汇流之外 Beyond Crosscurrents

 

走进任何一个关于东西文化、丝绸之路、美术工艺的文物展览，必然遇见"交流""融合""文明互鉴"这类词语。文物本来就是混杂的，工艺本来就是流动的，艺术从来不在封闭的容器里生长——这些都是实存的，也都不奇特。那么，一个以"Crosscurrents"（汇流）为名的展览，还能告诉我们什么？

在新加坡亚洲文明博物馆（Asian Civilisations Museum，ACM）的《汇流：卢浮宫的莫卧儿、萨法维与奥斯曼艺术珍品》（Crosscurrents: Masterpieces of Mughal, Safavid and Ottoman Art from the Musée du Louvre）特展，第一眼看到的是一只十六世纪奥斯曼帝国的玉杯。

通体沉稳的黑绿色，杯身以金丝嵌出繁复纹饰，工匠在玉面凿出浅槽，以两种镶嵌技法填入金丝，制造出层次感。花形开光中，框住每一粒红宝石。开光之间，蔓延着卷叶纹。展签记录它曾属于法国国王路易十四，收藏于凡尔赛宫，后来进入卢浮宫。

我的视线在展签最后一行停下来：红宝石经近年分析，认为来自缅甸。

缅甸？原来和东南亚有缘分啊。

历史上，亚美尼亚商人掌握着缅甸红宝石的主要贸易路线，将宝石通过孟加拉湾，进入莫卧儿帝国（印度），萨法维（伊朗）与奥斯曼（土耳其）。这个玉杯在展场开宗明义，呈现了汇流的主题。

细看杯身的花形开光与卷叶纹。这套图式语言贯穿大半个展览：抄本的装饰页、书页的题花、清真寺的门拱轮廓。

我想起去年底在上海浦东美术馆举办的同类展览《图案的奇迹》（The Wonder of Patterns: Masterpieces from India, Iran and the Ottoman World from the Musée du Louvre），以约300件卢浮宫藏品呈现伊斯兰艺术的美学成就。ACM的策展团队将自身的30件藏品加入展览，与卢浮宫的100件借展文物并置陈列，于是，故事的视角从西方转向了东南亚。

策展，就是一种立场和价值判断。

波斯对马来文学的影响（Persian Influence on Malay Letters）展区里，并排陈列了奥斯曼土耳其（1752年）与马来西亚丁加奴（18-19世纪）两部《古兰经》（Quran）。奥斯曼的版本装帧精整，是便于记诵的标准形制；丁加奴的版本在借鉴这套版式的同时，发展出一种本地独特的"花卉书法"（floral calligraphy）——阿拉伯文字母在抄写者的笔下，逐渐转化为植物的形态，字母与花草之间的边界被有意模糊。我们还看到19世纪的马来亚《圣纪颂》（Kitab Mawlid）也印证了这一点：书页上方的尖拱题花与卷叶藤蔓，与玉杯杯身的开光共享同一套图式语言——只是载体从金玉变成了纸页。

在文图学（Text and Image Studies）的视角下，这构成了一个具体的论题：卷叶纹与拱形开光，玉器和抄本，卷叶纹更进一步渗入文字本身，成为书法的一部分。奥斯曼的书法彰显文字的神圣权威；丁加奴的花卉书法，是文字在图像化过程中找到的另一种尊严——而这种秩序，在东南亚的语境里生长出来。

另一个展区里，一座来自苏门答腊西部的清真寺模型也吸引了我的注意。八角形开放式柱廊撑起宽大的多层坡屋顶，上层收为较小的亭台，顶端是一个洋葱形圆顶，收尖为塔刹。坡屋顶是东南亚本地的建筑传统；洋葱形圆顶则是后来引入的伊斯兰形式。两者并存于同一座建筑里，不是折衷，而是一个社群主动选择的视觉表达：我们在宽阔的伊斯兰文明之中，同时也在这片土地上。

汇流，当然发生了。但汇流之后，接收的一方做了什么，才是更值得细思的问题。丁加奴的抄写者把字母写成花草，苏门答腊的清真寺模型建造者在洋葱顶下保留了坡屋顶，这些都不是被动接收的痕迹，而是在地的主体性（local agency）。

现场展柜一框接一框、主题接主题。它能并置，能提示，但持续编辑与创造，最终的连贯性，必须由每一个观众去完成。

离开展厅前，我再一次走回那只玉杯前。黑绿色的玉面在聚光灯下透出沉稳的光泽，描金深浅有致。那些宝石的颜色，随着我的目光偏移，或鲜红、或艳紫。500年，东南亚早就在这件文物里了。只是需要站在这里，仔细端详，反映自我，才能看见。

汇流，是过去发生的事。汇流之外，是今天的观者，带着自己的位置与记忆，重新读出文物里那些未被命名的在场。

 

2026年8月1日，新加坡《联合早报》“上善若水”专栏

 

Beyond Crosscurrents

I Lo-fen

Walk into almost any exhibition of cultural relics devoted to East–West encounters, the Silk Road, or arts and crafts, and one is bound to encounter terms such as “exchange,” “fusion,” and “mutual learning among civilisations.” Cultural objects have always been hybrid; craftsmanship has always travelled; art has never grown inside a sealed container. All of this is historically real, and none of it is especially surprising. What, then, can an exhibition entitled “Crosscurrents” still tell us?

