The sculptor speaks

雕塑家的語言

Appreciation of sculpture depends upon the ability to respond to form in there dimension. That is perhaps why sculpture has been described as the most difficult of all arts; certainly it is more difficult than the arts which involve appreciation of flat forms, shape in only two dimensions. Many more people are 'form-blind' than colour-blind. The child learning to see, first distinguishes only two-dimensional shape; it cannot judge distances, depths. Later, for its personal safety and practical needs, it has to develop (partly by means of touch) the ability to judge roughly three-dimensonal distances. But having satisfied the requirements of practical necessity, most people go no further. Though they may attain considerable accuracy in the perception of flat from, they do no make the further. Though they may attain considerable accuracy in the perception of flat form, they do not make the further intellectual and emotional effort needed to comprehend form in its full spatial existence.

對雕塑的鑒賞力取決于對立體的反應(yīng)能力。雕塑被說成是所有藝術(shù)中最難的藝術(shù)，可能就是這個道理。欣賞雕塑品當然比欣賞平面的藝術(shù)品要難。“形盲”的人數(shù)比“色盲”的人數(shù)要多得多。正在學(xué)看東西的兒童起初只會分辨二維形態(tài)，不會判斷距離和深度。慢慢地，由于自身安全和實際需要，兒童必須發(fā)展(部分通過觸覺)粗略判斷三維空間距離的能力。但是。大部分人在滿足了實際需要后，就不再繼續(xù)發(fā)展這種能力了。雖然他們對平面形的感覺能達到相當準確的程度，但他們沒有在智力和感情上進一步努力去理解存在于空間的整個形態(tài)。

This is what the sculptor must do. He must strive continually to think of, and use, form in its full spatial completeness. He gets the solid shape, as it were, inside his head-he thinks of it, whatever its size, as if he were holding it completely enclosed in the hollow of his hand. He mentally visualizes a complex form from all round itself; he knows while he looks at one side what the other side is like, he identifies himself with its centre of gravity, its mass, its weight; he realizes its volume, as the space that the shape displaces in the air.

而雕塑家就必須做到這一點。他必須勤于想像并且利用形體在空間中的完整性。可以說，當他想像一個物體時，不管其大小如何，他腦子里得到的是一個立體的概念，就好像完全握在自己手心里一樣。他的大腦能從物體周圍的各個角度勾畫出其復(fù)雜的形象，他看物體的一邊時，便知道另一邊是個什么樣子。他把自身和物體重心、質(zhì)量、重量融為一體。他能意識到物體的體積，那就是它的形狀有空氣中所占的空間。

And the sensitive observer of sculpture must also learn to feel shape simply as shape, not as description or reminiscence. He must, for example, perceive an egg as a simple single solid shape, quite apart from its significance as food, or from the literary idea that it will become a bird. And so with solids such as a shell, a nut, a plum, a pear, a tadpole, a mushroom, a mountain peak, a kidney, a carrot, a tree-trunk, a bird, a bud, a lark, a ladybird, a bulrush, a bone. From these he can go on to appreciate more complex forms of combinations of several forms.

因此，敏銳的雕塑觀賞者也必須學(xué)會把形體作為形體來感覺，不要靠描述和印象去想象。以鳥蛋為例。觀賞者必須感覺到它是一個單一的實體形態(tài)，而完全不靠它的食用意義或它會變成鳥這樣的文字概念來感覺。對于其他實體，如，貝殼、核桃、李子、梨子、蝌蚪、蘑菇、山峰、腎臟、胡蘿卜、樹干、鳥兒、花蕾、云雀、瓢蟲、蘆葦以及骨頭也應(yīng)這樣來感覺。從這些形體出發(fā)，觀賞者可進一步觀察更為復(fù)雜的形體或若干形體的組合。