提起“藝術”兩個字，你會想到什么？另類？憂郁？莫名其妙？抑或是，悲喜參半？無論你的答案是什么，有一點相信大多數人會同意—— 在如今這個快樂“泛濫”的年代，藝術，似乎與快樂無關。 那么，“不快樂”的藝術，究竟緣起何處呢？ 

    This wasn't always so. The ear-liest forms of art, like painting and music, are those best suited for expressing joy. But somewhere in the 19th century, more artists began seeing happiness as insipid, phony or, worst of all, boring — in Tolstoy's1) words, “All happy families are alike.?We went from Wordsworth's2) daffodils to Baudelaire's3) flowers of evil. In the 20th century, classical music became more atonal, visual art more unsettling. Artists who focused on making their audiences feel good, from Usher4) to Thomas Kinkade5), were labeled “Pop” 

    Sure, there have been exceptions (say, Matisse's6) The Dance), but it would not be a stretch to say that for the past century or so, serious art has been at war with happiness. If someone titles an art movie Happiness, it is a good bet that it will be about deeply unhappy people. 

    You could argue that art became more skeptical7) of happiness because modern times have seen such misery. The reason, in fact, may be just the opposite: there is too much damn happiness in the world today. 

    After all, what is the one modern form of expression almost completely dedicated to depicting happiness? Advertising. The rise of anti-happy art almost exactly tracks the emergence of mass media, and with it, a commercial culture in which happiness is not just an ideal but an ideology8). 

    People in earlier eras were surrounded by reminders of misery. They worked gruelingly9), lived with few protections and died young. In the West, before mass communication and literacy, the most powerful mass medium was the church, which reminded worshippers that their souls were in peril and that they would someday be meat for worms. On top of all this, they did not exactly need their art to be a bummer10) too. 

    Today the messages your average Westerner is bombarded with are not religious but commercial, and relentlessly11) happy. Fast-food eaters, news anchors12), text messengers, all smiling, smiling, smiling. Our magazines feature beaming celebrities and happy families in perfect homes. (Tolstoy clearly never edited a shelter mag.) And since these messages have an agenda — to pry13) our wallets from our pockets — they make the very idea of happiness seem bogus14). elebrate!?commanded the ads for the arthritis drug Celebrex, before we found out it could increase the risk of heart attacks. 

    It gets exhausting, this constant goad15) to joy. If you're not smiling, what's wrong with you? Not to smile is un-American. You can pick out the Americans in a crowd of tourists by their reflexive grins. The U.S. enshrined16) in its founding document the right to the pursuit of happiness. So we pursued it and — at least as commerce defines it — we caught it. 

    Now, like the dog that chased and finally caught the car, we don't know what the hell to do with it. We feel vaguely dissatisfied though we have what we should want, vaguely guilty for wanting it, vaguely angry because it didn't come as advertised. 

    What we forget — what our economy depends on us forgetting — is that happiness is more than pleasure sans17) pain. The things that bring the greatest joy carry the greatest potential for loss and disappointment. Today, surrounded by promises of easy happiness, we need someone to tell us that it is O.K. not to be happy, that sadness makes happiness deeper. As the wine-connoisseur18) movie Sideways tells us, it is the kiss of decay and mortality that makes grape juice into Pinot Noir19). We need art to tell us, as religion once did, Memento mori20): remember that you will die, that everything ends, and that happiness comes not in denying this but in living with it. It's a message even more bitter than a clove21) cigarette, yet, somehow, a breath of fresh air.
　　 
    情況并不總是如此。最早的藝術形式，如繪畫和音樂，是最適于表達快樂的。但到了19世紀的某個階段，越來越多的藝術家們開始認為快樂是平淡的、虛假的，甚或是——也是最糟糕的——乏味的，套用托爾斯泰的話說就是，“所有幸福的家庭都是千篇一律的。”于是我們拋棄了華茲華斯的“黃水仙”轉而開始欣賞波德萊爾的“惡之花”。進入20世紀，古典音樂開始朝著越來越“不著調”的方向發展，視覺藝術也變得越來越混亂。而那些致力于為人們帶來快樂的藝術家們——從亞瑟小子到托馬斯·金卡德——則被貼上了“通俗”的標簽。 

