Dear friends of Sanlian zhongdu/三联中读的朋友们：

My name is Colin Wiggins,I’m come from the National Gallery in London, which is a collection of European  paintings. When  European paintings are now true American paintings which is I will talk about in environment.

我是科林·威金斯，我来自伦敦英国国家美术馆，我们美术馆主要收藏欧洲绘画。如今，欧洲绘画是真正的美国绘画了，我会在后面一并谈到。

▲英国国家美术馆

The first national gallery opened in the 1824, the current  building is a big grand classical building with a big classical dome, big columns, which was built in the middle of the 19th century. But the first national gallery was a small private house with a private collection in. and the way the national gallery began was that unlike other great European countries, like for example France with Louver. The united Kingdom did not have its own national gallery, and this was a sort of embarrassment to a lot of British people, and again I think lots of Europeans looked at Great Britain and thought so fool, look at them they are so backward and uncivilized. 

英国国家美术馆最早开放于1824年。现在的建筑是一座大型的壮观的古典建筑，拥有古典穹顶，粗壮的柱子，这些都建造于19世纪中叶。但是英国国家美术馆的成立跟一般欧洲其他国家的博物馆成立方式不太一样,比如法国的卢浮宫，最初的国家美术馆只是一座拥有私人收藏的私人小型建筑。当时，英国没有自己的国家美术馆，这对于很多英国民众来说是一件尴尬的事情，可能在很多欧洲人看来这意味着愚蠢，落后以及未开化。

▲英国国家美术馆

But what we did have in Britain were private collectors, who had formed their own collections. I mean usually of course these were wealth families. And what happened is that one of these collectors  a man called John Julius Angerstein died, he had a big wonderful collection of great European paintings, and Rijks Museum in Amsterdam arrange to  purchase them. And it was after a lot of  arguing and rouse and people getting angry, the Parliament finally said we can’t let these pictures leave the country. And what we called the national gallery act was pass by parliament, which raise the money to buy the Angerstein’s collection. Where to put the pictures was another question. So they just put in Angerstein’s private house. So it was his house and his pictures that was the first national gallery.

不过当时英国有很多的私人收藏家，他们都拥有自己的收藏。我指的这些人通常是一些富裕的家族。直到有一天，一位名叫John Julius Angerstein的收藏家去世了，他拥有一批非常精美的欧洲绘画收藏。荷兰阿姆斯特丹国立博物馆计划购买这批藏品。在经历了很长一段时间的争吵和争论之后，人们愤怒了，最终，国会表示我们不能够让这些绘画作品流落在外，并通过了国家美术馆法案，筹集资金买下了Angerstein的收藏品。然而，这批藏品的安置又成为了另外一个问题，他们只好先把这些藏品放在Angerstein的私宅里。由此，Angerstein的房子和他的收藏品就是最早的英国国家美术馆。

And since then of course, the collections has grown, other private collections have been added. Often they were given by the owners who wanted to help the United Kingdom to form its own national gallery. And in fact even today, all of the national gallery’s collection is over 2000 pictures, about 2/3 of that number has been given to the gallery, rather than purchased. And anything that is purchased or bought comes from tax pay its money. so the collection is truly a people’s collection. 

Whereas, for example the Louver in Paris, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the Prado in Madrid, they are forms of royal collections, and the royal collection in Great Britain has never open to the public. We does open small part of it to the public, but it’s never been a publicly accessible collection.

当然，从那以后，藏品规模不断增长，也陆续加入了其他的私人收藏品，收藏家们把私人藏品捐赠给国家，希望以此帮助英国成立自己的国家美术馆。事实上，即便在今天，所有的英国国家美术馆的绘画收藏已经超过了2000多件，其中2/3都来源于捐赠，而非购买。其他购买的藏品也是来自于民众的税收，所以这可以说是民众的收藏。反之，以巴黎的卢浮宫举例来说，维也纳的艺术史博物馆，西班牙的普拉多美术馆，他们都基于皇室的收藏。在英国，皇家的收藏从来没有对公众开放，或者只有小部分开放，但从来不是完全面向大众展出。

▲英国国家美术馆展厅

The collection is European paintings, and the oldest paintings in the collection we don’t know its  exact date, but we think it was probably made in about 1250. So it is very very old. The most recent work is early in the 20th of century. 

有关于欧洲绘画的收藏，其中最古老的一件作品，我们不知道确切的日期，但能判断大概创作于1250年，历史非常悠久。而最近的作品是在二十世纪早期。

And recently, instead of just concentrating  on Europe, the gallery has decided it needs to represent art from the United states as well. And we recently acquired paintings by George Bellows who is early 20th century  American artist who was looking to the example of French impressionists in term of his style, but he was painting American subjects. And of course  part of the whole life identity of united states was trying to break away form Europe and formed his own identity. And recently, the national gallery has decided that we ought to try to represent that kind of painting in our collection as well.

