Painters Of The Plains

平原画家

· American Heritage · 原文

When white men came to break this wilderness for settlement it smote them with Indian warriors, plagued them with malaria, put its enormous rivers in periodic destructive floods; then, as they persevered, it enriched them beyond their hopes, with wealth from its forests and its minerals and its fertile soil.

当白人来到这片荒野定居时，他们用印第安战士袭击他们，让疟疾困扰他们，使这里的大河陷入周期性的破坏性洪水；然后，随着他们的坚持，它使他们变得超出了他们的希望，从它的森林、矿产和肥沃的土壤中获得了财富。

So the American Middle West has from the beginning been a strong rich area, a land of wonder and terror that has come to seem commonplace only because so many men have lived there so long.

因此，美国中西部从一开始就是一个强大的富裕地区，一片充满奇迹和恐怖的土地，只是因为有这么多人在那里生活了这么久，才显得司空见惯。

And from the beginning it has been a challenge to the artist, putting its own stamp on his attempt to record the look and the sweep and the feel of it.

从一开始，这对艺术家来说就是一个挑战，在他记录外观、扫掠和感觉的尝试中打上自己的印记。

First, the Indian: a man who had intelligently adapted himself to his physical world, making a balanced use of all of its gifts.

首先是印第安人：一个聪明地使自己适应物质世界的人，平衡地利用了物质世界的所有天赋。

The Indian never had any particular wish to conquer nature; he wanted simply to exist in it.

印度人从来没有任何征服自然的特殊愿望。他只想存在于其中。

He understood how to work out a natural interplay between himself and the forces of his physical environment, and as a result he created a well-integrated culture.

他了解如何在自己与自然环境的力量之间实现自然的相互作用，从而创造了一种良好整合的文化。

The Indian’s ways of self expression—both his artistic achievements and his religious practices—were completely tied in with his everyday life and with his wish to make himself comfortable and in harmony with his physical surroundings.

印度人的自我表达方式——包括他的艺术成就和他的宗教实践——完全与他的日常生活以及他让自己舒适并与周围环境和谐相处的愿望联系在一起。

He wanted to express himself well in all things: in the making and decorating of his dwelling, his clothing, his food, his vessels and his weapons, and most especially in the articles which he made for ceremonial use.

他想在所有事情上都很好地表达自己：在他的住所、他的衣服、他的食物、他的器皿和他的武器的制作和装饰上，尤其是在他为仪式使用的物品上。

So he produced a highly decorative art which was symbolic, mystic and religious—for it was closely connected with prayer.

因此，他创造了一种高度装饰性的艺术，具有象征性、神秘性和宗教性——因为它与祈祷密切相关。

The deeply significant symbols and painted and quilled designs of the early Plains Indians, for instance, were made with vast care.

例如，早期平原印第安人的深刻意义的符号以及绘画和羽毛设计都是经过精心制作的。

They were not only expressions of the artistic impulse; if properly done they were talismans that would produce abundant buffalo herds.

它们不仅是艺术冲动的表达，也是艺术冲动的表达。如果处理得当，它们是可以产生大量水牛群的护身符。

The first white artists who undertook to depict the Middle West came with the exploring parties and government expeditions in the second quarter of the Nineteenth Century.

第一批开始描绘中西部的白人艺术家是在十九世纪下半叶随着探险队和政府探险队的到来而出现的。

Unlike the native artists, these men recorded just what they saw, as they saw it; for their job was to make authentic reports on the infinitely varied aspects of this great new country.

与当地艺术家不同，这些人只是记录他们所看到的，因为他们所看到的。因为他们的工作是对这个伟大的新国家的各个方面进行真实的报道。

The men who had sent them out wanted to know what the land looked like, how its plants grew and its animals behaved, how its rivers ran and where its mountains rolled.

派他们出去的人想知道这片土地是什么样子，它的植物如何生长，它的动物如何活动，它的河流如何流淌，它的山脉在哪里起伏。

For the East wanted to know all it could learn about the great West.

因为东方想要了解关于伟大西方的一切。

Artists who did not sign onto expeditions free-lanced on their own, going as far west as they could, often joining with traders and trappers.

没有报名参加探险队的艺术家会以自由职业者的身份，尽可能地向西行进，经常与商人和捕猎者一起。

Many of these artists came from Europe, with a background of strict academic training in England, Germany, Austria or France.

这些艺术家许多来自欧洲，在英国、德国、奥地利或法国接受过严格的学术训练。

They painted in the warmth of Nineteen Century romanticism, but their job was primarily that of reporters.

他们以十九世纪浪漫主义的温暖作画，但他们的工作主要是记者。

Yet they were basically artists after all; and some of them added that strength of individuality and character that is the substance of art, producing work that has found a rich place in the story of Nineteenth Century painting.

但他们毕竟基本上都是艺术家；他们中的一些人补充了作为艺术实质的个性和性格的力量，他们创作的作品在十九世纪绘画的故事中占据了丰富的地位。

So while Karl Bodmer, for instance, was recording life along the wide Missouri in 1833, many of his pictures carried a quality that lifted them above strict illustration—and Bodmer the artist emerges.

