双语+MP3|美国学生艺术史35 大理石雕像

 
这就是我们所了解的关于亚述雕刻的全部内容。这些雕刻从曾经辉煌的城市废墟中挖掘出来，然后运到了欧洲和美国的博物馆。我们对那些自负、强壮但又残忍的暴君统治劳苦大众的故事知之甚少——那些君主和臣民早在几千年前就死去了。 
35 MARBLES大理石雕像
 
WHEN I was a boy I once overheard my father talking with a friend about marbles.“You know,” said my father, “the Greeks made the finest marbles in the world.” And his friend answered, “Yes, there is no doubt that the Greek marbles are the finest in the world.” 
I wondered why these grown-up men were talking about marbles and I wondered who the Greeks were who made such fine marbles and where I could get some, for I had some very fine marbles myself—moonies and agates. I didn’t learn till later that they were not talking about marbles to play with, but about statues that the Greeks made out of marble long before Christ was born. People call them simply marbles instead of marble statues. 
Greece was a little bit of country in the Mediterranean Sea and still is a little bit of country. But the Greeks who were and the Greeks who are now are not the same. 
The old Greeks believed in fairy-tale gods and goddesses and heroes and made up fairy-tale stories about them—mythology, we call it. Then the Greeks made beautiful statues of their gods as they supposed the gods looked and acted, and no one since has been able to make as beautiful sculpture. Sculpture is one of few things that we can’t do much better than they did. 
The Egyptians usually made their statues of granite, which was too hard. The Assyrians made theirs of alabaster, which was too soft. But the Greeks made theirs of marble, which was just right. One reason they made such beautiful statues was because they had such beautiful marble to make them of—just the right material. 
In Greece there were several places—quarries, we call them—where the finest marble in the world was found. One was a mountain called Pentelicus, another an island called Paros. There is still plenty of marble from Pentelicus and Paros, but there is no Greek or other person now living who can make it into such sculpture as these Greeks who lived two thousand years ago. It takes more than good marble to make a good statue. 
But the Greeks did not start off making beautiful statues in the beginning. The first and oldest piece of Greek sculpture we have is of two lions over a stone gateway at a place called Mycenae. 
These lions have lost their heads. But even with the heads they once had, they could not have been any finer than some of the Assyrian lions cut in alabaster. 
One of the next oldest pieces of Greek sculpture looks almost like something a child might have done, but that is to be expected, for it was made when Greece was a child. It tells a story, however, very well—the Greeks’ story of Perseus and Medusa. 
Medusa was a beautiful girl who committed a terrible sin against the Goddess of Wisdom, whose name was Athene. Athene, to punish Medusa, turned her into a horrible looking creature and turned the locks of her hair into snakes that writhed and twisted about her face. So terrible was Medusa’s face that any one who looked at her was turned into stone. A young hero named Perseus was dared by an enemy of his to go and cut off Medusa’s horrible head. The goddess Athene, who was a friend of Perseus, went with him and led him to Medusa. When he came to the place where Medusa lay asleep, he looked away and cut off her head with one stroke and out sprang a winged horse called Pegasus. 
 
No.35-1　PERSEUS AND MEDUSA（珀加索斯和美杜莎） 
In the picture, Perseus is shown cutting off Medusa’s head as he looks away. Medusa clasps Pegasus in her arms. Athene, on the other side, looks more like a man than a girl, and though she is facing front, her foot is twisted sideways in order that it may be inside the picture. Medusa’s right leg is longer than the left, for the left leg is very short from the knee up. If yon can imagine how she would have looked if she had stood up, then you can see better how much shorter one leg is than the other. Pegasus is a tiny toy horse and his hind legs are like those of a kangaroo—much longer than his front legs. 
The Lion Gateway and Perseus are both in high relief, but here is a statue in the full round that was made later. It is called the Apollo of Tenea. Apollo was the Greek Sun God and was supposed to be the handsomest of all the gods, but this statue of him may not make you think him beautiful. 
The Greeks of those days thought the human body the most beautiful thing in the world. They tried to make their own bodies beautiful by physical training—sports and exercises and healthful living —and they made statues of their mos! famous athletes. 
We often say nowadays of some splendid looking athletic fellow, “He is a perfect Apollo.” This statue probably is not Apollo at all, but just the figure of an athlete—a runner or a jumper. He is not beefy like the Assyrians or skinny like the Egyptians, but the face has a peculiar expression, the hair is primly crimped, and the eyes seem to bulge. But this is one of the first statues we have that seems to be smiling. Perhaps the man has just won a race. 
This early or “archaic” sculpture, as it is called, is interesting, but from now on the Greek statues are not only interesting but really beautiful. 
 
No.35-2　APOLLO OF TENEA（特内亚的阿波罗）