经济学人下载: 眼前的黑不是黑(1)

Books & arts 

文艺版块

Colour in art 

艺术中的颜色

Paint it black 

把它涂成黑色

The colour black has long been the ultimate test of an artist’s ingenuity 

黑色一直是对艺术家创造力的终极考验

Claude Monet died in darkest December in 1926 surrounded by the garden he had created at Giverny. When Georges Clemenceau, the former French prime minister, arrived three days later for the artist’s funeral and caught sight of the blackdraped coffin, he exclaimed: “No! No black for Monet.” An old piece of cretonne was brought down from the house to replace the dark pall with the palette that the artist had made his own: nature’s many greens, lavender, water lilies and forget-me-nots. 

1926年最黑暗的12月，克劳德·莫奈在自己建造的吉维尼花园中死去。三天后，法国前总理乔治·克列孟梭出席这位艺术家的葬礼。他望见盖着黑布的棺椁，随即大喊道：“不！莫奈不要黑色。”随后人们从屋子中拿出了一块陈旧的印花棉布来代替黑布，棉布的印花是莫奈自己创作的，他描绘了大自然的许多绿色植物、薰衣草、睡莲和勿忘我。

Most colours represent different things for different people. The hue of death in India and in some Slavic cultures is white, yet white also means spiritual rebirth for Muslims participating in the haj. Green was for bankers in early modern Europe; in the Kenyan flag it represents the land. Red is the badge of loyalty and success in China and of power and devotion in Russia. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s New England it was the sign of adultery. Black, however, has associations that are universal. It is bound up with witchcraft, the underworld, nighttime and the far side of the Moon. 

大部分颜色于不同的人代表着不同的意义。在印度和某些斯拉夫国家的文化中，白色是死亡的色调；但对于参与麦加朝圣的穆斯林来说，白色也意味着灵魂上的重生。在近代欧洲早期，绿色是银行家的象征；而肯尼亚国旗上的绿色代表着土地。红色在中国象征着忠诚和成功，在俄罗斯象征着权力和奉献，在纳撒尼尔·霍桑笔下的新英格兰则是通奸的象征。不过，黑色的象征意义十分普遍。它与巫术、阴间、夜晚和月背紧密相连。

Physicists say it is not really a colour at all. Because black is the result of the absence of light, Sir Isaac Newton did not see it on the spectrum of colours in his experiments with prisms in the late 1660s. Many artists take a different view. For them black represents an intellectual and technical challenge; it is the high-jump of colour, a test of their skill, ingenuity and imagination. (Black skin has its own, entwined but distinct, artistic history, with vexed connotations of power, prejudice and eroticism.) 

物理学家表示，黑色根本就不是一种颜色。因为黑色是缺少光线的结果，艾萨克·牛顿爵士在17世纪60年代后期进行棱镜实验时，并没有在光谱上看到黑色。许多艺术家持有不同的观点。对他们来说，黑色代表着智力和技术上的挑战；黑色是颜色的飞跃，是对他们技能、创造力和想象力的考验。（黑色皮肤有它自己的艺术史，密切相连但与众不同，带有权力、偏见和色情等有争议的内涵。