THE OLDEST PICTURES IN THE WORLD
世界上最古老的畫
I WAS listening to the teacher, but I had my pencil in my hand. There were two little
dots about an inch apart on my desk lid. Absent-mindedly I twisted my pencil point
into one dot and then into the other. The two dots became two little eyes. I drew a circle around each eye, then I joined the two circles with a half-circle that made a pair of spectacles.
The next day I made a nose and a mouth to go with the eye and spectacles.
The next day I finished the face and added ears and some hair.
The next day I added a hat.
The next day I added a body, with arms, legs, and feet.
The next day I went over the drawing again, bearing heavily on my pencil. Over and
over again I followed the lines till they became deep grooves in my desk lid.
The next day my teacher caught me and I caught it!
The next day my father got a bill for a new desk and I got- Well, never mind what I got.
“Perhaps he's going to be an artist,” said my mother.
“Heaven forbid!” said my father. “That would cost me much more than a new desk.”
And heaven did forbid.
I know of a school that has a large wooden tablet in the hall for its pupils to draw
upon. At the top of the tablet is printed:
IF YOU JUST MUST DRAW, DON'T DRAW ON YOUR DESK,
DRAW ON THIS TABLET.
If you put a pencil in any one's hand, he just must draw something. Whether he is
listening to a lesson or telephoning, he draws circles and faces or triangles and squares
over the pad-if there is a pad. Otherwise he draws on the desk top or the wall, for he just must draw something. Have you ever seen any telephone pad that was not scribbled
upon? We say that's human nature. It shows you are a human being.
Now, animals can learn to do a good many things that human beings can do, but one
thing an animal can't learn is to draw. Dogs can learn to walk on two legs and fetch the newspaper. Bears can learn to dance. Horses can learn to count. Monkeys can learn to drink out of a cup. Parrots can learn to speak. But human beings are the only animals
that can learn to draw.
Every boy and girl who has ever lived has drawn something at some time. Haven't
you? You have drawn, perhaps, a horse or a house, a ship or an automobile, a dog or a cat. The dog may have looked just like a cat or a cat-erpillar, but even this is more than any animal can do.
Even wild men who lived so long ago that there were no houses. only caves, to live
in-men who were almost like wild animals, with long hair all over their bodies-could
draw. There were no paper or pencils then. Men drew pictures on the walls of their
caves. The pictures were not framed and hung on the walls. They were drawn right on
the walls of the cave and on the ceiling too.
Sometimes the pictures were just scratched or cut into the wall and sometimes they
were painted in afterward. The paints those men used were made of a colored clay
mixed with grease, usually simply red or yellow. Or perhaps the paint was just blood,
which was red at first and then turned almost black. Some of the pictures look as if they had been made with the end of a burned stick as you might make a black mark with the end of a burned match. Other pictures were cut into bone-on the horns of deer or on ivory tusks.
Now, what do you suppose these cave men drew pictures of? Suppose I asked you to
draw a picture of anything-just anything. Try it. What you have drawn is probably one
of five things. A cat is my first guess, a sail-boat or an automobile is my second, a house is my third guess, a tree or a flower is my fourth, and a person is my fifth. Are there any other kinds?
Well, the cave men drew pictures of only one kind of thing. Not men or women or
trees or flowers or scenery. They drew chiefly pictures of animals. And what kind of
animals, do you suppose? Dogs? No, not dogs. Horses? No, not horses. Lions? No, not
lions. They were usually big animals and strange animals. But they were pretty well
drawn, so that we know what the animals looked like. Here is a picture a cave man drew
thousands of years ago.
You know it's a picture of some animal, and it's not a cat or a caterpillar. It is some animal of the kind they had in those days. It looks like an elephant and it was a kind of elephant-a huge elephant. But its ears were not big like our elephants' ears and it had long hair. Elephants now have skin or hide, but hardly any hair. This animal we call a mammoth. It had long hair because the country was cold in those days and the hair kept the animal warm. And it was much, much bigger even than our elephants.
There are no mammoths alive now, but men have found their bones and they have put
these bones together to form huge skeletons. We still call any very big thing “mammoth.”
