  February 2002 2002 年 2 月
I was talking recently to a friend who teaches at MIT. His field is hot now and every year he is inundated by applications from would-be graduate students. "A lot of them seem smart," he said. "What I can't tell is whether they have any kind of taste." 最近我和一位在麻省理工學院任教的朋友聊天。他的領域現在很熱門，每年都會收到大量研究生申請者的資料。「很多人看起來都很聰明，」他說。「但我無法判斷他們是否具備某種品味。」 Taste. You don't hear that word much now. And yet we still need the underlying concept, whatever we call it. What my friend meant was that he wanted students who were not just good technicians, but who could use their technical knowledge to design beautiful things. 品味。這個詞如今已不常聽見。然而無論我們如何稱呼它，我們仍需要這個基本概念。我朋友的意思是，他想要的學生不僅僅是技術精湛，更要能運用他們的技術知識設計出美好的事物。 Mathematicians call good work "beautiful," and so, either now or in the past, have scientists, engineers, musicians, architects, designers, writers, and painters. Is it just a coincidence that they used the same word, or is there some overlap in what they meant? If there is an overlap, can we use one field's discoveries about beauty to help us in another? 數學家將優秀的作品稱為「美麗」，科學家、工程師、音樂家、建築師、設計師、作家和畫家，無論現在或過去也都如此形容。他們使用相同的詞彙只是巧合，還是他們所指的意義有所重疊？如果存在重疊，我們能否運用某個領域對美的發現來幫助另一個領域？ For those of us who design things, these are not just theoretical questions. If there is such a thing as beauty, we need to be able to recognize it. We need good taste to make good things. Instead of treating beauty as an airy abstraction, to be either blathered about or avoided depending on how one feels about airy abstractions, let's try considering it as a practical question: how do you make good stuff? 對於我們這些設計事物的人來說，這些不僅僅是理論問題。如果美確實存在，我們必須能夠辨識它。我們需要良好的品味來創造美好的事物。與其將美視為虛無縹緲的抽象概念，根據個人對抽象概念的態度而高談闊論或避而不談，不如試著將其視為一個實際問題：你如何創造出好東西？ If you mention taste nowadays, a lot of people will tell you that "taste is subjective." They believe this because it really feels that way to them. When they like something, they have no idea why. It could be because it's beautiful, or because their mother had one, or because they saw a movie star with one in a magazine, or because they know it's expensive. Their thoughts are a tangle of unexamined impulses. 現今若談到品味，許多人會告訴你「品味是很主觀的」。他們之所以這麼認為，是因為內心確實如此感受。當他們喜歡某樣東西時，往往說不出原因——可能是因為它很美，或是因為母親曾擁有過，又或是因為在雜誌上看見某位電影明星用過，甚至單純知道它很昂貴。這些未經審視的衝動念頭在他們腦中糾結成一團。 Most of us are encouraged, as children, to leave this tangle unexamined. If you make fun of your little brother for coloring people green in his coloring book, your mother is likely to tell you something like "you like to do it your way and he likes to do it his way." 多數人在童年時期就被鼓勵不要深究這種糾結。如果你嘲笑弟弟在著色本裡把人物塗成綠色，母親很可能會對你說：「你喜歡按自己的方式做，他也喜歡按他的方式做。」 Your mother at this point is not trying to teach you important truths about aesthetics. She's trying to get the two of you to stop bickering. 此時你母親並非在傳授什麼重要的美學真理，她只是想讓你們倆停止爭吵。 Like many of the half-truths adults tell us, this one contradicts other things they tell us. After dinning into you that taste is merely a matter of personal preference, they take you to the museum and tell you that you should pay attention because Leonardo is a great artist. 就像大人告訴我們的許多半真半假的話一樣，這種說法與他們其他教導相互矛盾。他們一邊反覆灌輸你「品味只是個人偏好」，一邊卻帶你去博物館，告訴你應該認真欣賞，因為達文西是偉大的藝術家。 What goes through the kid's head at this point? What does he think "great artist" means? After having been told for years that everyone just likes to do things their own way, he is unlikely to head straight for the conclusion that a great artist is someone whose work is better than the others'. A far more likely theory, in his Ptolemaic model of the universe, is that a great artist is something that's good for you, like broccoli, because someone said so in a book. 此刻這孩子腦中在想些什麼？他認為「偉大藝術家」是什麼意思？在多年來被告知每個人都只是喜歡用自己的方式做事後，他不太可能直接得出「偉大藝術家就是作品比其他人更好」的結論。在他那托勒密式的宇宙觀中，更有可能的理論是：偉大藝術家就像花椰菜一樣，是對你有益的東西，因為書上有人這麼說過。 Saying that taste is just personal preference is a good way to prevent disputes. The trouble is, it's not true. You feel this when you start to design things. 聲稱品味只是個人偏好，是避免爭論的好方法。問題在於，這並非事實。當你開始設計東西時，就會感受到這一點。 