The Most Important Person 最重要的角色

By V. M. Hillyer ——V. M. 希利爾

V. M. 希利爾（1875—1931），美國著名的兒童教育家、科普作家，創(chuàng)建了卡爾弗特教育體系。他為孩子們編寫了一套趣味盎然的歷史、地理、藝術(shù)讀物，即《寫給孩子看的世界歷史》《寫給孩子看的世界地理》《寫給孩子看的藝術(shù)史》。本文選自《寫給孩子看的藝術(shù)史》。

AND now Im going to have to blindfold you. I wont ask you to look at some pictures blindfolded. You can enjoy music that way， but hardly pictures. But lets suppose you really are blindfolded. Im going to guide you， blindfolded as you are， out to a field this morning. Im going to stand you so you are facing a haystack and then Im going to take the handkerchief off your eyes and let you look at the haystack for five minutes. Then Ill blindfold you again and lead you back. Its a queer kind of a game， isnt it？ Something like blind mans buff.

Lets play it once more. The first time when you looked at the haystack it was ten oclock in the morning. This time Ill let you look at the same haystack for five minutes about five oclock in the afternoon. And this time the haystack will look quite different from the way it looked at ten. Its the same shape， but the colors and light and shadows are all so different that the five oclock haystack makes a picture to your eye very different from the ten oclock haystack. Every little while during the day the haystack changes in color and brightness. Thats why I let you look at it for only five minutes at a time—so the light would not change and give your eye another picture.

現(xiàn)在，我要把你的眼睛蒙起來。我當(dāng)然不會(huì)讓你蒙著眼睛看繪畫作品了——讓你蒙著眼睛聽音樂還行，欣賞圖畫肯定是沒有辦法做到的。假設(shè)你的眼睛真的被蒙上了，什么都看不見，然后我上午領(lǐng)你到田野去一趟。我會(huì)讓你站在一個(gè)草堆前面，然后取下蒙住你眼睛的布。你對著這個(gè)草堆的時(shí)間嘛，我讓你看五分鐘吧。接著我再蒙上你的眼睛，我會(huì)把你帶回你來的地方。是在玩捉迷藏游戲嗎？你一定會(huì)覺得這個(gè)游戲很奇怪，對不對？

我們再玩一次這個(gè)游戲。你第一次看那堆干草是上午十點(diǎn)整，這次，我讓你在下午五點(diǎn)的時(shí)候再看五分鐘。你要是細(xì)心就會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)，下午看到的這個(gè)草堆和上午看到的這個(gè)草堆有著很大的不同。盡管它們的形狀一樣，但是顏色、亮度、影子都完全不一樣了。所以，這個(gè)游戲要告訴你的就是，即使是同一堆干草，它在上午十點(diǎn)和下午五點(diǎn)呈現(xiàn)出來的畫面是完全不同的。事實(shí)上，草堆的顏色和亮度每隔一小會(huì)兒都會(huì)發(fā)生變化。這就是為什么我只給了你五分鐘，每次只讓你看不太長的時(shí)間，這樣草堆就不會(huì)有太大變化，不會(huì)讓你一次就看到不同的畫面。

Now， Im sure you can see that if an artist painted a picture of the haystack for every hour of the day he would have many pictures of the same haystack， but each picture would be different from all the others.

現(xiàn)在你一定明白了，如果一個(gè)畫家每小時(shí)都給同一堆干草畫幅畫，因?yàn)楦刹荻言谝惶熘胁煌瑫r(shí)間里的背景、顏色完全不同，所以畫出來的畫看上去也不會(huì)是同樣的。

一些近代的法國畫家正是這樣迅速作畫的。這批畫家完成了自己的創(chuàng)作之后舉辦了一個(gè)畫展，把作品都掛在墻上讓大家欣賞。來參觀的人發(fā)現(xiàn)這些畫家的繪畫風(fēng)格與以往的畫家不同，他們的作品與前人相比風(fēng)格迥異，這些畫畫的就是畫家們眼睛快速瞥過草堆時(shí)，觀察看到的顏色和光線效果。由于快速觀察事物產(chǎn)生出的是印象，所以很快，這些畫家就被人們稱為“印象派畫家”。