    當然，也有一些例外(如：馬蒂斯的《舞蹈》)，但可以毫不牽強地說，在過去大約一個世紀的時間里，嚴肅藝術一直與快樂為敵。如果有人把一部文藝片命名為《快樂》的話，那么放心，那部電影描寫的主人公一定極為不幸。 

    你可以爭辯說藝術之所以越來越懷疑快樂是因為現代社會見證了太多的痛苦。事實上，真正的原因可能恰恰相反：現在的世界充斥著太多該死的快樂了。 

    當代有一種藝術表現形式，幾乎是專門致力于刻畫“快樂”的，究竟是什么呢？廣告。“反快樂”藝術的興起與大眾傳媒的出現幾乎是同步的，隨之而來的是一種商業文化，在這種文化中，快樂不僅僅是一個理想，而是一種意識形態。 

    在過去那些年代里，人們的生活充滿困苦。他們工作到筋疲力盡，生活幾乎沒有保障，年紀輕輕就命喪黃泉。在大眾傳媒出現和讀寫能力普及之前，西方社會最強大的大眾媒介就是教堂，而它提醒信徒們的是：他們的靈魂處于危險之中，他們的肉體遲早也將淪為蛆蟲之食。此情此景下，他們完全不必再用藝術來對這種痛苦加以強調。 

    而今天，多數普通西方人所接受的信息轟炸不再是宗教的，而是商業的，而且是持續猛烈的“快樂轟炸”�？觳褪晨汀⑿侣勚鞑�、發短信者，所有人都在微笑、微笑、微笑。我們雜志上的特寫都是春風滿面的精英人士和完美幸福的快樂家庭。(托爾斯泰顯然是沒有編輯過家居雜志。)所有這些信息都有一個目的——撬開我們口袋里的錢包——這就是為什么它們傳遞的“快樂概念”總叫人覺得虛偽和不真實。“歡慶吧！”宣傳風濕止痛藥“西樂葆”的廣告曾這樣叫囂，但后來我們卻發現該藥會增加心臟病的發病率。 

    這種沒完沒了地驅使人們追求快樂的做法，真是讓人筋疲力盡。如果你不微笑，那你是不是哪兒出了什么問題？不笑就不是美國人。你能從一大群游客中輕而易舉地把美國人認出來，只要看看他們臉上那出于本能的咧嘴笑就知道了。美國把追求快樂的權利莊嚴地載入了建國文獻中。于是我們對之孜孜以求，并且——至少像商業所定義的那樣——我們將其抓到了手中。 

    現在，就像一條不停追逐最后終于趕上了轎車的狗一樣，對于這到手的快樂，我們卻不知究竟該如何處置。我們隱約感到不滿意，雖然我們得到了理應得到的；我們隱約感到愧疚，因為我們曾有這樣的渴望；我們隱約感到憤怒，因為快樂感并不像廣告中說的那樣妙不可言。

    我們忘記了一件事——這也是我們的經濟指望我們忘卻的——那就是，快樂，遠不止是沒有痛苦的愉悅。給我們帶來最大快樂的東西也最有可能帶來失落和失望。今天，我們的周圍充斥著各種各樣的許諾，告訴我們快樂唾手可得。這個時候，我們需要有人告訴我們，不快樂也沒什么，悲傷會使幸福更深刻。正如品酒影片《杯酒人生》所告訴我們的，正是腐爛與死亡的親吻才使普通的葡萄汁變成了黑比諾葡萄酒。正如宗教曾經告訴過我們的，我們需要藝術來告訴我們那關于死亡的提示：記得你終將死亡，萬事皆有終點，幸福不會因否定這一點而到來，卻會因接受這一點而降臨。這樣的啟示，品嘗起來是苦澀的，甚至比嚼丁香煙還要苦，然而，從某種角度看，卻似一縷清風，耐人細細品味。