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寂寞睡莲——20世纪的莫奈

　　Monet in the Twentieth Century, travelling from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts to the Royal Academy, is one of the most popular exhibitions of twentieth-century art ever held in London. The exhibition contains over 80 works, dating from 1900 - when Monet was 60 - until his death at 86 in 1926.
　　Monet's paintings are, as much as anything, a record of his perceptions[1], of 睡莲1

the optical[2] effects of light: the reflections of light on water, light filtered[3] through London fog, light on the Thames and on the canals of Venice, light on the lily pond he created in his garden at Giverny. He planted his garden in order to paint it. And it is as paintings - colours worked across the plane of the canvas - that we should remember them, not merely as copies of a pond, or records of the light at a certain time of day or season. His paintings are not pictures on seed packets.
　　Cezanne is reputed to have called Monet: "only an eye, but by God, what an eye!" But Monet was much more than an eye. His eyesight failed, his wife and son died, as did his contemporaries[4]. He painted throughout the 睡莲2

first quarter of our century. As he painted in his garden, the Dreyfus affair rocked France; Picasso and Braque invented cubism[5]. The First World War raged, not so far from Giverny. The social order collapsed. Monet's paintings, which might be seen as an escape - as merely beautiful - also reflect his times and his emotional and physical difficulties. As he stood at the edge of his pond, painting what he saw, he recorded too his own difficulties and his reveries, and invented a new kind of pictorial space. He did what he could - he did the only thing he could do - and that was to paint.

About the Artist：
　　Monet, Claude (1840-1926). French painter, initiator, leader, and unswerving[6] advocate[7] of the Impressionist style, and it is fitting that one of his pictures---Impression: Sunrise --gave the group his name.

注释：

1．perception：你知道“感觉”的正式说法吗？就是文中的perceive， perception 是perceive 的名词，表示“觉察（力）”，你只要记住动词，掌握名词更是小 case。比如：You perceived what the man wanted. 别人不用说，你就可以感觉到，You have a good perception of people.

2．optical： optical 是“视觉的；能使人看得清楚的”，常用的望远镜，显微镜都是：optical instument.

3．filter：现在环境污染，大家都在用的饮水机，它英文说明书上经常出现 filter，是什么意思呢？ filter 就是“过滤器”。在这篇文章中，它以动词的面目出现，是“透过”，比如：Sunlight filtered through the leaves.

4．contemporary： contemporary 作名词，是“同代的人；同时期的人”。诗人济慈是雪莱同时代的人。Keats was a contemporary of Shelley's.

5．Cubism： Cubism. 是现代西方的一种绘画流，立体派，所作的绘画中的物体大半由几何图形构成。代表人物有：毕加索和皮萨罗。

二十世纪的莫奈

　　《二十世纪的莫奈》画展是本世纪在伦敦举办的最受欢迎的艺术展之一，展出作品现已从波士顿艺术博物馆转移到英国皇家艺术学会。这次共展出80幅作品，花园中的妇女

包括从1900年莫奈60岁到他1926年80岁去世时所创作的作品。莫奈的画，非常能反映他对光线的视觉效果的理解：在水面上反射的光线，穿透了伦敦浓雾的光线，照射在泰唔士河和威尼斯运河上的阳光，以及洒射在他的基沃尼私人花园的睡莲池塘上的阳光。而他建造花园的目的就是为了写生。我们应该铭记的是这种色彩在画布上挥洒的绘画艺术，而不仅仅是对一个小池塘的临摹，或是光线在某天或某季节的某段时间里的描绘。莫奈的画并非印在廉价的口袋上的画。
　　
　　塞尚对莫奈的评价很有名，他称莫奈“只是一只眼睛，但却是上帝的造物。多么神奇的眼睛呀！”但是，莫奈远远不止是一只眼睛可以形容的。（晚年时，）他的视力衰退了，妻子和儿子去世了，和他同时代的人也大半逝去。莫奈在本世纪的前二十五巴黎街景

年中一直在作画。他在花园中潜心作画的同时，德雷福斯案（1894年，法国军事当局为了掀起反犹运动，鼓动对德战争，诬告犹太血统的法国军官德雷福斯出卖国防机密给德国的事件。）震动了全法国，而毕加索和布拉克也在那个时候创立了立体派。就在离基沃尼不远的地方，第一次世界大战战事正酣。社会秩序崩溃了。莫奈的画可能被看作一种逃避，或是单纯的美丽，但是其实也反映了他所处的时代，反映了他情感和生理上的残障。当他站在池塘边写生时，他同时也记录了他自己的困苦和幻想，开辟了一方新的绘画空间。他做了他所能做的--也是他唯一能够做到的--这就是绘画。

6．unswerving：前缀 un- 是否定意义，动词Swerve 表示“突然转向”，连在一起，就成了unswerving ，是“不变的，坚定的”。unswerving loyalty 就是“不变的忠诚”。

7．advocate： advocate 是“提倡；倡导”。比如主张使用武力，就是：advocate the use of force. Advocate 作名词是“倡导者，主张者”，文章中的 advocate 就是名词。