早期的畫家從來都沒有想過這種畫畫的方式，只要是同一匹馬他們都會(huì)畫成一種顏色，同一堆干草也會(huì)畫成一種顏色，也不管這匹馬或者這堆干草在各種不同的光線下看起來是不是那種顏色的。一匹黑色的馬或者一堆黃色的草堆并不一直是黑色或者黃色的，事實(shí)上，不論是馬還是草堆，它們看起來的顏色都取決于它們周圍的光線。有可能一匹黑馬是藍(lán)色的，因?yàn)樵谀承┑胤降墓饩€照射下看起來就是這樣。因?yàn)槿藗兌贾朗澜缟蠜]有藍(lán)色的馬，所以不論馬匹在特定的光線照射下看起來有多么藍(lán)，你也不會(huì)注意到。

That is just what some French artists did so many years ago. Then they gave an exhibition of their work. They hung their paintings on the walls of a room so that people could come and see them. The people who came found these paintings were very different from any they had ever seen before. The pictures were like your quick view of the haystack. They showed the colors and light that the artists had seen in quick views of the things they were painting. These views were called impressions. And so the painters soon got the name of Impressionists.

Earlier painters never thought of doing such a thing. They painted a horse one color and a haystack another， no matter whether the light always made them look that color or not. Really a black horse or a yellow haystack is not always black or yellow. The color depends on the light. The light shining on a black horse may make him look blue in places. But you know so well that a horse isnt blue that you dont notice how blue he really may look in certain lights！

blindfold /'bla?ndf??ld/ v. （用布等）蒙住……的眼睛

blind mans buff? 捉迷藏

The children are playing blind mans buff.

view /vju?/ n. 一睹;一覽

Painters always used to paint shadows brown or gray or black. But if you look carefully at a real shadow it is often not brown or gray or black at all. Its just as apt to be green or blue or purple or some other color.

Of course bright light and color on an object out of doors was always hard to paint， because paints are not nearly so bright as light. But if you remember what I told you about the painter Constable， you will see how these Impressionist artists made their colors look bright and like sunlight. They put the colors on in little dots and dashes. Putting colors on in dots and dashes of separate colors does really make them look brighter. They almost seem to shimmer like real sunlight. But it also makes the pictures look quite different from the older kind of painting.

For this reason the people who saw the French exhibition of the Impressionists werent very much pleased. These people had been used to one kind of painting， and the change was so great that they couldnt like the new kind nearly as well at first.

But after a while the Impressionists came to be understood better. People saw that they were trying out a new way of painting and that what they were doing might be very worthwhile.

One of the Impressionists named Claude Monet used to go out with a carriage full of canvases and spend all day painting the same scene. He used a different canvas each time the light changed the color and appearance of the thing he was painting.

以前的畫家總是用褐色、灰色或者黑色展示影子的效果。但是，如果你真正仔細(xì)地觀察過影子，你就會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)它可能根本就不是這些顏色之一。綠色、藍(lán)色、紫色或者其他什么顏色，影子都有可能會(huì)呈現(xiàn)。

當(dāng)然，室外光線明亮的色彩和亮度人們是很難畫出來的，因?yàn)轭伭系念伾肋h(yuǎn)也沒有太陽光那么明亮。但是改進(jìn)的方法也不是沒有，你還記得我之前介紹過的康斯太布爾吧？如果你記得，你就會(huì)知道這些印象派畫家是如何使得畫面的顏色明亮逼真起來的了。對，他們的方法就是畫不同顏色的很小的點(diǎn)和短線，這樣看起來就會(huì)顯得更亮，而且看上去會(huì)微微閃爍，就像真的陽光一樣。當(dāng)然，這種方法也使得印象派畫家的畫與傳統(tǒng)畫家的作品很不一樣。

