考满分 toefl

1 .<-NARRATOR:->Listen to part of a lecture in an art history class.

旁白：请听艺术史课上的部分内容。

1 .<-MALE PROFESSOR:->OK, so when we were discussing Gainsborough's painting The Blue Boy, which he painted in 1770, I mentioned the story that the painting might've been an experiment... the result of a challenge—it was believed that blue couldn't be an important color in a painting—because, well, it tends to recede into the background.

教授：我们在讨论Gainsborough在1770年画的作品The Blue Boy时，我提到过这幅画可能是一个试验，一个挑战的结果。那时的人认为蓝色不能成为一幅画中的一个重要颜色，因为它往往会融进背景中。

2 .Not good for your main subject, right?

对你的主要人物不好，对吗？

3 .So, to show otherwise, Gainsborough created The Blue Boy, with the boy featured, large, in his famous blue clothes and, well, I guess he proved his point.

所以为了证明他们是错的，Gainsborough创作了这幅Blue boy，画中的小男孩的很大特色在于他那件著名的蓝色衣服......我想他证明了他的观点。

1 .But, there was another challenge to blue—it was very, very expensive back then.

但是那时蓝色还面对着另一个挑战，在那个时候蓝色非常非常昂贵。

2 .Now, of course, because of modern chemistry, any color is available in tubes at any art supply store.

现在当然了，多亏了现代化学，在任意美术用品商店都能买到管状的所有颜色。

3 .But in the eighteenth century and before, it wasn't so easy.

但是在18世纪及之前并没有这么简单。

4 .And blue... well, the color ultramarine—the most desired shade of blue—was made from the precious stone lapis lazuli, which had to be imported all the way from Afghanistan.

蓝色......深蓝色是最合适的蓝色阴影色，这种颜色是用一种珍贵的石头——天青石制成的，而这种石头要从阿富汗一路进口过来。

1 .And the second-most favored shade of blue... after ultramarine made from lapis lazuli... was a shade of blue that came from another precious stone, azurite.

第二最受喜爱的蓝色阴影色，排在用天青石制成的深蓝色之后的，取自另一种珍贵的石头——蓝铜矿。

1 .But azurite was, well, harder to work with.

但是孔雀石更难使用。

2 .There is evidence that artists would try to get around these difficulties—for example, use pigment from lapis lazuli or azurite very sparingly and also use something cheaper, like smalt, which was made of ground glass.

有证据显示画家会试着避开这些困难。比如非常节约地使用提取自天青石或孔雀石的颜料，还有使用更便宜的颜料，比如大青色，一种由钴玻璃制成的深蓝色。

3 .Thing is, smalt became discolored over time.

问题是，大青色时间久了会掉色。

4 .So, many artists probably just avoided blues altogether, rather than use something cheap and impermanent.

所以很多画家可能会全部避免使用蓝色，而不是使用某种廉价不持久的颜料。

1 .So, blue, and especially ultramarine pigment, was a luxury, a status symbol—worth even more than gold at times—and you even had the wealthy ordering paintings with ultramarine to show others that they could afford something made from this precious pigment, much in the same way they'd order gold leaf.

所以，颜色，尤其是深蓝色颜料在那时是一种奢侈品，一种地位的象征，远比黄金贵很多倍。而你甚至还订购了这么丰裕的蓝色颜料来向其他人展示他们可以负担得起某个由这种珍贵的颜料制成的东西，这就和他们订购黄金叶是一样的。

1 .[aside] Actually, the ancient Egyptians did manage to make an artificial blue—[impressed] the first synthetic pigment, in fact, if you can believe that!

事实上，古埃及人确实设法制作出了一种人工的蓝色，如果你能相信的话，实际上那是首批人造颜料。

2 .They passed the formula on to the Greeks and Romans, but then it was lost....

他们把配方传给了希腊人和罗马人，但是后来失传了。

1 .[back on track] Anyway, not only was lapis lazuli hard to get, it was also hard to process.

天青石不仅很难获得，也很难加工。

2 .The recipe was difficult; the stone had to be ground finely—not easy to do with a rock!—then mixed with melted wax, resins, and oils, wrapped in a cloth and kneaded, like bread dough.

配方很难，必须细致地研磨石头，就岩石来说，这可不容易，然后要把它和融化的蜡、树脂和油混合起来，包在一块布里，然后像揉面团一样揉搓。

3 .The fine particles of ultramarine were then separated from the rest...

接着精美的深蓝色颗粒会被从剩下的部分分离。

4 .The process was time-consuming, which also contributed to the high cost of producing ultramarine, and it didn't even yield very much usable pigment.

这个过程很耗时，这也是制造深蓝色费用高昂的原因之一，而且这个过程甚至产不出多少可用的颜料。

1 .As a result, the French government sponsored a competition in 1824 to find a cheaper way to make ultramarine pigment.

结果，法国政府1824年赞助了一个比赛寻找比较便宜的方法制作深蓝色颜料。

2 .And soon after, a process was demonstrated where a combination of coal, sulphur, and other cheap, commonplace substances were heated, creating a suitable synthetic substitute for lapis lazuli.

在那之后不久，有人演示了一个加工方法，通过加热煤、硫磺和其他便宜常见的物质的混合物，一种合适的天青石人造替代物产生了。

1 .So there's no doubt that nineteenth-century artists, after good synthetic versions were available, used more ultramarine.

所以，毫无疑问，19世纪的画家在优质的人造版本出现后使用的深蓝色变多了。

2 .Think of the Impressionists, for example... They had a lot more choices—or at least less expensive choices—than painters not that long before them...

比如，你们可以想想印象派画家，他们比他们不久之前的画家拥有更多选择，至少不那么昂贵的选择。