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I ONCE had a cat whom I used to tease by holding her up to a mirror. When she saw what she thought was another cat, she would arch her back and spit. I thought it very funny. But this is a strange thing—if you showed her the picture of a cat, she didn't seem to see it at all. Dogs are the same. They will growl when they see themselves in a mirror, but if you show them a picture of another dog or even a cat, they will pay no attention to it at all. Animals, though they have eyes to see, do not see pictures.
Some people are like that. They may look at pictures but not see them. So there is a difference between looking and seeing. That's what the Bible means when it says there are those that “have eyes. and see not.”
When I was a boy, there used to be a candy shop on the corner. On the counter was painted a silver dollar. It was painted so naturally that every one tried to pick it up. I thought it wonderful and that the artist who had done it must be a wonderful artist, too.
I remember also being taken to an art gallery where there was one picture that I liked best. To me it was a marvel. It was the picture of a door half open, with a lady peeking out from behind it. When you first looked at it, you were startled. The picture was so lifelike you could hardly believe it was not a real person looking out from behind a real door. I thought that must be the greatest kind of art—to paint something so natural and lifelike that a person would be fooled into thinking it real.
Well, the old Greek painters seemed to feel the same way about pictures. Greece, as you know, is across the Mediterranean Sea from Egypt. You may not know, however, that the Greeks were the greatest sculptors that have ever lived and were also great architects. But their pictures were not so great, for many of them were of this kind of April Fool painting that I've described. They tried to paint pictures that would fool people into believing they were real.
In Egypt and Assyria we know the paintings but not the names of the painters who did them. In Greece we know the names of the painters but not the paintings they did.
Here is the name of the first painter whose name we do know. He was a Greek. It is a hard name, not easy like Smith or Jones, for most Greek names sound strange to us. But as he is called the father of Greek painting, you might want to remember his name. It was Polygnotus. The writers of the time of Polygnotus tell us that he was a wonderful painter, but not one of his pictures is in existence, so we have to take their word for it.
As a matter of fact, we have very few Greek paintings, and one reason that we have so few is that most of the pictures were painted on something that could be moved from place to place, like the pictures we hang on our own walls, and these movable pictures have all been lost or destroyed.
One of the most famous April Fool painters was a Greek artist named Zeuxis, who lived four hundred years before Christ was born. It is said that he painted a boy carrying a bunch of grapes and the grapes looked so real that the birds came and pecked at them, trying to eat them. He entered his picture in a contest, or match, with a rival painter named Parrhasius. It was to be decided which was the greater artist. Every one was sure that Zeuxis must get the prize because the birds were fooled into thinking the grapes he had painted were real. Parrhasius's picture had a curtain drawn across the front of it.
“Now,” said Zeuxis to Parrhasius, “draw back the curtain and show us your picture.”
To which Parrhasius replied: “The curtain is my picture. Even you, a human being, were fooled into thinking it was real. So I win. You fooled the birds, but I fooled you. And besides, the boy you painted holding the grapes wasn't so lifelike or he would have scared the birds away.”
But the best and worst Greek painting was on the floor of a famous hall. It was painted with fruit skins, peelings, rinds, and pieces of food as if they had fallen from the table and hadn't been swept up. It was called the “Unswept Hall” and the Greeks thought it wonderful. But how could they have thought it beautiful or worthy of an artist, no matter how naturally and realistically it was painted?
The greatest of all the Greek painters was named Apelles. He was a great friend of that precocious young ruler and general, Alexander the Great, and painted Alexander's portrait. And yet we know him more by two of his sayings that have become famous than by his pictures.
A shoemaker once criticized the way Apelles had painted a sandal in one of his pictures. Apelles was glad to have expert advice from one who knew sandals and he made the correction. The next day the shoemaker criticized another part of the same picture. But this time Apelles did not like the criticism, for he felt the shoemaker didn't know what he was talking about, so he exclaimed, “Let the shoemaker stick to his last,” which meant, let him stick to his own business, to things he knows about. A last is the form on which shoes are made. Let him, therefore, criticize only the things he knows about.
Apelles was a very hard worker and made it a rule never to let a day go by without doing some worth-while work. So he used to say, “No day without a line.” Though it is more than two thousand years since he lived, we still quote these sayings. They have become proverbs. They have lasted, but self of his paintings have, though every one who lived at his time honored him and called him the greatest painter of Greece.
We are told another story to show how skilled Apelles was in handling a brush. It is said that one day he visited a friend of his, also an artist. The friend was not at home, so Apelles picked up a brush and, dipping it in paint, drew an extremely fine, thin line across a board on the artist's easel, to see if his friend would know who'd been there. His friend returned and when he saw the painted stroke on his easel, he exclaimed: “Apelles has been here. No one else in the world could make such a fine and beautiful brush stroke as this—except myself.”
Then he painted another line, down the length of the fine one Apelles had made, splitting it in two. Later Apelles returned. When he saw a still finer stroke down the middle of his own line, he picked up the brush once more and with another stroke did what seemed impossible.
Again he divided the fine line lengthwise. “Splitting hairs,” w should call it.
I can show you no pictures with this chapter, because there are no pictures to show. What a pity there are self of these pictures left, so that we might judge for ourselves and see if they really were so wonderful!