Whatever job people do, they naturally want to do better. Football players like to win games. CEOs like to increase earnings. It's a matter of pride, and a real pleasure, to get better at your job. But if your job is to design things, and there is no such thing as beauty, then there is no way to get better at your job. If taste is just personal preference, then everyone's is already perfect: you like whatever you like, and that's it. 無論人們從事什麼工作，自然都會想要做得更好。足球運動員喜歡贏得比賽，執行長喜歡增加收益。在工作中進步是關乎自尊的事，也是真正的樂趣。但如果你的工作是設計東西，而美這件事並不存在，那就無法在工作中進步。如果品味只是個人偏好，那麼每個人的品味都已經完美無缺：你喜歡什麼就是什麼，僅此而已。 As in any job, as you continue to design things, you'll get better at it. Your tastes will change. And, like anyone who gets better at their job, you'll know you're getting better. If so, your old tastes were not merely different, but worse. Poof goes the axiom that taste can't be wrong. 如同任何工作一樣，隨著你不斷設計事物，你會變得更加擅長。你的品味也會隨之改變。而且，就像任何在工作中進步的人一樣，你會知道自己正在進步。如果是這樣，你過去的品味不僅僅是不同，而是更差。品味不可能出錯的公理就此煙消雲散。 Relativism is fashionable at the moment, and that may hamper you from thinking about taste, even as yours grows. But if you come out of the closet and admit, at least to yourself, that there is such a thing as good and bad design, then you can start to study good design in detail. How has your taste changed? When you made mistakes, what caused you to make them? What have other people learned about design? 相對主義在當下很流行，這可能會阻礙你思考品味，即使你的品味正在成長。但如果你走出櫃子，至少對自己承認有好設計和壞設計之分，那麼你就可以開始詳細研究好的設計。你的品味是如何改變的？當你犯錯時，是什麼導致你犯錯？其他人對設計有什麼見解？ Once you start to examine the question, it's surprising how much different fields' ideas of beauty have in common. The same principles of good design crop up again and again. 一旦你開始審視這個問題，會驚訝地發現不同領域對美的概念有多少共通之處。好的設計原則一次又一次地反覆出現。 Good design is simple. You hear this from math to painting. In math it means that a shorter proof tends to be a better one. Where axioms are concerned, especially, less is more. It means much the same thing in programming. For architects and designers it means that beauty should depend on a few carefully chosen structural elements rather than a profusion of superficial ornament. (Ornament is not in itself bad, only when it's camouflage on insipid form.) Similarly, in painting, a still life of a few carefully observed and solidly modelled objects will tend to be more interesting than a stretch of flashy but mindlessly repetitive painting of, say, a lace collar. In writing it means: say what you mean and say it briefly. 好的設計是簡潔的。從數學到繪畫，你都會聽到這句話。在數學中，這意味著較短的證明往往是更好的證明。尤其是在公理方面，少即是多。在程式設計中，這意味著幾乎相同的事情。對建築師和設計師來說，這意味著美應該依賴於少數精心選擇的結構元素，而不是大量表面的裝飾。（裝飾本身並不壞，只有在掩蓋平淡無奇的形式時才是壞的。）同樣地，在繪畫中，一幅由幾個仔細觀察且紮實塑造的物體組成的靜物畫，往往比一片華麗但毫無思想重複的畫作（比如蕾絲領子）更有趣。在寫作中，這意味著：言簡意賅。 It seems strange to have to emphasize simplicity. You'd think simple would be the default. Ornate is more work. But something seems to come over people when they try to be creative. Beginning writers adopt a pompous tone that doesn't sound anything like the way they speak. Designers trying to be artistic resort to swooshes and curlicues. Painters discover that they're expressionists. It's all evasion. Underneath the long words or the "expressive" brush strokes, there is not much going on, and that's frightening. 必須強調簡潔似乎很奇怪。你會以為簡潔應該是預設狀態。華麗反而需要更多功夫。但人們試圖發揮創意時，似乎總會發生某種變化。初學寫作者會採用與日常說話截然不同的浮誇語氣；設計師為了展現藝術感而濫用流線與卷曲裝飾；畫家突然發現自己成了表現主義者。這都是逃避。在那些冗長詞藻或「富有表現力」的筆觸之下，其實空無一物——而這正是令人恐懼之處。 When you're forced to be simple, you're forced to face the real problem. When you can't deliver ornament, you have to deliver substance. 當你被迫簡化時，就不得不直面真正的問題。當你無法用裝飾取巧時，就必須拿出真材實料。 Good design is timeless. In math, every proof is timeless unless it contains a mistake. So what does Hardy mean when he says there is no permanent place for ugly mathematics? He means the same thing Kelly Johnson did: if something is ugly, it can't be the best solution. There must be a better one, and eventually someone will discover it. 好的設計歷久彌新。在數學領域，除非存在錯誤，否則每個證明都是永恆的。那麼哈代說「醜陋的數學沒有永久地位」是什麼意思？他的意思與凱利·強生相同：如果某樣東西很醜，就不可能是最佳解。必定存在更好的方案，終將有人發現它。 