Narrator: Listen to a conversation between a student and his art history professor.

旁白：听一段学生和他历史学教授的对话。

Professor: How was the museum?

教授：博物馆怎么样？

Student: Great. I hadn’t been there for a few years.

学生：好棒。我好多年没去了。

Professor: Did you enjoy the Van Gogh painting?

教授：你欣赏了梵高的画作了吗？

Student: That’s the thing.

学生：这就是症结所在。

Looks like I have to change my topic.

我貌似要改一下论文主题了。

Professor: Hmm… we are getting close to the deadline.

教授：额……截止日期就要到了。

You were writing about the theme of night in the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh.

你写的主题是文森特梵高画作中的夜晚。

It… It’s a wonderful topic.

这是一个不错的主题。

Student: I know. People don’t usually think of Van Gogh as an artist of nocturnal themes.

学生：我知道。人们通常不会讲梵高人认作为是夜晚主题的艺术家。

They think of brightness, sunshine, all that yellow and orange.

他们想起的是明亮、阳光，所有的都是黄色和橘色。

Professor: You are right of course about the intense light associated with his daytime paintings.

教授：你对于他白天画作相关的强烈色彩的看法是正确的。

But his night paintings don’t exactly lack brightness.

但是他夜晚主题的画作并不缺少明亮。

Student: That’s the paradox that I really like, the paradox of painting a nighttime scene using so much color and light.

学生：这正是我喜欢的矛盾点，在夜晚场景中用许多颜色和光亮而产生的矛盾。

So I was planning to focus mostly on his painting Starry Night.

所以，我打算主要着重于他的作品《星夜》。

Professor: But?

教授：但是？

Student: When I went to the museum to look at the actual painting, like you told me to.

学生：当我到博物馆想看看真正的作品时，就像你让我去做的那样。

It wasn’t there.

它并不在那。

Professor: Really? Isn’t it part of the permanent collection?

教授：真的吗？难道它不是永久馆藏的一部分？

Student: Yes. But it’s on loan right now to a museum in Europe.

学生：是的。但是它现在被借给欧洲的一个博物馆了。

Professor: Ah, I see. Well, I am strict about having students write about paintings they can observe first-hand.

教授：噢，我明白了。我对于学生必须写他们能够直接观察到的画作这一点，要求甚严。

Student: Well, I found another painting I could study instead.

学生：我发现了另一部我可以研究的画作。

Professor: OK.

教授：好的。

Student: I read that there are two paintings called Starry Night.

学生：我读到过有两部叫做《星夜》的作品。

The first one was done by the French realist painter Millet.

第一部是由法国现实主义作家Millet完成的。

It may have been the inspiration for Van Gogh’s painting.

这可能是梵高画作的灵感来源。

Millet’s painting is located near my family’s house in Connecticut.

Millet的作品就在康乃迪克州，我家附近。

And I am going there this weekend and could study it then.

我这个周末就打算去那儿。

I made sure it’s not out on loan.

我确定它不会被外借。

Professor: That definitely would work then.

教授：这样确实行得通。

Van Gogh copied many of Millet’s compositions.

梵高复制了很多Millet的组成部分。

We know that he really admired Millet’s work.

我们知道他真的很崇拜Millet的作品。

And a lot of us think Van Gogh saw this particular painting by Millet in Paris in the late 1700s.

我们中的很多人认为梵高在18世纪的巴黎，看到了Millet的这幅作品。

Student: Yeah. Although Millet was a realist painter, and Van Gogh a post-impressionist, the two paintings still share lots of features, not just the name.

学生：是的。虽然Millet是一个现实主义画家，梵高是后印象派，这两幅画仍然共享很多特点，而不仅仅是名字。

The most striking shared feature has got to be the amazing light effects.

最引人注目的共同特点是惊人的灯光效果。两部作品最令人惊讶的共同特点就是光的效果。

I am excited to go see it.

我看到这个很激动。

But one other thing …

但是，另外一件事就是……

Professor: Uh-huh.

教授：是什么？

Student: I was thinking about getting a head start on my next assignment while I am at the gallery in Connecticut, the assignment on miniatures.

学生：当我在康乃迪克州的时候，我打算先开始着手于下一个作业，关于微缩模型的作业。

They have a lot of miniature portraits of children as part of their permanent collection.

在他们的永久馆藏中有很多孩子的微缩模型。

Professor: American miniatures?

教授：美国微缩模型？

Student: Yeah. So I figured I could also get started on that essay, study a few while I am there.

学生：是的。所以我可以先开始写那篇文章，当我在那儿的时候多研究一会儿。

I’d focus on the meaning of the objects that some of the children are holding, some are holding flowers, one child has a rattle, another a toy violin…

我会着眼于一些孩子手上拿的东西的含义，有些捧着花，有一个小孩拿着拨浪鼓，另一个拿着玩具小提琴……

Professor: That would be fine.

教授：这个可以。

Uh, those objects… we call them attributes.

这些东西我们可以称他们为属性。

The attribute chosen to be included in a particular miniature was often meant to communicate parents’ hopes and dreams for their child.

在某个微缩雕塑中所包含的属性常常用来表达父母对他们孩子的希望和梦想。

So I think you’ll learn a lot about how people viewed children at the time the miniature paintings were done.

我觉得你应该要了解微雕制作的那个年代，人们是怎么看待孩子的。