最近，美术馆决定不再仅仅关注欧洲的收藏，还需要展示来自美国的艺术品。我们最近得到了一批来自美国20世纪早期的艺术家乔治·贝洛斯George Bellows的作品，他以法国印象派画家为榜样，不过画的是美国的题材，当然，美国的生活经历让他希望打破欧洲绘画的风格，形成自己的风格特征。最近，英国国家美术馆决定也展示一些这种类型的绘画作品。

▲英国国家美术馆展厅

Now, we go up to about the beginning of 20th century, which means we also include the impressionists who are hugely popular. The artists like Monet, Renoir, Degas, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Gauguin, and these artists you will find the rooms are usually the most busy. Those picture galleries are often full, particularly full of Chinese and Japanese because I think those artists in your cultures respond to more than they do some of early Christian paintings. And of course the national galleries’ collection is pretty much Christian collection as well, with religions paintings being very much part of the core collection.

现在，我们谈到20世纪早期的作品当然离不开非常受欢迎的印象派的作品。艺术家包括莫奈、雷诺阿、德加、梵高、尚塞、高更等，你会发现，这些艺术家的展厅通常挤满了参观者，其中以中国人和日本人居多。我想这些艺术家在你们的文化中比早期基督教绘画更受欢迎。当然，国家美术馆的收藏中也有很多关于基督教主题的绘画，宗教绘画也是藏品中非常核心的一部分。

The Architecture of the national gallery, the building as it’s now, is the biggest part of the building come from the middle of the 19th century, when it was fashionable surround Europe to design art galleries in a classical manor. This means looking back to the architecture of Greeks and Romans.

So you see these big columns, the Parthenons’ triangle Parthenons, which is all a sign of course concentration of civilization.

▲英国国家美术馆建筑外观

有关英国国家美术馆的建筑，就像现在大家看到的，其中很大一部分主体建造于19世纪中叶，在古典建筑的基础上，这在当时是欧洲流行的一种博物馆的古典设计风格。这意味着回头去仿效了古希腊和古罗马时期的建筑。你可以看到粗壮的柱子，帕特农神庙是三角形的，这些都是文明集中表现的标志。

But the most recent part of the national gallery’s building was opened as recently as in 1919, which is much more modern architecture. but even that of course, is looking back to the classical past, because really that’s how people expect pictures of that period to be shown.

不过，最近的一部分国家美术馆建筑是在1919年对外开放的，建筑风格偏向现代化。但即便如此，它仍然具有古典的特质。人们期待看到过去的情景以这样的方式呈现出来。

镇馆之宝01：《圣家族》 

▲达·芬奇，《圣家族》手稿，1505-1507年，现收藏于伦敦国家美术馆

There are so many great treasures in the national gallery’s collection. I’d like to start with Leonardo da Vinci. We have two works by Leonardo da Vinci, but the one I’d like to talk about is not painting and it’s a drawing. We only have two or three drawings in our collection. As I said it is not painting. But he made this drawing showing the Virgin Mary and Saint Anne who is the Virgin Mary’s mother, with the infant Jesus and John the Baptist who is infant Jesus’s baby cousin. 

英国国家美术馆的收藏中，有很多伟大的藏品。我想先从列奥纳多·达·芬奇的作品开始介绍。我们有两件列奥纳多·达·芬奇的作品，但这一次我想介绍的一件不是油画，而是一件素描。在我们的全部收藏中，只有两到三件素描作品。就像我之前说过这不是一件油画。达·芬奇在里面描绘了圣母玛利亚和她的母亲圣安妮，以及幼儿基督和表哥约翰。

▲达·芬奇，《圣家族》手稿细节

It is a drawing made on paper that we called “Cartoon”, the “Leonardo da Vinci’s Cartoon”. we call it that because the Italian word “cartone” is the word for “paper”, means draw on paper. And that became translated into English is “Cartoon”, even thought in modern English the word  “cartoon” now means something different which means a funny drawing, a character drawing like Micky mouse for example. So when we tell school children we are going to the see the  “Leonardo da Vinci’s Cartoon”, they get terribly disappointed because they think we are going to show them the drawings of  Micky mouse, and people like that. We are not I’m afraid.

这是画在纸上的素描，我们称之为“卡通”， 我们把它叫做“达·芬奇的卡通画”，这是因为在意大利语当中， “cartone”这个词的意思是纸张，意思是画在纸上。但在英语中被翻译成了 “卡通”，但有别于现代英语中“卡通”，现在这个词指的是有趣的绘画，比如像米老鼠这样的绘画形象。当我们告诉学校的学生我们准备带他们去看 “达·芬奇的卡通画”时，他们感到无比失望，因为他们以为是去看类似于米老鼠的绘画，人们很喜欢那样的绘画风格，但实际上并非如此。

镇馆之宝02：《查理一世骑马肖像》 

▲安东尼·范戴克，《查理一世骑马肖像》Equestrian Portrait of Charles I，1637 ~ 1638年，

油画， 367 x 292 公分，现收藏于英国国家美术馆

My other painting  that I would like to tell you about is the painting, a portrait of King Charles I on horse back. Even today, we have monarchy. We have the queen Elizabeth II now, Charles I was king until 1649 when we had our English revolution. And  he was over through and arrested, trialed and sentenced to death and he was executed and he was been head cut. And ten years later of eleven years later, the monarchy was restored. But the monarchy after that was very limited in its powers. And the portrait of Charles I  was sold by Oliver Cromwell who became what we called the lord protector, while we did not have monarchy. But after the restoration of monarchy, the picture came back into public ownership and so it now has pretty of place in  Trafalgar Square  huge picture of a former king on horse back, always a warning I think to our rulers that look Charles I was ruler, he got above himself look what we did to him. So it is a political statement having Charles I monarch that we over through, and it is a beautiful picture, gorgeous, gorgeous picture.