Aiming at timelessness is a way to make yourself find the best answer: if you can imagine someone surpassing you, you should do it yourself. Some of the greatest masters did this so well that they left little room for those who came after. Every engraver since Durer has had to live in his shadow. 追求永恆是一種讓自己找到最佳解答的方式：如果你能想像有人會超越你，那你就該自己先做到。有些大師在這方面做得如此出色，以至於幾乎沒給後人留下發揮空間。自杜勒之後，每位版畫家都活在他的陰影之下。 Aiming at timelessness is also a way to evade the grip of fashion. Fashions almost by definition change with time, so if you can make something that will still look good far into the future, then its appeal must derive more from merit and less from fashion. 追求永恆也是擺脫時尚束縛的一種方法。時尚幾乎注定會隨時間改變，所以如果你能創造出在遙遠未來依然美好的作品，那麼它的魅力必定更多來自實質價值，而非時尚潮流。 Strangely enough, if you want to make something that will appeal to future generations, one way to do it is to try to appeal to past generations. It's hard to guess what the future will be like, but we can be sure it will be like the past in caring nothing for present fashions. So if you can make something that appeals to people today and would also have appealed to people in 1500, there is a good chance it will appeal to people in 2500. 奇妙的是，若你想創造能吸引未來世代的東西，有個方法就是試著打動過去世代的人。我們很難猜測未來會是什麼模樣，但可以確定它會像過去一樣，對當下潮流毫不在意。因此，如果你能創作出既吸引當代人、又會讓 1500 年的人欣賞的作品，那麼它很可能也會打動 2500 年的人。 Good design solves the right problem. The typical stove has four burners arranged in a square, and a dial to control each. How do you arrange the dials? The simplest answer is to put them in a row. But this is a simple answer to the wrong question. The dials are for humans to use, and if you put them in a row, the unlucky human will have to stop and think each time about which dial matches which burner. Better to arrange the dials in a square like the burners. 好的設計能解決正確的問題。典型的爐具配有四個呈方形排列的爐頭，每個爐頭都有一個旋鈕來控制。你會如何排列這些旋鈕？最簡單的答案是將它們排成一列。但這是對錯誤問題的簡單解答。旋鈕是給人使用的，如果把它們排成一列，使用者每次都得停下來思考哪個旋鈕對應哪個爐頭。更好的做法是像爐頭那樣將旋鈕排列成方形。 A lot of bad design is industrious, but misguided. In the mid twentieth century there was a vogue for setting text in sans-serif fonts. These fonts are closer to the pure, underlying letterforms. But in text that's not the problem you're trying to solve. For legibility it's more important that letters be easy to tell apart. It may look Victorian, but a Times Roman lowercase g is easy to tell from a lowercase y. 許多糟糕的設計雖然用心良苦，卻誤入歧途。二十世紀中期曾流行使用無襯線字體排版。這些字體更接近純粹的基礎字母形態。但對於文本排版而言，這並非你試圖解決的問題。就易讀性來說，更重要的是讓字母容易辨識。或許看起來有些維多利亞風格，但 Times Roman 字體的小寫 g 和小寫 y 就是容易區分的範例。 Problems can be improved as well as solutions. In software, an intractable problem can usually be replaced by an equivalent one that's easy to solve. Physics progressed faster as the problem became predicting observable behavior, instead of reconciling it with scripture. 問題本身也能像解決方案一樣被優化。在軟體領域，一個棘手的問題通常可以用另一個容易解決的等效問題來替代。當物理學將問題轉變為預測可觀察現象，而非與經文調和時，其發展速度就大幅提升了。 Good design is suggestive. Jane Austen's novels contain almost no description; instead of telling you how everything looks, she tells her story so well that you envision the scene for yourself. Likewise, a painting that suggests is usually more engaging than one that tells. Everyone makes up their own story about the Mona Lisa. 好的設計具有暗示性。珍·奧斯汀的小說幾乎沒有描述性文字；她不是直接告訴你每樣東西看起來如何，而是把故事說得如此精彩，讓你自己在腦海中描繪場景。同樣地，一幅具有暗示性的畫作通常比直白的畫作更引人入勝。每個人都能為《蒙娜麗莎》編造出自己的故事。 In architecture and design, this principle means that a building or object should let you use it how you want: a good building, for example, will serve as a backdrop for whatever life people want to lead in it, instead of making them live as if they were executing a program written by the architect. 在建築與設計領域，這個原則意味著建築物或物品應該讓人們按自己想要的方式使用：例如，一棟好的建築會成為人們想要生活的背景，而不是讓他們像在執行建築師寫好的程式般生活。 In software, it means you should give users a few basic elements that they can combine as they wish, like Lego. In math it means a proof that becomes the basis for a lot of new work is preferable to a proof that was difficult, but doesn't lead to future discoveries; in the sciences generally, citation is considered a rough indicator of merit. 在軟體領域，這意味著你應該提供使用者一些基本元素，讓他們能像樂高積木般自由組合。在數學領域，這意味著能成為大量新研究基礎的證明，比那些艱難卻無法帶來後續發現的證明更有價值；在科學領域中，引用次數通常被視為價值的粗略指標。 