温斯顿邱吉尔的另类生活

Winston Churchill, Mother Teresa and Princess Diana

2007-12-23 17:14:35| 分类： 课外知识延伸第一 |举报|字号 订阅
What is it that makes someone great? Why do certain people go down in history as outstanding characters, admired by millions? Are heroes and heroines truly different from other people ---- more intelligent, more courageous, stronger and better? Or is their fame just a matter of chance? The

Winston Churchill, Mother Teresa and Princess Diana - a12yangyang12a@126 - 中国平安保险 Winston Churchill, Mother Teresa and Princess Diana - a12yangyang12a@126 - 中国平安保险 Winston Churchill, Mother Teresa and Princess Diana - a12yangyang12a@126 - 中国平安保险

articles you're going to read in this unit take a closer and more personal look at three very different figures from modern history: Winston Churchill, Mother Teresa and Princess Diana. As you read the texts, you'll consider the acts these three are famous for; their strength of will, warm spirit and love of life; as well as the difficulties they faced, their personalities and their human nature ---- the "other side" of what made them special.

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Winston Churchill, Mother Teresa and Princess Diana - a12yangyang12a@126 - 中国平安保险

---Abridged from an article by Mary Soames

My father, Winston Churchill, began his love affair with painting in his 40s, amid disastrous circumstances. As First Lord of the Admiralty in 1915, he had been deeply involved in a campaign in the Dardanelles that could have shortened the course of a bloody world war . But when the mission failed, with great loss of life, Churchill paid the price, both publicly and privately : He was removed from the Admiralty and lost his position of political influence .

Overwhelmed by the disaster ----“I thought he would die of grief,”said his wife, Clementine ---- he retired with his family to Hoe Farm, a country retreat in Surrey . There, as Churchill later recalled, “The muse of painting came to my rescue !”

One day when he was wandering in the garden, he chanced upon his sister-in-law sketching with watercolours. He watched her for a few minutes, then borrowed her brush and tried his hand ---- and the muse worked her magic . From that day forward, Winston was in love with painting.

Delighted with anything that distracted Winston from the dark thoughts that overwhelmed him , Clementine rushed off to buy whatever paints and materials she could find. Watercolours, oil paints, paper, canvas ---- Hoe Farm was soon filled with everything a painter could want or need.

Painting in oils turned out to be Winston's great love ---- but the first steps were strangely difficult. He contemplated the blank whiteness of his first canvas with unaccustomed nervousness . He later recalled:

“Very hesitantly I selected a tube of

blue paint, and with infinite precaution made a mark about as big as a bean on the snow-white field . At that moment I heard the sound of a motorcar in the drive and threw down my brush in a panic. I was even more alarmed when I saw who stepped from the car: the wife of Sir John Lavery, the celebrated painter who lived nearby.

“'Painting!' she declared. 'What fun. But what are you waiting for? Let me have the brush ---- the big one.' She plunged into the paints and before I knew it, she had swept several fierce strokes and slashes of blue on the absolutely terrified canvas . Anyone could see it could not hit back . I hesitated no more. I seized the largest brush and fell upon my wretched victim with wild fury . I have never felt any fear of a canvas since.”Lavery, who later tutored Churchill in his art, said of his unusual pupil's artistic abilities:“Had he chosen painting instead of politics, he would have been a great master with the brush.”

In painting, Churchill had discovered a companion with whom he was to walk for the greater part of his life. Painting would be his comfort when, in 1921, the death of his mother was followed two months later by the loss of his and Clementine's beloved three-year-old daughter, Marigold. Overcome by grief, Winston took refuge at the home of friends in Scotland ---- and in his painting. He wrote to Clementine:“I went out and painted a beautiful river in the afternoon light with red and golden hills in the background. Many loving thoughts ... Alas, I keep feeling the hurt of Marigold.”

Life and love and hope slowly revived. In September 1922 another child was born to Clementine and Winston: myself. In the same year, Winston bought Chartwell, the beloved home he was to paint in all its different aspects for the next 40 years.

My father must have felt a glow of satisfaction when in the mid-1920s he won first prize in a prestigious amateur art exhibition held in London. Entries were anonymous, and some of the judges insisted that Winston's picture ---- one of his first of Chartwell ---- was the work of a professional, not an amateur, and should be disqualified. But in the end, they agreed to rely on the artist's honesty and were delighted when they learned that the picture had been painted by Churchill.

Historians have called the decade after 1929, when Winston again fell from office, his barren years. Politically barren they may have been, as his lonely voice struggled to awaken Britain to the menace of Hitler, but artistically those years bore abundant fruit: of the 500-odd Churchill canvases in existence, roughly half date from 1930 to 1939.

