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《写给孩子看的世界歷史》《写给孩子看的世界地理》《写给孩子看的艺术史》。本文选自《写给孩子看的艺术史》，该书写于20世纪二三十年代。

“WHERE your treasure is， there will your heart be also.” I once read a description of a group of sculptured figures that had been made for a public building. The chief thing the newspaper said about the sculpture was that it weighed ten tons. It did not say whether the statues were beautiful or not—just that they weighed ten tons. It might have been ten tons of coal. But mere size doesnt make a thing beautiful. The Greeks made some huge statues， but they were beautiful. They made， also， tiny sculptured figures so small that you have to look at them under a magnifying glass to see how really beautiful they are.

Not long ago I saw in a museum a piece of such sculpture that couldnt have weighed more than an ounce and was no larger than a domino. It was a piece of colored stone through which the light shone and it was carved with beautiful figures of Greek gods and goddesses in low relief. The figures had been cut into the stone with very fine but sharp tools. It had been made by some Greek sculptor whose name no one knows— before Christ was born. It was called a Gem， which is the name we give to anything that is very precious though it may be tiny.

In the British Museum in London is a whole room of such gems made before the time of Christ， by sculptors as great as those who made man size and colossal size figures. These gems were made for kings and wealthy people， for no others could afford them. Rich people long ago used to collect such gems as you might collect postage stamps， and museums—and some people who can afford it—do so today.

Often these tiny bits of low relief sculpture were cut in a stone that had two or three layers of different colors so that the figures were in one color and the background in another. If one layer was black and the other white， the stone was called onyx. If the top layer was reddish and those below it white and black， it was called sardonyx. Such sculptured low reliefs were known as cameos and some were very beautiful. Nowadays， cameos are made of shells of two color layers and are called shell cameos. Some are cut from two or more layers of different colored stone cemented together or from artificial sardonyx.

“你珍视的宝贝在哪，你的心就在哪。”我曾经读过一篇专门介绍雕像的报道，是用于介绍公共建筑的一组雕像。那篇报道不断地强调这组雕像重达十吨，除此之外，比如这组雕像漂亮不漂亮、艺术价值在哪里之类的，却完全没提。煤炭堆也可以重达十吨，所以仅仅是形状和重量大并不代表就是好的艺术品。不过古希腊人制作了不少巨大的雕像，却都雕刻得很美。不仅如此，他们还制作了一些特别小的雕像，小到你必须要拿放大镜才能看得清楚它们到底有多漂亮。

我不久前在博物館看到了一座雕像，还不到三十克重，大小与一块多米诺骨牌接近。它是用半透明的彩色石头制作的，能够被灯光穿透。希腊神的很多浅浮雕刻在石头上，要雕刻这些浮雕，必须要用很精细，而且很锋利的工具才能够做到。据说，这座雕像是公元前的古希腊雕塑家创作的，但是很遗憾，没有人知道这个雕塑家的名字。现在，人们把这座雕像叫作《宝石》，因为宝石是用来形容那些尽管袖珍，但却珍贵的东西。

在伦敦大英博物馆里有一个房间，摆满了产自公元前的“宝石”，这些雕刻作品以及雕刻这些“宝石”的艺术家，和那些雕刻出真人大小或巨型雕像的雕塑家一样伟大。……