双语+MP3|美国学生艺术史50 一个意大利人和一个丹麦人

 
如今，人们只要一提起墨丘利，就会想到博洛尼亚的乔凡尼的《飞翔的墨丘利》中墨丘利的形象。这雕像正符合我心中墨丘利飞翔的样子。你呢？ 
50 AN ITALIAN AND A DANE一个意大利人和一个丹麦人
 
THE best Italian sculptor since the time of Michelangelo was named Antonio Canova. We generally call him simply Canova. He lived from 1757 to 1822. 
Canova was brought up by his grandparents and as his grandfather was a stone cutter, the boy had from the beginning a chance to be a sculptor. When he was only eight years old he carved in marble two small shrines. When he was about ten, he is said to have carved a lion out of butter for the banquet of a rich nobleman, who liked it so much he became Canova’s patron, or backer. 
Canova studied hard to become a sculptor and by the time be was a man he was doing a great many good statues. These brought him much fame and much money. The money he spent by giving it away to poor people, founding art schools, helping sculptors, and giving prizes for good sculpture. 
Canova’s statues are very smooth and pretty, but not very strong in appearance. He carved a great many of the ancient gods and goddesses and seemed to imitate the old Greek and Roman art. He also carved portrait busts of famous men, including George Washington. 
Canova’s Perseus with the head of Medusa reminds you of another Perseus. Canova’s Perseus isn’t so good as Cellini’s, but probably it is just as famous. 
When Canova was at the height of his fame there came to Italy in 1797 a young man from Denmark. He liked Italy so much he stayed there for twenty-three years and soon became famous as a sculptor. Perhaps you have seen pictures of the dying lion he carved in solid rock—the famous Lion of Lucerne. It was made by a Danish sculptor in Italy in honor of the Swiss guards who died in France rather than surrender. That certainly makes a mixture of countries in one sentence. 
Who was this Dane? His name was Thorvaldsen. He knew Canova and, like Canova, imitated the style of the statues of ancient Greece and Rome. He was the most successful of the imitators. Some of his works, like the Lion of Lucerne, were not in ancient style. 
When Thorvaldsen returned from a visit to Denmark after twenty-three years abroad, he had become so famous that he was asked to make a colossal statue of Christ and twelve colossal statues of the Apostles for a church in Copenhagen. Colossal, you remember means tremendously large. (Think of the Colossus of Rhodes.) These huge statues were completed in Italy in twenty years and sent to Copenhagen. A copy of the Christ stands in the lobby of the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. 
 
No.50-1　PERSEUS（《帕尔修斯》）　CANOVA（卡诺瓦　制） 
When Thorvaldsen died, he left much of his fortune for the building of an art museum in Copenhagen. There most of his works are kept and in the courtyard the sculptor himself is buried. 
 
No.50-2　THE LION OF LUCERNE（《卢塞恩狮子》）　　　　　THORVALDSEN（托瓦森　制）