(xiǎn)：過于依賴觀者。一旦想象決定從牙縫間移開，豈不就是找一個(gè)好的牙科醫(yī)生的時(shí)候了？如果美麗是存在于觀者的眼中，那么一旦觀者的目光轉(zhuǎn)向別處，又會(huì)是怎樣的情景？但也許就是克洛艾一切魅力的所在。主觀的美學(xué)理論使觀者真是必不可少啊。