Nothing exists in a vacuum, not even video game art. Every individual is a product of their material conditions and historical context and sometimes it is interesting to trace it all back to a few specific events.
没有事情是从虚无中诞生的，就连电子游戏美术也不例外。任何个体都是他们的物质条件与历史背景的产物，有时追溯到几个具体的事件之中是一件有意思的事情。
I grew up in the post-apocalypse. Amid the ruins of the Soviet Union, a newly born land of arms deals, rapid financialization,, and cowboy capitalists killing one another in public squares. In these interesting circumstances, the traditions of figurative art were, to put it lightly, interrupted.
我出生在后启示录时代。在苏联的废墟之上，崭新的国度同军火商、快速金融化以及互相置对方于死地的牛仔资本主义商人们一起诞生了。在这种有趣的境况下，我想轻描淡写地总结一下此时的传统具象艺术史：它被*打断*了。
The neoliberal zeitgeist which emerged from the ashes of the Great Project had little appetite for frivolities of painting. In art circles, it was declared that mankind had overcome and thus abandoned drawing and painting, much as it had slavery or speed limits on the Autobahn.
从伟大计划（苏联的两个五年计划，1928-1937）残骸中出现的新自由主义思潮对于对绘画这种业余爱好漠不关心。而在艺术圈中，艺术家们声明人们已经克服并放弃了涂涂画画，画画对这个时代的人们来说就好像高速公路上的纤夫和限速一样不合时宜。
In its place, an aggressive conceptual art was taking the soap-in-a-sock to all other forms with what appeared to be vengeance. Nothing short of a complete reset of all truth and institutions of art. In painting, little else remained besides serious abstracts for bank lobbies, financed by the banks, abstract and serious themselves.
在这个时候，极具进攻性的概念艺术复仇般地给与所有其他形式的艺术当头一棒。无异于对于所有真理与艺术体系的彻底重置。在绘画领域没有什么被留下来，除了对于银行大厅的严肃抽象，由银行赞助的资金，以及抽象和严肃本身。
The world, it seemed, consisted mostly of fast loan ads, alcohol, and imaginative varieties of potato chips.
就好像世界绝大部分是由快速贷款广告，酒精以及充满想象力的各类薯片组成的。
Sketchbooks were not among the commodities available in stores. I’m sure you could see how a young man obsessed with painting would find this world bleak and worthy of contempt. Fortunately. My father could bind books and made for me a few to draw in.
在一个就连写生簿都不在商场供货清单的环境中，你肯定能想象一个对绘画痴迷的年轻人会有多么心灰意冷与愤世嫉俗。幸运的是，我心灵手巧的父亲为我制作了一些手工写生簿，使我能够继续练习绘画。
This is the cultural context that the art of Disco Elysium emerged from.
这就是《极乐迪斯科》美术诞生的文化背景。
The next illuminating moment in the synthesis of the art of Disco Elysium was discovering the works of Craig Mullins (see p.20, image 16). His work was my first serious exposure to expressive brushwork and what you might loosely call impressionist or expressive painting and it completely blew my mind. I spent an entire day in furious thirst after this, for me, never-before-seen quality of pure distilled skill, downloading Mullins’ complete works one-by-one via what surely must have been dial-up internet. For a young artist, this was the discovery of the first master to emulate. There were many others in the years to follow, but the first one is the sweetest.
另一个对《极乐迪斯科》艺术创作综观具有启发性的时刻是在我发现Craig Mullins的作品时。那是我第一次认真地直面如此富于表现力的绘法，你可以轻率地把它称为印象派/表现派绘画，但它彻底震撼到我了。我在那个拨号上网的年代花了一整天时间，急不可耐地一件又一件下载着Mullin所有的作品，因为我从未看到过如此精湛的技艺。对一名年轻艺术家来说，这是他找到第一位值得模仿的大师的时刻。在这之后他还会遇到很多大师，但第一位总是最甜蜜的。
In a visceral way, what really hits in the works of Craig Mullins is how the image seems to come together without much hassle. In truth, of course, this loose brushwork and seemingly effortless manner actually take a lot of effort. In there lies the appeal of mastery, of understanding how to work the material, how to handle the brush and color. But also in understanding optics, how to accurately model by intuition and mental calculus the way light illuminates a scene. Perhaps most strikingly, an intuitive understanding of how much needs to be depicted to trick you into seeing something that’s not entirely there. It is painterly anarchy on top of rigid and true fundamentals.
