“過去與現在”攝影展,藝術之筆的前世今生

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For 180-years, people have been asking the question: is photography art? At an early meeting of the Photographic Society of London, established in 1853, one of the members complained that the new technique was "too literal to compete with works of art" because it was unable to "elevate the imagination". This conception of photography as a mechanical recording medium never fully died away. Even by the 1960s and 70s, art photography – the idea that photographs could capture more than just surface appearances – was, in the words of the photographer Jeff Wall.

180年以來人們一直在追問這樣一個問題：攝影是藝術嗎？在成立於1853年的早期倫敦攝影學會會議上，一個會員抱怨說，這項新技術是“太表面以至於不能和藝術作品相競爭”，因爲它“無法提升想象”。攝影作爲一種機械記錄的媒介的概念從未完全消失。即使是20世紀六七十年代，在攝影師傑夫•沃爾的語言裏，藝術攝影即拍攝的照片可以捕捉到更多表面之外的東西。

But over the past few decades the question has been heard with ever decreasing frequency. When Andreas Gursky's photograph of a grey river Rhine under an equally colourless sky sold for a world record price of £2.7 million last year, the debate was effectively over. As if to give its own patrician signal of approval, the National Gallery is now holding its first major exhibition of photography, Seduced by Art: Photography Past and Present.

但是，在過去的幾十年裏這個問題並沒有減少出現的頻率。當安德烈亞斯•古爾斯基的照片同樣灰色天空下的灰色萊茵河去年賣了270萬英鎊的世界紀錄，辯論有力地結束了。好像是爲了給自己的貴族標誌一個批准，國家美術館舉辦了第一次大型攝影展，被藝術所牽引：攝影的過去與現在。

同樣灰色天空下的灰色萊茵河

The show is not a survey but rather examines how photography's earliest practitioners looked to paintings when they were first exploring their technology's potential, and how their modern descendants are looking both to those photographic old masters and in turn to the old master paintings.

該展覽不是調查，而是探討當他們第一次探索其技術的潛能時攝影的早期從業者如何看待繪畫，以及他們的現代後人如何看待那些攝影過去的從業者進而轉到以往的大師繪畫。

What paintings offered was a catalogue of transferable subjects, from portraits to nudes, still lifes to landscapes,that photographers could mimic and adapt. Because of the lengthy exposures necessary for early cameras, moving subjects were impossible to capture.

繪畫提供的主題是攝影師可以模擬和調整的從人像到裸體、從靜物到風景的一覽表。由於早期相機需要長曝光，移動的物體是不可能捕捉到的。

What some pioneering photographers recognised straight away was that photographs, like paintings, are artificially constructed portrayals: they too had to be carefully composed, lit and produced.

一些先鋒攝影師馬上認識到，照片就像繪畫，是人工進行的描繪：他們也必須小心構圖、按快門以及製作。

If early photographers had no option but to negotiate their own engagement with painting their modern descendants can call on nearly two centuries of photographic history. It is a point the exhibition makes by combining old and new.

如果早期攝影師除了只能自己爭取與繪畫一樣獲得一席之位外別無選擇，那麼現在的後人就可以要求近兩個世紀的攝影史。這是此次展覽通過新老結合而形成的意義。