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閨怨與相思:牟益「擣衣圖」的解讀

Bylofen

1 月 26, 2009

南宋理宗嘉熙四年(西元1240年),畫家牟益(1178-1242年後)畫了一幅以南朝詩人謝惠連(397-433)〈擣衣詩〉為素材的「擣衣圖」,贈送給其友人書法家董更,這幅作品歷經五百多年以後,進入清朝宮廷,現藏於台北國立故宮博物院。

所謂「擣衣」,是古代養蠶取絲,將生絲煮製後,用杵舂擣捶打以去除其表面的膠質,使其柔軟而富有彈性,便於著色和織成衣物的加工過程。古代社會分工「男耕女織」,製衣步驟中的「擣衣」工作原本即具有鮮明的性別色彩,然而,畫家描寫婦人擣衣並非為了展現女性工作之辛勤,而是藉著擣衣傳達某種幽怨的女性美,牟益的「擣衣圖」即為代表。

牟益「擣衣圖」全長466.4公分,總共圖繪三十二個女子,依照謝惠連詩意作布局安排,畫中人物的行止可分為五個段落:「整裝」、「抱練前行」、「擣衣」、「裁縫製衣」、以及最後的「裝箱封寄」,整幅作品瀰漫著哀戚的情調,這種特殊的氛圍源於〈擣衣詩〉的內容。六朝以來興起的「擣衣」題材文學作品,幾乎都是男性作家夜聞砧杵之聲,遐想婦人擣衣的景象,而後模仿女性的口吻,傾訴為征戍遠行的良人縫製寒衣的閨情。書寫擣衣詩,是男性將聽覺所得「視覺化」的過程;畫家創作「擣衣圖」則是具象此視覺之美,使得聽聞中的女子顯現於眾人面前,被眾人看見。

在牟益的「擣衣圖」中,我們看見男性畫家構設出男性詩人模擬的女性心聲,詩人與畫家都經過性別角色的扮演,代替主角發聲,那些被配音的女性透過畫上的詩句娓娓訴說,為靜默的畫面指引情節發展的旁白,而歷代的觀賞者則透過題跋文字與她們對話,尤其是清高宗乾隆的三度御覽,更是流露了對孝賢皇后的相思與悼念,為牟益的「擣衣圖」增衍了新的心情故事。

《中國文哲研究集刊》第25期(2004年9月),頁25-59。

Melancholy Longings of the Boudoir: A Reading of the Mou Yi Painting, Pounding Cloth

In 1240, the Southern Song artist Mou Yi (1178-after 1242) made a painting based on the poem, “Pounding Cloth,” by the Southern Dynasty poet Xie Huilian (397-433), and gave to his friend Dong Geng, who was a calligrapher. After more than five hundred years, this painting entered the collection of Qing Imperial Palace, and now is in the National Palace Museum of Taipei.

The term “pounding cloth” (daoyi) refers to the process by which raw silk produced was pounded with a mortar to remove a gelatinous substance on its surface in order to make it softer and more pliable, and thus more easily dyed and tailored. In the ancient division of labor, where men worked in the fields and women at the loom, the task of “pounding cloth,” was clearly gender-specific. However, painters depicted women pounding cloth not to portray how hard-working these women were, but rather to convey a melancholy female beauty through the act of pounding cloth. Mou Yi’s painting Pounding Cloth is one of the most noted examples of this genre.

Mou Yi’s Pounding Cloth is over four meters long, and shows a total of thirty-two ladies. Following the structure of Xie Huilian’s poetry, the action of the women in the painting can be divided into five sections: “Dressing Up,” “Going Forward with the Silk in Hand,” “Pounding Cloth,” “Tailoring Clothing,” and finally, “Packing Up, Sealing and Sending.” The sorrowful tone which imbues this work originated from the content of the “Pounding Cloth” poem. In the many literary writings on this figure, which appeared after the Six Dynasties, almost all were written from the perspective of a male writer hearing the sound of pounding in the night and imagining a lady pounding cloth. These male writers then imitated the voice of the lady in her boudoir lamenting about making winter clothing for her husband, who had been sent far away on a military campaign. These “pounding cloth” poems were a process of the “visualization” of the aural experience of the male writers; and the “pounding cloth” paintings were to present this beauty in visual images, to present the lady imagined from the aural experience for the public eye.

In this painting we see how the male painter constructed the female voices as imitated by the male poets: through gender role-playing, poets and painters spoke for the female protagonists. The dubbed voices of those ladies spoke up familiarly through the lines of poems on the painting, providing the narrative leads for the silent images. Moreover, viewers in later times also participated in a discourse with these female protagonists by writing colophons on the painting. In particular, colophons from the three viewings of this painting by the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736-96) reveal his longing for the late Xiaoxian Empress and his grief over her death, adding yet another sentimental story to Mou Yi’s Pounding Cloth, and yet another layer of role reversal to this multi-valent work.

Bulletin of the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, No.25 (Sep. 2004), pp.5-59.

By lofen