Tamaris

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (French, 1824–1898)
Title Tamaris
Date ca. 1880
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 10 x 15 1/2 in. (25.4 x 39.4 cm)
Credit LineH. O. Havemeyer Collection, Gift of Mrs. J. Watson Webb, 1930

A Woman Reading

Camille Corot (French, 1796–1875)
A Woman Reading
1869 and 1870
Oil on canvas
21 3/8 x 14 3/4 in. (54.3 x 37.5 cm)

When the seventy-two-year-old Corot showed “A Woman Reading” at the Salon of 1869, the critic Théophile Gautier praised its na?veté and its color but criticized the faulty drawing of the figure, noting the rarity of figures in Corot’s work. Although the artist had painted similar figure studies after the late 1850s, this was the first and one of the very few that he exhibited.

Close examination of the surface reveals that Corot reworked the landscape. A photograph of the painting when it was exhibited at the Salon indicates that originally there was a willow at the left whose foliage nearly covered the sky, and a mass of trees at the right. A lithographic copy of the painting, made by Emile Vernier in 1870, reproduces it with the present, open sky; thus, Corot must have repainted the work immediately after he retrieved it from the Salon.

学术蛛网

这一种颓废的学术，主要是在经院派中间“为王”的：这些学者，由于他们有敏锐的坚强的智力，有充足的时间，而读书的种类很少（有如他们的身体是关在修道院和学院中的僧房中一样，这些人的智力是被关在少数作者，特别是他们的独裁者亚里士多德的狭小范围里的），并且由于他们对自然和时间的历史都懂得很少，他们就根据很少一点的事实和无限地运用巧思，给我们编织出了存在于他们学术中的那些十分费力的学术罗网。为什么呢？因为人类的聪明才力，如果用在事物上的话（也就是说，如果这样的观察或思考是上帝所创造的生物应该做的），它就要根据物质材料来进行工作，并且要受到材料的限制；但如果把聪明才力用在自己本身上，有如蜘蛛的织网那样，那这种工作就成了无穷无尽，并且结果的确能织出许多蛛网来，这些蛛网从它的工作和丝线和精细来说却是了不起，可是并没有什么实质，也没什么益处。

——培根《广学论》

比德(Bede)的《英吉利教会史》

如果有读者发现我写的这本书中所记载的材料和事实有出入，我谦卑地请求他不要怪罪我们，因为我们是怀着真挚的感情，为了教诲后代，努力把从普通传闻中汇集起来的资料写进这本书的。这是历史的真正规律。

——比德《英吉利教会史》

这是一部充满神迹的历史。基督教从它的诞生地，近东地区翻山越水，穿过了赫拉克勒斯之柱，来到了传说中世界的最西方，亚特兰蒂斯、大西岛，并给了它福佑，在这片土地上，继罗马之后，成就了又一个世界性帝国。足以令人感觉怪异的是，何以一个地区性的宗教会成为普世性的宗教？不善武功的基督教借助于罗马人的武功，它居然打败了各个民族的神。

英吉利人同这种宗教的抗争是其民族政治历史与政治思想的线索，而直到培根的出现，才从这种宗教中发现了自然的奥秘，奠定了不列颠帝国的根基。诗人考雷(Abraham Cowley)在祝贺“英国皇家学会”建立而写的诗歌中这样写到：

        从我们走过的先行者走过的，

        那些漫长的错误的道路，

        像古希伯来人那样，

        在小小的沙漠里多年迷途，

        培根，有如摩西，终于把我们领出。

       他所越过的那荒漠的旷野，

       正在上帝应许的幸福土地的边沿，

      从他的智慧的高峰，

      他自己看到了这块乐土，而且他还把它告诉给我们。

丢勒的忧郁

在德国，纯粹观念的力量太强，没有给眼睛留有余地。最早的画派，科隆画派[十四世纪至十五世纪前半]，不是画的肉体，而是画的神秘的，虔诚的，温柔的心灵。十六世纪的德国大艺术家丢勒虽然熟悉意大利大师的风格，仍然保持他毫无风韵的形体，僵硬的皱痕，丑恶的裸体，暗淡无光的色彩，或是粗鲁，或是忧郁，或是沉闷的相貌；他的作品中流露出奇怪的幻想，深刻的宗教情绪，渺茫而玄妙的推测，说明形式不足以发挥他的精神。罗浮美术馆有他的老师沃尔格穆特画的一小幅《基督》，还有他同时代的克拉纳赫画的《夏娃》：你们看了就觉得，画这种群像和人体的人是生来研究神学而非研究会画的。