Good design is often slightly funny. This one may not always be true. But Durer's engravings and Saarinen's womb chair and the Pantheon and the original Porsche 911 all seem to me slightly funny. Godel's incompleteness theorem seems like a practical joke. 好的設計往往帶點幽默感。這點或許不總是成立，但杜勒的版畫、沙里寧的子宮椅、萬神殿，以及初代保時捷 911 在我看來都帶著些許詼諧。哥德爾的不完備定理簡直像個惡作劇。 I think it's because humor is related to strength. To have a sense of humor is to be strong: to keep one's sense of humor is to shrug off misfortunes, and to lose one's sense of humor is to be wounded by them. And so the mark-- or at least the prerogative-- of strength is not to take oneself too seriously. The confident will often, like swallows, seem to be making fun of the whole process slightly, as Hitchcock does in his films or Bruegel in his paintings-- or Shakespeare, for that matter. 我認為這是因為幽默與力量相關。擁有幽默感代表著強大：保持幽默感意味著能對不幸一笑置之，而失去幽默感則會被不幸所傷。因此，強者的特徵——或至少是特權——在於不過分嚴肅看待自己。自信的人常像燕子般，彷彿在輕微嘲弄整個過程，就像希區考克在電影中、布勒哲爾在畫作中，或是莎士比亞在劇作中展現的那樣。 Good design may not have to be funny, but it's hard to imagine something that could be called humorless also being good design. 好的設計或許不必幽默，但很難想像被稱為缺乏幽默感的東西會是好的設計。 Good design is hard. If you look at the people who've done great work, one thing they all seem to have in common is that they worked very hard. If you're not working hard, you're probably wasting your time. 好的設計很難。觀察那些做出偉大作品的人，他們似乎都有一個共同點：非常努力。如果你不夠努力，很可能只是在浪費時間。 Hard problems call for great efforts. In math, difficult proofs require ingenious solutions, and those tend to be interesting. Ditto in engineering. 艱鉅的挑戰需要全力以赴。在數學領域，困難的證明需要巧妙的解法，而這些解法往往引人入勝。工程領域亦是如此。 When you have to climb a mountain you toss everything unnecessary out of your pack. And so an architect who has to build on a difficult site, or a small budget, will find that he is forced to produce an elegant design. Fashions and flourishes get knocked aside by the difficult business of solving the problem at all. 當你必須攀登高山時，你會把背包裡所有不必要的東西都丟掉。同樣地，建築師若要在艱困的地形或有限的預算下進行設計，就會發現自己被迫創造出優雅的方案。時尚的裝飾與華麗的點綴，都會在解決實際問題的艱難過程中被迫捨棄。 Not every kind of hard is good. There is good pain and bad pain. You want the kind of pain you get from going running, not the kind you get from stepping on a nail. A difficult problem could be good for a designer, but a fickle client or unreliable materials would not be. 並非所有困難都是有益的。痛苦有良性和惡性之分——你想要的是跑步帶來的那種酸痛，而不是踩到釘子的那種劇痛。對設計師而言，難題可能具有正面意義，但反覆無常的客戶或不可靠的材料則絕非好事。 In art, the highest place has traditionally been given to paintings of people. There is something to this tradition, and not just because pictures of faces get to press buttons in our brains that other pictures don't. We are so good at looking at faces that we force anyone who draws them to work hard to satisfy us. If you draw a tree and you change the angle of a branch five degrees, no one will know. When you change the angle of someone's eye five degrees, people notice. 在藝術領域，人物畫作向來被賦予最高的地位。這種傳統確有其道理，不僅僅是因為人臉圖像能觸動我們大腦中其他圖像無法觸及的按鈕。我們對臉孔的辨識能力如此敏銳，以至於任何描繪人臉的畫家都必須費盡心思才能滿足我們的期待。如果你畫一棵樹，將樹枝角度調整五度，沒有人會察覺；但當你將某人的眼睛角度改變五度，人們立刻就會注意到。 When Bauhaus designers adopted Sullivan's "form follows function," what they meant was, form should follow function. And if function is hard enough, form is forced to follow it, because there is no effort to spare for error. Wild animals are beautiful because they have hard lives. 當包浩斯設計師採用蘇利文「形式追隨功能」的理念時，他們真正的意思是：形式應該服從功能。而當功能要求極其嚴苛時，形式就不得不隨之調整，因為根本沒有多餘的空間容許誤差。野生動物的美，正是源於牠們艱困的生存處境。 Good design looks easy. Like great athletes, great designers make it look easy. Mostly this is an illusion. The easy, conversational tone of good writing comes only on the eighth rewrite. 好的設計看起來毫不費力。就像頂尖運動員一樣，偉大的設計師讓一切顯得輕而易舉。這多半是種假象。那些看似自然流暢的優美文字，往往要經過八次修改才能達成。 In science and engineering, some of the greatest discoveries seem so simple that you say to yourself, I could have thought of that. The discoverer is entitled to reply, why didn't you? 在科學與工程領域，某些最偉大的發現看似簡單到讓人不禁自問：我怎麼就沒想到呢？這時發現者完全有資格反問：那你為什麼沒想到？ Some Leonardo heads are just a few lines. You look at them and you think, all you have to do is get eight or ten lines in the right place and you've made this beautiful portrait. Well, yes, but you have to get them in exactly the right place. The slightest error will make the whole thing collapse. 