Name: 蘇格拉底之死如何閱讀一幅畫 (The Death of Socrates: How To Read A Painting)
Uploaded: 2025-09-10T13:05:09.000Z
Duration: 7 min 34 s

This is The Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David.

這是雅克-路易-大衛的《蘇格拉底之死》。

程度副詞

Completed in 1787, it is an exemplar of the neoclassical period in France which David virtually created and brought to the fore himself.

它於 1787 年竣工，是法國新古典主義時期的典範，戴維實際上是這一時期的開創者，並親自將這一時期推向了前臺。

Before I say more, it's important to note just how striking this canvas is not knowing anything about it.

在我說更多之前，有必要指出的是，在對這幅畫一無所知的情況下，它是多麼引人注目。

The clarity of the scene, the fierce gesture of the man in the middle, the interplay of the chalice and the hand that reaches for it, the angles of the light and the men, the soft, draping garments, the bare, flat stone wall.

場景的清晰度、中間男子凶狠的姿態、聖盃和伸向聖盃的手的相互作用、光線和人物的角度、柔軟的垂衣、光禿禿的平整石牆。

As the title suggests, the scene depicts the death of Socrates, told famously by Plato in his dialogue on the soul, the Phaedo.

正如標題所示，該場景描繪的是柏拉圖在其關於靈魂的對話《斐多》中著名的蘇格拉底之死。

Socrates had been convicted in Athenian court of failing to acknowledge the gods of the city and corrupting the city's youth, and sentenced to death by drinking hemlock.

蘇格拉底在雅典法庭上被判犯有不承認城市諸神和腐蝕城市青年的罪行，並被判處飲毒芹而死。

As Plato makes clear in another dialogue, the Crito, Socrates could have escaped into exile, but instead he chooses to die, taking the opportunity to teach his final lesson, that death is not to be feared by the philosopher, but embraced as an apotheosis of the soul.

正如柏拉圖在另一篇對話《克里託》中明確指出的那樣，蘇格拉底本可以逃脫流放的命運，但他卻選擇了死亡，並藉此機會給自己上了最後一課：哲學家不應該懼怕死亡，而應該擁抱死亡，將其視為靈魂的神化。

David chooses to paint the moment just as Socrates is grabbing for the poison draught.

大衛選擇在蘇格拉底抓起毒藥的瞬間作畫。

He's been discussing at length the immortality of the soul, and doesn't even seem to care that he's about to take the implement of his death in hand.

他一直在長篇大論地討論靈魂不朽的問題，似乎根本不在乎自己即將面臨死亡。

On the contrary, Socrates is defiant, gesturing toward the afterlife, to which he hastens.

相反，蘇格拉底卻蔑視一切，他向來世做了一個手勢，匆匆走向來世。

Socrates would have been 70 at the time, and somewhat less muscular and beautiful than painted here.

蘇格拉底當時應該已經 70 歲了，肌肉和美貌都不如這裡畫得那麼好。

The raking light coming in from the top left pours onto Socrates, the brightest figure in the tableau.

從左上方射入的光線傾瀉在蘇格拉底身上，他是畫面中最耀眼的人物。

The colors, muted at the sides, become vivid in the center, with the executioner in red and Socrates in white.

兩側的色彩柔和，到了中間則變得鮮豔，劊子手身著紅色，蘇格拉底身著白色。

For David, Socrates is a symbol of strength over passion, of stoic commitment to an abstract principle even in the face of death.

對大衛來說，蘇格拉底是力量戰勝激情的象徵，是即使面對死亡也要堅守抽象原則的象徵。

This is the ethical message David sought to offer the French two years before the French Revolution, as the monarchy was in decline and reformers ached to install a democracy akin to that of Socrates' own time in Greek antiquity, or of the United States, which had just executed its own revolution five years prior.