我想要推荐给大家的另外一件绘画作品，是《查理一世的骑马肖像》。即便今天，我们还有帝制。现在是伊丽莎白二世。查理一世当国王直到1649年英国革命。他被推翻，被逮捕，被审判，最后被送上了断头台处决。在10年或者11年之后，帝制重新恢复，但是在那之后国王的权利被大大限制了。当时人们称呼为“护国公”的克伦威尔将查理一世的肖像进行售卖，那时我们没有帝制。帝制解禁之后，这件作品又归公众所有，所以现在在特拉法加广场广场前有一副国王在马背上的巨型作品。这对于统治者来说永远有警示的作用，提醒着人们关于统治者查理一世的悲惨结局。因此这是一个政治上的宣言，宣告着我们推翻了查理一世的统治。与此同时，它也是一幅非常优美的精彩绝伦的绘画。

博物馆里最难忘的事情

Sometimes we have celebrities who visits the national gallery, who are so famous they cannot coming when the public there, so we have to make special arrangements for them to come early in the morning before the doors open. 

有时候会有一些名人来参观美术馆，因为他们不方便在公众在场的时候来参观，所以需要做一些特殊的安排，他们可以在早上开馆前来进行参观。

One morning I had a group of benefactors, and again we do groups of benefactors. We give them a tour of national gallery before our opens. And they give us donations that we can spend on the pictures. I had a group of people like that and I showing them some rooms before the public come in, but another of my colleague at someday had a very very very special guest, and so special I was not allowed to know who this guest was. I could not be told, but I was told to be careful and keep up to that way when you see them. 

有一个早上，我带着一支捐助人团队，我需要在开馆之前带他们在美术馆里进行一场导览。这些客人给我们进行捐赠，我们把这些钱用在绘画上。我需要在公众进来前带着我的团队完成参观。但是同一天我的另外一个同事，在那天有一位非常非常特殊的客人，我甚至不能被透露到底是谁。但是我被告知在遇到他们的时候要注意避开。

While I will tell you what happened. I had my group of wealthy individuals who we hope would give money to the national gallery, then I saw my colleague Dosen who was another curator at national gallery with this very very very special visitor. And I’m not sure I should even tell you who it is, but I will, it was Mrs Thatcher, our pre minister. and I saw Dosen and call his eyes and he called my eye, and I saw he got MrsThatcher with him. And I thought I got to  keep up the away. I tried to get my group away,  but  too late, they have seen her and the saw her in another room and they just run to…..Mrs Thatcher, Mrs Thatcher. But Mrs Thatcher loved it, she loved being recognized, she loved attention. But I got into trouble later that morning for not controlling my group. But not often we had people of  that level or  fame coming for private tours of national gallery.

接下来我告诉你们发生了什么。当我带着一群有可能资助美术馆的有钱人在展厅里参观时，我看到了我的另外一个同事道森带着这个非常特殊的参观者。我不太确定我应不应该告诉你们，但是我告诉你们，她是撒切尔夫人，我们的前首相。我看到道森，他也在看着我。我意识到我应该要避开。我试着带我的队伍离开，但是为时已晚，他们在另外一个房间看到了她，随即便冲向了她，大家都一齐喊着她的名字。好在撒切尔夫人习惯了这样，她喜欢得到别人的关注。但是我却因为没有控制好我的队伍而陷入了麻烦。不过，我们不常遇到像这样级别和名望的人来美术馆进行私人参观。

The national gallery belongs to the public, this is the most important thing. That those of us who are lucky enough to have our careers there to spend our working life there. We must always remember that we are the servant of the public. And  it is our responsibility to make the pictures accessible, to make them looks beautiful as possible, and to explain to our visits how these pictures are made, why they are so important and to share our knowledges with visitors. Because that’s what we want to do.We want to share what we know with the visitors, both from the UK and from further field, and I’m very happy to  see at last several years, London is seeing many many more Chinese visitors coming. And I can promise you that you will all get very warm welcome if you come to the national gallery and I hope you do. Thank you.

英国国家美术馆属于公众，这是最重要的。我们很幸运能够在美术馆中度过职业生涯。我们必须意识到，我们是为公众服务的。我们的职责就是让这些绘画作品面向公众，展现它们的优美，并且向公众解释这些作品是如何被创造的，为什么它们如此重要，以及向参观者分享我们的知识。我们希望这样做，也乐于向公众分享我们所知道的东西，不管他来自何方。最近几年，伦敦见证了越来越多中国参观者的到访，我很乐意看到这一点。我想说，欢迎你们来参观国家美术馆，我们很期待在英国国家美术馆看到你们的身影。谢谢。