French painting of the Ancien Régime
旧制度下的法国绘画
Norman Bryson  诺曼·布赖森

This book is a study of French painting in the eighteenth century, which has won the most distinguished European prize for art history, the Prix de la Confédération des Négociants en Oeuvres d’Art.
本书是对 18 世纪法国绘画的研究，曾荣获欧洲艺术史最高奖项——艺术品经销商联合会奖（Prix de la Confédération des Négociants en Oeuvres d’Art）。
The book’s particular originality is that it presents an entirely new approach to the study of the visual arts. Previous books on French painting have looked only at the history of painting as an evolution of artistic styles (e.g. baroque, rococo, neoclassical). What Dr Bryson does is to examine the evolution of narrative styles: the kinds of stories paintings tell, the ways they communicate their information, the different techniques of presenting the body as an instrument for incorporating textual messages. Approached from this direction, the traditional stylistic labels are found to be both inadequate and misleading. There is another, an inner evolution within French painting of the eighteenth century which emerges once the image is looked at (as it was at the time) not only as a physical object, but as a pattern of information. This procedure is applied to the work of a number of painters: LeBrun, Watteau, Greuze, David, and others. The author shows that the relation of formal and ‘literary’ aspects was regarded by painters and critics in the eighteenth century as the primary issue to be confronted in the production of a painting.
本书的独特之处在于它提出了一种全新的视觉艺术研究方法。以往关于法国绘画的著作只将绘画史视为艺术风格的演变（例如巴洛克、洛可可、新古典主义）。而布莱森博士所做的，是考察叙事风格的演变：绘画讲述故事的类型、它们传达信息的方式、呈现身体作为文本信息载体的不同技巧。从这个方向入手，传统的风格标签被发现既不充分又具有误导性。一旦图像被视为（如同当时一样）不仅是一个物理对象，而且是一种信息模式，十八世纪法国绘画内部就会出现另一种内在演变。这一程序被应用于多位画家的作品：勒布伦、华托、格勒兹、大卫等。作者指出，形式与“文学”方面的关系在十八世纪被画家和评论家视为绘画创作中需要面对的首要问题。

Dr Bryson has written this book in the belief that art history has allowed itself to enter a phase of intellectual isolation from the other humanities, and in the hope that, this isolation once ended, art history may be returned to a position of central importance in the study of human culture.
布莱森博士撰写本书，是基于这样一种信念：艺术史已允许自身进入一个与其他人文学科隔绝的智力孤立阶段；并希望一旦这种孤立结束，艺术史能够重新回到人类文化研究的核心地位。
‘But Word and Image repays the effort it demands in heaped measure, because Norman Bryson writes with rare intellectual exhilaration. On page after page, he detonates fresh ideas carrying far wider repercussions than his immediate subject matter. He himself has a way of turning pedagogy into pyrotechnics, just as the painters whom he discusses here with such commitment - LeBrun, Watteau, Greuze, Chardin, David - transform moral enigmas into paint.’
“但《词与像》以丰厚的回报偿还了它所要求的努力，因为诺曼·布莱森以罕见的智力兴奋进行写作。他一页又一页地引爆新思想，其影响远超其直接主题。他本人有一种将教学转化为烟火表演的方式，正如他在此处如此投入地讨论的画家们——勒布伦、华托、格勒兹、夏尔丹、大卫——将道德谜团转化为绘画。”

Marina Warner in The Sunday Times
玛丽娜·华纳在《星期日泰晤士报》
-This is an important book, and its importance is twofold: first in the conceptual apparatus Norman Bryson brings to bear on his subject, an account of the changes in French painting from Lebrun to David; second, in the brilliance and originality of his analyses of the paintings.’
-这是一本重要的书，其重要性体现在两个方面：首先是诺曼·布赖森（Norman Bryson）在论述其主题时所采用的概念体系，即对法国绘画从勒布伦到大卫时期变化的阐述；其次是其对画作分析的精妙和独创性。

French Studies  法国研究
The cover illustration is ‘Le premier baiser’ by Prud’hon.
封面插图为普吕东（Prud’hon）的《初吻》（Le premier baiser）。
The cover design is by Alan Bartram.
封面设计者为艾伦·巴特拉姆（Alan Bartram）。