達文西的某些頭像畫作僅由寥寥數筆構成。當你凝視這些作品時會想，只要把八到十條線條擺對位置，就能創造出如此美麗的肖像。確實如此，但關鍵在於每筆都必須精準到位。哪怕最細微的誤差，都會導致整幅作品崩潰。 Line drawings are in fact the most difficult visual medium, because they demand near perfection. In math terms, they are a closed-form solution; lesser artists literally solve the same problems by successive approximation. One of the reasons kids give up drawing at ten or so is that they decide to start drawing like grownups, and one of the first things they try is a line drawing of a face. Smack! 線條素描實際上是最高難度的視覺藝術形式，因為它要求近乎完美的精準度。用數學術語來說，這屬於閉式解法；技藝較差的畫家則是以逐步逼近的方式解決相同問題。孩童約莫十歲左右放棄繪畫的原因之一，就是他們開始試圖像成人般作畫，而最先嘗試的往往是人物臉部的線條描繪——結果當然慘不忍睹。 In most fields the appearance of ease seems to come with practice. Perhaps what practice does is train your unconscious mind to handle tasks that used to require conscious thought. In some cases you literally train your body. An expert pianist can play notes faster than the brain can send signals to his hand. Likewise an artist, after a while, can make visual perception flow in through his eye and out through his hand as automatically as someone tapping his foot to a beat. 在多數領域中，舉重若輕的表現往往來自長期練習。或許練習的真正作用，在於訓練潛意識接管那些原本需要刻意為之的動作。某些情況下你甚至是在訓練自己的身體——專業鋼琴家彈奏音符的速度，能超越大腦傳遞訊號至手指的極限。同樣地，經過長期磨練的藝術家，能讓視覺感知從眼睛流入、再從手中流瀉而出，其自然程度就像人們隨節拍輕點腳尖般渾然天成。 When people talk about being in "the zone," I think what they mean is that the spinal cord has the situation under control. Your spinal cord is less hesitant, and it frees conscious thought for the hard problems. 當人們談論處於「心流狀態」時，我認為他們的意思是脊髓已掌控全局。你的脊髓不再猶豫不決，從而讓意識思考能專注於解決難題。 Good design uses symmetry. I think symmetry may just be one way to achieve simplicity, but it's important enough to be mentioned on its own. Nature uses it a lot, which is a good sign. 好的設計運用對稱性。我認為對稱或許只是達成簡約的一種方式，但它重要到值得單獨提出來討論。自然界大量運用對稱，這是個好徵兆。 There are two kinds of symmetry, repetition and recursion. Recursion means repetition in subelements, like the pattern of veins in a leaf. 對稱有兩種形式：重複與遞歸。遞歸是指在子元素中重複，就像葉脈的紋理模式。 Symmetry is unfashionable in some fields now, in reaction to excesses in the past. Architects started consciously making buildings asymmetric in Victorian times and by the 1920s asymmetry was an explicit premise of modernist architecture. Even these buildings only tended to be asymmetric about major axes, though; there were hundreds of minor symmetries. 在某些領域，對稱如今已不再流行，這是對過去過度使用的反動。維多利亞時代的建築師開始有意識地打造不對稱建築，到了 1920 年代，不對稱更成為現代主義建築的明確前提。不過即便是這些建築，通常也只在主要軸線上呈現不對稱；細微之處仍存在數以百計的對稱元素。 In writing you find symmetry at every level, from the phrases in a sentence to the plot of a novel. You find the same in music and art. Mosaics (and some Cezannes) get extra visual punch by making the whole picture out of the same atoms. Compositional symmetry yields some of the most memorable paintings, especially when two halves react to one another, as in the Creation of Adam or American Gothic. 在寫作中，你可以在每個層次發現對稱性，從句子中的短語到小說的劇情。音樂和藝術中也是如此。馬賽克（以及某些塞尚的作品）透過用相同的元素構築整幅畫面，獲得了額外的視覺衝擊力。構圖的對稱性創造出一些最令人難忘的畫作，特別是當兩半相互呼應時，就像《創造亞當》或《美國哥德式》那樣。 In math and engineering, recursion, especially, is a big win. Inductive proofs are wonderfully short. In software, a problem that can be solved by recursion is nearly always best solved that way. The Eiffel Tower looks striking partly because it is a recursive solution, a tower on a tower. 在數學和工程領域，遞迴尤其是一大優勢。歸納證明法出奇地簡潔。在軟體開發中，能用遞迴解決的問題幾乎總是用這種方式處理最好。艾菲爾鐵塔之所以引人注目，部分原因在於它是個遞迴結構——塔上疊塔。 The danger of symmetry, and repetition especially, is that it can be used as a substitute for thought. 對稱性（尤其是重複性）的危險在於，它可能被用來替代思考。 Good design resembles nature. It's not so much that resembling nature is intrinsically good as that nature has had a long time to work on the problem. It's a good sign when your answer resembles nature's. 好的設計近似於自然。這並非因為近似自然本質上是好的，而是因為自然已花費漫長時間來解決問題。當你的答案與自然相似時，這就是個好徵兆。 It's not cheating to copy. Few would deny that a story should be like life. Working from life is a valuable tool in painting too, though its role has often been misunderstood. The aim is not simply to make a record. The point of painting from life is that it gives your mind something to chew on: when your eyes are looking at something, your hand will do more interesting work. 