不過呢，也正是因?yàn)檫@個(gè)原因，剛開始參觀法國印象派畫家畫展的人們都不太喜歡，他們已經(jīng)習(xí)慣了傳統(tǒng)畫家的畫法，對印象派畫家這樣太過創(chuàng)新的畫剛開始接受起來很不適應(yīng)，就覺得不好看。

過了一段時(shí)間之后，人們慢慢對印象派畫家有了更多的了解。大家發(fā)現(xiàn)這些印象派畫家嘗試的是一種新的畫法，與以往不同，而且他們的嘗試也許是很有價(jià)值的。

克勞德·莫奈這位印象派畫家，經(jīng)常坐著馬車出去畫畫，不過同一個(gè)場景就能畫上一整天。每當(dāng)周圍的光線使得物體的顏色、陰影的形狀發(fā)生變化時(shí)，他就用一塊新的帆布來畫。

For instance， Monet painted fifteen pictures of the same haystacks and in each one had a different color and light effect. He painted twenty pictures of the front of a French cathedral as it was seen at different times of day， and each picture was different. They make an interesting series， but when you see one of these pictures by itself you are apt to be a little disappointed because the forms， or the shapes， in the painting are not so important as you think they should be. Monet was interested in the light and color， not especially in the form or shape.

Another Impressionist had a name much like Monet. His name was Manet. In fact， Manet was the painter who really started the Impressionists. Manet didnt break his pictures up into so many little glittering spots as Monet did. Indeed， it was only in the last ten years of his life that Manet used that kind of painting very much. Some one asked Manet once who the chief person was in one of his Impressionist pictures.

“The most important person in any picture，” Manet answered， “is the light.” And that was what the Impressionists tried to show in their paintings.

Here is one of Manets pictures called “The Fifer”. Probably you will like it better than Monets “The Poplars” because people are generally more interesting than things， even if light is “the most important person” in a painting.

比如，同一個(gè)草堆莫奈就畫過十五幅畫，這十五幅畫的每一幅都呈現(xiàn)出了不同的色彩和光影效果。莫奈還畫了二十幅法國大教堂正面的圖，表現(xiàn)出大教堂在日光下不同時(shí)間的樣子，每幅畫都各不相同。這些畫連在一起看還是挺有感覺的，不過如果只看其中單獨(dú)的一張，你可能會(huì)有點(diǎn)失望，因?yàn)楫嬛形矬w的形狀和樣子看起來好像并不像你想象的那樣。因?yàn)槟螌饩€和顏色特別在意，所以對物體的形狀就不是很感興趣了。

另外還有一位和莫奈名字差不多的印象派畫家，叫馬奈。其實(shí)馬奈才真正是印象主義畫派的創(chuàng)始人。一開始馬奈的畫和莫奈不一樣，他的作品中并沒有把顏色畫成許多明亮的小點(diǎn)，大量出現(xiàn)莫奈的這種畫法是在馬奈生命的最后十年才開始的。有人曾經(jīng)問馬奈：“你的印象派畫作里，主角到底是誰？”

“任何一幅畫中最重要的角色，”馬奈回答說，“都是光線?！边@也正是印象派畫家在畫中希望展現(xiàn)出來的。

這里有一張《吹短笛的男孩》，是馬奈的畫作。相比莫奈的《白楊樹》，你很可能更喜歡這張畫。因?yàn)榧词褂∠笈纱髱煻颊J(rèn)為光線是畫作中最重要的“角色”，但是人們還是對畫中的人物更感興趣。

apt /?pt/ adj. 易于……;有……傾向

She is apt to be forgetful.

shimmer /'??m?（r）/ v. 發(fā)出微弱的閃光;閃爍

chief /t?i?f/ adj. 最重要的;首要的;主要的

Duty， not pleasure， is the chief aim of living.