You've probably heard of Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. It was called Mammoth, not
because mammoths lived in it, because they didn't, but just because it is such a huge
cave.
The cave men drew other animals besides the mammoth. One was the bison, a kind of
buffalo. You can see a picture of a buffalo on our five-cent piece. It looks something like a bull. A little girl had gone to a cave in Spain with her father, who was searching for arrow-heads. While he was looking on the ground, she was looking at the ceiling of the cave and she saw what she thought was a herd of bulls painted there. She called out, “See the bulls!” and her father, thinking she had seen real bulls, cried: “Where? Where?”
Other animals they drew were like those we have now-reindeer, deer with big antlers, and bears and wolves.
It was quite dark in the caves where the cave men drew these pictures, for of course
there were no windows, and the only light was a smoky flame from a kind of lamp.
Why, then, did they make pictures at all? Such pictures couldn't have been just for wall decorations, like those you have on your walls, because it was so dark in the cave. We think the pictures were made just for good luck, as some people put a horseshoe over
the door for good luck. Or perhaps they were to tell a story or make a record of some
animal the cave man had killed. But perhaps the cave man just had to draw something,
as boys and girls nowadays draw pictures on the walls of a shed or even sometimes on
the walls of their own houses or, worse yet, on their desk tops.
The pictures made by these wild men-bearded and hairy cave men -are the oldest
pictures in the world, and the artists who made them have been dead thousands of years.
Can you think of anything you might ever make that would last as long as that?
【中文閱讀】
我正在聽老師講課,可手裏在玩鉛筆。
我課桌的桌麵上有兩個相距約一英寸的小點。
我心不在焉地轉動手中的鉛筆,用筆尖在一個點上戳瞭一下,又在另一個點上戳瞭一下。兩個小點變成瞭一雙小眼睛。我在每隻眼睛旁邊畫瞭個圈,又畫瞭個半圈,把兩個圓圈連起來,這就畫齣瞭一副眼鏡。
第二天,我畫瞭鼻子和嘴巴,配閤那雙眼睛和眼鏡。
第三天,我畫完瞭臉,還補充瞭耳朵和頭發。
第四天,我又加瞭一頂帽子。
第五天,我添上瞭身體部分:胳膊、腿和腳。
第六天,我還是拿鉛筆用力地畫著。我一遍又一遍地描著綫直到把它們深深地印在我的課桌上。
第七天,我被老師逮個正著,但我也畫完瞭。
第八天,我爸收到瞭一張新課桌的賬單,而我卻得到瞭-- 算瞭,甭提我得到瞭什麼吧。
“他可能會成為畫傢。”母親說。
“但願不會!”父親答道,“那要花掉我比一張新課桌多得多的錢。”好在上帝攔阻瞭。
據我所知,某所學校在大廳裏放置瞭一塊大木牌,專供學生塗鴉。木牌上方刻著這樣一句話:
如果你想畫畫,就在這塊牌子上畫吧,
隻是不要在課桌上畫。
如果把鉛筆放在某人手中,他就一定會畫點什麼。他不管是在聽課還是在接電話,隻要手頭有本便簽簿,他就會在上麵畫些圈圈啦,臉蛋啊,或者是三角形和正方形什麼的。要不他就會在課桌或牆壁上塗畫,因為他總得要畫點什麼。你看見過沒有被亂塗亂畫的電話簿嗎? 這就是人的本性。這錶明你是一個真正的人。
如今,動物可以學做許多人類能做的事情,但有一件事動物學不會,那就是畫畫。狗能用兩條腿學走路,甚至幫人取報紙;熊能學會跳舞;馬能學會數數;猴子可以學用杯子喝水;鸚鵡可以學舌;但是隻有人類纔能學會畫畫。
每一個男孩或女孩都在童年時代的某個時候畫過些什麼。難道不是嗎?你或許畫過馬或房子,船或汽車,狗或貓。這狗被你畫得就像貓,或像一條毛毛蟲,但即便如此,你還是比任何動物都強。
甚至生活在很久以前的原始人也能畫畫。那時還沒有房屋,他們全身長著長長的毛發,隻住在洞穴裏過著幾乎和野獸一樣的生活。那時候沒有紙和筆。他們在穴壁上畫畫。這些圖畫沒有裝裱懸掛在牆上,而是直接畫在洞壁和洞頂上。
這些圖畫有的隻是塗鴉或刻在洞壁上,有的是後來纔畫上去的。當時人們所用的顔料是由一種摻雜著動物油脂的有色粘土混閤製成的,通常隻有紅黃色,或者就用鮮血做顔料,開始是紅色,後來幾乎就變成瞭黑色。有些圖畫看起來就像是用一根燒焦的木棒頭畫的,就像我們用一根燒過的火柴頭畫一個黑色標誌。還有些圖畫是刻在骨頭上的,比如鹿角或象牙。
現在來猜想一下這些穴居人畫的是什麼?如果讓你隨意畫幅畫--也就是畫什麼都行。試試看吧。你畫的可能是以下五種事物中的一種。我首先猜的是貓,第二次猜瞭帆船或汽車,第三次猜的是房子,第四次猜的是樹或花,最後纔猜瞭人。還會猜齣其他什麼呢?
