看见迹象 Seeing Signs

 

少焉，月出于富丽敦酒店（ Fullerton Hotel）之上，徘徊于新加坡河天之间。

走出新加坡亚洲文明博物馆，清风徐来，暑气未消。本来热闹喧腾的室外灯光秀已经结束。抬眼望见左前方天上一轮明月，想起今天是农历七月十六日，正是苏东坡《赤壁赋》里写的“七月既望”啊。

准备了两个月，多方研究，今天终于交出还算满意的成绩单，完成导览《汇流：卢浮宫的莫卧儿、萨法维与奥斯曼艺术珍品》展览。我把这场九十分钟的导览题名为“看见迹象：伊斯兰美术的转译与本土化”。

“迹象”的概念来自《古兰经》第41章第53节：“我将把我的种种迹象显示在四方，并显示在他们自身中，直到他们明白这是真理。”阿拉伯语 āyah（复数 āyāt）既指天地与生命中可供辨识的“迹象”，也用来称《古兰经》的经文。

“迹象”和文图学讲的文本（Text）在观看方法上相通，但目的略有出入。日月星辰运行和人的自身，都是真主的迹象，引导人明瞭创造的秩序与启示的真理——“迹象”召唤人们去体察世界。“文本”则是意义生成、转译与理解的场域。万物皆文本，文字、图像、器物、声音、气味、身体、空间和光线，通过媒介、历史、文化语境与观看者相互联系，观点也随时间、地点和解读方式发生变化。文图学由此追问：意义怎样形成？怎样传播？怎样被转译？又怎样在不同地方获得新的生命？

导览伊始，我朝文图学会会员听众们的手心逐一喷洒液体，有人搓了搓，马上闻出：这是玫瑰露。是的，展品中有物件图像，是和玫瑰露有关。

虽然导览的主题集中于历史学家形容的三大“火药帝国”（Gunpowder Empires），时代在公元16-18世纪，不过，这些文明区域早在7世纪，甚至更早，就和中国有商贸和文化往来，“物证”就是亚洲文明博物馆展示的黑石号沉船出水文物。我带着大家浏览了河南巩县的唐代青花盘、巨型执壶，留下视觉印象。随后，我们看见在印度莫卧儿帝国的珍珠贝母执壶盘组合，以及类似造型的金属执壶盘组合，可知器型的延续关系。

景德镇的青花瓷出口到萨法维帝国（今伊朗），深受喜爱，中国的吉祥瑞兽例如麒麟也传播到异域，出现了外观类似，内里别样的新形式。这种承接和转换在文化交流，尤其是文物艺术品的模仿制作过程中，屡见不鲜。我找了明代的麒麟纹盘和现场类似的展品对照，大家会心一笑，频频点头说：有趣！

这两个相隔两百年的麒麟纹盘属于同一套视觉语法：青白色彩、同心圆构图、中央瑞兽和外围缠枝花卉。明代的牡丹缠枝石草图像比伊朗的放射状如菊花和丰肥的叶片细致具体；盘中央的明代麒麟是独角、龙首、鳞身，被火焰围绕，仿佛奔腾着向祥云昂首回颈。没有看展签之前，我还以为伊朗的这件蓝地留白大盘画的是狮子呢，可爱！

看展的乐趣之一，是亲眼认识或发现微妙的细节。曾经听连文思老师介绍过刻有波斯诗句的烛台，听她娓娓道来，十分感动。我端详那些貌似花纹的古波斯文字，注意到不只顶端有，底座也有，顶端的文字是诗句；底座则是拥有者的题记。我把诗句翻译成：

我的心因爱恋美人而燃烧，肝肠如焚；
爱情每一刻，又以新的烙印灼烧着我。
我与烛火相对，恰如飞蛾；
若再向前一步，我的双翼便会燃烧。

好奇这样的诗句，如果搭配音乐和波斯语，听起来是怎样的感觉呢？于是我借用 AI语音，录制波斯语朗读，配上伊朗音乐家凯汉·卡尔霍尔（Kayhan Kalhor）演奏的卡曼切琴（kamancheh）。琴声低回悠远，诗句沿着器身周旋，热烈的爱火点亮了烛台。

导览最后，来到奥斯曼咖啡馆的图像和杯盘。我播放了土耳其音乐家库德西·埃尔居内尔（Kudsi Ergüner）演奏的古典音乐。那幽幽的内伊笛（ney），穿越咖啡馆里读诗、下棋的人们，满是生活的迹象。

 

2026年9月12日，新加坡《联合早报》“上善若水”专栏

 

Seeing Signs

I Lo-fen

Before long, the moon rose above the Fullerton Hotel and lingered between the sky and the Singapore River.

As I walked out of the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore, a gentle breeze began to blow, though the heat of the day had not yet faded. The lively outdoor light show had already ended. Looking up, I saw a bright full moon hanging in the sky to my left. Then I remembered that it was the sixteenth day of the seventh lunar month—the very “day after the full moon in the seventh month” described by Su Shi in his Former Ode on the Red Cliffs.

