2019年经济学人 木雕艺术家大卫·埃斯特利(2)

 

For him, as for Gibbon, the limewood responded beautifully, as only limewood could. It was soft, almost oily, with a nutty smell that filled the workshop and a crisp zip under the gouge¹; pliable², kindly³, magically white and forgiving of mistreatment, such as his necessary cutting across the short grain to mould the shape of an apple or a grape.

对他来说，对吉本来说，椴树的效果很美，只有椴树才能。它柔软，几乎是油腻的，带着一股坚果的味道，充满了整个车间，沟槽下面有一个脆的拉链；它柔韧，亲切，有着神奇的白色，可以对虐待施以宽容，比如他经过必要的削减通过短粒塑造一个苹果或葡萄的形状。

He had tried other woods, but found ash too hard, beech⁴ and birch thuggish. Its tolerance⁵ allowed it to be drastically undercut in Gibbons's style, with a gouge held like a pencil, until the wood was scarcely thicker than a petal⁶ or a feather and the piece filled with shadow and air. At that point he would add the selective exaggerations, a curl here, a bulge⁷ there, that would make a leaf look real, even though carved in wood.

他试过其他树林，但发现梣木太硬，山毛榉和桦木太凶狠。它的容忍度让它可以以吉本斯的风格进行大幅度的削边，像拿着铅笔一样去凿，直到木头比花瓣或羽毛厚不了多少，那片地方充满了阴影和空气。到了那个时候，他会选择性的添加夸张操作，这里一个卷曲，这里一个凸起，这会使一片叶子看起来真实，即使是在木头上雕刻。然后，除了像吉本斯做的那样，他会用荷兰草轻轻地摩擦木雕。

And then, leaving the piece bare except for gentle abrading⁸ with Dutch rush, as Gibbons would have done, he would set it aside to shine like ghostly marble with its own independent life. He never kept anything he made. Ever since he had sold a small mirror frame for 100 pound at a village fair, he had worked only to commission. He could not afford to do otherwise, for though his pieces eventually sold for six figures they were so time-consuming that he made only about 50 in his life. Carvers were starvers, he often said: an existence his comfortably middle-class parents in Akron, Ohio would have struggled to understand.

他会把它放在一边，让它像幽灵般的大理石一样闪耀，拥有自己独立的生命。他从不保留自己的任何作品。自从他在一个乡村集市上以100英镑的价格卖了一个小镜框后，他的工作只是为了赚取佣金。他负担不起别的方式，尽管他的作品最终能卖到六位数，但是它们太耗费时间了，他在一生中只做了大概50个。他经常说，雕刻家都是些饥民：他在俄亥俄州阿克伦的中产阶级父母过着舒适的生活，他们很难理解这种生活。

1 gouge   

v.凿；挖出；n.半圆凿；凿孔；欺诈

参考例句：

• To make a Halloween lantern,you first have to gouge out the inside of the pumpkin.要做一个万圣节灯笼，你先得挖空这个南瓜。
• In the Middle Ages,a favourite punishment was to gouge out a prisoner's eyes.在中世纪，惩罚犯人最常用的办法是剜眼睛。

2 pliable   

adj.易受影响的；易弯的；柔顺的，易驾驭的

参考例句：

• Willow twigs are pliable.柳条很软。
• The finely twined baskets are made with young,pliable spruce roots.这些编织精美的篮子是用柔韧的云杉嫩树根编成的。

3 kindly   

adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地

参考例句：

• Her neighbours spoke of her as kindly and hospitable.她的邻居都说她和蔼可亲、热情好客。
• A shadow passed over the kindly face of the old woman.一道阴影掠过老太太慈祥的面孔。

4 beech   

n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的

参考例句：

• Autumn is the time to see the beech woods in all their glory.秋天是观赏山毛榉林的最佳时期。
• Exasperated,he leaped the stream,and strode towards beech clump.他满腔恼怒，跳过小河，大踏步向毛榉林子走去。

5 tolerance   

n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差

参考例句：

• Tolerance is one of his strengths.宽容是他的一个优点。
• Human beings have limited tolerance of noise.人类对噪音的忍耐力有限。

6 petal   

n.花瓣

参考例句：

• Each white petal had a stripe of red.每一片白色的花瓣上都有一条红色的条纹。
• A petal fluttered to the ground.一片花瓣飘落到地上。

7 bulge   

n.突出，膨胀，激增；vt.突出，膨胀

参考例句：

• The apple made a bulge in his pocket.苹果把他口袋塞得鼓了起来。
• What's that awkward bulge in your pocket?你口袋里那块鼓鼓囊囊的东西是什么？

8 abrading   

v.刮擦( abrade的现在分词 )；（在精神方面）折磨（人）；消磨（意志、精神等）；使精疲力尽

参考例句：