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Colour in art
藝術中的顏色
Paint it black
把它涂成黑色
The colour black has long been the ultimate test of an artist’s ingenuity
黑色一直是對藝術家創造力的終極考驗
Claude Monet died in darkest December in 1926 surrounded by the garden he had created at Giverny. When Georges Clemenceau, the former French prime minister, arrived three days later for the artist’s funeral and caught sight of the blackdraped coffin, he exclaimed: “No! No black for Monet.” An old piece of cretonne was brought down from the house to replace the dark pall with the palette that the artist had made his own: nature’s many greens, lavender, water lilies and forget-me-nots.
1926年最黑暗的12月，克勞德·莫奈在自己建造的吉維尼花園中死去。三天后，法國前總理喬治·克列孟梭出席這位藝術家的葬禮。他望見蓋著黑布的棺槨，隨即大喊道：“不！莫奈不要黑色。”隨后人們從屋子中拿出了一塊陳舊的印花棉布來代替黑布，棉布的印花是莫奈自己創作的，他描繪了大自然的許多綠色植物、薰衣草、睡蓮和勿忘我。
Most colours represent different things for different people. The hue of death in India and in some Slavic cultures is white, yet white also means spiritual rebirth for Muslims participating in the haj. Green was for bankers in early modern Europe; in the Kenyan flag it represents the land. Red is the badge of loyalty and success in China and of power and devotion in Russia. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s New England it was the sign of adultery. Black, however, has associations that are universal. It is bound up with witchcraft, the underworld, nighttime and the far side of the Moon.
大部分顏色于不同的人代表著不同的意義。在印度和某些斯拉夫國家的文化中，白色是死亡的色調；但對于參與麥加朝圣的穆斯林來說，白色也意味著靈魂上的重生。在近代歐洲早期，綠色是銀行家的象征；而肯尼亞國旗上的綠色代表著土地。紅色在中國象征著忠誠和成功，在俄羅斯象征著權力和奉獻，在納撒尼爾·霍桑筆下的新英格蘭則是通奸的象征。不過，黑色的象征意義十分普遍。它與巫術、陰間、夜晚和月背緊密相連。
Physicists say it is not really a colour at all. Because black is the result of the absence of light, Sir Isaac Newton did not see it on the spectrum of colours in his experiments with prisms in the late 1660s. Many artists take a different view. For them black represents an intellectual and technical challenge; it is the high-jump of colour, a test of their skill, ingenuity and imagination. (Black skin has its own, entwined but distinct, artistic history, with vexed connotations of power, prejudice and eroticism.)
物理學家表示，黑色根本就不是一種顏色。因為黑色是缺少光線的結果，艾薩克·牛頓爵士在17世紀60年代后期進行棱鏡實驗時，并沒有在光譜上看到黑色。許多藝術家持有不同的觀點。對他們來說，黑色代表著智力和技術上的挑戰；黑色是顏色的飛躍，是對他們技能、創造力和想象力的考驗。（黑色皮膚有它自己的藝術史，密切相連但與眾不同，帶有權力、偏見和色情等有爭議的內涵。）
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