雙語+MP3|美國學生藝術(shù)史41 陶土雕刻

 
毫無疑問，硬幣的作用是購物。但有一種古老的、像硬幣一樣的雕刻，稱作“勛章”，它尺寸更大一些，但不當錢用。勛章上的圖案通常是高浮雕，是把金屬倒進模子里制成，而不是用模具印出來。這些勛章通常用作體育比賽的獎勵，或戰(zhàn)爭中的立功授勛，或用在大事件、周年紀念或慶典中。今天我們也制作這種勛章，所以你爸爸說不定就有一枚勛章，叫他拿出來給你看看。 
41 BAKED EARTH SCULPTURE陶土雕刻
 
TERRA COTTA means earth baked. A flower pot and a brick are terra cotta—that is, earth or clay baked till it is red, yellowish red. You have probably made things out of mud—oranges and apples, cups and saucers—and the old Greeks made figures of people in the same way and out of the same thing, mud or clay. They made little statues of women, smaller than doll babies, out of clay, and then baked them so that they would not crumble to pieces. That baking turned them into terra cotta. 
It was the custom to place these little figures or little statues— figurines and statuettes, they were called—in tombs and graves and thousands of them have been dug up and are now in museums. As they were first dug up in a town in Greece named Tanagra, all such statuettes are called Tanagra figurines. They are usually figures of ladies carrying a fan or a parasol. Yes, the Greek ladies had fans and parasols very like the ones ladies have nowadays. What is unusual in Greek sculpture is that the figures are fully clothed. 
Most of the statuettes are original, but some of them are copies of large statues. As many of the large statues have disappeared, these figurine copies show us what the originals looked like. But they show us more than that. If you want to find out what the Greeks really were like, go to a museum and look at these little figures. The big, famous marble statues are of gods and goddesses, athletes and warriors. They were more nearly perfect than real people. But these terra cotta statuettes are copied from everyday Greeks. They show us what the real Greeks were like. One shows a girl milking a cow. Another shows two girls playing a game, with one riding on the back of the other. Just everyday doings. 
 
No.41　TANAGRA FIGURINES（《塔納格拉小雕像》） 
Courtesy of Pratt Institute 
Many of the figurines were painted in bright colors. Some had tiny necklaces of real gold or held bronze ornaments in their hands. But on many of them the only color left is the yellowish red of the clay of which they are formed. 
The figurines are hollow except for their heads, which are solid clay. I’m sure your head has more in it than solid clay, no matter how hollow the rest of you may feel just before dinner time. 
Figurines were made for the dead, lamps were made for the living. Lamps, which every house had to have, were decorated with figures in low relief. Lamps nowadays, of course, are usually electric and quite different from those in ancient Greece and other countries. These old lamps were very small, seldom larger than your hand, and were made either of terra cotta or bronze. They had a hole in which a twisted piece of stringlike cloth was stuffed for a wick. They held olive oil or grease which soaked the wick and made it burn when lighted. These lamps gave no more light than a burning match, but that was all the light people had at night. Perhaps they went to bed earlier than we do. The lamps often had on the top or sides the usual fairy-tale figures—Greek gods or goddesses or other characters in Greek mythology. 
Lamps were made in molds and hundreds or even thousands of lamps were made from one mold. Some of the old molds have been dug up out of the ground and are used to make modern reproductions which are sold to-day as souvenirs to travelers or even called antiques. If the lamps are of bronze and are really old ones that have been dug up, they have a greenish coating called a patina. If they are not really old, they are sometimes dipped in acid to make them look so, but they have sharper edges than the old and the patina made by acid does not look the same as that eaten in by time. If they are of clay, the newly made lamps look cleaner cut and fresher than the old. So if you are thinking of buying an ancient lamp to-morrow (stranger things have happened), be sure to notice the patina or the freshness of the clay.