Picasso’s Guernica, standing at almost 3.5 meters tall and 7.7 meters wide, depicts a scene from the Spanish Civil War. It shows the intense aerial bombardment of the town of Guernica in the Basque Country that happened on Apr. 26, 1937, carried out by the Nazi German Luftwaffe at the behest of the Franco government.
The canvas is filled with the chaos, screams and slaughter of people and animals, showing their contorted body shapes and features in a classic example of Cubism, a form that juxtaposes diverse aspects and planes of three-dimensional objects onto a two-dimensional painting, as with, for example, a pair of eyes represented incongruously together in profile.
The painting is less a depiction of an actual scene and more a cacophany of symbolic elements evoking the psychological impact of the violence of war, with the frenzied barbarism of the Spanish bull, the broken blade of a sword and the iconography of the pieta — the Virgin Mary holding the dead body of Christ in her arms — on the far left of the composition, the woman’s distorted facial features and breasts, her back, shoulders, neck and head exaggerated and contorted, conveying the primal, profound grief tearing through her. If dreams work in the language of symbolism, Guernica is like the shards of a nightmare reassembled onto canvas.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
照片:維基共享資源
The history of art is dotted with denunciations of war, but Picasso has chosen here not to spatter his work with blood, and to instead employ understated black and grey tones, reining in the chaos, as if to suppress — and even mute entirely — the volume of the shrill cries. In so doing he has actually accentuated the terror.
When he was preparing for this piece, Picasso studied news photographs of the event. It is perhaps because of this that he decided to render this painting in a monochrome palette, adding the texture of newsprint, to evoke the feeling of a photojournalist’s report.
(Translated by Paul Cooper)
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
照片:維基共享資源
畢卡索的《格爾尼卡》以高近三點五公尺,長逾七點七公尺的畫幅,描繪西班牙內戰時期,巴斯克地區格爾尼卡城在一九三七年四月二十六日所受的地毯式轟炸,此為佛朗哥政府授意德國納粹軍隊所為的種族屠殺。
畫面中充滿了動態的、嚎叫的、瀕死的人與動物,其扭曲錯置的身形五官,是典型的立體派表現方式——把三度立體空間的多面向像比目魚的眼睛一般並置到平面畫幅中。
此畫並非描繪特定的場景,而是將戰爭暴力的心理衝擊,訴諸象徵元素:例如西班牙公牛的暴力野蠻、斷裂的刀劍,以及「聖殤」的圖像 —— 畫面左方的婦女抱著死去的孩子,她變形的臉部和乳房,她的背、肩、頸、頭部誇張地扭曲,傳達出最原始深切的哀痛。如果說夢是以象徵的語言運作,《格爾尼卡》便像是把夢魘的材料絞碎之後,再平貼到畫布上。
對戰爭的控訴,在藝術史上屢見不鮮。但畢卡索畫的不是鮮血淋漓,而是內斂的黑灰色調、抑制的騷動,似乎是把尖叫的音量壓低,甚至是靜音了,代之而起的卻可能是更令人怖懼的戰慄。
為了創作此作品,畢卡索研究了相關的新聞照片;或許這也是為什麼此幅畫全以黑、灰、白表現,其中並有如新聞紙的材質,如同另一種紀實攝影報導。
(台北時報林俐凱)
A: Yet another shopping mall has just opened in Taipei. B: Do you mean the Mitsui Shopping Park LaLaport Nangang? A: Yeah, the shopping mall run by Japanese Mitsui & Co. opened last week. B: I hear the mall features about 300 stores, Vieshow Cinemas and Japanese Lopia supermarket. A: With the opening, a war is breaking out between Taipei’s department stores. A: 台北又有新的購物商場可逛啦。 B: 你是說Mitsui Shopping Park LaLaport 南港? A: 對啊這家日本三井集團旗下的商場上週開幕。 B: 聽說商場有威秀影城、樂比亞日系超市,還有多達300家專櫃。 A: 新商場一開幕,看來又要掀起一場百貨大戰啦! (By Eddy Chang, Taipei Times/台北時報張迪)
A: Hey, didn’t you go to the opening of the Mitsui Shopping Park LaLaport Nangang last week? B: Yeah, there are about 300 shops, including the first overseas branch of Japan’s Mahou Dokoro — a famous Harry Potter-themed store. A: Wow, I’ve always wanted to get a magic wand. B: There are also a bunch of great restaurants, such as Smart Fish hotpot restaurant. A: I wish I had Harry Potter’s “apparition” and “disapparition” magic, so I could teleport to the mall right now. A: 你上週不是有去LaLaport南港的盛大開幕嗎?有什麼特別的? B: 那裡有多達300家專櫃,包括魔法之地的海外首店——它可是日本知名的《哈利波特》專賣店。 A: 哇我一直想買根魔杖。 B: 另外還有各式各樣的美食,像是林聰明沙鍋魚頭。 A: 真希望我也有哈利波特的「現影術/消影術」魔法,能瞬間移動到商場去! (By Eddy Chang, Taipei Times/台北時報張迪)
When it comes to movies, some people delight in watching spine-chilling horror films. Surprisingly, apart from containing a few scares, horror movies may also offer an unexpected __1__. According to a study, watching 90 minutes of a scary movie can burn an average of 113 calories, which is roughly __2__ to taking a 30-minute walk. Researchers from the University of Westminster carried out an experiment in which they __3__ participants’ oxygen intake, carbon dioxide output, and heart rates while they were watching horror movies without any distractions. The results revealed that physiological responses to fear play a crucial role
Dos & Don’ts — 想想看,這句話英語該怎麼說? 1. 你覺得這部電影怎樣? ˇ What do you think of the movie? χ How do you like the movie? χ How do you think of the movie? 註︰What do you think of = What is your opinion of。 think 的受詞是 what,不能用 how。 2. 你認為哪一個歌星唱得最好? ˇ Which singer do you think is the best? χ Do you think which singer is the best? 註︰英語中 which singer 似乎是 do you think 的受詞,實則 do you think 是插入語,其他例子如下: 你以為他喜歡誰? Who do you think he likes? 你以為我住在哪裏? Where do you think I live? 你想我昨天在公園裏碰到了誰? Whom/Who do you think I met in the park yesterday? 3. 他不論到什麼地方,總是帶著一把雨傘。 ˇ No matter where he goes, he