2015-07-05

【Aiden in English】

        Vatican City or the Holy See is the world’s smallest country and home to less than 900 residents, including the most famous person, of course, the Pope. It has its own set of laws and even a different language. They speak Latin. No, apparently it’s not a dead language. Although they are Catholics, the citizens of the Vatican seem to have a unique culture to share with the world.

        Michelangelo was arguably most talented artist ever. Not only was he a great painter, but also a terrific architect and a fabulous sculptor. Being a world-class artist, it’s not surprising that he was asked to decorate the Sistine Chapel. Actually, he was sort of ordered, because when Michelangelo requested another painter for the job, he became the only one to stagger “Creation of the World” and “Last Judgment”. So the chapel was done quite wisely, moving Vatican City up a few spots on the tourism list. Before Michelangelo came and remodeled everything, the Sistine Chapel had a sky blue and gold mosaic roof. 

        From the outside, it seemed like a fortress with a battlement-like roof, and the building gave little hint to what was held inside. It masked wonders timelessly. Michelangelo transformed the Chapel with his masterpieces into what I witnessed today. Like most churches, paintings of scenes throughout the Bible were used as the decorations on the wall. The artist could be creative though when describing heaven and the … boiler room. Heaven was painted with bright upbeat colors of gold, sky blue, white, and a bit of green. Downstairs, red, black, and crimson reigned supreme. But instead of demons, lava, and pitchforks, Michelangelo painted people being attacked by vicious creatures, for example, a man being choked by a giant snake. And the snake’s head bit a rather, ah, tender part of male’s body. It’s interesting how colors defined life. Brighter shades were better than darker shades, so was Light blue to dark red. It’s like entering a dark haunted house versus entering a beach with a bright sun out. What if you went to a beach with everything normal, then there’s a tsunami and everyone died. It’s the very typical inference that people make to good and bad, possibly because our main sense is blocked in darkness to pair it up with evil. Nevertheless, blinding light can also be bad to your eyes, even worse than darkness since the blindness just might be permanent.

        The Holy See wasn’t over yet. The Vatican Museums offered 24 huge exhibition halls of art and history, which looked absolutely spectacular. I think that its specialty was in the tapestries. Tapestries are carpets that instead of walking on they are hung on a wall for decoration. The skill to make a tapestry is much more challenging than painting. To make a stroke of color in paintings, you just ran your brush along the canvas. To make a stroke on a tapestry, it required knots knit in precision and order to get the right result. Precision is important because this kind of art is way more precise than any other even sketching. In a square inch, there could be hundreds of knots jammed into it. Every piece of art here could take years to finish.

        Vatican City may be the world’s smallest country, but it feels as if it has the most to show. Like the saying, “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, and it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”

【红霞译文】

        梵蒂冈城即梵蒂冈教廷堪称世界上最小的国家，充其量不足九百号人口，当然包括最著名的教皇陛下。它履行自己的法律，操持不同的语言，举国上下全都讲拉丁语，千万不要再以讹传讹，误以为无人使用拉丁文。尽管梵蒂冈是天主教圣地，但当地人热衷与各方来客分享本土文化。

        米开朗基罗被视为史上天赋最高的艺术家，其实他不仅是了不起的绘画巨匠，而且还是颇有建树的建筑师和才华横溢的雕刻家。作为当时知名人士，由他负责装饰西斯廷教堂完全在意料之中。事实上，米开朗基罗起初完全被赶鸭子上架，因为他曾请求增加人手，但最终只能孤军奋战独自完成《创世纪》与《最后的审判》。正因其卓越贡献，西斯廷教堂一跃成为全球名列前茅的旅游景点，而在此之前，西斯廷教堂穹窿天顶呈天蓝色，并镶有金色马赛克装饰图案。

        外观上，西斯廷教堂跟城堡墩子没啥区别，一点反映不出里面到底是个什么样子；内观上，它让创造生命的力量永恒地保留在无限的时空当中，米开朗基罗传世巨作让我有幸目睹西斯廷教堂今天这般盛况。如同其它教堂一样，西斯廷教堂所有壁画场景全部取材于《圣经》故事，艺术家凭借丰富的想象力尽情描绘天堂和地狱。天堂常被画得明亮透彻，蓝天白云外加少许青色，下面穿插红黑两色，深红色代表最高统治地位。与表现恶魔、熔岩、刀杈不同，米开朗基罗手下画有许多被各种动物攻击的人物，譬如受巨蛇折磨窒息的男人，蛇嘴正死死咬住男性躯体最脆弱的部位。饶有趣的是艺术家通过颜色变化来再现富有灵性的生命，无疑明快的色调总比阴暗的色调好得多，而浅蓝色肯定赛过暗红色，这种对比与置身于黑乎乎的鬼屋还是亮堂堂的海滩所表达的道理相同。当然不排除意外发生，人去了海边偶碰海啸，结果大难临头。正因有这样那样的思想指导，人们的行为才存在好坏之分，只要代表正义的势力被削弱，邪恶的东西定会应运而生。世间事物都有正反两个方面，强光虽好，但也会影响眼睛，有时甚至比黑暗更加糟糕，因为它对视力造成的伤害可能是永久性的。

        罗马教廷并非仅此而已。梵蒂冈博物馆向游人开放廿四个宏博艺术展厅，各个展厅都别具一格，在我看来，挂毯最有特色。不像脚踩的地毯，挂毯是高悬于墙壁的艺术品，与单纯的绘画相比，制作挂毯的难度更大。画一幅油画，你可以直接在画布上涂抹；而画一幅挂毯，你必须准确把握每一针每一线，其精细程度至关重要，设计草图也不容易，每一个平方英寸要用手横七竖八编织出上百个花结，由此说来，这里展出的每一件艺术作品非得花上几年时间才可完成。

        梵蒂冈固然成为世界上最小的国家，不过麻雀虽小五脏俱全，凡事不能以大小评判优劣，正如俗话所讲的那样：“两狗相争，比得不是个头大小，而是斗志高低”， 也就是说外因是条件（狗的大小），内因是根据（狗的斗志）。