Today’s Painting
今日畫作
In 1878, Sargent traveled to the Italian island of Capri in search of exotic scenery to use in his subject pictures. Many of the works he produced there feature the popular local model, Rosina Ferrara, who was admired for her blue-black hair and olive skin. In A Capriote, Sargent painted Ferrara in an olive grove, with her arms twined around a tree, echoing its twisted shape. By using this contrived pose and depicting her striking features in profile, Sargent made his model seem to be an elemental part of the wild Capri landscape.
1878年，薩金特為其主題畫作前往意大利卡普里島尋找異國風光。他在那裡創作的許多作品主角都是當地受歡迎的模特羅西娜·費拉拉，她藍黑色的頭髮和橄欖色的皮膚讓人欣賞不已。在《一位卡普里島人》中，薩金特描畫了在橄欖樹叢中的費拉拉，她雙臂纏繞在樹上，與樹枝扭曲的形狀相呼應。通過使用這種精心設計的姿勢並描繪出她動人的側面，薩金特似乎使他的模特成為卡普里島野生景觀裡基本的組成部分。
Artist Introduction
畫家簡介
John Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings.
約翰·辛格·薩金特是一位美國畫家，因其對愛德華時代奢華的追求而被譽為“他這一代領先的肖像畫家”。在他的職業生涯中，他創作了大約900幅油畫和2,000多種水彩畫，以及無數的素描和木炭素描。
His oeuvre documents worldwide travel, from Venice to the Tyrol, Corfu, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida. His parents were American, but he was trained in Paris prior to moving to London. Sargent enjoyed international acclaim as a portrait painter, although not without controversy and some critical reservation; an early submission to the Paris Salon, his "Portrait of Madame X", was intended to consolidate his position as a society painter, but it resulted in scandal instead.
他全部的作品記錄了從威尼斯到蒂羅爾州，科孚島，中東，蒙大拿州，緬因州和佛羅里達州的環球旅行。他的父母是美國人，但他在移居倫敦之前，曾在巴黎接受過培訓。薩金特作為肖像畫家獲得了國際讚譽，儘管他並非沒有爭議或遇到一些批判性的保留意見。他早期的作品《X夫人的肖像》曾提交給巴黎沙龍，本想借此鞏固他作為社會畫家的地位，但結果卻引起了醜聞。
From the beginning his work was characterized by remarkable technical facility, particularly in his ability to draw with a brush, which in later years inspired admiration as well as criticism for a supposed superficiality. His commissioned works were consistent with the grand manner of portraiture, while his informal studies and landscape paintings displayed a familiarity with Impressionism.
從一開始，其畫作的特點便是卓越的技巧天賦，尤其是他運用畫筆的能力，這在之後幾年引起了人們的欽佩，同時也激起了人們對所謂膚淺的批評。他受委託創作的作品與宏偉的肖像畫風格保持一致，而他的非正式研究和山水畫則表現出與印象派相近。
In later life Sargent expressed ambivalence about the restrictions of formal portrait work, and devoted much of his energy to mural painting and working en plein air. He lived most of his life in Europe. Art historians generally ignored the society artists such as Sargent until the late 20th century.
在後來的生活中，薩金特對正式肖像作品的侷限性表現出矛盾心理，並把他的大部分精力都投入到壁畫和繪畫上。他一生大部分時間都在歐洲生活。在20世紀後期之前，藝術史學家通常忽視諸如薩金特這樣的社會藝術家。
In a time when the art world focused, in turn, on Impressionism, Fauvism, and Cubism, Sargent practiced his own form of Realism, which made brilliant references to Velázquez, Van Dyck, and Gainsborough. His seemingly effortless facility for paraphrasing the masters in a contemporary fashion led to a stream of commissioned portraits of remarkable virtuosity.
在藝術界又將重點放在印象派，野獸派和立體派的時代，薩金特踐行了他自己的現實主義形式，這很好地參考了維拉斯克斯，範·戴克和蓋恩斯伯勒。他借用看似毫不費力的天賦以當代方式詮釋了大師們的作品，從而產生了一系列精湛技藝的委託畫像。
Still, during his life his work engendered negative responses from some of his colleagues: Camille Pissarro wrote "he is not an enthusiast but rather an adroit performer," and Walter Sickert published a satirical turn under the heading "Sargentolatry." By the time of his death he was dismissed as an anachronism, a relic of the Gilded Age and out of step with the artistic sentiments of post-World War I Europe.
儘管如此，在他的一生中，他的畫作還是引起了一些同事的負面反應：卡米爾·畢沙羅寫道：“他不是一個狂熱者，而是一個精明的表演者”，而沃爾特·西格特在“薩金特勒”的標題下發表了諷刺性的轉折。到他去世時，他已被摒棄，被視為過時，鍍金時代的遺物，以及和第一次世界大戰後的歐洲藝術情感脫節。
Elizabeth Prettejohn suggests that the decline of Sargent's reputation was due partly to the rise of anti-Semitism, and the resultant intolerance of 'celebrations of Jewish prosperity.' It has been suggested that the exotic qualities inherent in his work appealed to the sympathies of the Jewish clients whom he painted from the 1890s on.
