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I know you've all seen this on countless Christmas cards,
我知道你们都曾在无数圣诞卡片上见过这个
but was there ever an image less brimming with Yuletide cheer.
但这些画是如此冷清 完全没有任何节庆气氛
Those hunters haven't got much to show for their trouble.
这些猎人费了好大力气 却没有什么收获
A skinny fox suspended from their poles.
一只干瘦的狐狸悬挂在他们的杆子上
The exhausted dogs,
精疲力尽的狗
trying to lift their legs out of the heavy snow,
试着从厚厚的积雪中把腿拔出来
feel the pain as much as their masters.
他们能感受到跟他们主人一样的痛苦
Bruegel painted these compendious,
勃鲁盖尔画这些简洁有力
visually inexhaustible masterpieces
视觉上取之不尽的杰作
after the coldest, most frigid Flemish winter
是在佛兰德斯最寒冷的一个冬天之后
that anybody could remember in their lifetime.
每个人一生中都会记得那个冬天
But he also painted them on the cusp of a long, terrible civil war
但他作画的时候 也处于漫长而残酷的内战中
that would divide the Netherlands between
这张内战要将荷兰分裂成
Protestant and Catholic, north and south,
新教和天主教 北部和南部
the Spanish Empire and the free Dutch Republic.
西班牙帝国和自由的荷兰共和国
And Bruegel would actually find himself right in the middle
勃鲁盖尔发现他自己正处在
of all those troubles.
这种种争端的中间
But, while we're looking at these glorious landscapes,
但当我们看这些美丽的风景画时
none of that history seems to matter.
那段历史都不重要了
For Bruegel, the natural world
对勃鲁盖尔来说 自然世界
is a consolation for the traumas afflicting civilisation.
是对这充满创伤和痛苦的文明的一个安慰
Whatever happens in our human world,
无论人类世界发生了什么
the God-given seasons will still roll around,
上帝赐予的四季仍在有序轮回
the cattle will still return to their winter pasture.
牛仍要回到他们的冬季牧场
Let's just think for a minute
让我们来想一想
about the way he wants us to look at these paintings.
他希望我们如何来看待这些画作
It's a dialogue, in a way,
从某种程度上讲 这是一场
between the universal and the particular.
宇宙和个体之间的对话
On the one hand, wherever the eye travels,
一方面 无论我们看向哪个角落
we are invited into a wealth of detail of work and play.
我们都能享受到一场劳作嬉戏的细节盛宴
The trudge through the snow,
有雪地猎人的艰难跋涉
the glide of the skaters across the ice.
有冰上轻盈灵动的溜冰者
And wherever we travel with our eye through the landscape,
无论我们的目光在画作的风景中如何穿梭
we're carried to dramatically different places.
总能被带到一处截然不同的场所
From a Flemish village huddled against the hillside,
从弗兰德斯聚集在山腰上的村落
out to a storm-tossed river estuary,
到风雨欲来中的河口
out to the broad, open sea.
再到宽广无垠的大海
An experience of looking at these paintings becomes, surely,
看这幅画 心中感受着变换百态
like the experience of all of our lives.
简直就像人生的境遇
