新概念英语第四册39-01

第38课

New words and expressions 生词短语

skylark: 云雀

ladybug: 瓢虫

littergug: 乱扔垃圾的人

sculpture n. : 人体雕像，大型的雕塑像

statuary: 雕像

engrave : 在一些东西上刻花，刻工艺品，刻字

inscribe : 题字

carve : 刻成一些比较可爱的小东西

form-blind a. :行盲的（指空间感不足）

Lesson38

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-dimensional 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

参考译文

雕刻的鉴赏能力取决于三维形态的反应能力。也许，这就是为什么把雕刻列为最难的艺术的原由；当然，鉴赏雕刻的难度要比欣赏只有二维形状的平面艺术品大得多。“形盲”的人数多得多。正在学看东西的小孩，开始时只能分辨二维形态，他不能判断距离和浓度。然后，出于他自身的安全和实际需要，小孩不得不发展粗略地判断三维距离的能力（部份是通过触觉）。但是，大多数人在满足了实际需要后就不再向前发展了。虽然人们已能相当精确地感知平面形态，但是，他们不再作智力和情感上的进一步努力去理解存在于空间的整个形态。

上面这一点，是雕刻家一定要做到的。他必须不断努力思考和应用存在于空间的完整形态。他仿佛是把立体形态置于脑海中——他在思考该物体，不论其有多大，都好像完全握在他手掌

之中一样。他的头脑中根据物体的各个方面，设想一相复杂的形态；当他看到一个侧面时，就知道另一侧面是什么样儿的；他把自己与物体的重心、质量和重量混为一体；他认识到，物体的体积即是它在空气中所占的空间。

所以，敏锐的雕刻鉴赏家必须学会把形态只当作形态来感觉，而不是作为描述或回忆来感觉。例如，他必须把一只蛋当作一个简单实体来感觉，而绝不能把它看作为是一种食品，也不可

以文学手法将蛋看成是未来的鸟。对种种立体形态诸如贝壳、核桃、李子、梨子、蝌蚪、蘑菇、山峰、肾脏、胡萝卜、树干、鸟、花蕾、云雀、瓢虫、芦苇和骨头，均应持这样的态度。从这

些形态中，他进而可欣赏到几种更复杂的形态或若干形态的组合。