VOA慢速英语2014 美国的艺术作品返回首都 American Art Works Return to Nation's Capital

 

American Art Works Return to Nation's Capital 美国的艺术作品返回首都 

Welcome to American Mosaic¹ from VOA Learning English.

I’m June Simms.  Today on the show we go to an art museum in Washington.

American Masters at the Phillips Collection 

More than 200 art works by some of America’s best artists have returned home to a museum in Washington, D.C.  The paintings had been traveling to shows around the world for the last four years.  Now they are on exhibit at the Phillips Collection again.  Mario Ritter reports.

The exhibit is called “Made in the USA: American Masters from The Phillips Collection.”  It includes the work of more than 100 American artists. All the paintings were created between 1850 and about 1970.

Museum founder² Duncan Phillips collected the artwork from the end of World War l until his death in 1966.

"This show is really an opportunity to bring out artists who are under-recognized."

That is exhibit organizer Susan Frank. She says Duncan Philips bought the works at a time when European artists were more in demand.  

“He was determined³ that he would dedicate this museum to living American artists and lift up American art out of obscurity and give it the same presence that European works were given by his contemporary collectors and other museums.”

She says 80 percent of the art in the Philips Collection is American.

The earliest works date from the beginning of the late 19th century and include paintings by such famous artists as Winslow Homer and Arthur B. Davies.  The exhibit ends with extraordinary examples of Post-War Abstract Expressionism.  The art of this final period uses color and forms not to represent objects but to show emotion and creativity.

Susan Frank says Duncan Phillips often developed a personal relationship with the artists whose works he collected. Sometimes that relationship included financial support.

“Most well-known of course is his engagement with the abstract American artist Arthur Dove whose work he discovered in the mid-1920s.”

Duncan Phillips lent his support to many immigrant artists as well. Susan Frank says he considered their cultural differences as something that expanded the American experience. 

“Phillips always believed and championed American art as including all of the world because so many artists were immigrants who came here from being foreign-born, who brought their cultural aesthetics⁴ with them and synthesized them with their American experience. He celebrated⁵ their approach to their American experience as being something that enriched us.”

 

The museum is hoping that the exhibit will excite people about the wide mix of American art in the first half of the 20th century.  It also seeks to educate people about how Duncan Phillips helped lift American modern art to the level of European masterworks of the same time.

1 mosaic   

n./adj.镶嵌细工的，镶嵌工艺品的，嵌花式的

参考例句：

• The sky this morning is a mosaic of blue and white.今天早上的天空是幅蓝白相间的画面。
• The image mosaic is a troublesome work.图象镶嵌是个麻烦的工作。

2 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

3 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

4 aesthetics   

n.(尤指艺术方面之)美学，审美学

参考例句：

• Sometimes, of course, our markings may be simply a matter of aesthetics. 当然，有时我们的标点符号也许只是个审美的问题。 来自名作英译部分
• The field of aesthetics presents an especially difficult problem to the historian. 美学领域向历史学家提出了一个格外困难的问题。

5 celebrated   

adj.有名的，声誉卓著的

参考例句：

• He was soon one of the most celebrated young painters in England.不久他就成了英格兰最负盛名的年轻画家之一。
• The celebrated violinist was mobbed by the audience.观众团团围住了这位著名的小提琴演奏家。