評論
打印
難句譯注
1. The earliest controversies about the relationship between photography and art centered on whether photograph’s fidelity to appearances and dependence on a machine allowed it to be a fine art as distinct from merely a practical art.
[結構簡析] 此句為主謂語+賓語從句。As distinct from … 句修飾fine art.
[參考譯文] 最早有關攝影和藝術關系的爭論點集中在攝影對表象的忠實和對機器的依賴能否使它成為藝術，有別于僅僅是實用的美術。
2. Against the charge that photography was a soulless, mechanical copying of reality, photographers asserted that it was instead a privileged way of seeing, a revolt against commonplace vision, and no less worthy an art than painting.
[結構簡析] 結構是主謂賓從。句子長是因為介詞短語against the charge 后接同位說明語the photography was …賓語從句中有三組表語：a way of seeing, a revolt, an art.
[參考譯文] 正隊這種指責：攝影是一種沒有靈魂的，對現實機械性復制，攝影工作者聲名攝影不是復制品，而是一種特殊的觀察方式，是對平庸視覺的叛逆，和繪畫一樣有藝術價值。
3. It shows the extent to which they simply take for granted the concept of art imposed by the triumph of Modernism: the better the art, the more subversive it is of the traditional aims of art.
[結構簡析] 句子結構為主從句，which引導賓從作介詞to 的賓語，賓從中imposed by …分詞短語修飾concept of art, the better …the more 是說明concept of art.
[參考譯文] 這說明他們就是把現代主義勝利所強加的藝術概念視為合理的，其合理程度是：藝術越強，對藝術的傳統目的破壞得越大。
4. Photographers’ disclaimers of any interest in making art tell us more about the harried status of the contemporary notion of art than about whether photography is or is not art.
[結構簡析] 名詞disclaimer放棄，否認。上下文翻譯中可譯成動詞含義，否認拋棄創作藝術的興趣。
[參考譯文] 攝影師否認對創作藝術感性趣，他們告訴我們更多的是有關現代藝術概念的令人苦惱的情況，而不是攝影是不是藝術問題。
5. Many professionals privately have begun to worry that the promotion of photography as an activity subversive of the traditional pretensions of art has gone so far that the public will forget that photography is a distinctive and exalted activity—in short, an art.
[結構簡析] 復合句。句內三個that clause. 第一個是worry的賓從;第二個是so far that 的句型。第三個是forget 之賓從。
[參考譯文] 許多專業攝影人員私下開始擔憂，強調攝影是對傳統藝術意圖的顛覆活動的做法有些過分了，(活動的宣傳走得太遠)以致使公眾忘記攝影是一種獨特的高尚活動——總之，是一種藝術。
寫作方法與文章大意
文章論及“攝影是否是藝術”問題，這樣采用對比手法。一開始就講述了19世紀攝影家為確立攝影是藝術而提出的種種依據，并把美術和攝影作比較，來反駁否定攝影的論點：忠于表象，以來機器，沒有靈魂……
確立的藝術后，他們為擺脫油畫那種矯飾的藝術意圖而努力推崇“藝術越佳，對藝術傳統意圖破壞越大”的論點。作者把這些攝影家和抽象表現主義畫家相提并論，把攝影和流行畫等同;和古典現代主義畫家和畫相對抗。
最后結論是這種破壞傳統藝術意圖的活動不能走得太遠，因為攝影畢竟是藝術，否則……。
