详情

就剑桥大学皇后学院数学桥（另称“牛顿桥”）的重新解读对话艺术保藏家陈建

“这是一个爱情故事，”陈建的声息通过手机从中国扬州的一个花坛里传来，受信号影响，声息断断续续。

我正在与中国历史艺术和建筑的狂热保藏家陈建以及艺术家、诗东谈主、扬州中国画院院长刘南平交谈。咱们一直在谋略陈建的花坛，他称之为陈园。你不错摈除脑海中可能露出的欧洲玫瑰花床或修剪整王人的树篱等印象；陈建在他的花坛里莳植的是石头和砖块，这些文物组成了一种文化保护古迹。

陈建曾是又名电器商，其后把他的公司卖给了中国起初的零卖行状公司苏宁。在往日的三十年里，他一直在寰球各地用钱网罗文物。跟着中国运行对基础口头和经济进行当代化改良，强大历史建筑——常常是通盘屯子——被撤废，为高速公路和工场让开。陈建会去这些方位购买旧建筑的碎屑。他通过保藏作念工精采的牌坊、桥梁和浮雕等而保存了数百年的历史。

“皇后学院的数学桥是一项私密的工程豪举”

这座花坛里最令东谈主印象真切的一个古迹是一座有800年历史的南宋（1127-1279）虎头桥，是陈建将其闭幕然后将系数石块搬来陈园重新组建而成。另外还有一座明朝（1368-1644）的石牌坊，上头雕镂着凤凰和麒麟（中国听说中的鹿龙），并镶座在雕镂的石狮子之上。可是，他最新的一件保藏来自西方，何况其口头与离我不远的剑桥最具美艳性的一座建筑相仿。

皇后学院的数学桥以私密的工程豪举而知名，因为它是哄骗重力产生的压缩力而将木梁固定在沿路的。它由英国建筑师威廉·埃瑟里奇于1748年想象，是剑桥风景中的经典剪影，亦然这座城市开阔旅客必看的景点之一。那么，这座桥与中国文化有何干联呢？

谜底是：一个爱情故事。

1921年，在剑桥大学留学时间，两位年青的中国学问分子再见并坠入爱河。他们的名字是徐志摩和林徽因。两东谈主都成为中国新诗畅通的抨击东谈主物——徐后被视为中国当代诗歌之父。他俩互为对方的才思所蛊卦，并产生了深厚和骄矜的爱情。但徐其时还是成亲了。天然他于1922年跟配头离了婚，并随从林回到中国。可是，她已被许愿给另一位知名的学问分子梁念念成（中国当代建筑之父）。林最终嫁给了梁，徐的抓续肉痛产生了也许是中国最早也最知名的当代诗：《再别康桥》（“康桥”即“剑桥”）。

这首诗写于1928年，充满了诗东谈主回忆旧事的深千里忧郁。某些诗句相配充满了对林和剑桥的温馨牵记：“那河滨的金柳/是夕阳中的新娘”。这首诗是剑桥大学在中国旅客中备受接待的一个主要原因。国王学院的徐志摩友谊花坛内部陈设着一块刻有第一句和终末一句《再别康桥》的石碑。

“它标记着充满好意思感和诗意的心境力量”

对于陈建来说，数学桥是剑桥的标记，亦然这个知名的中国爱情故事的标记。对他来说，它体现的是充满好意思感和诗意的心境力量。这即是为什么陈园的桥不是复成品，而是一种新的阐扬。天然它在想象和规模上与数学桥相匹配，但它是用铝建造的，何况最引东谈主注规划是，它被漆成了亮堂的中国红色。经由这些篡改，陈园的“剑桥”成为中国与剑桥文化干系的具体展示。

“咱们拒却复制，”陈建强调地叠加谈。

与陈建在沿路的是刘南平，他看到陈园的新桥后深受启发，写了一首我方的诗——一首修起徐在诗中败露的对爱的伤感的诗。刘南平解释说：“这座桥叫醒了好意思好的嗅觉，。“它勾起了每个知谈这个故事的东谈主的和气厚谊。”

