旅行的藝術(shù):Ⅷ 對(duì)美的擁有-3

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約翰·羅斯金 [1] 出生于1819年2月的倫敦，他大多數(shù)作品都圍繞著一個(gè)主題，即如何擁有美景。

John Ruskin was born in London in February 1819. A central part of his work was to pivot around the question of how we can possess the beauty of places.

從很小的時(shí)候開(kāi)始，羅斯金就不同尋常地敏感于視覺(jué)世界里最細(xì)小的特征。他曾回憶起自己三四歲時(shí)的情形：“每天，我盯著地毯上的方形圖案和不同的顏色，仔細(xì)研究原木地板上的木節(jié)，或是細(xì)數(shù)對(duì)面房舍的磚塊數(shù)目，便會(huì)覺(jué)得心滿(mǎn)意足?！睂?duì)羅斯金的這種敏感，他的父母是鼓勵(lì)的。他的母親引領(lǐng)他進(jìn)入自然，他的父親，一個(gè)富有的雪利酒進(jìn)口商，則在下午茶后讀古典作品給他聽(tīng)，并且每周六都會(huì)帶他去一家博物館。在夏日的假期里，全家人環(huán)游英倫三島和歐洲大陸，他們并不是為了娛樂(lè)或是消遣，而是為了美；通過(guò)這種方式，他們大致地了解了阿爾卑斯山的美、法國(guó)北部及意大利中世紀(jì)城市的美、尤其是了解了亞眠和威尼斯的美。他們坐在馬車(chē)?yán)锫赜斡[，一天從不超過(guò)50英里，并且每隔幾英里就停下來(lái)觀(guān)賞景色——一種羅斯金終其一生都在實(shí)踐的旅游方式。

From an early age, he was unusually alive to the smallest features of the visual world. He recalled that at three or four: 'I could pass my days contentedly in tracing the squares and comparing the colours of my carpet-examining the knots in the wood of the floor, or counting the bricks in the opposite houses with rapturous intervals of excitement.' Ruskin's parents encouraged his sensitivity. His mother introduced him to nature, his father, a prosperous sherry importer, read the classics to him after tea and took him to a museum every Saturday. In the summer holidays, the family travelled around the British Isles and mainland Europe, not for entertainment or diversion, but for beauty, by which they understood chiefly the beauty of the Alps and of the medieval cities of northern France and Italy, in particular Amiens and Venice. They journeyed slowly in a carriage, never more than fifty miles a day, and every few miles stopped to admire the scenery-a way of travelling that Ruskin was to practise throughout his life.

由于他對(duì)美和擁有美的興趣，羅斯金得出了5條主要結(jié)論：首先，美是由許多復(fù)雜因素組合而成，對(duì)人的心理和視覺(jué)產(chǎn)生沖擊；第二，人類(lèi)有一種與生俱來(lái)的傾向，就是對(duì)美作出反應(yīng)并且渴望擁有它；第三，這種渴望擁有的欲望有比較低級(jí)的表現(xiàn)形式，包括買(mǎi)紀(jì)念品和地毯的渴望，將一個(gè)人的名字刻在柱子上的渴望和拍照的渴望；第四，只有一種辦法可以正確地?fù)碛忻溃蔷褪峭ㄟ^(guò)理解美，并通過(guò)使我們敏感于那些促成美的因素（心理上的和視覺(jué)上的）而達(dá)到對(duì)美的擁有。最后，追求這種敏銳理解的最有效的方式就是，嘗試通過(guò)藝術(shù)，通過(guò)書(shū)寫(xiě)或繪畫(huà)來(lái)描繪美麗的地方，而不考慮我們是否具有這樣的才華。

From his interest in beauty and in its possession, Ruskin arrived at five central conclusions. Firstly, that beauty is the result of a complex number of factors that affect the mind psychologically and visually. Secondly, that humans have an innate tendency to respond to beauty and to desire to possess it. Thirdly, that there are many lower expressions of this desire for possession, including the desire to buy souvenirs and carpets, to carve one's name in pillars and to take photographs. Fourthly, that there is only one way to possess beauty properly and that is through understanding it, through making ourselves conscious of the factors (psychological and visual) that are responsible for it. And lastly, that the most effective way of pursuing this conscious understanding is by attempting to describe beautiful places through art, through writing or drawing them, irrespective of whether we happen to have any talent for doing so.