双语+MP3|美国学生艺术史59 路的尽头

  
不过，尽管我在本章只提及了两位女雕刻家，但请记住，还有更多的女性雕刻家正在制作精美的雕像，尤其在美国。  
59 THE END OF THE TRAIL路的尽头 
  
DO YOU save the best things till last? I know a little girl who was having tea with her aunt. The little girl very carefully ate all of her cake except the chocolate icing. She was saving the icing till last because she liked it best.  
“I see you don’t like your chocolate icing,” said her aunt. “I just love chocolate icing, so I’ll eat it myself.” And the aunt did eat it all before the little girl could tell her she really loved chocolate icing too.  
Well, I’ve saved till last several statues that I think you may like best of all. They are not supposed to be quite as great and famous as the Greek sculpture, or the best Renaissanee statues or Saint Gaudens’s work, but here they are.  
  
No.59-1　EUGENE FIELD MEMORIAL（《尤金·菲尔德纪念碑》）　MCCARTAN（麦卡坦　制）  
Photograph by Ewing Galloway  
The first of my saved-till-last statues is a monument in memory of Eugene Field. Eugene Field was the man who wrote those jolly poems “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod,” and “The Sugar Plum Tree.” The sculptor might have made a portrait bust of Eugene Field, but instead he made something much more interesting. It is a statue of a little boy and girl who have fallen sound asleep because a fairy has waved poppy blossoms over them. Poppy blossoms, you know, are supposed to make you sleepy. You can see the poppy blossoms in the fairy’s hand.  
  
No.59-2　BRONCO BUSTER（《驯马师》）  
PROCTOR（普鲁克特　制）  
The fairy, and the little boy and girl are in full round. Then there are scenes carved in low relief. One scene shows Wynken, Blynken, and Nod sailing along in the wooden shoe, with fish jumping all around theln. You remember in the song they had nets of silver and gold. You can see the nets hanging from the stern of the shoe. Another scene shows the Sugar Plum Tree with a pussy cat up in the branches and a little dog and some children looking up at the cat.  
The sculptor who made the Eugene Field Memorial (it is really a fountain in Chicago) is Edward McCartan of New York. He also made a very beautiful marble statue of the Moon Goddess Diana out hunting with her greyhound.  
I think you’ll like the next sculptor because you probably like cowboys and Indians and animals. Alexander Phimister Proctor has made statues of all of these. He helped Saint-Gaudens model the horse for the Sherman statue. Proctor’s best-known works are the famous Princeton Tigers. There are two big bronze tigers, one on each side of the entrance to Nassau Hall, a building at Princeton University.  
Now look at the Bronco Buster by the same sculptor. It stands in Denver. The bronco, or cowboy horse, is trying to throw its rider. The bronco has bucked high in the air and is coming down stiff-legged on its two front feet. What a jolt the cowboy must be getting! Notice how the whole weight of this equestrian statue is carried by the two front legs of the horse.  
James Earle Fraser is the sculptor whom we have saved to the very last. We can call him an all-round sculptor because he is good at large statues in the round as well as reliefs and portraits, medals and coins. He can do people and animals. He has modeled for equestrian statues horses that are more than life-size and he made the tiny buffalo on the United States five-cent coin—the buffalo nickel. When you are studying United States history, see if you can get hold of a picture of James Earle Fraser’s statue of Alexander Hamilton. It is a wonderful statue, full of dignity and grace.  
James Earle Fraser designed the Victory Medal given to each American who served in the army or navy during World War I. Perhaps someone in your family bas one of these medals. The medal has on the front side a has relief figure of Victory. As this is an American medal, the sculptor put a crown with spikes on Victory’s head like the crown on the Statue of Liberty. On the back are the names of the countries who were on our side in the war, and a United States shield.  
Fraser made a wonderful portrait bust of President Theodore Roosevelt, who liked it so much he said he would never pose for another bust.  
And now last of all comes Fraser’s best-known statue. It is the famous End of the Trai— an exhausted Indian on a weary, worn-out horse. A strong wind blows at their backs. You can see the Indian’s blanket and the horse’s tail whipped forward by this wind. Everything suggests weariness. The horse’s head droops low, the Indian’s head nods forward, his spear points to the ground. You feel that both horse and rider have made a terrible journey, without rest, and have reached the end of the trail too tired to keep awake any longer. The End of the Trail is to mark in San Francisco the western end of the auto highway which runs across the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific.  
In this book it will mark the end of our trail of sculpture. And now that you and I have finished this trip of ours along the trail of sculpture, from long-ago Egypt to nowadays America, I hope you are not so tired out at the end of the trail as Fraser’s Indian seems to be. Our trip had to be short, and so we missed seeing some of the finest statues and talking about some very good sculptors. And that is really a good thing. There is so much left for you to see that it should make you want to take the sculpture trail again and learn to know the sculpture I haven’t even mentioned in this book. You, just like Buffalo Bill, will have to search for signs along the trail. I wish you a very happy journey.  
  
No.59-3　END OF THE TRAIL（《路的尽头》）　　　　　　FRASE（弗雷泽　制）  
Photograph by Ewing Galloway