But what would be put in their place?
但用来替代这些的又是什么呢
Well, why not, the modernists said,just those things intrinsic to making art itself -line, form, colour?
现代主义者说 为什么不能就是那些构成艺术本身最基本的线条 形状 颜色呢
That, at any rate, was what the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian came to believe,and it became his life's pursuit.
这正是荷兰画家皮特·蒙德里安所坚信的 这也是他毕生的追求
But it was a long odyssey.
但追求之旅道阻且长
In the early years of the 20th century,in Zeeland, in the south-west Netherlands,he painted an old lighthouse.
在二十世纪初叶 位于荷兰西南部的泽兰省 他画了一座老灯塔
The screaming colours of expressionism were stabbed on in tile-like squares with the end of a hog-bristle brush.
他用猪鬃画笔的笔尖 将带有强烈表现欲望的色彩在画布上戳成了一个个瓷砖似的方块
As the mood of his vision took him,sand dunes could be turquoise undulations veined in gold.
他随眼所见 随心而感眼中的沙丘可以是绿松石色的波涛 带着金色的脉络
But these paintings are still depictions of their subject matter.
但这些画作仍然是对客观实体的描绘
It wasn't until autumn 1914 that Mondrian had the epiphany which would bring true abstraction into the world.
直到一九一四年秋天 蒙德里安顿悟 将真正的抽象画带到这个世界
He was alone with his sketchbook and the sea.
他独自一人 只有写生簿和大海的陪伴
And it was, I think, because of that solitude that now something really dramatic happened.
我想正是因为孤独导致一些非常引人注目的事情发生了
He was transfixed by the glitter of light on the waves...struck by the lines of the pier stretching into the sea.
他被海浪波光闪闪的画面牢牢抓住 为伸向海内的一排墩柱所着迷
But instead of painting their appearance,he translated the afterburn of the impression into a kind of rhythmic notation,just vertical and horizontal strokes.
但他并没有画这些景物 而是将这一印象的感觉 转化成一种富有韵律的符号 即只有纵横的线条
This was a wholly new visual language.
这是一种全新的视觉语言
It was art alone now.
只有艺术
And Mondrian was pretty much on his own -no subject, no model,just sheets of paper and lengths of canvas in a place no-one had been before,the great, boundless space of abstract vision.
蒙德里安几乎是独自一人 没有主题没有模特只是在一个无人到达的地方 用几张纸和画布 创造了伟大的无边界的抽象美景