“每个东谈主都有我方的故事，”他连续说谈，“陈园的桥有这种创意：它赋予每个东谈主独到的梦想。”

陈建补充谈：“它架起了往日、当今和改日的桥梁。”。我连气儿“往日”指的是徐林之爱情故事，“当今”是指阐扬往日的这一具体存在，但我并莫得立即连气儿它与改日的干系。“在东谈主类对好意思的追求中，”他解释谈，“总有一种延长到改日的方式。”

这座桥不仅被重新定位、重新阐扬，它还辞世界的另一端被赋予了新的生命，连续引发着新的创造力，从而阐明了它被视为诗意的标记。陈建认为，将其置放在一个充满中国艺术和文化的姿首故意于开发大学和花坛之间的对话。

陈建解释说：“在大学环境中，这座桥有着不同的标记酷爱酷爱。”“着手，中国东谈主去剑桥是为了追求学问，追修业习。当今，咱们去追求好意思——追求爱。”在西方，这座桥代表了一个数学转变的故事；在东方，则是一个对于爱情和诗歌的故事。

陈建说：“在扬州，这个故事回响着。”

张君涵（Heather Irvine）剑桥大学格顿学院学生

译自剑桥大学校报Varsity 2025年5月2日版

Heather Irvine speaks to art collector Chen Jian on his reinterpretation of Queens’ College’s Mathematical Bridge

The bridge – relocated, reinterpreted, and given a new life on the other side of the world – continues to spark new creative energy, Chen Jian with permission for Varsity

“This is about a love story,” comes the voice of Mr Chen, over spotty connection, from a garden in Yangzhou, China.

I am speaking to Chen Jian, an avid collector of historical Chinese art and architecture, and Liu Nanping, an artist, poet, and the Director of Yangzhou Chinese Paintings Academy. We have been discussing Mr Chen’s garden, which he calls the Chen Yuan (meaning Chen Garden). You can banish any images of rosebeds or neatly-trimmed hedges that might spring to mind; in his garden, Mr Chen cultivates stone and brick — relics forming a kind of cultural conservation site.

Chen made his wealth as an electronics merchant, selling his company to Suning, one of China’s leading retail service companies. In the last thirty years, he has been spending his money collecting artefacts across the country. As China set about modernising its infrastructure and economy, countless historical buildings — often whole villages — were dismantled to make way for motorways and factories. Chen would travel to these sites to buy pieces of the old architecture. He has preserved centuries of the country’s history in masterfully crafted gates, bridges, and friezes.

“The Mathematical Bridge at Queens’ College is a feat of ingenious engineering”

One of the garden’s most impressive relics is an eight hundred year-old Tiger’s Head bridge from the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279), which he moved, brick by brick, and reconstructed. There is also a Ming dynasty (1368–1644) stone gateway, carved with phoenixes and qilins (deer-dragons of Chinese myth), and mounted with sculpted lions. Yet, his latest addition comes from the West — comes, as it happens, not far from where I sit — in the shape of one of Cambridge’s most iconic structures.

The Mathematical Bridge at Queens’ College is renowned as a feat of ingenious engineering as it harnesses the compression generated by gravity to hold its wooden beams together. Designed in 1748 by English architect William Etheridge, it is a classic silhouette in Cambridge’s landscape, and a must-see for the city’s many, many tourists. So how, then, is this bridge considered an artefact of Chinese culture?

The answer is: a love story.

One of the garden’s most impressive relics is an eight hundred year-old ‘Tiger’s Head’ bridge from the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279)Chen Jian with permission for Varsity

In 1921, while studying at Cambridge, two young Chinese intellectuals met and fell in love. Their names were Xu Zhimo and Lin Huiyin. Both became important figures of China’s New Poetry movement — Xu would come to be seen as the father of modern Chinese poetry. Between them grew a deep intellectual and romantic love. But Xu was married. In 1922, he divorced his wife and followed Lin back to China. However, she had been promised to another leading intellectual, Liang Sicheng (the father of modern Chinese architecture, incidentally). Lin married Liang, and Xu’s lasting heartache produced what is perhaps China’s most famous modern poem: “Farewell Again to Cambridge”.

