Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in an Art History class.

旁白：请听艺术历史课上的一段演讲。

The professor has been discussing the origins of art.

教授这几节课都在讲艺术的起源。

Professor: Some of the world's oldest preserved art is the cave art of Europe, most of it in Spain and France.

教授：世界上保存的最古老的艺术之一即欧洲洞窟的艺术，其中大部分在西班牙和法国。

And the earliest cave paintings found to date are those of the Chauvet Cave in France discovered in 1994.

而至今发现的最早的洞窟壁画是那些于1994年发现的在法国的肖韦洞窟。

And you know, I remember when I heard about the results of the dating of the Chauvet paintings, I said to my wife, “Can you believe these paintings are over 30,000 years old?”

而你知道，我记得当我听说肖韦洞窟壁画发现年代的揭露结果之后，我对我的妻子说：你相信这些壁画已经有超过三万年的历史之久吗？

And my 3-year old daughter piped up and said, “Is that older than my great-grandmother?”

而我的三岁女儿便开始大声说话：那比我曾祖母还老吗？

That was the oldest age she knew.

曾祖母的年龄是她知道的最老的年龄。

And you know, come to think of it.

而你们知道，我自己想起来。

It's pretty hard for me to really understand how long 30,000 years is too.

三万年到底有多久，也是难以想象的。

I mean, we tend to think that people who lived at that time must have been pretty primitive.

我的意思是，我们倾向于这样想，生活于那个时候的人们一定也很质朴。

But I'm gonna show you some slides in a few minutes and I think you will agree with me that this art is anything but primitive.

但我将在几分钟后给你们展示几张幻灯片，我想你们会同意我的说法，即这些艺术一点都不原始。

They are masterpieces.

这些作品都是佳作。

And they look so real, so alive that it's very hard to imagine that they are so very old.

他们看起来很真实，栩栩如生，我们很难想象这些作品已经历史悠久了。

Now, not everyone agrees on exactly how old.

现在，不是每个人都对其确切年龄持一致看法。

A number of the Chauvet paintings have been dated by a lab to 30,000 or more years ago.

根据某一实验室的数字，若干肖韦洞窟 壁画可以追溯到三万年前甚至更古远。

That would make them not just older than any other cave art, but about twice as old as the art in the caves at Altamira or Lascaux, which you may have heard of.

这使得这些壁画不仅比其他洞窟艺术更为古远，更是阿尔塔米粒和拉斯科洞窟中的艺术作品年代的两倍。你可能听过这两个洞窟的名字。

Some people find it hard to believe Chauvet is so much older than Altamira and Lascaux, and they noted that only one lab did the dating for Chauvet, without independent confirmation from any other lab.

某些人难以相信肖韦洞窟比其他两个洞窟的年代都要久远。根据他们的记录，曾经只有一个 实验室有关于肖韦洞窟的年代记录，该记录是没有得到其他实验室的独立确认的。

But be that as it may, whatever the exact date, whether it's 15,000, 20,000 or 30,000 years ago, the Chauvet paintings are from the dawn of art.

但是不管怎样，不管确切的年代是何时，1.5 万，2 万或是 3 万年前也罢，肖韦洞窟是处于艺术的开端。

So they are a good place to start our discussion of cave painting.

所以，这些艺术作为我们讨论洞窟壁画的开端是一个好的选材。

Now, one thing you've got to remember is the context of these paintings.

现在，你们还记得的一件事是这些壁画的背景。

Paleolithic humans--that's the period we are talking about here, the Paleolithic, the early Stone Age, not too long after humans first arrived in Europe, the climate was significantly colder then and so rock shelters, shallow caves were valued as homes protected from the wind and rain.

旧石器时代的人类，这就是我们现在 讨论的时代。在旧石器时代早期，即人类到达欧洲后不久，当时的气候要比现在寒冷得多。 而岩石防空洞和浅洞窟是被当做挡风避雨的避难所而得到保护。

And in some cases at least, artists drew on the walls of their homes.

而至少在某些情况下，艺术家们将画画在了墙上。

But many of the truly great cave art sites like Chauvet were never inhabited.