這就是戴維在法國大革命前兩年試圖向法國人傳達的倫理資訊，當時君主制正在衰落，改革者渴望建立一種類似於蘇格拉底在希臘古代所處時代的民主制度，或者類似於美國的民主制度，美國在五年前剛剛進行了自己的革命。

Indeed, Thomas Jefferson himself was present at the unveiling of this painting at the Salon of 1787.

事實上，托馬斯-傑斐遜本人也出席了這幅畫在 1787 年沙龍上的揭幕儀式。

The image, commissioned by two radical political reformers, was wildly popular.

由兩位激進的政治改革家委託製作的這幅影像大受歡迎。

David had already made his name with another severe moralistic canvas, the Oath of the Horatii, which effectively invented the neoclassical style.

大衛曾以另一幅嚴苛的道德主義畫作《霍拉提人的誓言》一舉成名，這幅畫實際上是新古典主義風格的開山之作。

Taking its cues from the stark simplicity of ancient Greece and Rome, from the ancient obsession with anatomy and musculature, from the two-dimensional friezes depicting historical events, neoclassicism, as rendered by David, made its points strongly and severely.

新古典主義從古希臘和古羅馬的簡潔風格中汲取靈感，從古人對解剖學和肌肉結構的痴迷中汲取靈感，從描繪歷史事件的二維壁畫中汲取靈感，在大衛的演繹下，新古典主義強烈而嚴肅地表達了自己的觀點。

This was in direct opposition to the dominant Rococo style that reflected the ornate and hedonistic lifestyles of the monarchy.

這與洛可可風格的主流直接對立，後者反映了君主華麗和享樂主義的生活方式。

In the Horatii, as in the death of Socrates, those dedicated to principle are depicted with angular geometry, while those ruled by passion are curved and weak.

在《霍拉提》中，就像在蘇格拉底之死中一樣，那些忠於原則的人被描繪成有稜有角的幾何體，而那些被激情支配的人則是彎曲無力的。

In both canvases, the backgrounds are flat, fixing attention on the foreground where, like a freeze, the action can be read from side to side.

在這兩幅油畫中，背景都是平面的，將注意力集中在前景上，就像定格一樣，可以從側面閱讀畫面中的動作。

One way to read the death of Socrates is right to left.

解讀蘇格拉底之死的一種方法是從右到左。

The anguish of Socrates' followers, curling and twisting, opens up onto the calm expression of the man himself, and flows down through his right arm, which hovers over the cup of  The space between the hand and the cup, the exact center of the image, is the seat of the maximum narrative charge, then it falls back into the pain of the man who delivers the poison, who turns his gaze away from Socrates, and finally comes to rest on the man sitting at the foot of the bed, unengaged.

蘇格拉底的追隨者的痛苦，捲曲和扭曲，向蘇格拉底本人平靜的表情敞開，通過他的右臂向下流動，右臂懸停在蘇格拉底的杯子上。 手和杯子之間的空間，也就是畫面的正中心，是敘事的重心所在，然後它又落回到送毒藥的人的痛苦中，他將目光從蘇格拉底身上移開，最後落在坐在床腳的人身上，毫無動靜。

David doesn't identify anyone in the painting, but we can infer from accounts of Socrates' actual death that in the background is Socrates' wife, Xanthippe, led away in distress, and clutching Socrates' leg is Crito, his oldest and most faithful student.

大衛沒有指認畫中的任何人，但我們可以從蘇格拉底真實死亡的描述中推斷出，背景中是蘇格拉底的妻子桑西佩，她在痛苦中被帶離，緊緊抱住蘇格拉底腿的是他最年長、最忠實的學生克里託。

Under Crito, we can see that David has signed his own name, signaling a feeling of connection with the man.

在克里託的下面，我們可以看到大衛簽上了自己的名字，這表明了他與此人的聯繫。

David, weaker than his ideal of moral strength, nonetheless grabs and strives toward it.

大衛比他理想中的道德力量更弱，但他仍然抓住並努力向著它前進。

The painter has taken a number of liberties with history.

