美国国家公共电台 NPR Happy 500th, Tintoretto — A Retrospective Honors The Venetian Artist

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

OK, what do you do to celebrate your 500th birthday? Curators at Washington's National Gallery of Art are doing that for the Italian painter Tintoretto. The 16th century Venetian is less famous than Michelangelo, but the exhibit makes a case that Tintoretto belongs in his league. Here's the Renaissance¹ master of radio NPR's Susan Stamberg.

SUSAN STAMBERG, BYLINE²: Well, he certainly was ambitious.

ROBERT ECHOLS: He never saw a wall that he couldn't envision covered with a large Tintoretto.

STAMBERG: Curator Robert Echols. The canvases are huge, jammed with hunky men - some women, too - writhing³, reaching, rushing in myths or Biblical scenes. Jacopo Tintoretto painted them all over the ceiling of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice. It took ambition and, yes, deviousness⁴. In 1564, there was a competition. He was one of four artists invited to submit drawings.

FREDERICK ILCHMAN: Tintoretto doesn't have a drawing.

STAMBERG: Co-curator Frederick Ilchman.

ILCHMAN: Instead, he has pulled aside from the ceiling a big piece of cardboard to show the fully⁶ completed oil-on-canvas painting installed in its intended position.

STAMBERG: Wait, there's more. Tintoretto announces it's a donation.

ILCHMAN: Knowing that they have regulations that they must accept all gifts, large or small.

STAMBERG: Devious⁵ and brilliant, he went on to do some 60 more paintings for the place. Tintoretto competed for work all his life. Ambition was in the air - money, too.

ILCHMAN: Venice in the 16th century was about the largest city in Europe and easily the most cosmopolitan⁷.

STAMBERG: Teeming⁸ with artists who had to fight for work.

ILCHMAN: It was a cutthroat environment. You had to paint quickly in order to get your commissions, in order to fulfill⁹ them.

STAMBERG: Eventually Tintoretto got so many commissions he had to hire a vast number of assistants. They worked so fast that critics thought the pieces looked unfinished. Some do. The young Tintoretto got lessons in painting, ambition and toughness from Titian, 30 years his senior and the master artist of Venice. At age 12, Tintoretto apprenticed¹⁰ in his workshop. Legend has it that the boy once made a group of drawings there...

ILCHMAN: And when Titian, who'd been away for a few days, came back and saw these drawings and said, who did this, and the young Tintoretto was nervous thinking he had done a bad job with the drawings and was going to be corrected. No, they weren't bad. They were, in fact, too good.

STAMBERG: Titian, the master, felt threatened. He kicked the kid out. If that wasn't bad enough, as years passed, Titian tried to blackball Tintoretto to prevent him from getting commissions. And all the while, the rivals were painting their heavenly, religious scenes.

Think how many Last Suppers you've seen, the best-known known by Leonardo da Vinci - his alarmed apostles sitting in a row at the table, Jesus, serene¹¹, in the center. Some 60 years after Leonardo, Tintoretto puts the apostles in a blender and spins them around, painting their reactions when Christ says one of them will betray him.

ECHOLS: Some of them are practically falling out of their chairs backwards¹².

STAMBERG: Again, co-curator Robert Echols.

ECHOLS: Some are reaching forward, gesturing towards Christ. The painting is full of action - push and pull and drama. And this is typical of Tintoretto. His paintings are always dynamic, full of energy and action.

STAMBERG: They are cinematic. You can almost hear the soundtrack.

ILCHMAN: Jean-Paul Sartre, the philosopher, said that Tintoretto was the first film director.

STAMBERG: Speed, competition, success took its toll¹³. A self-portrait at the beginning of the National Gallery exhibit, made when he was around 28 with dark, curly hair, mustache, beard, shows an intense, almost fierce Tintoretto glaring at viewers, demanding that we pay attention. The exhibit ends with another self-portrait made when he was around 70. His hair and beard are white. His stare is stony¹⁴.

ILCHMAN: And the impetuous, aggressive, younger artist in that early self-portrait, now the fire is really gone out of his eyes. He's now tired. He's had a very long career. It's been very successful. But, boy, is he weary.

STAMBERG: Portraits of the Venetian artist as a young and old man - they bracket a lifetime's work in Tintoretto's very first U.S. retrospective. In Washington, I'm Susan Stamberg, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF A WINGED VICTORY FOR THE SULLEN'S "ATOMOS XI")

1 renaissance   

n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴

参考例句：

• The Renaissance was an epoch of unparalleled cultural achievement.文艺复兴是一个文化上取得空前成就的时代。
• The theme of the conference is renaissance Europe.大会的主题是文艺复兴时期的欧洲。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 writhing   

（因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• She was writhing around on the floor in agony. 她痛得在地板上直打滚。
• He was writhing on the ground in agony. 他痛苦地在地上打滚。

4 deviousness   

参考例句：

• Besides, deviousness isn't your style. 此外，旁敲侧击也不是你的作风。
• These adjectives mean disposed to or marked by indirection or deviousness in the gaining an end. 这些形容词都有通过或表明通过间接或迂回手段最终获得。

5 devious   

adj.不坦率的，狡猾的；迂回的，曲折的

参考例句：

• Susan is a devious person and we can't depend on her.苏姗是个狡猾的人，我们不能依赖她。
• He is a man who achieves success by devious means.他这个人通过不正当手段获取成功。

6 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

7 cosmopolitan   

adj.世界性的，全世界的，四海为家的，全球的

参考例句：

• New York is a highly cosmopolitan city.纽约是一个高度世界性的城市。
• She has a very cosmopolitan outlook on life.她有四海一家的人生观。

8 teeming   

adj.丰富的v.充满( teem的现在分词 )；到处都是；（指水、雨等）暴降；倾注

参考例句：

• The rain was teeming down. 大雨倾盆而下。
• the teeming streets of the city 熙熙攘攘的城市街道

9 fulfill   

vt.履行，实现，完成；满足，使满意

参考例句：

• If you make a promise you should fulfill it.如果你许诺了，你就要履行你的诺言。
• This company should be able to fulfill our requirements.这家公司应该能够满足我们的要求。

10 apprenticed   

学徒，徒弟( apprentice的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• I was apprenticed to a builder when I was fourteen. 14岁时，我拜一个建筑工人为师当学徒。
• Lucius got apprenticed to a stonemason. 卢修斯成了石匠的学徒。

11 serene   

adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的

参考例句：

• He has entered the serene autumn of his life.他已进入了美好的中年时期。
• He didn't speak much,he just smiled with that serene smile of his.他话不多，只是脸上露出他招牌式的淡定的微笑。

12 backwards   

adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地

参考例句：

• He turned on the light and began to pace backwards and forwards.他打开电灯并开始走来走去。
• All the girls fell over backwards to get the party ready.姑娘们迫不及待地为聚会做准备。

13 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。

14 stony   

adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的

参考例句：

• The ground is too dry and stony.这块地太干，而且布满了石头。
• He listened to her story with a stony expression.他带着冷漠的表情听她讲经历。