雙語+MP3|美國(guó)學(xué)生藝術(shù)史89 非寫實(shí)和超現(xiàn)實(shí)

 
美國(guó)已經(jīng)在著手清除城中村，但還有許多工作要做。這是建筑界的又一個(gè)新思維，可能會(huì)伴隨你一塊兒長(zhǎng)大。有一天你或許會(huì)參與這項(xiàng)工作，清除城中村，建造舒適的新房子。 
89 NONS AND SURS非寫實(shí)和超現(xiàn)實(shí)
 
“WHY, a six-year-old child could paint a better picture than that!” said the man. 
“At least it has plenty of bright colors,” said the woman. “Look at all that yellow and orange. I like it. Perhaps it’s supposed to be a sunset.” 
“It looks more like a fried egg to me,” the man said. 
The man and woman were in an art museum. They were standing before a painting that really didn’t look much like either a sunset or a fried egg. It was all made of yellow and orange paints except for a small dark blue square near one corner. As they moved on to the next painting, the man shook his head. “Modern art is too much for me,” he said. “I just don’t understand it.” 
Many people are puzzled by paintings that are not pictures of objects. Such paintings are called non-objective paintings. Non-objective paintings are not supposed to look like sunsets or fried eggs or people or houses or any other objects. 
Have you ever tried to find picture’s of objects in the clouds? Did you ever see a cloud that looked like a lion? Many times one can see clouds that look like a landscape with hills and valleys and harbors and islands. But seeing objects in the clouds doesn’t make the clouds more beautiful. The clouds are beautiful whether or not we can use our imagination to see pictures in them. 
Non-objective paintings can be beautiful also. They don’t have to look like some object that we can recognize. You can enjoy them more if you don’t puzzle your head over what objects they are supposed to look like. Just remember they are not supposed to look like anything— except a non-objective painting. 
Artists who paint non-objective paintings sometimes say, “A camera can make a picture of an object. A photograph will look like the real object. It will have realism. Why should a painter always try to make a picture look realistic? Why should a painter try to do something that a photographer can do with a click of the camera’s shutter?” 
How can a person tell whether a non-objective painting is a good painting or a poor one? Why is one building beautiful and another ugly? Why does a moose look clumsy and a deer look graceful? 
 
No.89-1　SCHRZO（#86）（《詼諧曲·作品86號(hào)》）　　　　　RAUER（鮑爾　作） 
Courtesy of the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, New York 
Boys and girls who try making non-objective pictures themselves usually find they are fun to make. If you try one you may find it easier to use wax crayons instead of paints. Put the colors on strong and thick. Don’t use a pencil, just the crayons. Don’t just scribble; make different shapes. 
When you show your non-objective picture to other people, they’ll probably say,“What is it supposed to be?” 
And you can answer, “Why, it’s not supposed to be anything. It’s a non-objective picture.” 
Of course, most artists still paint pictures of objects. All modern paintings aren’t nonobjective. 
There are many modern paintings of objects, however, that are just as puzzling to some people as non-objective paintings. That’s because some people think a painting should show objects just the way they look to your eye or to a camera. They think the objects in these paintings should look real; that they should be realistic. 
But a painter may not want to paint objects realistically. He may want to get into the picture some of the feeling he himself has about the object. He may want to use his imagination about the object. 
Perhaps the artist may want to show all four sides of the object in the same picture. Usually when you look at an object you don’t see more than two sides. When you look at a table, for instance, you know it has four legs but often you can see only two legs at once. 
One of the best-known of modern painters at first painted pictures that showed people and objects as they really looked. They were realistic paintings. Then he got tired of painting realistic pictures. He tried other ways of showing objects. Some of his paintings, for example, show the front view and side view of a person’s face in the same picture. 
This painter’s name is Pablo Picasso. Picasso was born in Spain but most of his work was done in France. 
Look at the two pictures by Picasso in this chapter. The first one is a realistic painting. See how differently the second one is painted. It is not realistic at all. You could never mistake this picture for a photograph of three musicians. The three musicians are there in the picture all right but you can see they are not painted realistically. 
Which picture do you like better? Do you think the non-realistic picture is more interesting than the other one? 
Would you say “The Three Musicians” is a non-objective picture? It isn’t, because it shows objects—the musicians. We can simply call it a non-realistic picture. 
Another way of painting is called surrealism. In a dream anything can happen. In a surrealistic painting anything can happen too. People can have heads made of cabbages. People can have bodies made of bureau drawers or have trees growing out of their ears, just as in a dream. 
One famous surrealistic painting shows several watches. They look exactly like real watches except for one thing: they bend. They are limp, like pancakes. 
Look at the picture. Notice the ants in one of the watches. Why should ants be in a watch? There doesn’t have to be a reason, because the painting is surrealistic. 
This painting was made by a man named Salvador Dali, who was born in Spain but came to live in the United States. 
 
No.89-2　LE GOURMET（《美食廊》） 
PICASSO（畢加索　作） 
Courtesy of The Art Institute of Chicago 
Dali is the best-known of the surrealistic painters. Most of their paintings are clearly and smoothly painted with great skill. They are realistic paintings except that the objects in the pictures are often impossible objects. If there were limp watches, however, that’s the way they would look. 
 
No.89-3　THE THREE MUSICIANS（《三位音樂家》）　　　　PICASSO（畢加索　作） 
Courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art　　　　　A.E. Gallatin Collection 
Surrealistic paintings are puzzling just as a dream is puzzling. They are interesting and fun to look at just as a dream is fun—unless it’s a nightmare. Often the artists who paint surrealistic pictures make them still more puzzling by giving them strange titles. The title of the limp watches is “The Persistence of Memory.” What does that mean? Your guess is as good as anyone’s. 
 
No.89-4　THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY（《記憶的耐力》）　　　　DALI（達(dá)利　作） 
Collection the Museum of Modern Art, New York 
When you next visit an art museum see how many nons and surs you can pick out—the nons for non-objective and non-realistic paintings and the surs for surrealistic pictures.