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Winston Churchill
溫斯頓·丘吉爾
Winston Churchill began his love affair with painting in his 40's, a mid disastrous circumstance. As First Lord of the Admiralty in 1915, he was deeply involved in a campaign in the Dardanelles that could have shortened the course of a bloody world war. But when the mission failed, with great loss of life, Chwchill paid the price, both publicly and privately. He was removed from the admiralty and effectively sidelined.
溫斯頓·丘吉爾，在他四十多歲時開始迷戀上繪畫，當時環境異常惡劣。那是在1915年，任海軍大臣的他，積極投身于在達達尼爾海峽的一場戰役中，這場戰役本可以縮短那段血雨腥風的世界大戰。但由于遭受失敗，傷亡慘重，丘吉爾于公于私都付出了代價。他被從海軍部調離且實則坐起了冷板凳。
Overwhelmed by the catastrophe, he retired with his family to Hoe Farm, a country retreat in Surrey. There, as Churchill later recalled, "The muse of painting came to my rescue!"
在災難的折磨下，他攜家帶口來到薩利郡的一處鄉間靜居霍莊園。在那兒，丘吉爾后來回憶道:“是繪畫中的冥思拯救了我!”
Wandering in the garden one day, he chanced upon his sister-in-law sketching with watercolors. He watched her for a few minutes, then borrowed her brush and tried his hand.
一天他在花園散步時，偶然看到他的弟媳在用水彩作畫。他觀察了幾分鐘，然后向她借了畫筆并一試身手。
Churchill soon decided to experiment with oils. At that time, John Lavery一a Churchill neighbor and celebrated painter-was tutoring Churchill in his art. Later, Lavery said of his unusual pupil, "Had he chosen painting instead of
statesmanship, I believe he would have been a great master with the brush."
丘吉爾很快就決定試著去畫油畫。那時，約翰·拉威利—丘吉爾的鄰居，也是一位有名的畫家正教丘吉爾學畫。后來提及他的這位特殊的學生，拉威利說:“倘若他選擇繪畫而不是從政，我相信他會是位繪畫大師的。”
In painting, Churchill had discovered a companion with whom he was to walk for the greater part of the years that remained to him.
在繪畫中，丘吉爾找到了能陪他度過余生大部分時光的知己。
Historians have called the decade after 1929, when the Conservative government fell and Winston was out of office, his wilderness years. Politically he may have been wandering in barren places, a lonely fighter trying to awaken Britain to the menace of Hitler, but artistically that wilderness bore abundant fruit. During these years he often painted in the South of France. Of the 500-odd canvases extant, roughly 250 date from 1930 to 1939.
史學家把1929年后的十年，也就是保守黨政府垮臺而溫斯頓下臺的時間，稱為他的荒涼歲月。政治上，他一直在舉步維艱的處境中排徊，是一個孤獨的勇士在努力喚起受到希特勒威脅的英國人，但在藝術上他在那荒涼歲月卻碩果累累。那些年他經常在法國南部作畫。在現存的500多張油畫中，大約250張是1930至1939年間的作品。
Painting remained a joy to Churchill to the end of his life. "Happy are the painters." he had written in his book Painting as a Pastime, "for they shall not be lonely. Light and color, peace and hope, will keep them company to the end of the day."
繪畫給丘吉爾帶來了樂趣，直到他的人生盡頭。在他所著的《畫中的消遣》里說:“畫家其樂融融，因為他們不會孤獨。光與色.和平與希望，會始終伴隨他們。”
