評論
打印
Chapter 44
第四十四章
A certain importance attaches to the views on art of painters, and this is the natural place for me to set down what I know of Strickland's opinions of the great artists of the past. I am afraid I have very little worth noting. Strickland was not a conversationalist, and he had no gift for putting what he had to say in the striking phrase that the listener remembers. He had no wit. His humour, as will be seen if I have in any way succeeded in reproducing the manner of his conversation, was sardonic. His repartee was rude. He made one laugh sometimes by speaking the truth, but this is a form of humour which gains its force only by its unusualness; it would cease to amuse if it were commonly practised.
對于其他大師的繪畫藝術看法如何，是一件相當重要的事；我在這里自然要記敘一下思特里克蘭德對過去一些偉大藝術家的意見。我怕值得我寫下的東西實在不多。思特里克蘭德不善講話，他根本不會把自己想要說的用精辟的言辭講出來，給聽的人留下較深的印象。他說話沒有風趣。如果說我多少還成功地記錄下他的一些話語，從中可以看出他的某些幽默感，這種幽默也主要表現為冷嘲熱諷。他辯駁別人話的時候非常粗野，有時候由于直言不諱，會叫你發笑；但是這些話之所以讓你覺得滑稽，只是因為他的話說得不多。如果他一開口就是這樣的話，人們也就不覺得有什么好笑的了。
Strickland was not, I should say, a man of great intelligence, and his views on painting were by no means out of the ordinary. I never heard him speak of those whose work had a certain analogy with his own—of Cezanne, for instance, or of Van Gogh; and I doubt very much if he had ever seen their pictures. He was not greatly interested in the Impressionists. Their technique impressed him, but I fancy that he thought their attitude commonplace. When Stroeve was holding forth at length on the excellence of Monet, he said: "I prefer Winterhalter." But I dare say he said it to annoy, and if he did he certainly succeeded.
我應該說，思特里克蘭德并不是一個智力超群的人，他對于繪畫的見解也絲毫沒有什么獨到之處。我從來沒有聽他談論過那些繪畫風格與他類似的畫家，例如塞尚，凡·高等人；我很懷疑他是否看過這些畫家的作品。他對于印象派畫家似乎不怎么感興趣，這些人的技巧留給他一定的印象，但是我猜想他也許認為他們對待藝術的態度是平庸無奇的。有一次施特略夫正仔細評論莫奈的卓越藝術，思特里克蘭德突然插口說：“我更喜歡溫特爾哈爾特（弗朗茲·伊可薩維爾·溫特爾哈爾特（1805—1873），德國宮廷畫家）。”我敢說他說這句是有意氣一氣施特略夫；如果他確實有這個意思，他算成功了。
