高口閱讀上半場(chǎng)第一篇精析：

　　WHAT makes an artist great? Brilliant composition, no doubt. Superb draughtsmanship, certainly. Originality of subject or of concept, sometimes. But surely true greatness means that the creator of a painting has brought a certain je ne sais quoi to the work as well.

　　是什么成就了一名偉大的畫(huà)家?出色的構(gòu)圖?高超的畫(huà)技?這兩點(diǎn)毋庸置疑。有時(shí)也靠創(chuàng)作主題或理念的新穎性。但真正的偉大指的是畫(huà)家為作品賦予一種難以描述的特質(zhì)。

　　There is, however, a type of person who seems to sait perfectly well what that quoi is, and can turn it out on demand. In 1945, for example, a Dutchman named Han van Meegeren faced execution for selling a national art treasure, in the form of a painting by Vermeer, to Hermann Göring, Hitler’s deputy. His defence was that it was a forgery he had painted himself. When asked to prove it by copying a Vermeer he scorned the offer. Instead he turned out a completely new painting, “Jesus Among the Doctors”, in the style of the master, before the eyes of his incredulous inquisitors.

　　然而，有這樣一種人，他們似乎能準(zhǔn)確把握這個(gè)難以名狀的東西，并且能夠按要求把它復(fù)制出來(lái)。例如，1945年，一位名叫漢·凡·米格倫(HanvanMeegeren)的荷蘭人因?qū)⒁环鶉?guó)家藝術(shù)珍品，也就是維米爾(Vermeer)的一幅畫(huà)作，賣(mài)給希特勒的副手赫爾曼·戈林(HermannGöring)而面臨死刑。他辯稱(chēng)這只是幅贗品，由他本人仿造。當(dāng)被要求現(xiàn)場(chǎng)模仿一幅維米爾的畫(huà)作來(lái)證明自己時(shí)，他表示十分不屑。在審判者懷疑的眼神下，他以維米爾的風(fēng)格創(chuàng)作了一幅全新的作品《基督在博學(xué)者中間》。

　　此處例子功能題：作者為何提及荷蘭畫(huà)家?

　　Göring, who was facing a little local difficulty at the time, did not sue van Meegeren. But that has not been the experience of Glafira Rosales, an art dealer in New York who admitted this week that she has, over the past 15 years, fooled two local commercial art galleries into buying 63 forged works of art for more than $30m. She is being forced to give the money back, and is still awaiting sentence.

　　戈林當(dāng)時(shí)在本國(guó)遇到了點(diǎn)麻煩，所以就沒(méi)有起訴凡·米格倫。但格拉菲拉·羅薩萊斯(GlafiraRosales)可沒(méi)那么好運(yùn)了。作為紐約的一位藝術(shù)品商人，羅薩萊斯于本周承認(rèn)了在過(guò)去的十五年里曾向兩個(gè)當(dāng)?shù)氐纳虡I(yè)藝術(shù)畫(huà)廊賣(mài)出了63幅假畫(huà)，總收益達(dá)三千多萬(wàn)美元。她被強(qiáng)制要求退還所有收入，目前仍在等待法院的判決。

　　此處細(xì)節(jié)題，考有關(guān)Rosales 的例子內(nèi)容。

　　Ms Rosales is guilty of passing goods off as something they are not, and should take the rap for the fraud. But although art forgers do a certain amount of economic damage, they also provide public entertainment by exposing the real values that lie at the heart of the art market.

　　羅薩萊斯女士因出售贗品獲罪，應(yīng)承擔(dān)相應(yīng)的刑事責(zé)任。但雖然這些藝術(shù)品偽造者給他人造成了一定的經(jīng)濟(jì)損失，但他們也通過(guò)揭露藝術(shù)品市場(chǎng)上核心藝術(shù)品的真實(shí)價(jià)值而娛樂(lè)了大眾。

　　此處詞匯理解題：解釋take the rap。

　　That art market pretends that great artists are inimitable, and that this inimitability justifies the often absurd prices their work commands. Most famous artists are good: that is not in question. But as forgers like van Meegeren and Pei-Shen Qian, the painter who turned out Ms Rosales’s Rothkos and Pollocks, show, they are very imitable indeed. If they were not, the distinction between original and knock-off would always be obvious. As Ms Rosales’s customers have found, no doubt to their chagrin, it isn’t.

