Some Very Poor Painters

Why should I tell you about very poor painters？ If a painter cant paint good pictures， why mention him at all？ Because... these poor painters in this chapter did paint good pictures. They were poor in money， not poor in painting.

One of these poor， good painters was a Frenchman named Corot （Ko-ro）. He was poor because no one would buy his paintings. Not until he was fifty years old did he sell a single picture. He wasnt quite as poor as that sounds， however， because his father gave him an allowance of so much a year. It was a very small allowance， but Corot managed to get along on it.

After Corot finished school he wanted to be a painter. But his father was in the linen business， and into the linen business the son had to go. Still he kept hoping he could be a painter， and finally his father let him stop selling linen and begin to study painting. Corot went to Italy for several years and became a landscape painter. Then he went back to France. He painted many fine landscapes， but no one seemed to want to buy them.

Now， at this time some other painters who were very poor in money， found they could live more cheaply in the little village of Barbizon than they could in the city of Paris. And they found， too， that the country around Barbizon was a much better place in which to paint landscapes. There they could see the forests and streams and fields that they loved to paint. So these poor-in-money painters moved to little cottages in and near Barbizon.

我為什么要向你介绍贫乏的画家呢？如果一个画家不能画出优秀的作品，我们为什么要提到他呢？因为，我要在这一章里给你们介绍的贫乏画家，是画出过优秀作品的。他们只是在钱财上贫乏，但在画技上绝不贫乏。

科洛就是这些穷困潦倒又非常优秀的画家之一，他是法国人。他很穷，因为没有人愿意买他的画，直到五十岁时他才卖出第一幅作品。不过他也没听上去的那么穷，因为他爸爸每年都会给他一点钱，尽管不是很多但也足够他生活所需。

完成学业后，科洛想做一名画家。但是科洛的爸爸是做亚麻生意的，所以想让科洛继承亚麻产业，于是科洛就只好跟着父亲学做生意。不过，科洛一直都没放弃自己的画家梦，终于，科洛在父亲同意下不再从事亚麻生意，并且开始学习绘画。科洛去意大利学习了几年绘画，成为风景画家。他回到法国后画了许多漂亮的风景画，但就是没有人愿意买他的画。

那时，还有其他许多画家也很穷。他们发现巴黎附近有一个乡村，叫巴比松，住在那里要比在巴黎市区生活成本低很多。不仅如此，他们还发现巴比松附近有许多树林、溪流、田野都很适合写生，比巴黎市区更适合画风景画。所以这些贫穷的画家就都搬去了巴比松附近，住在小木屋里。

By  V. M. Hillyer

——V. M. 希利尔（仲秋  译）

V. M. 希利尔（1875—1931），美国著名儿童教育家、科普作家，创建了卡尔弗特教育体系。他为孩子们编写了一套趣味盎然的历史、地理、艺术读物，即《写给孩子看的世界历史》《写给孩子看的世界地理》《写给孩子看的艺术史》。……