前些天刚有人说完历史人物可以被刻成雕像,今天有就小伙伴反映,既然“历史人物”可以变艺术品,那“历史事件”不也可以巧妙的变成雕像被定格么!然后大家就各种发散思维,开始回忆上个季度雅思口语里面historical event自己说过什么。
还记得那个被大家背的贼溜的“烽火戏诸侯”的雅思语料么?今天我们让历史学家和艺术家一起,把它变成一件work of art吧!
I'd like to talk about a set of marble statues I saw in an art gallery a few months ago. They are husband and wife, actually an emperor and his wife. Both of them are life-size ones that are impeccably carved. We could see their facial expressions clearly. They are laughing hard as if someone has told a hilarious joke. Actually this piece of art is a result of the collaboration of an artist and a historian. For someone who is not familiar with Chinese history, it might be hard to get what the sculptor is trying to express, but for people who are interested in that period of Chinese history, they could tell immediately that the set of statues actually recreates that funny and sad historical event, which is the inspiration of this artwork.
The emperor was quite stupid, but he married a gorgeous wife, as we can tell from the sculpture.
One day, he came up with a ridiculous idea to please his wife. He thought it must be funny if he lit the beacon tower to gather his army, and soldiers arrived only to find out it was a false alarm. Those sculptures just showed their reaction when they saw those solders. But what the sculpture didn't show is what happened next. Just a few years later, he got overthrown because when he's truly in danger and lit the beacon asking for help, no one came to his rescue.
So I guess those two sculptures are just like a constant reminder of that painful lesson we learned from history.
语言点解析:
a type of hard stone that is usually white and often has colored lines in it. It can be polished and is used in building and for making statues, etc. 例如:
a slab/ block of marble
a marble floor/ sculpture
piece = (of something) a single item of writing, art, music, etc. that somebody has produced or created例如:
a piece of art/ music/ poetry, etc.
They performed pieces by Bach and Handel.
(formal) They have some beautiful pieces (= works of art, etc.) in their home.
collaboration = the act of working with another person or group of people to create or produce something 例如:
It was a collaboration that produced extremely useful results.
The new plane was a triumph of European industrial and technical collaboration.
She wrote the book in collaboration with one of her students.
The government worked in close collaboration with teachers on the new curriculum.
collaboration between the teachers and the government
beacon = (in the past) a fire lit on top of a hill as a signal
false alarm = a warning about a danger that does not happen; a belief that something bad is going to happen, when it is not 例如:
The fire service was called out but it was a false alarm.
overthrow = to remove a leader or a government from a position of power by force 例如:
The president was overthrown in a military coup.
n. 烟火,灯塔