例如，当卡尔·博德默 (Karl Bodmer) 于 1833 年记录密苏里州广阔的生活时，他的许多照片都具有超越严格插图的品质，而博德默这位艺术家就出现了。

His work is factual, but it has a sympathetic feel of the country.

他的作品是真实的，但又带有对这个国家的同情心。

Bodmer was responding to the influences of his environment.

博德默正在对环境的影响做出反应。

Others did the same, finding a strong response to their creative compulsions.

其他人也做了同样的事情，发现他们的创造性冲动得到了强烈的反应。

Examples are numerous: Alfred Jacob Miller, in his paintings of Rocky Mountain scenery and Indians of the Plains; John Mix Stanley, in his landscapes and studies of Indian life on the early railroad surveys; George Catlin, the true artistic value of whose great record of the Western Indian has only recently been fully recognized; and Captain Seth Eastman, in valuable records made during his early service on the Upper Mississippi.

这样的例子有很多：阿尔弗雷德·雅各布·米勒（Alfred Jacob Miller）的落基山风景画和平原印第安人画作；约翰·米克斯·斯坦利（John Mix Stanley）在早期铁路勘测中对印第安人的生活进行了景观和研究；乔治·卡特林（George Catlin），他对西印度群岛的伟大记录的真正艺术价值直到最近才得到充分认识；塞思·伊士曼船长在他早期在密西西比河上游服役时留下了宝贵的记录。

Then the situation changed.

然后情况发生了变化。

In the later 1800’s much of the Middle West was fully peopled.

1800 年代后期，中西部大部分地区已经人口稠密。

Yet the farther frontier country still beckoned—its gold, its cattle, its pioneering railway lines, its Indian wars, and its wild romantic vastness—and a glamour attached itself to it all and beckoned to the painters and recorders.

然而，更远的边疆国家仍然在召唤着它——它的黄金、它的牲畜、它开创性的铁路线、它的印第安战争和它狂野浪漫的广阔——它的一切都散发着魅力，吸引着画家和记录者。

Eastern magazines such as Harper’s and Leslie’s sent their illustrators west, and their illustrations bear the mark of men who felt that they were called on to report a strange and exciting country.

《哈泼斯》和《莱斯利》等东方杂志将他们的插画师派往西方，他们的插图带有一些人的印记，他们觉得自己被要求报道一个陌生而令人兴奋的国家。

As historical records, these pictures are rich and abundant, although as works of art they often leave much to be desired.

作为历史记录，这些图片内容丰富，但作为艺术品，它们往往还有很多不足之处。

Still, exceptional work does now and then appear—product of the times and the environment, like all the rest, but nevertheless expressing deeply the impact of the environment upon the artist.

尽管如此，杰出的作品还是时不时地出现——就像其他作品一样，它们是时代和环境的产物，但仍然深刻地表达了环境对艺术家的影响。

Ranney, Tait, Russell, Remington and Schreyvogel caught the spirit as well as the factual detail of what they painted.

兰尼、泰特、拉塞尔、雷明顿和施雷沃格尔抓住了他们画作的精神和事实细节。

Late in the century the romance of the cowboy-cattle theme captivated the imagination, and new artists appeared, including Frank Tenney Johnson and William R.

世纪末，牛仔与牛的浪漫主题吸引了人们的想象力，新的艺术家出现了，包括弗兰克·坦尼·约翰逊和威廉·R·约翰逊。

Leigh.

利。

Meanwhile, in the latter half of the Nineteenth Century, another group of painters moved west, drawn not by the cowboys and Indians and hell-roaring mine camp characters but by the sheer dramatic quality of the Western landscape.

与此同时，在十九世纪下半叶，另一批画家向西迁移，他们的画作不是牛仔、印第安人和地狱咆哮的矿营人物，而是被西部风景纯粹的戏剧性所吸引。

These painters—Bierstadt, Moran, Hill, Keith and others—were stirred by the vastness, depth, height and remoteness of the Western scene.

这些画家——比尔施塔特、莫兰、希尔、基思等——被西方场景的广阔、深度、高度和遥远所震撼。

They caught its changing moods in the same tradition that led other romantic landscape painters—Cole, lnness, Wyant and Durand—to interpret the Hudson River and the Catskill Mountains a few years earlier.

他们以同样的传统捕捉了它不断变化的情绪，几年前，其他浪漫主义风景画家——科尔、因尼斯、怀特和杜兰德——也以同样的传统来诠释哈德逊河和卡茨基尔山脉。

The effect of this growing romanticism on Western paintings appeared in the representation of subjects.

这种日益增长的浪漫主义对西方绘画的影响体现在主题的表现上。

Discarding the original factual approach, some painters—notably George de Forest Brush—represented the Indian, not as he really was, but according to a predetermined conception.

一些画家——尤其是乔治·德·福雷斯特·布拉什——抛弃了最初的事实方法，描绘了印第安人，但不是按照他的真实面目，而是根据预定的概念。

The Indian became the romantic child of nature, idealized to fit a poetic or romantic pattern.