抄襲並非作弊。很少有人會否認故事應該像生活一樣。寫生也是繪畫中一個有價值的工具，儘管它的作用經常被誤解。目的不僅僅是記錄。寫生的意義在於它給你的大腦一些東西去咀嚼：當你的眼睛看著某樣東西時，你的手會做出更有趣的作品。 Imitating nature also works in engineering. Boats have long had spines and ribs like an animal's ribcage. In some cases we may have to wait for better technology: early aircraft designers were mistaken to design aircraft that looked like birds, because they didn't have materials or power sources light enough (the Wrights' engine weighed 152 lbs. and generated only 12 hp.) or control systems sophisticated enough for machines that flew like birds, but I could imagine little unmanned reconnaissance planes flying like birds in fifty years. 模仿自然在工程學上也行得通。船隻長期以來都有像動物肋骨一樣的龍骨和肋材。在某些情況下，我們可能得等待更好的技術：早期的飛機設計師錯誤地設計出看起來像鳥類的飛機，因為他們沒有足夠輕的材料或動力源（萊特兄弟的引擎重 152 磅，僅產生 12 馬力），也沒有足夠精密的控制系統來實現像鳥類一樣飛行的機器，但我可以想像五十年後會有像鳥類一樣飛行的小型無人偵察機。 Now that we have enough computer power, we can imitate nature's method as well as its results. Genetic algorithms may let us create things too complex to design in the ordinary sense. 既然我們擁有足夠的計算能力，我們就可以模仿自然的方法及其結果。遺傳演算法或許能讓我們創造出過於複雜而無法用常規方式設計的東西。 Good design is redesign. It's rare to get things right the first time. Experts expect to throw away some early work. They plan for plans to change. 好的設計來自重新設計。第一次就能做對的情況相當罕見。專家們都預期會捨棄一些早期作品，他們早已規劃好變更的藍圖。 It takes confidence to throw work away. You have to be able to think, there's more where that came from. When people first start drawing, for example, they're often reluctant to redo parts that aren't right; they feel they've been lucky to get that far, and if they try to redo something, it will turn out worse. Instead they convince themselves that the drawing is not that bad, really-- in fact, maybe they meant it to look that way. 捨棄作品需要勇氣。你必須能夠這麼想：靈感源源不絕。舉例來說，當人們初次學習繪畫時，往往不願意重畫不滿意的部分；他們覺得能畫到這樣已經很幸運，若嘗試重畫可能會更糟。於是他們說服自己這幅畫其實沒那麼差——甚至可能本來就想畫成這樣。 Dangerous territory, that; if anything you should cultivate dissatisfaction. In Leonardo's drawings there are often five or six attempts to get a line right. The distinctive back of the Porsche 911 only appeared in the redesign of an awkward prototype. In Wright's early plans for the Guggenheim, the right half was a ziggurat; he inverted it to get the present shape. 這種想法相當危險；你反而應該培養不滿足的心態。達文西的素描中，經常可見五六次嘗試才能畫出滿意的線條。保時捷 911 獨特的車尾線條，是在重新設計笨拙原型車時才出現的。萊特最初規劃的古根漢美術館，右半部原是階梯狀神塔；他將其反轉才形成現今的樣貌。 Mistakes are natural. Instead of treating them as disasters, make them easy to acknowledge and easy to fix. Leonardo more or less invented the sketch, as a way to make drawing bear a greater weight of exploration. Open-source software has fewer bugs because it admits the possibility of bugs. 犯錯是人之常情。與其將其視為災難，不如讓錯誤易於承認且易於修正。達文西或多或少發明了素描，作為一種讓繪畫承載更多探索可能的方式。開源軟體的錯誤較少，正是因為它承認錯誤存在的可能性。 It helps to have a medium that makes change easy. When oil paint replaced tempera in the fifteenth century, it helped painters to deal with difficult subjects like the human figure because, unlike tempera, oil can be blended and overpainted. 擁有易於修改的媒介大有助益。當油畫在十五世紀取代蛋彩畫時，它幫助畫家處理如人體這類困難主題，因為與蛋彩畫不同，油畫可以混合和覆蓋重繪。 Good design can copy. Attitudes to copying often make a round trip. A novice imitates without knowing it; next he tries consciously to be original; finally, he decides it's more important to be right than original. 好的設計可以複製。對抄襲的態度往往會經歷一個循環：新手不自覺地模仿；接著他刻意追求原創；最終他領悟到正確比原創更重要。 Unknowing imitation is almost a recipe for bad design. If you don't know where your ideas are coming from, you're probably imitating an imitator. Raphael so pervaded mid-nineteenth century taste that almost anyone who tried to draw was imitating him, often at several removes. It was this, more than Raphael's own work, that bothered the Pre-Raphaelites. 無意識的模仿幾乎是糟糕設計的配方。如果你不知道自己的靈感從何而來，你很可能正在模仿一個模仿者。拉斐爾的風格在十九世紀中期如此盛行，幾乎每個嘗試繪畫的人都在模仿他，且經常是間接模仿。正是這種現象（而非拉斐爾本人的作品）讓前拉斐爾派的藝術家們感到困擾。 The ambitious are not content to imitate. The second phase in the growth of taste is a conscious attempt at originality. 