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》。本文选自《写给孩子看的艺术史》。

Have you ever gotten tired of being good？ Have you ever felt like throwing an ink—well through the window at school or standing on your head when the teacher asked you a question in arithmetic and you knew you shouldnt？

The trouble with doing any of these things is that afterward you generally wish you hadnt. Its not much fun being punished. I found that out， myself， almost every time I tried not being good.

The architects of Italy， after about two hundred years of Renaissance buildings， were like that. They seemed to be tired of being good and obeying all the rules for beautiful Renaissance buildings. The rules “cramped their style”. In the strict Renaissance architecture almost every part of the building had to be based on some idea from the ancient Romans.

有时候你会不会觉得做好孩子做得太腻味了？你有没有曾经在学校的时候突然想把墨水瓶从窗户扔出去？在老师问你算术题的时候你会不会想搞怪来个倒立？当然了，你知道这是不对的。

做了这些不符合常规的事情之后带来的麻烦，会让你后悔的。因为被惩罚的时候就一点儿也不好玩了。几乎每一次我想做一回坏小孩的时候，都能总结出这样的教训。

在文艺复兴之后两百年的时间里，意大利的建筑师就有点类似我们想做坏小孩的感觉。他们看起来像是厌倦了一直遵循保持文艺复兴式建筑的规则，因为规则限定了他们的风格。在严格的文艺复兴式建筑规则中，几乎每一个建筑设计都要来源或者遵循古罗马的建筑理念。

The new kind of architecture grew out of the Renaissance architecture， but it tried to break the rules. It was called Baroque architecture. I cant tell you for sure how the word “Baroque” started， but people say it came from a Portuguese word for a badly shaped pearl.

Baroque architecture has been punished， not by getting a spanking but by being held up as a bad example ever since. It has really been punished too much， for some Baroque buildings are very fine and very beautiful. The worst Baroque buildings are terrible. They broke too many rules， like a bully in school. But the best Baroque buildings are not bad at all. They broke just enough rules to be interesting.

Buildings in the Baroque style are generally very well planned. They fit the place where they are built. They seem to go well with the scenery around them. The trouble with them is that they look too proud， too crowded with decoration， as if they were trying to show off. They are covered， inside and out， with queer columns and statues and scrolls and twists and fancy marble slabs. They make you think of a very， very fancy birthday cake with icing frills and curlicues all over it.

然而，有一種从文艺复兴式建筑中产生的新的建筑设计，却在尝试打破成规。这类建筑被称作“巴洛克建筑”。我也不知道巴洛克这个词最初确切的来历，不过有人说它来源于葡萄牙语，意思是变了形的珍珠。

巴洛克建筑曾经受到惩罚，当然它得到的惩罚不是像我们做了坏事之后被大人打一顿，而是被树立为坏的典型。这个惩罚其实过于严重了，因为一些巴洛克式建筑实际上也很精美、漂亮。最差的巴洛克式建筑的确很烂，它们打破了太多的规则，就像是学校里大家都感到头疼的小霸王。但是最好的巴洛克式建筑却一点儿也不应该受到惩罚，因为它们很有趣。它们不那么循规蹈矩，恰到好处地给人新的美感。

巴洛克式建筑大多都设计得很好，它们的布局和位置都很适合建筑所处的地方，而且和周围的景色也搭配得很协调。而巴洛克式建筑的缺点，就是它们看上去都太自负了，像是在炫耀一样，浑身上下都是各种各样的装饰，里里外外都充斥着奇形怪状的柱子和雕像，还有曲折涡卷形的花边、花哨的大理石板。总之，巴洛克式建筑能让你联想到非常花哨的生日蛋糕，对，就是有着冰激凌慕斯、奶油褶边、雕花装饰的那种。

Word Study

spanking /'sp??k??/ n. 打屁股（尤指打小孩）

I dont agree with spanking.

bully /'b?li/ n. 横行霸道者

I fell victim to the office bully.

queer /kw??（r）/ adj. 奇怪的;反常的

column /'k?l?m/ n. 柱;（通常为）圆形石柱

This Baroque architecture began in Italy. It became the chief architecture of the seventeenth century in that country. And in Italy stands one of the most beautiful of all Baroque buildings. It is a church built beside the Grand Canal in Venice. This church was built for a very special reason. That frightful disease called the plague had killed about a third of all the people in Venice. Sixty thousand people had died. Then the plague stopped. The people who were left alive were so thankful for being spared， that they built the beautiful Baroque church as a monument of thanksgiving. They named it （of course in Italian） the church of Saint Mary of Good Health. Everybody calls it by its Italian name， so you will have to try to learn Saint Mary of Good Health in Italian—Santa Maria della Salute.

Santa Maria della Salute is in the form of a Greek cross. It has a big dome over the central part and a small dome over the chancel. The buttresses for the dome are shaped like rolls of ribbon.

Notice how crowded with statues and with these rolls the church seems to be. But also notice the beautiful flight of steps that leads down toward the canal. The church makes one of the most beautiful sights in Venice as you look at it across the water.