Painting remained a joy to Churchill to the end of his life. “Happy are the painters,” he had written in his book Painting as a Pastime, “for they shall not be lonely. Light and color, peace and hope, will keep them company to the end of the day.” And so it was for my father.

Winston Chur

chill, Mother Teresa and Princess Diana - a12yangyang12a@126 - 中国平安保险

我的父亲温斯顿·丘吉尔是在40几岁开始迷恋上绘画的，当时他正身处逆境。1915年，作为海军大臣，他深深地卷入了达达尼尔海峡的一场战役。原本那次战役是能够缩短一场血腥的世界大战的，但它却失败了，人员伤亡惨重，为此丘吉尔作为公务员和个人都付出了代价：他被免去了海军部的职务，失去了显赫的政治地位。

“我本以为他会因忧伤而死的。”他的妻子克莱门泰因说。被这一不幸压垮的他同家人一起退隐到萨里郡的一个乡间居处----耘锄农场。在那儿，正如丘吉尔日后所回忆的，“绘画女神拯救了我!”

一天他正在花园里漫步，正巧碰上他的弟妹在用水彩画素描。他观看了她几分钟，然后借过她的画笔，试了一下身手----于是缪斯女神施展了她的魔法。自那天以后，温斯顿便爱上了绘画。

任何能让沉浸在忧思中的温斯顿分心的事情都让克莱门泰因高兴。于是，她赶紧去买来她所能找到的各种颜料和画具。水彩颜料、油画颜料、纸张、帆布画布----很快耘锄农场里便堆满了一个绘画者可能想要或需要的各样东西。

画油画最终成了温斯顿的一大爱好----但是最初几步却出奇地艰难。他凝视着他的第一块空白画布，异乎寻常地紧张。他日后回忆道：

“我迟疑不决地选了一管蓝色颜料，然后小心翼翼地在雪白的底子上画上蚕豆般大小的一笔。就在这时，我听到车道上传来一辆汽车的声音，于是惊恐地丢下我的画笔。当我看清是谁从汽车里走出来时，更是惊慌失措。来者正是住在附近的著名画家约翰·莱佛利爵士的妻子。

“‘在画画呢!’她大声说道。‘多么有趣。可你还在等什么呢? 把画笔给我---大的那支。’她猛地用笔蘸起颜料，还没等我缓过神来，她已经挥笔泼墨在惊恐不已的画布上画下了有力的几道蓝色。谁都看得出画布无法回击。我不再迟疑。我抓起那支最大的画笔，迅猛异常地向我可怜的牺牲品扑了过去。自那以后，我再也不曾害怕过画布。”

后来教丘吉尔画画的莱佛利曾经说起过他这位不同寻常的学生的艺术才能：“如果他当初选择的是绘画而不是政治，他定会成为一位驾驭画笔的大师。”

在绘画中，丘吉尔发现了一个将陪他走过大半人生的伴侣。1921年，他的母亲去世，两个月后，他又失去了他和克莱门泰因的3岁爱女玛丽戈尔德。那时，绘画是他的慰藉。悲痛欲绝的温斯顿住到了苏格兰朋友们的家中---并在他的绘画中寻得安慰。他写信给克莱门泰因：“我外出画了一条在午后阳光下的美丽的河流，背景是红色和金黄色

的山峦。爱怜的思绪油然而生......啊，我一直感受到失去玛丽戈尔德的痛楚。”

生命、爱和希望慢慢地复苏了。1922年9月，克莱门泰因和温斯顿的另一个孩子出生了：那就是我。同年，温斯顿买下了查特威尔，这是他将在以后40年里画出其所有不同风貌的他所钟爱的家。

20世纪20年代中期，我父亲在伦敦举行的一次享有盛名的业余画展中赢得了一等奖，当时他一定颇为得意。参赛作品不署名，所以一些评委坚持认为温斯顿的画---有关查特威尔的第一批画作中的一幅---是一位专业画家而不是一位业余画家的作品，所以应该取消其参赛资格。但最后，他们同意信赖那位艺术家的诚实，而在得知那幅画为丘吉尔所作时他们都很高兴。

史学家们一直把1929年温斯顿再次被免职后的10年称为他无所作为的十年。也许政治上那些年（他）的确毫无作为，因为他一个人大声疾呼，想要唤醒英国人认识到来自希特勒的威胁，然而响应者寥寥无几。但在艺术上，那些年却硕果累累：现存的500多幅丘吉尔的油画中，约有一半作于1930年至1939年之间。

绘画始终是丘吉尔的一种乐趣，直到他生命的结束。“画家是幸福的，”他在他的《作为一种消遣的绘画》一书中写道，“因为他们不会孤独。光线与色彩，宁静与希望，将终日伴随着他们。”对我的父亲来说也是这样。