雙語+MP3|美國學生藝術(shù)史30 兩個歐洲美國人

 
最后，我要補充一點，你不必等到長大后才能理解和欣賞他們的畫，因為是孩子就必定會喜歡英尼斯和霍默的畫。這就是我的觀點。 
30 TWO EUROPEAN AMERICANS兩個歐洲美國人
 
PAINTINGS sometimes go visiting. In 1932 a famous painting was carefully taken from its home in the Louvre in Paris, put on an ocean liner, and allowed to go on a visit to New York. The last time this painting had been in the United States was fifty years before. Then, no one thought enough of it to pay the thousand dollars that its painter was asking for it. On its second visit crowds of people went to see the painting, and if any one had offered many, many thousands of dollars for it he could not have bought it. For it is now one of the great art treasures of the great French art museum and it is not for sale. In New York it was treated as an honored guest. 
The man who painted this visiting picture named it “An Arrangement in Gray and Black.” But it became too well loved to be called by such an uninteresting name. So every one calls it now simply “Whistler’s Mother.” Whistler was the artist who painted it. 
James McNeill Whistler was an American, but most of his life was spent in Europe. He was a very conceited little man. He quarreled with his friends and seemed to like making enemies wherever he went. This probably helped him to become famous, because it kept people talking about him. He was always news. Perhaps that is why he wore a monocle, which is an eyeglass for just one eye, and why he carried an extra long cane and signed his pictures with a butterfly. Perhaps too, that was why he even put rouge on his cheeks to make them look pink! He liked to be talked about. He liked to be news. 
But of course, no matter how much people talked about him, Whistler would not have been a great artist if he had not painted good pictures. And every one agrees that his“Mother” is a good picture. It is a different kind of portrait from those other artists had painted before. That is why it wasn’t admired as much at first as it is now. Whistler’s mother is shown sitting beside a wall. On the wall hangs a picture in a black frame. You can see that everything in the painting is in straight lines except the old lady herself. 
How big would you guess the portrait of Whistler’s mother is? Would you be surprised to hear that the mother in the picture is life–size? As she is life–size, you can see that the painting is a rather large one. 
I think you would be surprised, if you could see some of Whistler’s paintings, at the way he used colors. Some of his pictures are almost all blue in color—dark blues and light blues and medium blues, all blended to make a picture that is unlike the picture of any artist who used many different colors. Some are almost all white. “The White Girl,” for instance, shows a girl in a white dress seen against a white background. You can guess that that is not the easiest kind of picture to paint and that Whistler must have been skilful to do it successfully. He was—very skilful. 
 
No.30-1　WHISTLER’S MOTHER（《惠斯勒的母親》）　　　　　WHISTLER（惠斯勒　作） 
Another famous American painter who lived most of the time in Europe was John Singer Sargent. During his lifetime Sargent became the most famous living painter of portraits. He painted portraits of many rich people and many important people. Indeed, it was an honor to have Sargent paint your portrait. 
Most of Sargent’s portraits are no doubt very good. They are still admired very much, but I like his wall paintings in Boston best of all his work. When the Boston Public Library was built, Sargent was asked to decorate the walls on the third floor. He painted religious pictures for these walls. One wall shows the children of Israel worshiping the old false gods. Underneath this is a long row of Hebrew prophets from the Old Testament. These prophets seem to be bewailing the evils of their people’s ways. The prophet pictures have become such favorites that you see framed copies of some of them on the walls of houses all over the United States. 
On another wall Sargent painted saints and angels, with the crucified Christ in the center. He painted these figures with bands of real gold about their heads and with the figure of Christ carved like a statue as well as painted. People who saw them marveled that a portrait painter could paint these large wall decorations so splendidly. Now visitors to Boston go to the library just to admire the wall paintings there. I advise you to see them too, when you go to Boston. 
 
No.30-2　THE PROPHET HOSEA（《先知何西亞》） 
SARGENT（薩金特　作）