巴洛克式建筑最初發源于意大利，也是17世纪意大利主要的建筑风格。世界上最美丽的巴洛克式建筑，也伫立在意大利的大地上。这座建筑（下图）是一座教堂，静静地站在威尼斯大运河河畔。这座教堂有着特殊的修建原因：17世纪中期，一场可怕的瘟疫夺走了三分之一威尼斯人的生命，这场瘟疫后来被人称为“黑死病”，由于黑死病而致死的有六万多人。瘟疫过后，存活下来的人们对自己能够幸免于难非常感恩，因此修建了这座漂亮的巴洛克式教堂，作为人们感谢主留存的纪念碑，以示感恩之情。人们给这座教堂命名为“安康圣母圣殿”（当然，是用意大利语），因为人们都用它的意大利语名字来称呼它，所以你也需要知道“安康圣母圣殿”的意大利语——Santa Maria della Salute。

安康圣母圣殿是希腊式十字形的教堂建筑，它的中央大厅上有一个大型的穹隆圆顶，而在圣坛的上方也有一个小圆顶。安康圣母圣殿用来支撑圆顶的扶壁设计得也很漂亮，形状就像卷曲的缎带一般。

当你面对安康圣母圣殿时，可以看到整座教堂被卷曲缎带形状的扶壁占满了，不仅如此，上面还有许多许多的雕像，看起来非常拥挤。不过，当你把目光从上方移下来，就会看见那漂亮的阶梯，从圣殿通往威尼斯大运河的一侧，设计得十分柔顺，衔接得天衣无缝。如果你从威尼斯大运河的水道上望过去，安康圣母圣殿一定会吸引住你的眼球。正是由于它的存在，威尼斯最美丽的风景之一就被锁定在了大运河畔。

This fancy Baroque architecture spread all over Italy and into Spain and Portugal. In Spain a few of the Baroque churches are so crowded with decoration and seem to be showing off so much that you might think they were designed by crazy people. Other Spanish Baroque buildings are quite beautiful， although they would be ugly in a country where the sunlight wasnt so bright. The brighter the light， the more decoration a building seems to be able to stand.

Now that we have reached Spain， we come to the people who used Baroque architecture all over the world. In the Roman Catholic Church a body of men was formed to spread the Catholic religion.The men who belonged to this body were called Jesuits. The Jesuits built churches wherever they went， and usually they built their churches in the Baroque style.

In this seventeenth century， the kingdom of Spain was very powerful. The Spaniards had gone exploring. They had taken， in the name of their king， most of South America and a great deal of North America， too. Wherever the Spanish explorers went， the Jesuits soon followed， preaching Christianity to the Indians， and building churches. Soon there were more Baroque churches in the Americas than in all of Spain.

花哨的巴洛克式建筑经过传播，逐渐遍及整个意大利，不仅如此，巴洛克式建筑还进一步传播到了西班牙和葡萄牙。在西班牙，有几栋建筑装饰得实在是太过烦琐了，看上去非常招摇，甚至你看到这些建筑的时候都会怀疑它们是不是疯子设计的。除此之外，西班牙大部分的巴洛克式建筑还是相当漂亮的。不过它们的漂亮也许仅限在西班牙，因为如果没有当地明亮的阳光，这些建筑物看起来就会丑陋很多。秘密就是，建筑上的装饰在强烈阳光的照耀下，看上去似乎轻盈了起来，就没有那么累赘了。

好了，我们现在到了西班牙，接下来我们就可以去世界各地了，因为巴洛克式建筑风格被西班牙人传播到了世界各地。在西班牙的罗马天主教，他们成立了一个组织专门负责传教，这个组织叫作耶稣会。耶稣会的成员不论走到哪里都会建教堂，而且通常都是巴洛克式风格的教堂。

西班牙王国在17世纪的时候非常强大。不少西班牙人四处探险，并以他们国王的名义，占领了大量的土地，差不多包括了大部分南美洲和许多北美洲地区。西班牙探险者开拓到哪里，耶稣会的成员就会马上跟过去。他们向当地的印第安人宣传基督教，并且修建教堂。很快，美洲拥有的巴洛克式教堂比整个西班牙领土上的还多。

These Jesuit churches were so well built that most of them are still standing in spite of earthquakes， revolutions， and neglect. You can imagine what a hard job the Jesuits had. First they had to learn the Indian language or teach the Indians Spanish. They had to show the Indians how to build the stone buildings， often in the hottest kind of hot countries. Yet before the buildings could be built， the land had to be cleared and the stones dug out of the quarries.

The picture shows you the great cathedral at Mexico City. It doesnt look much like the Santa Maria della Salute， does it？ But it， too， is Baroque in style. You can see how much decoration there is on it.

Baroque architecture was used also in Germany. Some of it came to France， but very little was ever used in England. If you will remember the seventeenth century， Spain and Portugal and their colonies， and Italy and Germany， you will have in your mind the time and places where this queer， gay Baroque style was most used.

这些耶稣会成员带领民众修建的教堂非常坚固，即使经历了地震的破坏、国家的动荡，以及若干年荒废之后，大部分的建筑至今仍然屹立不倒。你可以想象这些耶稣会成员的工作是多么的艰辛。首先，他们要学会印第安语或者教印第安人学会西班牙语;然后，他们得教会印第安人用石块修建房子的方法，大部分房屋都是在最热的国家、最热的地区;接着在建房屋之前，还得先平整土地，从石矿里开采出石头等，工作十分复杂烦琐。

上面这张图片展示的是墨西哥城大教堂。它是不是看起来和安康圣母圣殿很不相像？不过这座教堂也是巴洛克式建筑，你可以看得出来它上面有非常多的装饰。

在德国，也有不少建筑应用了巴洛克式风格。不久，巴洛克式建筑也传到了法国。但是，英国基本没有巴洛克式风格的建筑。如果你能记住17世纪、西班牙、葡萄牙和它们的殖民地，以及意大利和德国这些关键词，相信你就会对奇特的巴洛克式建筑风格最流行的时期和最普及的地点有了基本的认识。

Word Study

frightful /'fra?tfl/ adj. 極坏的;很糟的

This rooms in a frightful mess.

plague /ple?/ n. 灾害，祸患

preach /pri?t?/ v. 宣传，宣扬，宣讲（教义、生活方式、体制等）

She preached about the benefits of a healthy lifestyle.

neglect /n?'lekt/ n. 忽视;未被重视

The place smelled of decay and neglect.