62 Nature and Art

名称：62 Nature and Art
内容简介：
晨读英语美文 文化百科
[00:02.57]Nature contains the elements,
[00:04.80] in colour and form, of all pictures,
[00:07.02] as the keyboard contains the notes of all music.
[00:10.40]But the artist is born to pick,
[00:12.69]and choose and group with science, these elements,
[00:16.59]that the result may be beautiful—
[00:18.56]as the musician gathers his notes and forms his chords,
[00:22.63]until he brings forth from chaos glorious harmony.
[00:26.92]To say to the painter,
[00:29.07]that Nature is to be taken as she is,
[00:32.23] is to say to the player, that he may sit on the piano.
[00:36.11]The dignity of the snow-capped mountain is lost in distinctness,
[00:41.27]but the joy of the tourist
[00:43.74] is to recognize the traveler on the top.
[00:45.99]The desire to see, for the sake of seeing,
[00:49.34]is, with the mass, alone the one to be gratified,
[00:53.20] hence the delight in detail.
[00:55.42]And when the evening mist clothes the riverside
[00:58.81]with poetry, as with a veil,
[01:00.81]and the poor buildings lose themselves in the dim sky,
[01:04.82]and the tall chimneys become campanili,
[01:08.35]and the warehouses are palaces in the night,
[01:11.14]and the whole city hangs in the heavens,
[01:13.85] and fairyland is before us—
[01:16.22]then the wayfarer hastens home;
[01:18.78]the working man and the cultured one,
[01:21.22] the wise man and the one of pleasure,
[01:23.56]cease to understand, as they have ceased to see,
[01:27.15]and Nature, who, for once, has sung in tune,
[01:31.04]sings her exquisite song to the artist alone,
[01:34.23]her son and her master-her son in that he loves her,
[01:38.83] her master in that he knows her.
[01:41.65]To him her secrets are unfolded,
[01:44.15] to him her lessons have become gradually clear.
[01:47.61]He looks at her flower, not with the enlarging lens,
[01:51.65] that he may gather facts for the botanist,
[01:54.96] but with the light of the one
[01:56.86]who sees in her choice selection
[01:58.86]of brilliant tones and delicate tints,
[02:01.40]suggestions of future harmonies.
[02:04.06]He does not confine himself to purposeless copying,
[02:07.74] without thought, each blade of grass,
[02:10.19]as commended by the inconsequent, but,
[02:13.70]in the long curve of the narrow leaf,
[02:16.75]corrected by the straight tall stem,
[02:19.23] he learns how grace is wedded to dignity,
[02:21.75]how strength enhances sweetness,
[02:26.00]that elegance shall be the result.
[02:27.87]In all that is dainty and lovable
[02:30.79] he finds hints for his own combinations,
[02:33.65]and thus is Nature ever his resource
[02:37.07]and always at his service, and to him is naught refused.