畫家對歷史進行了許多自由發揮。

Besides altering Socrates' face and physique, David decreases the number of people present at the event from over 15 to 12, echoing the number of disciples at Da Vinci's Last Supper.

除了改變蘇格拉底的容貌和體型，大衛還將出席活動的人數從 15 人減少到 12 人，與達-芬奇《最後的晚餐》中的門徒人數相呼應。

But I think the most significant change is the addition of the character at the foot of the bed.

但我認為最大的變化是床腳增加了一個人物。

This is Plato, the man who popularized Socrates' teachings by staging him as the protagonist in over 30 philosophical dialogues.

這就是柏拉圖，他在 30 多篇哲學對話中將蘇格拉底作為主角，使蘇格拉底的學說深入人心。

Put simply, without Plato, there would be no Socrates.

簡單地說，沒有柏拉圖，就沒有蘇格拉底。

The two men melt into each other historically.

It's hard to determine where Socrates' philosophy ends and Plato's begins.

很難確定蘇格拉底哲學的終點和柏拉圖哲學的起點。

Not only was Plato absent at the death of Socrates, but he was a young man at the time.

蘇格拉底去世時，柏拉圖不僅不在場，而且當時他還是個年輕人。

Here, David has him as old and withdrawn.

在這裡，大衛將他描繪成一個老邁而孤僻的人。

I said earlier that you can read the canvas from right to left, but you can also read it from left to right.

我之前說過，您可以從右向左閱讀畫布，但也可以從左向右閱讀。

The whole scene, it seems to me, appears to explode out of the back of Plato's head, recontextualizing it as a memory, an idealized memory in which Socrates gestures in the exact same way he does in Raphael's School of Athens.

在我看來，整個場景似乎是從柏拉圖的後腦勺中爆發出來的，將其重新語境化為一種記憶，一種理想化的記憶，其中蘇格拉底的手勢與他在拉斐爾的《雅典學派》中的手勢如出一轍。

Significantly, Plato is positioned apart from the flat background, where the frozen lateral moment gives way to the depth of time and reality.

值得注意的是，柏拉圖被置於平面背景之外，凝固的橫向瞬間讓位於時間和現實的深度。

It strikes me that this is the way memories often fall out, restaged with smooth edges and perfect light, two-dimensional, idealized, painstakingly arranged to serve the needs of the present.

我突然意識到，記憶往往就是這樣褪色的，用光滑的邊緣和完美的光線重新演繹，二維的、理想化的、煞費苦心地安排，以滿足現在的需要。

In the character of Plato, the rigorous ethical reality of the scene is betrayed by its own self-awareness as a construction.

在柏拉圖的筆下，嚴謹的倫理現實場景被其作為一種建構的自我意識所背叛。

And in only a few short years, the noble ideals of the French Revolution will be betrayed as well by the terror that is to follow.

而在短短几年內，法國大革命的崇高理想也將被隨之而來的恐怖所背叛。

Maybe this is why, almost prophetically, David signs his name here a second time.

也許正因為如此，大衛幾乎是預言性地在這裡第二次簽下了自己的名字。

Neoclassicism like this may seem severe and blunt, but so much is happening in David's Death of Socrates, an interplay of historical, personal, political, and aesthetic elements rendered forcefully, subtly, and beautifully.

這樣的新古典主義看似嚴厲而直白，但在大衛的《蘇格拉底之死》中卻發生了許多事情，歷史、個人、政治和美學元素交織在一起，有力、微妙而優美地呈現出來。

換句話說，這是一部天才之作。

Hey everybody, if you want to help me keep making these videos and support the Nerdwriter, you can visit my Patreon page by clicking here.

大家好，如果你想幫助我繼續製作這些視頻並支持 Nerdwriter，可以點擊這裡訪問我的 Patreon 頁面。

You can pledge as little as one dollar, everything helps.

您只需認捐一美元，一切皆有可能。