而很多想肖韦洞窟真正的洞窟艺术遗址从来没被发现过。

These paintings were made deep inside a dark cave, where no natural light can penetrate.

这些壁画都在黑洞深处，没有太阳光渗透进去。

There's no evidence of people ever living here.

也没有证据证明人们曾经在那里生活过。

Cave bears, yes, but not humans.

洞窟黑熊是有的，但是没有人类的踪迹。

You would have had to make a special trip into the cave to make the paintings, and a special trip to go see it.

如果想看洞深处的壁画，你必须进行一次非同寻常的探险。

And each time you'd have to bring along torches to light your way.

每次你都必须随身携带火把。

And people did go see the art.

人们确实也有去看了洞底的艺术壁画。

There are charcoal marks from their torches on the cave walls clearly dating from thousands of years after the paintings were made.

而在洞窟墙壁上的火把也带着木炭标记，这些标记清晰地表明了，他们都是在壁画发现了之后几千年的历史。

So we can tell people went there.

所以我们知道，以前那里有人去过。

They came but they didn't stay.

他们来了但是没有停留。

Deep inside a cave like that is not really a place you'd want to stay, so, why?

在这样深的一个洞窟，没有人想停留，那么是什么原因呢？

What inspired the Paleolithic artists to make such beautiful art in such inaccessible places?

是什么东西鼓舞了新石器时代的艺术家在这样无法进入的地方创造出这样精美的艺术品？

We'll never really know of course, though it's interesting to speculate.

尽管探究起来很有趣，但是我们当然不会知道结果。

But, um, getting to the paintings themselves, virtually all Paleolithic cave art represents animals, and Chauvet is no exception.

但是，嗯，再回到壁画本身，事实上所有新时期时代的洞窟艺术象征的都是动物，而肖韦洞窟的也不例外。

The artists were highly skilled at using, or even enhancing, the natural shape of the cave walls to give depth and perspectives to their drawings, the sense of motion and vitality in these animals.

艺术家们在使用或是改善洞窟墙壁自然外观上技艺高超，他们这样做是为了给自己的画作提供足够的深度和广度，动物的动感和真实感。

Well, wait till I show you the slides.

嗯，等会儿给你们展示幻灯片。

Anyway, most Paleolithic cave art depicts large herbivores.

不管怎样，大多数旧石器时代的洞窟艺术描绘的是大型的草食动物。

Horses are most common overall with deer and bison pretty common too, probably animals they hunted.

总的来说马是最为普遍的动物，鹿和野牛也挺平常的。这些动物很可能就是原始人捕猎的对象。

But earlier at Chauvet, there is a significant interest in large dangerous animals, lots of rhinoceros, lions, mammoth, bears.

但是在肖韦洞窟形成的早些时候，人们的捕猎对象更多是倾向于大型危险动物，如果很多犀牛，狮子，猛犸和狗熊。

Remember that the ranges of many animal species were different back then so all these animals actually lived in the region at that time.

记住当时很多动物种类范围于现在的不同，所以事实上当时这些动物就生活在这个区域。

But the Chauvet artists didn't paint people.

但是肖韦洞窟的艺术家们并没有描绘人类的图片。

There is a half-man-half-bison creature and there is outline of human hands but no depiction of a full human.

不过有一种生物，半身是野牛半身是人，其显示出人手的形状但是没有完整的人形。

So, why these precise animals?

那么为什么是这些动物呢，而不是其他，

Why not birds, fish, snakes?

像鸟，鱼和蛇？

Was it for their religion, magic or sheer beauty?

是出于他们的宗教信仰，制造神秘之美抑或单单是出于美感，

We don't know.

我们不得而知。

But whatever it was, it was worth it to them to spend hours deep inside a cave with just a torch between them and utter darkness.

但不管怎样探险家们还是值得一试，在洞内花上几个小时，用火把照亮一片黑暗。

So, on that note, let's dim the lights, so we can see these slides and actually look at the techniques they used.

那么，在了解了这些情况了之后，我们现在开始看些幻灯片，事实上是看看他们应用的是什么技术。