評論
打印
Sea fowls are pecking at the small crabs, shell-fish, and other sea candies and maccaroni, which the Right Whale sometimes carries on his pestilent back. And all the while the thick-lipped leviathan is rushing through the deep, leaving tons of tumultuous white curds in his wake, and causing the slight boat to rock in the swells like a skiff caught nigh the paddle-wheels of an ocean steamer. Thus, the fore-ground is all raging commotion; but behind, in admirable artistic contrast, is the glassy level of a sea becalmed, the drooping unstarched sails of the powerless ship, and the inert mass of a dead whale, a conquered fortress, with the flag of capture lazily hanging from the whale-pole inserted into his spout-hole.
海鳥在啄一些小蟹、貝殼和海里的其它糖食和通心面，這些東西有時都搭在露脊鯨那為害匪淺的背上。那只厚嘴唇的大鯨始終在海里沖來沖去，撇下了無數洶涌的凝乳似的白浪，弄得那只纖弱的小艇在浪濤里晃來晃去，直象一葉輕舟快要被遠洋大船的蹼輪絆住了似的。這樣，前景是一片沸騰的騷亂；而背景呢，在使用令人贊嘆的藝術對比下，卻是海面風平浪靜。平穩如鏡、欲動乏力的大船上幾張垂頭喪氣的篷帆，死鯨那個剛被攻下的要塞似的毫無生氣的體軀，它的噴水口里，無精打采地掛著一面縛在鯨桿上的表示已被俘獲的旗幟。
Who Garnery the painter is, or was, I know not. But my life for it he was either practically conversant with his subject, or else marvellously tutored by some experienced whaleman. The French are the lads for painting action. Go and gaze upon all the paintings in Europe, and where will you find such a gallery of living and breathing commotion on canvas, as in that triumphal hall at Versailles; where the beholder fights his way, pell-mell, through the consecutive great battles of France; where every sword seems a flash of the Northern Lights, and the successive armed kings and Emperors dash by, like a charge of crowned centaurs? Not wholly unworthy of a place in that gallery, are these sea battle-pieces of Garnery.
這位叫做卡納里的畫家是誰，現在是否健在，我都不知道。不過，我敢打賭，他不是實際上精通他所描繪的對象，就是受過富有經驗的捕鯨者的出色的指導。法國人真是畫戰斗場面的能手。你看遍歐洲各種名畫，哪里找得到象在凡爾賽宮的凱旋廳那樣，有這么一個畫廊，畫布上盡是一派栩栩如生而充滿騷動的氣氛？在那里，觀眾們你擠我推，亂七八糟地爭看法國的接二連三的大戰場面；在那里，每一支劍都似乎有著一陣北極光的光芒，而那些不斷地沖過來的。全副武裝的帝王，卻象在攻擊那些頂飾冠戴的半人半馬的怪物(半人半馬的怪物——希臘神話中帖撒利名騎手，有一次，帖撒利王邀他們吃喜酒，他們吃醉了酒，竟想奪新娘和其他女賓，另一帖撒利人拉彼利起而攻擊他們，把他們驅逐出境。拉斐爾有一幅名圖即以此為題材。)。卡納里的這兩件海戰的作品，在那畫廊中并不完全是占不了一席之地的。