有抱負者不滿足於模仿。品味成長的第二階段，是自覺地追求原創。 I think the greatest masters go on to achieve a kind of selflessness. They just want to get the right answer, and if part of the right answer has already been discovered by someone else, that's no reason not to use it. They're confident enough to take from anyone without feeling that their own vision will be lost in the process. 我認為最偉大的大師最終會達到一種無我的境界。他們只想要找到正確答案，如果正確答案的某部分已被他人發現，沒有理由不去運用它。他們足夠自信，能從任何人身上汲取靈感，而不擔心在這個過程中失去自己的視野。 Good design is often strange. Some of the very best work has an uncanny quality: Euler's Formula, Bruegel's Hunters in the Snow, the SR-71, Lisp. They're not just beautiful, but strangely beautiful. 好的設計往往帶有奇異特質。某些最傑出的作品具有一種不可思議的特質：歐拉公式、布勒哲爾的《雪中獵人》、SR-71 黑鳥偵察機、Lisp 程式語言。它們不僅美麗，更帶著奇異的美感。 I'm not sure why. It may just be my own stupidity. A can-opener must seem miraculous to a dog. Maybe if I were smart enough it would seem the most natural thing in the world that ei*pi = -1. It is after all necessarily true. 我不確定原因為何。或許純粹是我自己愚昧。開罐器對狗來說想必像神蹟般不可思議。也許如果我夠聰明，就會覺得 e 的 iπ次方等於負 1 是世上最自然不過的事。畢竟這必然為真。 Most of the qualities I've mentioned are things that can be cultivated, but I don't think it works to cultivate strangeness. The best you can do is not squash it if it starts to appear. Einstein didn't try to make relativity strange. He tried to make it true, and the truth turned out to be strange. 我所提及的大多數特質都是可以培養的，但我認為「怪異感」是無法刻意培養的。你最多只能做到在它初現時不去壓抑。愛因斯坦並非刻意讓相對論顯得怪異，他只是追求真理，而真理最終呈現出怪異的面貌。 At an art school where I once studied, the students wanted most of all to develop a personal style. But if you just try to make good things, you'll inevitably do it in a distinctive way, just as each person walks in a distinctive way. Michelangelo was not trying to paint like Michelangelo. He was just trying to paint well; he couldn't help painting like Michelangelo. 我曾就讀的一所藝術學校裡，學生們最渴望發展出個人風格。但如果你專注於創造好作品，自然會形成獨特風格，就像每個人都有獨特的走路姿態。米開朗基羅並非刻意要畫得像「米開朗基羅風格」，他只是力求畫得完美——而這注定會呈現出米開朗基羅式的筆觸。 The only style worth having is the one you can't help. And this is especially true for strangeness. There is no shortcut to it. The Northwest Passage that the Mannerists, the Romantics, and two generations of American high school students have searched for does not seem to exist. The only way to get there is to go through good and come out the other side. 真正有價值的風格是你無法壓抑的本質表現，這點在「怪異感」上尤其明顯。它沒有捷徑可走。矯飾主義者、浪漫派詩人，乃至兩代美國高中生苦苦追尋的「西北航道」似乎並不存在。唯一途徑是穿越「優秀」之境，方能抵達彼岸。 Good design happens in chunks. The inhabitants of fifteenth century Florence included Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, Masaccio, Filippo Lippi, Fra Angelico, Verrocchio, Botticelli, Leonardo, and Michelangelo. Milan at the time was as big as Florence. How many fifteenth century Milanese artists can you name? 好的設計往往成群結隊地出現。十五世紀佛羅倫薩的居民中，有布魯內萊斯基、吉貝爾蒂、多納泰羅、馬薩喬、菲利波·利皮、安傑利科修士、韋羅基奧、波提切利、達文西和米開朗基羅。當時的米蘭規模與佛羅倫薩相當。你能說出幾位十五世紀米蘭藝術家的名字？ Something was happening in Florence in the fifteenth century. And it can't have been heredity, because it isn't happening now. You have to assume that whatever inborn ability Leonardo and Michelangelo had, there were people born in Milan with just as much. What happened to the Milanese Leonardo? 十五世紀的佛羅倫薩確實發生了什麼。這不可能是遺傳因素，因為現在並沒有同樣的情況發生。你必須假設，無論達文西和米開朗基羅擁有什麼天賦，米蘭也同樣有天生具備同等才能的人。那位米蘭的達文西後來怎麼了？ There are roughly a thousand times as many people alive in the US right now as lived in Florence during the fifteenth century. A thousand Leonardos and a thousand Michelangelos walk among us. If DNA ruled, we should be greeted daily by artistic marvels. We aren't, and the reason is that to make Leonardo you need more than his innate ability. You also need Florence in 1450. 當今美國的人口大約是十五世紀佛羅倫薩的一千倍。我們身邊應該有一千個達文西和一千個米開朗基羅在走動。如果 DNA 決定一切，我們每天都會被藝術奇蹟所震撼。但事實並非如此，原因在於要造就達文西，僅有他的天賦是不夠的。你還需要 1450 年的佛羅倫薩。 Nothing is more powerful than a community of talented people working on related problems. Genes count for little by comparison: being a genetic Leonardo was not enough to compensate for having been born near Milan instead of Florence. Today we move around more, but great work still comes disproportionately from a few hotspots: the Bauhaus, the Manhattan Project, the New Yorker, Lockheed's Skunk Works, Xerox Parc. 