新概念美音版第四冊 Lesson 31 The sculptor speaks 雕塑家的語言

 




Lesson 31  The sculptor speaks 雕塑家的語言

First listen and then answer the following question.

聽錄音，然後回答以下問題。

What do you have to be able to do to appreciate sculpture?

    Appreciation of sculpture depends upon the ability to respond to form in three dimensions. That is perhaps why sculpture has been described as the most difficult of all arts; certainly it is more difficult than the arts which involve appreciation of flat forms, shape in only two dimensions. Many more people are 'form-blind' than colour-blind. The child learning to see, first distinguishes only two-dimensional shape; it cannot judge distances, depths. Later, for its personal safety and practical needs, it has to develop (partly by means of touch) the ability to judge roughly three-dimensonal distances. But having satisfied the requirements of practical necessity, most people go no further.  Though they may attain considerable accuracy in the perception of flat form, they do not make the further intellectual and emotional effort needed to comprehend form in its full spatial existence.

    This is what the sculptor must do. He must strive continually to think of, and use, form in its full spatial completeness. He gets the solid shape, as it were, inside his head-he thinks of it, whatever its size, as if he were holding it completely enclosed in the hollow of his hand. He mentally visualizes a complex form from all round itself; he knows while he looks at one side what the other side is like, he identifies himself with its centre of gravity, its mass, its weight; he realizes its volume, as the space that the shape displaces in the air.

    And the sensitive observer of sculpture must also learn to feel shape simply as shape, not as description or reminiscence. He must, for example, perceive an egg as a simple single solid shape, quite apart from its significance as food, or from the literary idea that it will become a bird. And so with solids such as a shell, a nut, a plum, a pear, a tadpole, a mushroom, a mountain peak, a kidney, a carrot, a tree-trunk, a bird, a bud, a lark, a ladybird, a bulrush, a bone. From these he can go on to appreciate more complex forms of combinations of several forms.

             HENRY MOORE The Sculptor Speaks from The Listener

New words and expressions 生詞和短語

    colour-blind
adj. 色盲的
    perception
n.  知覺
    comprehend
v.  理解
    spatial
adj. 空間
    visualize
v.  使具形象，設想
    reminiscence
n.  回憶，聯想
    tadpole
n.  蝌蚪
    mushroom
n.  蘑菇
    carrot
n.  胡蘿卜
    bud
n.  花蕾
    lark
n.  雲雀
    ladybird
n.  瓢蟲
    bulrush
n.  蘆葦

參考譯文

    對雕塑的鑒賞力取決於對立體的反應能力。雕塑被說成是所有藝術中最難的藝術，可能就是這個道理。欣賞雕塑品當然比欣賞平麵的藝術品要難。“形盲”的人數比“色盲”的人數要多得多。正在學看東西的兒童起初隻會分辨二維形態，不會判斷距離和深度。慢慢地，由於自身安全和實際需要，兒童必須發展（部分通過觸覺）粗略判斷三維空間距離的能力。但是。大部分人在滿足了實際需要後，就不再繼續發展這種能力了。雖然他們對平麵形的感覺能達到相當準確的程度，但他們沒有在智力和感情上進一步努力去理解存在於空間的整個形態。

    而雕塑家就必須做到這一點。他必須勤於想像並且利用形體在空間中的完整性。可以說，當他想像一個物體時，不管其大小如何，他腦子裏得到的是一個立體的概念，就好像完全握在自己手心裏一樣。他的大腦能從物體周圍的各個角度勾畫出其複雜的形象，他看物體的一邊時，便知道另一邊是個什麽樣子。他把自身和物體重心、質量、重量融為一體。他能意識到物體的體積，那就是它的形狀有空氣中所占的空間。

    因此，敏銳的雕塑觀賞者也必須學會把形體作為形體來感覺，不要靠描述和印象去想象。以鳥蛋為例。觀賞者必須感覺到它是一個單一的實體形態，而完全不靠它的食用意義或它會變成鳥這樣的文字概念來感覺。對於其他實體，如，貝殼、核桃、李子、梨子、蝌蚪、蘑菇、山峰、腎髒、胡蘿卜、樹幹、鳥兒、花蕾、雲雀、瓢蟲、蘆葦以及骨頭也應這樣來感覺。從這些形體出發，觀賞者可進一步觀察更為複雜的形體或若幹形體的組合。