中文阅读
我从前养过一只猫。我经常把它捧到镜子前逗乐。当它看到镜子里的自己时，总以为那是别的猫。它会弓起背来发出呼噜声。我觉得非常搞笑。但有件事很奇怪——如果给它看猫的照片，它好像根本没看见一样。狗的情况也是一样。当它们看镜中的自己时，都会汪汪叫。如果给它们看别的狗或猫的照片时，它们却毫不在意。动物虽然有眼睛，能看见东西，却看不懂图画。
有些人也是这样。他们可能会看图画却看不明白。所以，“看”和“看懂”之间是有区别的。这就如《圣经》里讲的，有些人“看是看，却不明白”，其寓意亦如此。
小时候，我家附近的拐角处有一家糖果店。柜台上画了一枚 1 美元银币。它很逼真，每个人都想把它拣起来。我想这画真棒，而且这个画家也一定非常了不起。
我还记得去过一家画廊，那儿有一幅我最喜欢的画。在我看来，那幅画是个奇迹。画中有一扇半开的门，一位女士正从门后向外探望。你第一眼看到它就会吃惊。这画太逼真了，让你不得不相信那真的是一个人从门后往外看。我当时想，这肯定是最了不起的艺术——画得那么自然生动，让人误以为真。
是的，古希腊画家们对绘画的看法似乎跟我有同感。众所周知，希腊与埃及之间隔着地中海。然而，希腊曾产生世界上最优秀的雕刻家和建筑师，但这不是人人皆知。他们的绘画却不那么出色，因为他们画的许多画都是我上面描述的那种愚人画。他们总是想方设法画出那些使人误以为真的画。
埃及和亚述的绘画广为人知，但很少有人知道画家的名字。在希腊，我们知道画家的名字但不了解他们的绘画作品。我们确切知道名字的第一位画家是希腊人。他的名字很拗口，不像史密斯或琼斯那样发音简单，因为大多数希腊人名听起来都让人觉得奇怪。但由于他被称作希腊绘画之父，所以才想要记住他的名字。他就是波利格诺托斯。他同时代的作家们都说他是一位杰出的画家，但是他没有一幅作品保存下来，所以我们只能靠作家们的话来确定。
事实上，希腊绘画几乎都没有保存下来，其中一个原因就是大部分绘画是画在可移动的物体上，就像我们挂在自家墙壁上的画一样，因此这些可移动的画全部遗失或者被毁坏了。
在最有名的愚人画画家中，有一个名叫宙克西斯的希腊画家，他生活在公元前 400 年。据说他画了一个男孩，手拿一串葡萄，看上去就像真的，引来鸟儿啄食。他把画送去参赛。他的竞争对手是画家帕拉西奥。谁更伟大将由比赛决定。每个人都相信宙克西斯一定能得奖，因为连飞鸟都能被愚弄以为画中葡萄是真的。帕拉西奥的画用一幅帘子在前面遮盖着。
“现在，”宙克西斯对帕拉西奥说，“把帘子拉开，让我们看看你的画吧。”
帕拉西奥回答说：“这帘子就是我的画。连你这么一个大活人，都误以为这幅帘子是真的，所以我赢了。你骗了飞鸟，但我却骗了你。不仅如此，你画的那个手拿葡萄的男孩其实还不够逼真，否则他早就该把飞鸟吓跑了。
但是，有一幅放在某座著名大厅地板上的画既被认为是希腊最好的画，又被认为是最坏的画。画面上到处是果皮和饭渣，看起来好像是从餐桌上掉下来的，还没有被清除掉。因此这幅画就叫做“未打扫的大厅”。希腊人认为这幅画很棒。可是不管这幅画画得多么自然、逼真，他们也不能认为它很美，或者称得上画家的典型之作吧？
古希腊最伟大的画家是阿佩莱斯。他是亚历山大大帝的好友，当时的亚历山大是一位年轻而成熟的统治者和将军。他还给亚历山大画过肖像画。但是与他的画相比，我们更多的是通过他的两句名言了解他的。
有个鞋匠曾对阿佩莱斯一幅画中凉鞋的画法提出过批评。阿佩莱斯非常乐意地接受了这个修鞋专家的建议并做出了修改。第二天，那个鞋匠又对那幅画的另一部分提出了批评。但这次阿佩莱斯却不喜欢这个批评，因为他觉得鞋匠并不了解他所要表达的，所以就大声说，“让鞋匠按照鞋楦做鞋吧。” 意思是让他管好自己的事，做他了解的事。鞋楦是制鞋的模型。因此，让他只对自己了解的事进行批评吧。
阿佩莱斯工作非常努力。他从不让每一天白白地流逝，而是规定自己每天都要做些有意义的事。所以他常说：“拳不离手曲不离口。”尽管他生活在两千多年前，我们现在仍然引用他说的一些话。它们已成为谚语流传至今。但他的画却没能保存下来，尽管生活在他那个时代的人们都尊称他为希腊最伟大的画家。
我们还听过另外一个故事，它向我们介绍了阿佩莱斯非常擅长使用画笔。据说有一天他去拜访一位朋友，也是一名画家。那位朋友恰好不在家，所以阿佩莱斯拿起画笔，在颜料里蘸了下，就在画架的画面上画了一根美观细长的线条。他想看看朋友能否知道谁来过。当朋友回家看见他画架上的一笔时，惊叹道：“阿佩莱斯来过这。除了我和阿佩莱斯，这世上还没人能画出如此精美的线条。”
然后他顺着阿佩莱斯画的线条又画了一条线，和阿佩莱斯画的一样精美，把它一分为二了。后来阿佩莱斯再次造访。当他看见沿着自己画的线条的中间部位出现了更细的一笔时，他又拿起画笔，画上了看似不可能的一笔。他再次把这条细线纵向分割了。我们称之为“分叉的头发”。
我在本章中不能展示图画，因为没有图画可以展示。这些图画没保留下来是多么可惜啊，要不然我们可以自己做判断，看看它们是否真的那么妙不可言。