发自肺腑地说，Craig Mullins的作品真正打动我的原因在于他行云流水地组织画面的高超技巧。他那随心所欲的绘法看似毫不费力，实际上当然倾注了心血。那种对于如何表现材质，如何处理笔绘与颜料的驾驭能力令人神往。在对于光影的理解，如何凭借直觉和心智去准确地建构光源是如何照亮整个场景的能力同样使人陶醉。或许最引人入胜的是，他有一种对于需要多大程度的描写，就能够诱使你去关注一些完全不存在于画中之物的直观理解。这是位于教条与真实性基础之上的一种绘画性的无秩序状态。
It immediately struck me as the most intellectual mode of painting.
我深信这就是世界上最具智慧的作品。
Not only was Craig Mullins my first introduction to serious painting, he’s also historically remarkable. Mullins was there at the advent of early Photoshop and Wacom tablets, one of the first to drop gouache in favor of the digital round brush. Digital art tended to have the surface finish of air brushed marshmallows before Mullins introduced texture and bravado. Any future history books on the art of painting that omit his name can be considered incomplete.
Craig Mullins不仅是带我走进严肃绘画的第一位老师，他在现代绘画史上也值得一提。你可以在Photoshop和数位板刚问世时见到他的身影，Mullins是首批抛下水粉颜料转而使用圆形数位笔的人。在Mullins引入他的纹理和个人风格之前，数字艺术作品都像是被空气喷枪涂抹过的棉花糖一样平滑而温和。我认为任何略去他的名字的艺术史书籍都是不完整的。
Suffice to say, post-apocalyptic conditions were hardly ideal for the study of art, and in isolation, one develops an uneven skillset. At the same time, these early difficulties and mistakes led to idiosyncratic approaches which have ended up influencing the art of Disco Elysium in fundamental ways. The autodidact must find ways to cover for their shortcomings and put forth their strengths.
不得不说，后启示录时代对于一个希望钻研艺术的个体来说很难称得上是一个理想的环境，在这种与真正艺术世界隔绝的情况下，他的各项能力没法均衡发展。同时，这些早期的困难与挫折促成具有古怪气质的实践之道，最终却以极其根基性的方式影响了《极乐迪斯科》的美术设计。自学成才者必须设法扬长避短。
An example: One prominent technique that arose from these conditions is the use of abstract flashes of color, splats of paint,and aggressive use of edge hierarchies which are necessary to make up for shortcomings and impatience in composition. Where I fail to lock down the image in its early stages I tend to use abstraction to finish it later. It is a bit like constructing when it threatens to tumble over. As far as learning how to paint goes, I do not recommend this approach - after a while, you start building tilted houses on purpose.
举个例子：为了遮蔽构图上地草率与缺陷，我们使用了一些显眼的技巧，比如不切实际的色彩运用，颜料的飞溅，以及激进的边缘层次。画面中那些没法在早期确定下来的部分，之后我会使用抽象的方式蒙混过关。这有点像修建一座摇摇欲坠的大厦。就我目前的经历，我不鼓励这种做法——久而久之，你会将修建豆腐渣工程本身作为目的。
Truthfully, though, it is fortunate that my natural proclivities for expressive work fed so well into the subjective nature of the story told with Disco Elysium. If I were a true-blue realist, some of the wilder excesses might not have come together the way they did.
说实话，我对于过分表达本能的癖性能与《极乐迪斯科》故事叙述强烈的主观性结合得如此融洽是一件很幸运的事情。如果我是一名虔诚的现实主义者，《极乐迪斯科》中那些荒诞不经的场景也许就没法像现在这样展现出来了。
The video game took five years to make. This is a long time for an art project. Luckily it didn’t take us quite as long as Ghiberti on the Gates of Paradise. He got to witness the transition of what we’ve come to recognize as the Gothic period to the Renaissance while stuck working in a style that fell out of fashion during his own lifetime. Such are the artistic risks with protracted projects. If I allow myself the vanity, I hope Disco Elysium reflects not on the collapse of something, but instead on the tendencies of an incoming new age of more bold and eccentric works of art.