Written in 1928, the poem rings with the deep melancholy of the poet’s reminiscences. Certain lines are particularly imbued with the memories of Lin which the city preserves for Xu: “Those riverside golden willows / are brides in the sunset”. The poem is a key element of Cambridge’s popularity with Chinese visitors. King’s College’s Xu Zhimo Friendship Garden features a rock etched with its first and last lines.

“It is an emblem of the power of aesthetic and poetic emotion”

For Mr Chen, the Mathematical Bridge is a symbol of Cambridge, and, by extension, of this famous Chinese love story. For him, it is an emblem of the power of aesthetic and poetic emotion. This is why the Chen Garden’s bridge is not a replica, but a new interpretation. Though it matches the Mathematical Bridge in design and scale, it was built with aluminium and, most strikingly, painted in a bright shade of Chinese red. With these alterations, the Chen Garden’s “Cam-Bridge” is the physical manifestation of the Chinese cultural link with Cambridge.

“We refuse to replicate,” Chen repeats emphatically.

With Chen is Liu Nanping, who, upon seeing the new bridge in the Chen Garden, was inspired to write a poem of his own — a response to the feelings of love and grief Xu preserves in his poem. “The bridge evokes beautiful feelings,” Liu explains. “It hooks the tender feelings of everyone who knows the story.”

“Each person has their own story,” he continues. “The Chen Garden’s bridge has this creativity: it imbibes each person’s own associations.”

“It bridges the past, present, and future,” Chen adds. I see that “the past” refers to the love story between Xu and Lin, and that “the present” exists in its reinterpreted form, but I do not immediately understand its link to the future. “In humanity’s pursuit of beauty,” he explains, “there is always an extension into the future.”

The bridge — relocated, reinterpreted, and given a new life on the other side of the world — continues to spark new creative energy, proving its estimation as a symbol of poetic feeling. Chen believes that placing it in a site of Chinese art and culture forges a dialogue between the university and the garden.

“In the university setting, the bridge has a different symbolic meaning,” Chen explains. “At first, the Chinese went to Cambridge in pursuit of knowledge, in pursuit of learning. Now, we visit, too, chasing beauty – chasing love.” In the West, the bridge represents a story of mathematical innovation; in the East, a story of love and poetry.

“In Yangzhou, this story echoes,” says Chen.

by Heather Irvine

Translated from the Cambridge University newspaper Varsity May 2, 2025 edition

参不雅了扬州陈园后，它缓解了我高压测试的压力。在这么一个杂沓词语而快速发展的世界里，陈园是一个独到的方位。对于需要镌汰顷然的东谈主来说，这是一个宁静的方位。对于咱们这些年青东谈主来说，咱们生计在一个一切都在快速发展的世界里，这陆续给咱们带来太大的压力。但在这里，我感受到了历代建筑的妍丽。当我走过它们时，我想象着也曾住在这里的东谈主，想象着他们的生计方式，我感受到了内心的放心。嗅觉就像回到了往日，那儿没无意期，东谈主们也莫得那么震恐和快节拍。

一个值得一提的美艳性景点是皇后学院的数学桥，陈花坛的主东谈主重新安置了这座桥，并凭证我方的解释对其进行了修改。并吞座桥当今包含了不同的含义、智谋和转变、爱和诚意、文化和决心。

这些酷爱酷爱深植于故事之中，由咱们来解读。

就我个东谈主而言，我也心爱这里的好意思食和文娱，最道理的是“比好意思瞻念还大的包子”。用优质食材极新制作。对于那些心爱中国传统立场服装的东谈主来说，他们还提供多达200种不同立场的汉服（中国传统服装），每一种都能给东谈主带来超卓的体验，就像回到古代中国通常。

在看到保存竣工的建筑时，我认为在保护这些艺术品方面插足了几许时候和元气心灵。网罗和转念它们一定阻拦易。我能感受到陈园主东谈主陈建的奉献精神。毕竟，这是一个需要长久耐烦和财政相沿的宏大样式。

By Rianna Liu

制作 曹宇

编校 延晨 徐蓉

一审 桂艳 张莉

二审 肖东

三审 晖军尊龙凯时人生就是博