After two months of preparation and research from many different angles, I finally felt that I had produced a reasonably satisfying result today, completing my guided tour of the exhibition Crosscurrents: Masterpieces of Mughal, Safavid and Ottoman Art from the Musée du Louvre. I entitled this ninety-minute tour “Seeing Signs: Translation and Localisation in Islamic Art.”

The concept of “signs” comes from verse 53 of Chapter 41 of the Quran: “We shall show them Our signs in the horizons and within themselves until it becomes clear to them that it is the truth.” The Arabic word āyah (plural āyāt) refers both to “signs” in the heavens, the earth, and living beings that invite recognition, and to individual verses of the Quran.

As a mode of seeing, the idea of “signs” has much in common with the concept of “text” in Text and Image Studies, although their purposes differ somewhat. The movements of the sun, moon, and stars, as well as the human self, are all signs of God, guiding people toward an understanding of the order of creation and the truth of revelation. “Signs” call upon us to observe and contemplate the world. “Text,” by contrast, is a site where meaning is generated, translated, and interpreted. Everything can be read as text: words, images, objects, sounds, smells, bodies, spaces, and light are interconnected through media, history, cultural context, and the viewer, while perspectives change with time, place, and modes of interpretation. Text and Image Studies therefore asks: How is meaning formed? How is it transmitted? How is it translated? And how does it acquire new life in different places?

At the beginning of the tour, I sprayed a liquid into the palms of the members of the Text and Image Studies Society who had joined me. Some rubbed their hands together and immediately recognised the fragrance: rosewater. Yes—among the objects and images in the exhibition were works associated with rosewater.

Although the tour focused on what historians have called the three great “Gunpowder Empires,” mainly from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, these regions had already maintained commercial and cultural contacts with China by the seventh century, and even earlier. The material evidence can be found in the objects recovered from the Tang Shipwreck displayed at the Asian Civilisations Museum. I first led the group past Tang-dynasty blue-and-white dishes from the Gongxian kilns in Henan and a monumental ewer, leaving them with a visual impression. We then encountered a Mughal ewer-and-basin set made of mother-of-pearl, as well as a metal ewer-and-basin set of similar form, allowing us to see how vessel types continued across regions and periods.

Blue-and-white porcelain from Jingdezhen was exported to the Safavid Empire, in present-day Iran, where it was greatly admired. Auspicious Chinese creatures such as the qilin also travelled abroad, giving rise to new forms that looked familiar on the surface yet were transformed within. Such processes of inheritance and adaptation are frequently encountered in cultural exchange, especially in the imitation and remaking of works of art and material culture. I found a Ming-dynasty dish decorated with a qilin and compared it with a similar object in the exhibition. Everyone smiled knowingly and nodded repeatedly: “Interesting!”

The two qilin dishes, made two centuries apart, belong to the same visual grammar: a blue-and-white palette, concentric composition, an auspicious beast at the centre, and scrolling floral ornament around the rim. The Ming-dynasty dish renders peonies, scrolling stems, and rocks with greater specificity and delicacy than the Iranian work, whose ornament is more radial, with chrysanthemum-like blossoms and fuller leaves. At the centre of the Ming dish, the qilin has a single horn, a dragon-like head, and a scaled body surrounded by flames. It appears to be galloping forward while turning its head upward toward the auspicious clouds. Before reading the label, I had thought the large Iranian dish, with its reserve decoration against a blue ground, depicted a lion. How charming!

One of the pleasures of visiting an exhibition is being able to recognise or discover subtle details with one’s own eyes. I had once listened to Dr Lien Wen Sze introduce a candlestick inscribed with Persian poetry, and I was deeply moved by the way she unfolded its story. As I examined what at first looked like decorative patterns, I realised that the Persian inscriptions appeared not only at the top but also around the base. The upper inscription consists of poetry, while the lower one records an owner’s inscription.

I translated the poem as follows:

My heart burns with love for the beloved; my very entrails are aflame.

At every moment, love sears me again with a fresh brand.

I face the candle flame like a moth;

one step closer, and my wings will burn.

I became curious: what would these lines sound like in Persian, accompanied by music? So I used an AI voice to create a Persian recitation and paired it with Iranian musician Kayhan Kalhor playing the kamancheh. The instrument’s low, lingering sound seemed to circle around the candlestick together with the verses, while the ardour of love itself appeared to ignite the flame. Kalhor is internationally known as a virtuoso of the kamancheh, the Persian spike fiddle.

At the end of the tour, we arrived at images and tableware associated with an Ottoman coffeehouse. I played classical music performed by Turkish musician Kudsi Ergüner. The haunting sound of the ney seemed to pass through the figures in the coffeehouse as they recited poetry and played chess, filling the scene with the signs of everyday life.

12 September 2026, “Shang Shan Ruo Shui” column, Lianhe Zaobao, Singapore.