伊麗莎白·普雷特約翰表示，薩金特聲譽下滑，部分是由於反猶太主義的興起，導致無法容忍“慶祝猶太人繁榮”。有人提出，他作品裡固有的異國情調吸引到了猶太客戶的同情，而從1890年代開始，他便一直為他們作畫。
Nowhere is this more apparent than in his portrait "Almina, Daughter of Asher Wertheimer" (1908), in which the subject is seen wearing a Persian costume, a pearl encrusted turban, and strumming an Indian tambura, accoutrements all meant to convey sensuality and mystery.
這一點在他的肖像畫《阿爾敏，阿舍·韋特海默的女兒》（1908年）中體現得最為明顯。在該肖像畫中，主角穿著波斯服裝，珍珠纏著的頭巾，彈奏著印度的坦布拉琴，這些行頭都是為了傳達性感和神秘。
If Sargent used this portrait to explore issues of sexuality and identity, it seems to have met with the satisfaction of the subject's father, Asher Wertheimer, a wealthy Jewish art dealer. Foremost of Sargent's detractors was the influential English art critic Roger Fry, of the Bloomsbury Group, who at the 1926 Sargent retrospective in London dismissed Sargent's work as lacking aesthetic quality: "Wonderful indeed, but most wonderful that this wonderful performance should ever have been confused with that of an artist."
如果薩金特用這幅肖像來探索性別和身份問題，似乎已經滿足了該主角父親的要求，他叫阿舍·韋特海默，是一個富有的猶太藝術品經銷商。薩金特的主要批評者是布魯姆斯伯裡集團有影響力的英國藝術評論家羅傑·弗萊，他在1926年倫敦薩金特回顧展上貶低薩金特的作品缺乏美學品質：“確實很棒，但最奇妙的是，這種奇妙的表演竟然與藝術家的作品混淆在一起。”
And, in the 1930s, Lewis Mumford led a chorus of the severest critics: "Sargent remained to the end an illustrator ... the most adroit appearance of workmanship, the most dashing eye for effect, cannot conceal the essential emptiness of Sargent's mind, or the contemptuous and cynical superficiality of a certain part of his execution."
而且，在1930年代，劉易斯·芒福德率先發出了一連串最嚴厲的批評：“薩根特直到最後還是一位插畫家...展現出來的最精湛的技藝，最時髦的追求轟動的眼光，這些都掩蓋不了薩金特思想上虛無的本質，以及對他這類藝術表演的輕蔑和憤世嫉俗的膚淺。”
Part of Sargent's devaluation is also attributed to his expatriate life, which made him seem less American at a time when "authentic" socially conscious American art, as exemplified by the Stieglitz circle and by the Ashcan School, was on the ascent. After such a long period of critical disfavor, Sargent's reputation has increased steadily since the 1950s.
薩金特名譽下降的部分原因還在於他移居國外的生活，這使他看起來沒有那麼的美國人。而在那時，真正有社會意識的美國藝術，如斯蒂格里茨圈子和阿什坎派一樣，正處於上升期。經過如此長時間的嚴峻批評之後，自1950年代以來，薩金特的聲譽一直在穩定增長。
In the 1960s, a revival of Victorian art and new scholarship directed at Sargent strengthened his reputation. Sargent has been the subject of large-scale exhibitions in major museums, including a retrospective exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1986, and a 1999 "blockbuster" traveling show that exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the National Gallery of Art Washington, and the National Gallery, London.
1960年代，維多利亞藝術的復興和指向薩金特的新獎學金改善了他的聲譽。薩金特一直是各大博物館大型展覽的對象，其中包括1986年在惠特尼美國藝術博物館的回顧展，以及1999年在波士頓美術館，華盛頓國家美術館和倫敦國家美術館展出的1999年“大片”旅行展。
Vocabulary
單詞解析
evocation
英 [ˌiːvəʊˈkeɪʃn] 美 [ˌiːvoʊˈkeɪʃn]
n.
喚起;引起;再現
oeuvre
英 [ˈɜːvrə] 美 [ˈɜːvrə]
n.
(作家、藝術家等的)全部作品
scandal
英 [ˈskændl] 美 [ˈskændl]
n.
醜行;使人震驚的醜事;醜聞;關於醜行的傳言(或報道)
landscape
英 [ˈlændskeɪp] 美 [ˈlændskeɪp]
n.
(陸上，尤指鄉村的)風景，景色;鄉村風景畫
ambivalence
n.
矛盾心理
engender
英 [ɪnˈdʒendə(r)] 美 [ɪnˈdʒendər]
v.
產生，引起
adroit
英 [əˈdrɔɪt] 美 [əˈdrɔɪt]
adj.
(尤指待人接物)精明的，幹練的，機敏的
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