印第安人成为大自然的浪漫之子，被理想化以适应诗意或浪漫的模式。

Accurate representations of costumes, habits and everyday life became relatively unimportant.

服装、习惯和日常生活的准确表现变得相对不重要。

The philosophical aspects came first.

哲学方面是第一位的。

Again the situation changed; the Middle West has never been static.

情况再次发生了变化。中西部从来就不是一成不变的。

After the First World War the landscape and genre aspects of America had little interest for the younger artists.

第一次世界大战后，年轻艺术家对美国的风景和流派没有什么兴趣。

Many of them turned toward Paris and the Continent for study and inspiration.

他们中的许多人转向巴黎和欧洲大陆寻求学习和灵感。

American artistic thought took on an international tinge, and the local scene became secondary.

美国的艺术思想带有国际色彩，本土景观变得次要。

This was especially true in the Middle West—until that widely publicized triumvirate, Curry, Wood and Benton, struck out for the true roots of American life.

在中西部尤其如此，直到库里、伍德和本顿这三个广为人知的三巨头开始寻找美国生活的真正根源。

They found what they were looking for right at home—in the Main Streets, on the farms, in harvest scenes, at church suppers, and so on, in their native states of Kansas, Iowa and Missouri.

他们在家乡堪萨斯州、爱荷华州和密苏里州的主要街道、农场、收获场景、教堂晚餐等处找到了他们想要的东西。

Other artists followed their lead.

其他艺术家纷纷效仿。

In the Thirties and early Forties, American regionalism flourished.

三十年代和四十年代初，美国的地方主义蓬勃发展。

The homely, familiar American farm came into its own on canvas.

朴素、熟悉的美国农场在画布上展现了自己的特色。

But these regionalists were not making reports for surveys or providing illustrations for Eastern magazines, nor were they looking for romance in a by-gone or wholly imaginary era.

但这些地区主义者并不是为了调查而撰写报告，也不是为东方杂志提供插图，也不是在过去或完全想象的时代中寻找浪漫。

Like the Nineteenth Century artists, they were realists; but their realism had a strong personal approach.

就像十九世纪的艺术家一样，他们是现实主义者。但他们的现实主义具有强烈的个人风格。

The subject was only their starting point.

这个主题只是他们的起点。

Color, action and background were composed into a unified personal statement of the scene that was bold and direct, often freely and impressionistically painted—the same Western environment that influenced Bodmer, Stanley, Moran and Russell, subject now to a new age and thought.

色彩、动作和背景被组合成一个统一的个人场景陈述，大胆而直接，通常是自由而印象派的绘画——同样的西方环境影响了博德默、斯坦利、莫兰和拉塞尔，现在又受到了新时代和新思想的影响。

The regionalist movement, of course, did not affect all artists.

当然，地方主义运动并没有影响到所有艺术家。

Counter-movements of expressionism and non-objectivity had become well rooted in America during the 1920’s.

1920 年代，表现主义和非客观性的反运动在美国根深蒂固。

At mid-century, American artists have turned away from regionalism.

到了本世纪中叶，美国艺术家已经放弃了地域主义。

The physical environment has become secondary—even non-existent—to a world if inner ideas and personal emotions that is uppermost in modern painting.

对于现代绘画中最重要的内在思想和个人情感的世界来说，物理环境已经变得次要，甚至不存在。

Today the influence of environment in the middle part of this country lies not in its appearance but in its vastness, openness, and even—in an age of speedy air travel—in its distance from the east and west coasts.

今天，这个国家中部地区的环境影响力不在于它的外观，而在于它的广阔、开放，甚至在航空运输快速的时代，还在于它与东西海岸的距离。

All over this area there are active centers where independent, creative work is going forward.

在这个地区到处都是活跃的中心，独立的、创造性的工作正在那里进行。

In these separate areas it is possible that freshness, individuality and resourcefulness can be maintained in a period when art is becoming typed and design is becoming highly standardized.

在艺术类型化、设计高度标准化的时代，这些独立的领域有可能保持新鲜感、个性和机智。

For in the final analysis, the impact of the environment on the artist is largely mental.

因为说到底，环境对艺术家的影响很大程度上是精神上的。

Increasingly, man ceases to be confined by his physical surroundings.

人类逐渐不再受周围环境的限制。

The tremendous Middle West is still greater than the men who live in it and try to interpret it, but it challenges them now in a different way.

广阔的中西部仍然比生活在其中并试图解释它的人们更伟大，但它现在以不同的方式挑战他们。

For over 75 years, American Heritage has chronicled our nation's history like no other publication.

75 年来，《美国遗产》以无与伦比的方式记录了我们国家的历史。

Please support our trusted, non-partisan historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it by donating today.

请通过今天的捐赠来支持我们值得信赖的、无党派的历史写作以及维持它的志愿者。

We rely on contributions from readers like you to survive.

我们依靠像您这样的读者的贡献才能生存。

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For 75 years, American Heritage has been the leading magazine of U.S. history, politics, and culture.

75 年来，《美国遗产》一直是美国历史、政治和文化的领先杂志。