——丹纳《艺术哲学》

The Beach at Sainte-Adresse, 1906

Raoul Dufy (painter)
French, 1877 – 1953
The Beach at Sainte-Adresse, 1906
oil on canvas
Overall: 54 x 64.8 cm (21 1/4 x 25 1/2 in.) framed: 72.1 x 83.2 x 6.7 cm (28 3/8 x 32 3/4 x 2 5/8 in.)
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney
1998.74.3

The Aegean Sea, ca. 1877

The Aegean Sea, ca. 1877
Frederic Edwin Church (American, 1826–1900)
Oil on canvas

54 x 63 1/4 in. (137.2 x 160.7 cm)
Bequest of Mrs. William H. Osborn, 1902 (02.23)

In 1868–69, Church traveled from the Near East through Asia Minor to Rome, from where he made an excursion to southern Italy and Greece before returning to America. Painted eight years later, The Aegean Sea synthesizes his perceptions along that path, characterizing within a single panorama sites such as Petra in present-day Jordan, Baalbek in Lebanon, Constantinople in Turkey, and probably Athens in Greece. Then beset by ethnic and national conflict, this crossroads of East and West is transfigured by one of the artist’s miraculous-looking rainbows, as if he were seeking to impose armistice and comity at a time, on the one hand, of astounding archaeological discovery in Asia Minor and, on the other, of war between Turkey and Russia.

漫谈

再次推荐一下傅雷译的丹纳(H.Taine)的《艺术哲学》。对艺术史的理解能达到丹纳那种深刻水平的也只有对历史，政治史，精神史有足够的体认之后才能达到。流行的贡布里希的《艺术的故事》相比之下，只能算是一种大众通俗读物。

中国之未来，在政治上必定是联邦的共和制度，香港是中国这种联邦共和的一个起点；在文化上，必定是一种基督信仰或被改良的基督信仰。唯有这种信仰才能养成适应于联邦共和，并为联邦共和不可或缺的道德与风俗。到那日，中国革命的历史，包括将来人看待我们都将大不同于我们现在看历史与我们现在看自己。

帝国是被抛弃的，开启了的民智也不可能在屈从于君主制度；政治上的君主制度将让位于精神与道德上的基督上帝君主；这在冥冥中似乎确实有某种天意，如托克维尔所言。虚君共和是被错过的机会，重建的难度比建设共和法治国家更加困难，或仅仅只是文人的臆想而已。在这个历史维度上再考量今天的历史，一切确实只是僭政而已，对真正的君主制的僭越，而共和政治又未真正建立起来。这也正是这个时代中发生的道德与自然中诸多怪异现象的原因，正如塔西陀描述的罗马帝国一样。

Repose

Repose

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (French, 1796 -1875)

date
1860, reworked c. 1865-1870

medium
oil on canvas

size
22-3/4 x 40 in.

credit line
William A. Clark Collection

Accession Number
26.41

By 1860 Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot had established his reputation with views of forest glades populated by nymphs or gentle peasants, softened as if seen in a dream. Although primarily a landscape artist, Corot painted nudes throughout his career, sometimes as informal studies, at other times as figures in mythological scenes. The mythological nudes, like this woman reclining on a leopard skin, are at home, comfortable, in the out-of-doors.

Traditionally called Bacchante with a Tambourine, the Corcoran painting shows a nude in the foreground, gazing out of the picture, and four figures in the background, gathered around what is probably an uplifted wine cup. It has recently been identified as Repose, one of Corot’s six entries to the Salon of 1861. The Salon, a huge, government-sponsored, juried art exhibition, was the centerpiece of an artist’s public life. Here reputations were made or lost, and artists submitted paintings that they hoped would stand out in the crowd (3,146 paintings appeared in 1861). Corot exhibited at the Salon regularly over his long career; between 1827 and 1875 he showed more than 125 works, paintings as well as prints. Only two of the many paintings were nudes. The critics had little to say about Repose, but they were specific enough to permit the identification: “In the foreground of the landscape Le Repos is a large nude female, lying on a panther skin”; and “The bacchante lying in the foreground of the Repos is, uncharacteristically for the painter, rather well drawn and modeled; but the badly drawn figures in the background are impossible…”

艺术哲学

我买到的不是这个封面的书，而是新版的。这本新版的《艺术哲学》蓝色的封面、粉色的书名，俗艳得惊人。书拿到手的时候，真想把封面撕了算了。想想还是手下留情了。译者翻译得真是很好，真的很羡慕从前的同行们，能看这么流畅、优雅的稿子。