沒有什麼比一群才華橫溢的人共同解決相關問題更有力量了。相比之下，基因的影響微乎其微：即使擁有達文西的基因天賦，也無法彌補出生在米蘭而非佛羅倫斯的劣勢。如今人們遷徙更頻繁，但偉大作品仍不成比例地集中在少數熱點地區：包浩斯學院、曼哈頓計劃、《紐約客》雜誌、洛克希德臭鼬工廠、全錄帕羅奧多研究中心。 At any given time there are a few hot topics and a few groups doing great work on them, and it's nearly impossible to do good work yourself if you're too far removed from one of these centers. You can push or pull these trends to some extent, but you can't break away from them. (Maybe you can, but the Milanese Leonardo couldn't.) 在任何時代，總有幾個熱門領域和少數團隊在這些領域做出卓越貢獻。若你離這些核心圈太遠，幾乎不可能獨自做出優秀成果。你可以在某種程度上推動或牽引這些趨勢，但無法完全脫離它們。（或許有人能做到，但米蘭的達文西顯然未能如願。） Good design is often daring. At every period of history, people have believed things that were just ridiculous, and believed them so strongly that you risked ostracism or even violence by saying otherwise. 好的設計往往大膽無畏。每個歷史時期，人們總會深信某些荒謬至極的觀念，其信念之強烈，足以讓持異議者面臨排擠甚至暴力威脅。 If our own time were any different, that would be remarkable. As far as I can tell it isn't. 如果我們這個時代能有所不同，那才真是奇蹟。但就我所見，事實並非如此。 This problem afflicts not just every era, but in some degree every field. Much Renaissance art was in its time considered shockingly secular: according to Vasari, Botticelli repented and gave up painting, and Fra Bartolommeo and Lorenzo di Credi actually burned some of their work. Einstein's theory of relativity offended many contemporary physicists, and was not fully accepted for decades-- in France, not until the 1950s. 這個問題不僅困擾著每個時代，在某種程度上也影響著每個領域。許多文藝復興時期的藝術作品在當時被認為是驚世駭俗的世俗之作：根據瓦薩里的記載，波提切利曾悔悟並放棄繪畫，而弗拉·巴托洛梅奧和洛倫佐·迪·克雷迪甚至焚毀了自己的部分作品。愛因斯坦的相對論冒犯了當時許多物理學家，數十年間都未能被完全接受——在法國，甚至遲至 1950 年代才獲得認可。 Today's experimental error is tomorrow's new theory. If you want to discover great new things, then instead of turning a blind eye to the places where conventional wisdom and truth don't quite meet, you should pay particular attention to them. 今日的實驗誤差，將成為明日的新理論。若想發現偉大的新事物，與其對傳統智慧與真理之間的落差視而不見，不如特別關注這些矛盾之處。 As a practical matter, I think it's easier to see ugliness than to imagine beauty. Most of the people who've made beautiful things seem to have done it by fixing something that they thought ugly. Great work usually seems to happen because someone sees something and thinks, I could do better than that. Giotto saw traditional Byzantine madonnas painted according to a formula that had satisfied everyone for centuries, and to him they looked wooden and unnatural. Copernicus was so troubled by a hack that all his contemporaries could tolerate that he felt there must be a better solution. 就實際層面而言，我認為察覺醜陋比想像美好來得容易。多數創造美好事物的人，似乎都是透過修正他們認為醜陋的東西來達成。偉大的作品通常源於有人看見某物時心想：我可以做得比那更好。喬托看著傳統拜占庭聖母像遵循數百年來令人滿意的公式繪製，在他眼中卻顯得呆板而不自然。哥白尼對當時同行都能容忍的粗糙手法深感困擾，因而確信必有更好的解決方案。 Intolerance for ugliness is not in itself enough. You have to understand a field well before you develop a good nose for what needs fixing. You have to do your homework. But as you become expert in a field, you'll start to hear little voices saying, What a hack! There must be a better way. Don't ignore those voices. Cultivate them. The recipe for great work is: very exacting taste, plus the ability to gratify it. 單單對醜陋無法容忍並不足夠。你必須深入理解某個領域，才能培養出辨識哪些地方需要改進的敏銳嗅覺。你必須做好基本功。但當你成為某領域的專家時，就會開始聽見細微的聲音說：這手法太粗糙了！一定有更好的方式。別忽視這些聲音，要悉心培養。成就偉大作品的秘訣在於：極其嚴苛的品味，加上滿足這種品味的能力。 Notes 筆記 Sullivan actually said "form ever follows function," but I think the usual misquotation is closer to what modernist architects meant. 蘇利文實際上說的是「形式永遠追隨功能」，但我認為常見的誤引更貼近現代主義建築師的本意。 Stephen G. Brush, "Why was Relativity Accepted?" Phys. Perspect. 1 (1999) 184-214. 史蒂芬·G·布拉許，《為何相對論被接受？》，物理學觀點 1 (1999) 184-214. |
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 | | Japanese Translation 《藝術何以能臻於善境》 | | | | Chinese Translation 中文翻譯 |
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| | Slovenian Translation 斯洛維尼亞文翻譯 | | | | German Translation 德文翻譯 |
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| | Interview: Milton Glaser 訪談：米爾頓·葛雷瑟 | | | | Russian Translation 俄文翻譯 |
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