　　藝術(shù)品市場(chǎng)稱(chēng)偉大的藝術(shù)家都是獨(dú)一無(wú)二的，而這種不可模仿性使得他們的作品都貴得離譜。大多數(shù)著名的藝術(shù)家都很優(yōu)秀，這一點(diǎn)毋庸置疑。但像偽造者凡·米格倫和為羅薩萊斯女士偽造羅斯科和波洛克畫(huà)作的錢(qián)培琛，他們的存在證明了這些藝術(shù)家是可以被模仿的。如果不是的話，那真品和贗品之間的差別就會(huì)十分明顯。羅薩萊斯女士的顧客就沒(méi)有發(fā)現(xiàn)其中的區(qū)別，難怪事后他們懊惱不已。

　　此處句子理解題，解釋黑體字部分。chagrin: 懊悔，懊惱。

　　If the purchasers of great art were buying paintings only for their beauty, they would be content to display fine fakes on their walls. The fury and embarrassment caused by the exposure of a forger suggests this is not so.

　　如果購(gòu)買(mǎi)者純粹是因?yàn)樾蕾p畫(huà)作的美而去購(gòu)買(mǎi)它，那么即使是把假畫(huà)掛在自家墻上也會(huì)心滿意足。但偽造者的曝光所引起的憤怒和尷尬說(shuō)明了情況并非如此。

　　Expensive pictures are primarily what economists call positional goods—things that are valuable largely because other people can’t have them. The painting on the wall, or the sculpture in the garden, is intended to say as much about its owner’s bank balance as about his taste. With most kit a higher price reduces demand. But art, sports cars and fine wine invert the laws of economics. When the good that is really being purchased is evidence that the buyer has forked out a bundle, price spikes cause demand to boom.

　　名貴的畫(huà)作被經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家稱(chēng)為地位性商品——這類(lèi)商品昂貴的價(jià)值很大程度是因?yàn)槠渌�人無(wú)法擁有。不管是墻上的名畫(huà)，還是花園里的雕塑，都彰顯著其主人的品位和財(cái)富。大多數(shù)情況下，價(jià)格越高，需求就會(huì)越少。但是藝術(shù)品，跑車(chē)和名酒卻打破了這一經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)定律。當(dāng)真正被買(mǎi)下的商品能證明買(mǎi)家的確是花了大手筆時(shí)，那么價(jià)格的上漲反而會(huì)使需求猛增。

　　All this makes the scarcity and authenticity that underpin lofty valuations vital. Artists forget this at their peril: Damien Hirst’s spot pictures, for instance, plummeted in value when it became clear that they had been produced in quantities so vast nobody knew quite how many were out there, and when the market lost faith in a mass-production process whose connection with the original artist was, to say the least, tenuous.

　　這個(gè)現(xiàn)象說(shuō)明了商品稀缺性和真實(shí)性的重要性。正因?yàn)榇�，藝術(shù)品的價(jià)格才會(huì)持續(xù)居高不下。藝術(shù)家若忽視這一點(diǎn)，便會(huì)自嘗苦果。例如，當(dāng)達(dá)明安·赫斯特(DamienHirst)的現(xiàn)場(chǎng)畫(huà)作被大批量生產(chǎn)時(shí)，其價(jià)格直跌。市場(chǎng)對(duì)批量生產(chǎn)過(guò)程失去了信心，至少可以說(shuō)，這樣生產(chǎn)出來(lái)的作品和原創(chuàng)者的聯(lián)系不再緊密。

　　Ms Rosales’s career is thus a searing social commentary on a business which purports to celebrate humanity’s highest culture but in which names are more important than aesthetics and experts cannot tell the difference between an original and a fake. Unusual, authentic, full of meaning—her life itself is surely art, even if the paintings were not.

　　羅薩萊斯女士的一生無(wú)非是對(duì)藝術(shù)行業(yè)的嘲諷。這個(gè)行業(yè)聲稱(chēng)頌揚(yáng)人類(lèi)最崇高的文化，但藝術(shù)家的名字卻比美感更重要，而專(zhuān)家卻連真品和贗品都無(wú)法區(qū)別開(kāi)來(lái)。即使羅薩萊斯女士出售的畫(huà)作不是真正的藝術(shù)品，但她的一生，不同尋常、萬(wàn)般真實(shí)且意義深刻，充滿了藝術(shù)性。