走向现代——英国美术三百年

走向现代——英国美术三百年 来自英国西北部的公共艺术收藏

【广州】

时间：2013年4月30日 - 6月14日

地点：广东省美术馆

活动简介

这批世界著名油画作品是一笔由英国艺术家创造的非凡财富，藏于曼彻斯特及邻近城市的博物馆与美术馆之中。由于工业革命的巨大影响，此地区的艺术发展呈现出一派繁荣景象，这使得富有的制造商与商人们能够资助支持英国艺术家的创作，同时他们也能大量收藏优秀世界著名油画作品。

许多艺术家都将自己的作品遗赠给了大曼彻斯特郡下各个城镇的公共美术馆。同时，英格兰西北部的博物馆和美术馆也购入了历史名作和当代画作，增加了自身馆藏量。此次《走向现代——英国美术三百年》将展示这批丰富的艺术文化遗产，这不仅来自于英格兰西北部人民的精心收藏与资助，同时也是各个机构自发收藏的成果。此次展览还将颂扬当地人民的开放思想、自由精神以及他们坚定的信念，坚信艺术具有普世意义，能够造福于全人类。

虽然不同的美术馆和博物馆收藏的展品都具有各自的独特属性、各有优劣，但通过对大曼彻斯特公共藏品中所有类型的绘画风格和特点的梳理，此次展览将对18世纪中期到今日的英国绘画发展情况进行全方位综合性考察。展览既会展示先锋派画作，又会展示传统绘画作品；既囊括了主流艺术画作，又囊括了反叛传统的艺术作品。展览也将网罗不同的绘画流派，从传统的历史和宗教主题，到肖像画和风景画(这是英国艺术中最为熟悉的两大类型)， 再到捕捉普通英国人日常生活片段的“艺术白话文”。

此次展览同样会展示创作于21世纪的画作，与200多年前的作品一同呈现于观众面前，从陈列的布局也能发现出不同时期作品的异同之处。本次展览讲述的艺术进化史并未有任何顺畅可测的模式可循，也很少优先欧洲的创作。此次展览将展现英国艺术的独特性与光怪陆离之风，以及复杂精致与高超非凡的固有技巧。英国艺术的复杂性与奇特性将使这场展览具有极为丰富的可观赏性，为观众带来最激动人心的体验。

在英国，由于未建立起艺术教育的规范学术体系，画家们能够享受无可比拟的自由度来抒发心中独特的创造性思想，无需担忧主流的品味或是对艺术实用性的质问。

英国历史上致力于改革传统艺术创作方式的艺术家往往立于反传统艺术观或个体独特性的视角–如威廉•布雷克（William Blake）的画作，拉斐尔前派画家早期的实验性作品，或是斯坦利•斯宾塞（Stanley Spencer）具有前瞻性的油画作品–虽然改革可能带来令人费解、难以阐释的艺术发展类型，这一变革仍然是独一无二的表现力。这样看来，绘画给人们生活带来的震撼堪比知识界、文化界及政治界的影响。而在这一变化阶段，英国也逐渐成为现代国家，这并非是通过彻头彻尾的革命铸就的，而是通过充满激情、具有非凡特质的个体，他们自身属于反传统宗教或政治观的一代， 带领全国人民向前推进伟大变革。

这一景象在曼彻斯特尤为可见，19世纪这里便建起了具有进步性的经济学院，同时也逐步形成了与伦敦保守派霸权完全不同的政治风格。

本次展览将充分展现各个时代英国艺术家丰富的创造力与想象力，同时展示出英国人民的开放思想与自我认知度。

Toward Modernity: Three Centuries of British Art

Guangzhou: 30 April – 14 June 2013

Venue: Guangdong Arts Museum

Introduction

We have the Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth century to thank for this magnificent collection of art works. During those times of great prosperity, a great many artists lived the North West of England and glorious collections were formed in the greater Manchester region by the wealthy.

About the exhibition

This exhibition offers a fascinating parallel to the wider intellectual, cultural and political life of the nation. This was a period during which Britain emerged as a modern nation, not by outright revolution, but by the impassioned lead of remarkable individuals, often themselves non-conformists in the religious or political sense.

In Manchester, a new and progressive school of economists was established in the nineteenth century and a political alternative to the London-based conservative hegemony was fostered.

This exhibition draws on this rich legacy of art in the North West and celebrates the open-mindedness of the collectors and their belief that art should be enjoyed by all. While the contributing galleries and museums have different specialisations, by drawing on the entire spectrum of styles, the exhibition presents a comprehensive survey of the development of British painting from the mid-eighteenth century to the present day.

It includes mainstream as well avant-garde art, twenty-first century works as well as two-century old works, paintings as well as drawings, historical and religious subjects as well as portraiture and landscapes (two staples of British art), along with works depicting everyday life in a kind of artistic vernacular. It celebrates the individuality and eccentricity of British art as well as its sophistication and extraordinary levels of intrinsic skill.

British art

In Britain, because no specific academic system of artistic education has been established, painters have been at liberty to express their own particular creative bents without concern about the wider expectation of artistic taste.

Individuals who have sought to reform the practice of art in this country have usually done so from a position of artistic non-conformism or personal idiosyncrasy – for example of the drawings of William Blake, or the early experimental works of the Pre-Raphaelites, or the uniquely visionary canvases of Stanley Spencer. While the consequence may be an overall artistic development that is confusing and complicated to explain, it is nevertheless fabulously characterful and distinctive.

（来源：英国使馆文化教育处，编辑 Helen）