考满分 toefl

1 .Listen to part of a lecture in an art history class.

听一段艺术史课的讲座。

1 .P: Your book doesn't say as much as I'd like about one of the most remarkable American artists, Winslow Homer. So let's, well, I want to expand on the turning point in his career when he started doing watercolor painting.

教授：你们的课本对美国最杰出的艺术家之一温斯洛・霍默（Winslow Homer）的介绍，没有达到我期望的程度。所以，咱们来深入探讨一下他职业生涯中的转折点，也就是他开始创作水彩画的时候。

1 .He started in oil but went on to paint watercolors for almost, well, the rest of his career. And there's some of his most celebrated paintings. He was exposed to watercolor early in life, but it took him a long time to, to really adopt it. When Homer was a boy, his mother, an amateur artist taught him to use watercolors.

他最初是画油画的，但在之后几乎整个职业生涯中都在画水彩画，而且他有一些最著名的画作就是水彩画。他早年就接触到了水彩画，但过了很久他才真正投身于水彩画创作。霍默小时候，他的母亲，一位业余艺术家，教他使用水彩颜料。

1 .As a young artist, he used watercolors as preparations for wood engravings. He painted watercolors directly onto the wood block like preliminary sketches as a sort of a guide for the engraver who then actually carved the block following Homer's outline. But it wasn't a separate. These sketches that can't really be considered watercolor paintings per se.

年轻时，他用水彩画为木刻做准备。他把水彩画直接画在木块上，就像初步草图一样，为雕刻师提供一种指引，雕刻师随后会按照霍默的轮廓雕刻木块。但严格来说，这些草图并不能真正被视为水彩画。

1 .Alright, now watercolor, it's actually older than oil painting. The ancient Egyptians did watercolor paintings. It's cheaper than oil paint, easier to use outside, outdoors than oils, cause it drives faster and it's more portable. Artists often painted with watercolors outside out in nature and with oils when they were inside in their studios seem to be a lot of good things about watercolor, but why wasn't it very popular then?

好了，实际上水彩画比油画的历史更悠久。古埃及人就画水彩画。它比油画颜料便宜，在户外使用也比油画更方便，因为它干得更快，而且更便于携带。艺术家们常常在户外大自然中用水彩画画，在工作室里则用油画颜料画画。水彩画似乎有很多优点，但为什么当时它不太受欢迎呢？

1 .Well, you've got to understand the attitudes during the time homer was painting in the early and mid 1800s in North America. Oil painting was still more important than watercolor painting. It had a higher status in art circles. Collectors didn't value the water colors as much. They wanted oil paintings. That's what they were willing to pay money for. Of course, artists, including Homer, wanted to create paintings they get paid for. So oils were the way to go.

要知道，在霍默于 19 世纪早期和中期进行绘画创作时，北美社会有着特定的观念。油画仍然比水彩画更受重视，在艺术圈里地位更高。收藏家不太看重水彩画，他们想要的是油画，愿意为之掏钱购买的也是油画。当然，包括霍默在内的艺术家们都希望创作出能卖钱的画作，所以当时画油画才是主流选择。

1 .But in 1866, the American society of painters in watercolors was founded, don't need to worry about this name. They held shows exhibitions of watercolor paintings, a major goal being to promote watercolor painting, you know, to elevate its status. In 1873, they organized a huge international show in New York. It was bigger than any other showing of watercolor paintings in this country up to that time. And it did a lot to establish it as a serious form of art.

但在 1866 年，美国水彩画家协会成立了（这个名字不用记）。他们举办水彩画展，主要目标就是推广水彩画，提升它的地位。1873 年，他们在纽约组织了一场盛大的国际展览，这是当时美国规模最大的水彩画展。这次展览对确立水彩画作为一种严肃艺术形式的地位起到了很大作用。

1 .Almost 600 watercolors from Europe and America were on display. People were really amazed at how good they were and what could be done with watercolor. So it was in this year after this international display that watercolors started to catch on with collectors. Now they wanted watercolors in their collections. They also, they liked watercolors because they were more affordable and they were typically smaller than oils.

展览上展出了近 600 幅来自欧洲和美国的水彩画，人们惊叹于这些画作的美妙，也对水彩画的表现力有了新的认识。就在这次国际展览之后，水彩画开始受到收藏家的青睐，他们希望在自己的收藏中纳入水彩画。而且，他们喜欢水彩画还因为其价格更亲民，尺寸通常也比油画小。

1 .Now, Homer hit a rough patch in his career around this time. It wasn't going as well as he'd hoped. He'd had some early success here and in Europe, he'd actually been deemed a rising star, but that seemed to more or less quickly pass when he returned from Europe in the late 1860s, his oil paintings just weren't selling. Critics didn't rave about these later oil paintings like they did about his early ones. He was done, he was doing a lot of commercial work as an illustrator for making drawings for magazines and newspapers. This didn't really fulfill his, it didn't satisfy him you know.

大约在这个时候，霍默的职业生涯陷入了困境，发展并不如他所愿。他早期在国内和欧洲都取得过一些成功，实际上还曾被誉为一颗冉冉升起的新星。但在 19 世纪 60 年代末从欧洲回国后，他的名气很快就消退了，他的油画作品卖不出去。评论家们对他后期的油画作品也不像对早期作品那样热情赞扬。当时他做了很多商业插画工作，为杂志和报纸画画，但这并不能让他获得满足感。

1 .But after this big international watercolor show, Homer started to seriously, well, he really for the first time applied himself to watercolor painting. He took a trip to Massachusetts and painted children playing on the docks near the ocean and other outdoor scenes around there.

不过，在那次大型国际水彩画展之后，霍默开始认真对待水彩画创作，这也是他第一次全身心投入其中。他去了马萨诸塞州旅行，画了孩子们在海边码头玩耍的场景，还有周边的其他户外景色。

1 .Homer painted this piece called a basket of clams during this trip. Even these first watercolors of his just simply take my breath away. He used color so well, there's a lightness and ease that isn't in his oils. He experimented in different ways. There's there's a sense of freedom. It was a new beginning form, a fortunate change.

在这次旅行中，他创作了一幅名为《一篮蛤蜊》的作品。他最初创作的这些水彩画就令我大为惊叹，他对色彩的运用非常出色，画面有一种在他的油画作品中没有的轻盈和灵动。他还进行了各种尝试，作品中有一种自由的感觉，这对他来说是一个全新的开始，是一次幸运的转变。

1 .Obviously, he had tremendous skill in watercolor and this trip kind of marked a rebirth, the technique, his skill, it exploded into these vibrant, bold, really brush strokes. He showed these Massachusetts paintings at the next exhibition held by the society of painters in watercolors. Just a year after that first big exhibition, the critics were no longer lukewarm about his painting. Homer's newest works were judged to be more original than any others in North America.

显然，他在水彩画方面极具天赋，这次旅行标志着他艺术生涯的重生，他的绘画技巧在这些充满活力、笔触大胆的作品中得到了充分展现。他在水彩画家协会举办的下一次展览中展出了在马萨诸塞州创作的这些画作。就在那次大型展览的第二年，评论家们对他的画作不再冷淡。霍默的新作品被认为比北美的其他任何作品都更具独创性。