雙語+MP3|美國學生藝術(shù)史54 思想者的思想

 
我認為，自由女神像是法蘭西共和國送給美利堅合眾國的一份非凡的禮物，展示了兩國之間深厚的友誼。你覺得呢？ 
54 THOUGHTS FOR THINKERS思想者的思想
 
SUPPOSE you were a sculptor and wanted to make a statue meaning thought. Thought is an idea. In grammar we would call it an abstract noun. How, then, could a sculptor make as solid a material as bronze or marble represent an abstract idea like thought? 
Of course a sculptor could make a statue of a person sitting as one sits when thinking. He could label this statue “Thought,” but without the label it might just as well be “Sleep” or “Rest” or “Fatigue.” 
The Greeks solved the problem in their way by imagining a goddess of thought or wisdom and then making a statue of the goddess. The statue would look wise, but still it would be just a likeness of a goddess, not of thought. Any thoughtful or wise-looking woman might serve for the model. 
Let’s try another way. A person who does much thinking is generally able to think easily. Often, if he is a very wise and thoughtful person, you may not see him thinking at all. Probably he would not look as if he were thinking, because he could think so easily. He thinks with his brain and not with his muscles. 
But watch a boy who is not very bright at his lessons trying to do an arithmetic problem. He does not think easily. He sticks out his tongue. He twists his legs about his chair. He bends his head on one side. He holds his pencil so tight his fingers hurt. You can see him thinking because it is hard for him to do it. 
Now, instead of the boy, imagine a cave man. His muscles are big and powerful. He is more like an animal than a man. As he is a man, however, he has a soul and sooner or later he will wonder about his life and what is going to come of it. Why is he here in this world? What happens when he dies? Does he just go out like a dying fire or does part of him live on in some other world that he knows nothing about? He begins thinking, wondering, pondering with his brute-like mind. Even more than the schoolboy, you can see him thinking. The first thing you would say if you saw him would be, “How hard he is thinking!” 
 
No.54　THE THINKER（《思想者》）　　　　RODIN（羅丹　制） 
A statue of such a cave man would show thinking much better than a goddess of thought or a brilliant thinker. A sculptor who used this idea of showing thinking by a statue of some one trying hard to think, was a Frenchman. This sculptor died in 1917. His name was Auguste Rodin (Ro-danh). His most famous statue is called “The Thinker.” It isn’t thinking—but a man thinking—a thinker. It is probably as near as any one can get to showing thinking or thought. 
The statue is of a brute-like man. It isn’t smooth and pretty like Canova’s Mercury. It is roughly and strongly modeled. This rough modeling helps make the man look more brute-like and unused to thinking. He sits pondering, head in hand, pondering so intensely that even his toes are tightly clutching the ground. 
Rodin loved contrasts. Often he carved delicate and beautiful forms as though they were just coming out of the uncarved marble block. The beauty is increased by the contrast of the finished part with the unfinished.