but to the art of other, non-European traditions

他在其他的非欧洲传统艺术中

in his search for a people's art of instinctive colour.

寻找人类艺术中的本真色彩

And it was the art of Islam that pulled him most strongly.

而其中最吸引他的就是伊斯兰教艺术

Visiting Tangier in 1912 and 1913,

在1912年和1913年拜访丹吉尔时

Matisse saw that in Islamic culture, art was everywhere.

马蒂斯看到在伊斯兰文化中艺术无处不在

In the mosque, on the street, in carpets and clothes.

清真寺里 街上 地毯上 衣服上

And in its sensuous embrace of decoration,

西方社会长期认为这是一种低俗流派装饰

long written off by the West as an inferior genre,

但被这种由装饰带来的感官冲击包围

Matisse saw the essence of a truly modern,

马蒂斯看到的是真正现代的

inclusively-universal art.

包罗万象的艺术的本质

And so, while here, Matisse brought east and west together

在这里马蒂斯把伊斯兰的色彩和装饰

by combining Islamic colour and decoration

与基督教崇拜的圣像相结合

with the iconography of Christian worship.

将东西方结合在一起

A triptych - three paintings hung together like an altarpiece.

三联画 三幅油画像祭坛画一样挂在一起

On either side, portals to better, brighter worlds.

两侧的画是通向更好更光明世界的入口

And in the centre, in the place of a Madonna,

而中间那幅画中在圣母玛利亚的位置上

a local girl enthroned in luminous blue/green.

则是一位穿着亮蓝绿色衣裳的当地女孩

Not quite the ultramarine of the virgin, but still.

这并非是圣母衣袍的天青色 但十分相似

When Matisse got back to France,

马蒂斯回到法国以后

everything he'd experienced in Tangier,

他在丹吉尔所经历的一切

the hot, glowing light,

炙热的阳光

the intense saturated colour he'd seen

人们的衣服上 建筑的墙上

on the clothes of people and on the walls of houses,

呈现的强烈饱和色

the graceful, flowing lines of Islamic ornamentation

以及伊斯兰装饰优雅 流畅的线条

all came together.

都在他脑海中汇聚

Not just to make an extraordinary ensemble of paintings,

他不仅创作了一系列非凡的画作

but something that was completely unanticipated

还创作了一些在当时

in his work so far.

完全出乎意料的作品

And, more importantly,

更重要的是

which would take art into a completely new place.

这将把艺术带入一个全新的领域

No artist had ever been taken seriously before using scissors

从没有一个艺术家曾真正把剪纸当回事

and coloured paper, but by the 1940s,

直到二十世纪四十年代

Matisse saw that the deceptive innocence of the form

马蒂斯发现剪纸的大繁若简

was THE key to that universal language of colour

正是他一生所追寻的

and flowing line he'd been hunting all his life.

颜色与流线的通用语言的关键点