美国国家公共电台 NPR Opinion: Paintings By Adolf Hitler Are 'Unremarkable,' So Why Forge Them?

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

If you saw some of these paintings of flowers, fields and foggy townscapes for sale at a summer art fair, you might point at one to say, maybe for the guest bathroom. Five pictures allegedly painted by Adolf Hitler are scheduled for auction¹ at an art house in Nuremberg today. Two dozen more were pulled after German police raided the place on Thursday on suspicion that a number of the paintings signed A. Hitler are forgeries². Imagine acquiring the technical proficiency³ to counterfeit⁴ a work of art only to use those skills not to fabricate a fictitious⁵ Picasso, El Greco, Gaugin or Georgia O'Keeffe but a watercolor by a highly mediocre⁶ painter who went on to exterminate⁷ 6 million Jews and try to enslave the world.

In his 20s, the future Fuhrer was twice rejected by Vienna's Academy of Fine Arts for what they called his unfitness for painting. Hitler stayed on in the city to study with private teachers and tried to sell his paintings and postcard sketches⁸ for spare change. We asked Jerry Saltz, the Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic, for his appraisal⁹ of A. Hitler's artwork. Physically¹⁰ and spatially¹¹ dead, Jerry told us. Generic¹² academic realism, the equivalent of mediocre exercises in aping good penmanship. He was an adequate draftsman, utterly¹³ unimaginative and made the equivalent of greeting cards.

Then why would someone want to create a forgery¹⁴ of a Hitler painting? The opening bid for one of those Hitler paintings is more than $50,000, not because it's that good, but because it's painted by history's great monster. That same auction house sold 14 Hitler paintings in 2015 for almost half a million dollars. Auctioneers say their bidders¹⁵ were from all over Europe, China and the United Arab Emirates.

Why would anyone who could afford to bid so high spend so much good money on a bad painting by an evil man? It is tempting¹⁶ to believe that each and every Hitler artwork should be tossed onto the trash heap of history and burned. But critics and scholars remind us it's important to be able to see Hitler's middling and unremarkable paintings to try to find clues into his monstrous¹⁷ mind and malicious¹⁸ life. You see the soft landscapes that A. Hitler painted of thatched-roof houses, old-stone churches, slim flowers and snowy countrysides and realize one of the most frightening facts of all - history's great monster was human.

(SOUNDBITE OF BROKE FOR FREE'S "THINGS TO COME")

1 auction   

n.拍卖；拍卖会；vt.拍卖

参考例句：

• They've put the contents of their house up for auction.他们把房子里的东西全都拿去拍卖了。
• They bought a new minibus with the proceeds from the auction.他们用拍卖得来的钱买了一辆新面包车。

2 forgeries   

伪造( forgery的名词复数 )； 伪造的文件、签名等

参考例句：

• The whole sky was filled with forgeries of the brain. 整个天空充满了头脑里臆造出来的膺品。
• On inspection, the notes proved to be forgeries. 经过检查，那些钞票证明是伪造的。

3 proficiency   

n.精通，熟练，精练

参考例句：

• He plied his trade and gained proficiency in it.他勤习手艺，技术渐渐达到了十分娴熟的地步。
• How do you think of your proficiency in written and spoken English?你认为你的书面英语和口语熟练程度如何？

4 counterfeit   

vt.伪造，仿造；adj.伪造的，假冒的

参考例句：

• It is a crime to counterfeit money.伪造货币是犯罪行为。
• The painting looked old but was a recent counterfeit.这幅画看上去年代久远，实际是最近的一幅赝品。

5 fictitious   

adj.虚构的，假设的；空头的

参考例句：

• She invented a fictitious boyfriend to put him off.她虚构出一个男朋友来拒绝他。
• The story my mother told me when I was young is fictitious.小时候妈妈对我讲的那个故事是虚构的。

6 mediocre   

adj.平常的，普通的

参考例句：

• The student tried hard,but his work is mediocre. 该生学习刻苦，但学业平庸。
• Only lazybones and mediocre persons could hanker after the days of messing together.只有懒汉庸才才会留恋那大锅饭的年代。

7 exterminate   

v.扑灭，消灭，根绝

参考例句：

• Some people exterminate garden insects by spraying poison on the plants.有些人在植物上喷撒毒剂以杀死花园内的昆虫。
• Woodpeckers can exterminate insect pests hiding in trees.啄木鸟能消灭躲在树里的害虫。

8 sketches   

n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概

参考例句：

• The artist is making sketches for his next painting. 画家正为他的下一幅作品画素描。
• You have to admit that these sketches are true to life. 你得承认这些素描很逼真。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 appraisal   

n.对…作出的评价；评价，鉴定，评估

参考例句：

• What's your appraisal of the situation?你对局势是如何评估的？
• We need to make a proper appraisal of his work.对于他的工作我们需要做出适当的评价。

10 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

11 spatially   

空间地，存在于空间地

参考例句：

• A well-defined array of stable fringes results and the field is spatially coherent. 结果得到一组完全确定的稳定条纹，而光场是空间相干的。
• The units are collaged together by a serial tectonic spatially and temporally. 这些构造单元是由构造原因，依一定的时空序列拼贴在一起的。

12 generic   

adj.一般的，普通的，共有的

参考例句：

• I usually buy generic clothes instead of name brands.我通常买普通的衣服，不买名牌。
• The generic woman appears to have an extraordinary faculty for swallowing the individual.一般妇女在婚后似乎有特别突出的抑制个性的能力。

13 utterly   

adv.完全地，绝对地

参考例句：

• Utterly devoted to the people,he gave his life in saving his patients.他忠于人民，把毕生精力用于挽救患者的生命。
• I was utterly ravished by the way she smiled.她的微笑使我完全陶醉了。

14 forgery   

n.伪造的文件等，赝品，伪造（行为）

参考例句：

• The painting was a forgery.这张画是赝品。
• He was sent to prison for forgery.他因伪造罪而被关进监狱。

15 bidders   

n.出价者，投标人( bidder的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Bidders should proceed only if they intend on using a PayPal account to complete payment. Bidders的唯一形式，应继续只当他们在使用贝宝帐户，以完成付款打算。 来自互联网
• The other bidders for the contract complained that it had not been a fair contest. 其他竞标人抱怨说该合同的竞标不公平。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 tempting   

a.诱人的, 吸引人的

参考例句：

• It is tempting to idealize the past. 人都爱把过去的日子说得那么美好。
• It was a tempting offer. 这是个诱人的提议。

17 monstrous   

adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的

参考例句：

• The smoke began to whirl and grew into a monstrous column.浓烟开始盘旋上升，形成了一个巨大的烟柱。
• Your behaviour in class is monstrous!你在课堂上的行为真是丢人！

18 malicious   

adj.有恶意的，心怀恶意的

参考例句：

• You ought to kick back at such malicious slander. 你应当反击这种恶毒的污蔑。
• Their talk was slightly malicious.他们的谈话有点儿心怀不轨。