其實,穴居人隻畫瞭一種東西。不是男人,不是女人,不是樹、不是花,也不是風景。他們主要畫的是動物。你認為他們畫的是哪種動物呢?狗?不,不是狗。馬?不,不是馬。獅子?不,也不是獅子。他們通常畫的是一些大型和奇特的動物。但這些動物都畫得栩栩如生,這使我們知道這些動物的長相。下圖是一個幾韆年前的穴居人畫的畫。
我們看得齣這畫的是某種動物,但不是貓,也不是毛毛蟲。那是他們那個時代特有的某種動物。它看起來像一頭象,而它的確就是象的一種--巨象。它的耳朵沒有我們現在的象那麼大,還長著長長的毛發。現在的象有獸皮或毛皮,但幾乎沒有毛發。我們把圖上的動物稱為猛獁(又名毛象)。毛象的毛發很長,因為那時候天氣寒冷,而長毛可以保暖。但它比我們現在的象大很多很多。
如今猛獁早已絕種,但人類已經找到瞭它們的骨頭,並把它們放在一起拼成瞭一個大型骨架。我們現在仍將龐然大物稱作“猛獁”。你可能聽說過肯塔基州的猛獁洞穴。它被稱作猛獁洞並不是因為猛獁在這洞裏住過,實際並沒住過,而僅僅因為這是一個非常大的洞穴。
除瞭猛獁,穴居人還畫過其他動物。其中有種野牛,就是水牛。水牛的圖片可以在美國的5 分硬幣上看到。它看起來像一頭公牛。在西班牙,有個小女孩曾和她的父親一起走進一個洞穴,他們按著箭頭,爸爸在地上尋找,小女孩卻盯著洞頂打量。她看見洞頂上畫瞭一群她以為是公牛的動物。她大喊一聲,“看,公牛!”她爸爸還以為她看見瞭真的公牛,喊道:“在哪?在哪?”
他們畫的其他動物和我們今天有的這些動物差不多--馴鹿、長角鹿,還有熊和狼。
穴居人畫畫的穴洞十分昏暗,因為那兒根本就沒開窗。唯一的光亮就是某種壁燈發齣的昏暗的光。那他們乾嗎要畫畫呢?這些圖畫不可能僅僅隻是為瞭裝飾洞壁,就像我們在牆上掛畫一樣,因為洞穴裏實在是太暗瞭。我們認為穴居人畫畫是為瞭祈求好運,就像人們把馬蹄鐵放在門頭上企盼吉祥是一樣的。或者他們是要講述一個故事或就是記下捕殺的某種動物。或許他們不得不畫畫,就像現在的孩子們在小木屋,甚至有時候在自傢的牆上畫畫一樣,或乾脆就在課桌上畫。
這些原始人--多須長毛的穴居人-- 畫的是世界上最古老的畫。但這些藝術傢早在幾韆年前就去世瞭。你認為你所製作的任何東西能像那些畫一樣持久嗎?
……
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