托马斯·科尔作品《巨神之杯》高清图片

作品简介

作为科尔浪漫主义幻想的巅峰之作，这幅作品延续了艺术家同期创作的意大利式风景特征，试图诠释三大主题：往昔的辉煌、时间的流逝与自然的侵蚀。尽管遭到赞助人卢曼·里德的拒收，后被艺术家约翰·M. 法尔科纳收藏，画作始终保持着未解之谜的魔力。这只覆满植被的巨型酒杯——边缘环绕着古典废墟，如镜的杯面行驶着帆船——既与北欧传说和希腊神话产生共鸣。小西奥菲勒斯·斯特林费洛将其解读为浩瀚自然中自成一体的微观人类世界;法尔科纳则将杯柄比作北欧世界之树的树干，称杯体如同"盘错伸展的枝桠……托起帆影点点的海洋，四周密林与平原环绕"。另有学者将奇幻造型与透纳《尤利西斯嘲弄波吕斐摩斯》(伦敦国家美术馆)、意大利建筑地质形态，乃至太阳神赫利俄斯的金杯相联系。高悬的杯体镶缀着古典遗迹，暗示着周围景观代表的现世，与孕育文明的创造巅峰之间的割裂。科尔扮演着唯有诗人或艺术家方能胜任的中介者角色，超越现实桎梏，将古今联结。

The culmination of Cole's romantic fantasies, this work echoes the artist's other works of the period in its Italian derived scenery and its attempt to illustrate themes dealing with the grandeur of the past, the passage of time, and the encroachment of nature. Rejected by Cole's patron, Luman Reed, and subsequently owned by the artist John M. Falconer, the work defies full explanation. The massive, vegetation encrusted goblet around whose rim are found classical ruins, and on whose glassy surface boats sail, has been linked to Norse legend and Greek mythology. Theophilus Stringfellow, Jr. described it as a self-contained, microcosmic human world in the midst of vast nature, while Falconer linked the monumental stem of the goblet to the trunk of the Norse world-tree; he likened the cup to "the ramifying branches . . . which spread out and hold between them an ocean dotted with sails, surrounded by dense forests and plains." Other theories tie the fantastic forms to J. M. W. Turner's "Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus" (National Gallery, London), to Italian architecture and geological formations, or to the golden goblet of the sun-god Helios. The elevation and remove of the cup, rimmed with classical remnants, suggests the disassociation of the present, embodied in the surrounding landscape, from the pinnacle of creation which nourished its culture. Cole serves as intermediary, a role open only to the artist or poet, transcending the strictues of the immediate world to unite past and present.