At the Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) in Singapore, the special exhibition Crosscurrents: Masterpieces of Mughal, Safavid and Ottoman Art from the Musée du Louvre opens with a sixteenth-century Ottoman jade cup.

The vessel is a composed, deep blackish green. Intricate patterns are inlaid across its surface in gold wire. The craftsman carved shallow grooves into the jade and filled them with gold using two different inlay techniques, creating a sense of depth and layering. Each ruby is framed within a floral cartouche, while scrolling foliage spreads between the cartouches. The label records that the cup once belonged to King Louis XIV of France, was kept at the Palace of Versailles, and later entered the Louvre.

My eyes paused at the final line of the label: recent analysis suggests that the rubies came from Myanmar.

Myanmar? So the cup had a connection with Southeast Asia after all.

Historically, Armenian merchants controlled the principal trade routes for Burmese rubies, transporting the gemstones across the Bay of Bengal into the Mughal Empire in India, Safavid Iran, and the Ottoman Empire in Türkiye. Placed at the beginning of the exhibition, this jade cup announces the theme of crosscurrents from the outset.

A closer look at the floral cartouches and scrolling foliage on the cup reveals a visual language that runs through much of the exhibition: the decorated opening pages of manuscripts, ornamental headings on book pages, and the outlines of mosque arches.

I was reminded of a related exhibition held late last year at the Museum of Art Pudong in Shanghai, The Wonder of Patterns: Masterpieces from India, Iran and the Ottoman World from the Musée du Louvre, which presented the aesthetic achievements of Islamic art through some 300 objects from the Louvre. The ACM curatorial team added thirty works from its own collection and displayed them alongside one hundred objects on loan from the Louvre. In doing so, the perspective of the story shifted from the West towards Southeast Asia.

Curating is itself a position and a value judgement.

In the section “Persian Influence on Malay Letters,” two Qurans are displayed side by side: one from Ottoman Türkiye, dated 1752, and the other from Terengganu, Malaysia, dating from the eighteenth to nineteenth century. The Ottoman volume is precisely bound and follows a standard format designed to facilitate memorisation. While adopting this layout, the Terengganu version developed a distinctive local form of “floral calligraphy.” In the hands of the scribe, Arabic letters gradually transform into vegetal forms, deliberately blurring the boundary between script and flowers.

A nineteenth-century Malay Kitab Mawlid further demonstrates this development. The pointed-arch heading and scrolling vines at the top of the page share the same visual language as the cartouches on the jade cup, except that the medium has shifted from gold and jade to paper.

From the perspective of Text and Image Studies, this presents a specific line of inquiry: scrolling foliage and arched cartouches move between jade vessels and manuscripts, while vegetal ornament penetrates even further into the written word itself, becoming part of calligraphy. Ottoman calligraphy proclaims the sacred authority of the text. Terengganu floral calligraphy gives writing another form of dignity through its transformation into image—an order that took shape within the context of Southeast Asia.

In another section, a model of a mosque from western Sumatra also caught my attention. An octagonal open colonnade supports a broad, multi-tiered pitched roof. The upper level narrows into a smaller pavilion, topped by an onion-shaped dome that tapers into a finial. The pitched roof belongs to the local architectural tradition of Southeast Asia, while the onion dome is a later-introduced Islamic form. Their coexistence within a single structure is not a compromise, but a visual statement actively chosen by a community: we belong within the vast world of Islamic civilisation, and we also belong to this land.

Crosscurrents undoubtedly occurred. Yet what the receiving culture did after those currents arrived is the more important question. The scribes of Terengganu transformed letters into flowers and plants; the builders represented by the Sumatran mosque model preserved the pitched roof beneath the onion dome. These are not traces of passive reception, but expressions of local agency.

In the gallery, one display case follows another, one theme follows the next. The exhibition can juxtapose and suggest, but the continuity of ongoing adaptation and creation must ultimately be completed by each individual visitor.

Before leaving the gallery, I returned once more to the jade cup. Under the spotlight, the blackish-green jade emitted a restrained lustre, while the varying depths of the gold inlay created a subtle rhythm. As my gaze shifted, the gemstones appeared at times bright red, at times vivid purple. For five hundred years, Southeast Asia had already been present within this object. It simply required someone to stand before it, look carefully, reflect upon one’s own position, and finally see it.

Crosscurrents belong to what happened in the past. Beyond crosscurrents stands the viewer of today, carrying her own position and memories, rereading within these objects the presences that have never been named.

1 August 2026, “Shang Shan Ruo Shui” column, Lianhe Zaobao, Singapore.