我们花了5年时间创作《极乐迪斯科》。这对一个艺术项目来说是很长的一段时间。不过好在我们没有像吉贝尔蒂设计天堂之门一样花那么多时间。吉贝尔蒂不得不见证了哥特时期到文艺复兴的沧海桑田，而历时20年完成的天堂之门在它诞生的那一刻便成为了老古董。这是一个旷日持久的项目必须承担的美学风险。假如让我纵容一下我的自负，我希望《极乐迪斯科》不仅代表某些事物的瓦解，它还会代表一个迈入新时代的趋势，那时充满了更加*争强好胜*，更加*标新立异*的作品将会纷至沓来。
Alexander Rostov, art director Brighton, England December 2020
Alexander Rostov, 美术总监 布莱顿, 英格兰 2020.12
译者的话
这篇文章与我翻译的前一篇《译介丨ROBERT KURVITZ：《极乐迪斯科》引言》一样收录于《极乐迪斯科》Switch限定版的设定集中。说来惭愧，在刚拿到设定集时我就有了翻译其中几篇文章的念头，因为几位主创真的分享了很多有价值创作经验，仅仅作为收藏品实在是有点暴殄天物。但借着工作繁忙、文学艺术水平不足等一系列理由，我迟迟没有行动。
推动我真正动笔的事件当然是ZA/UM工作室的法律纠纷。说实话，了解这件事之后我的第一感受是一种极其自私的愤慨：我花了很多钱买了好几个版本的《极乐迪斯科》，有些根本没有打开过，只是为了表达一丝对创作者的支持，可它却突然变质为对资本者的助纣为虐。我简直像个智障。接着往下想，我还能为《极乐迪斯科》做些什么吗——答案就是这两篇文章。
接下来也许我还会翻译几篇设定集上的文章，就我的能力和效率来看，这里的几篇不是泛化量词。
如果问我对这件事本身有什么看法，作为一个纯粹的理工男，我不仅不善于对这类事件表达看法，我可能根本就没什么看法。就像我对《极乐迪斯科》本身的体验一样，除了一句“食髓知味永远是我大哥”以外我也想不到其他更好的评价了，我就好像Alexander所批判的那些新自由主义者一样。
然而《极乐迪斯科》于我就像Craig Mullins之于Alexander一样，我深深的受到了震撼。在这里我找到了我在开放世界中苦苦追寻而不得的真正的自由，我看到了丰富的可能性，我的相对主义世界观被挑战了，没有什么井水不犯河水，以控制多巴胺为目的的奶头乐就应该对这种真正的艺术俯首称臣。
不过奶头乐可能没法被消灭，我反抗了，屡战屡败。
我买过不少游戏设定集，但我确实第一次见到游戏创作者如此详实且无私地分享自己的开发经验，就好像除了展示自己工作成果之外还有一件更重要的事情一样——“你们也来试试吧，它值得一试”。这让我想起了重轻老师对吹哥的评价，“他知道自己一个人搞不定这件事，所以他成为了一位极其优秀的布道者”。我觉得《极乐迪斯科》殊途同归，后启示录时代与严肃艺术的隔绝可能是个结构性问题，也可能是消费主义景观化的问题，anyway，这不是一个人或一个团队就能解决的问题，所以他们在呼喊，他们在唤醒同伴。
这也是我参加BOOOM的动机之一，虽然我们的作品跟艺术毫不沾边，甚至因为做的太糟从内心抗拒复盘导致现在还欠着二七老师两篇创作笔记。但这些经历使我对游戏的理解更加宽广了，而这种坚信自己在做正确的事的信念就会推着我继续走下去，哪怕结果只是下次面对值得认真对待的游戏时，我的评价不再只有“恁牛逼呢”，也足够了。
叠个甲：本文为个人翻译作品，仅供学习交流使用，请不要将此文章用于任何商业用途。我没能够向版权所有者取得授权，但其符合“合理使用原则”
话又说回来，现在似乎也没法取得即*合法*又*有效*的授权了。
最后，如果《极乐迪斯科》与翻译这些文章让我学到了什么，我会将它们总结为一句谏言送给我自己，希望对你们也有帮助：
Don't consume all the way, produce something, even if it is doomed to tumble over.
此内容由惯性聚合(RSS阅读器)自动聚合整理，仅供阅读参考。 原文来自 — 版权归原作者所有。