業余畫家

在一個熱得出奇的夏日里，泰勒在臨近傍晚時分來到田野里，打算通宵工作。

明月在附近的村莊西伯格霍爾特上空升起。泰勒曾花費四年半時間描摹這一風景，以后才轉而去畫那棵孤零零的樹，它的前景更廣闊。泰勒至今仍覺得不可思議的是，月亮在天空中現身那一瞬間很難確定。起初它隱身于遠方城鎮發出的光芒中，以后從那兒悄悄潛入。開始它只是一個威力無窮的亮點，在遠處一片樹林上空放射出耀眼的光輝。它一邊往上攀升，一邊不斷變幻顏色，先是紫橙色，10分鐘后帶紫色的紅暈漸漸消退。最后，它在愈發黑暗的夜色襯托下色彩愈淡，由黃色漸變為耀眼的白色。

泰勒的眼睛慢慢習慣了昏暗。夜空中以主色調呈現的綠色令他覺得自己置身于一個水族館里。幾英里以外，一幢房子里的燈亮了。一顆橙紅色的星在地平線上探出身來，地上的樹木在微風中搖曳，恰似海底激流中的一串珊瑚。泰勒擰開掛在脖子上的袖珍手電筒，讓光柱傾瀉到他的顏料盒、背囊和畫架上。

夜色愈深，人類的活動漸漸消退，將泰勒孤身一人留給昆蟲做伴兒，由他獨自去欣賞月光在麥田里閃爍。他認為他的藝術源于對一切異于人類、超越人類的事物的敬畏，而且希望激發這種敬畏之情。他從來不曾想去描繪人的勞作、人建造的工廠和街道或電路板。他關注的只是人類無法建造，因此必須特別努力用心去感受、去想像的事物;他關注的是根本無法預知的自然環境，因為那才真是出乎人的意料之外的。投入地審視一棵樹的目光表明他試圖讓自我退到一邊，去認識所有異己的、超越人類的事物。于是他從幽暗中這一棵顯得十分古老的參天大樹、它怪異的枝干和成千上萬僵硬的小葉子開始。它與豐富多彩的人類生活竟然毫無直接聯系。

It is the close of an exceptionally hot summer day， Taylor is outside in his field， preparing to work through the night.

The moon is rising above the nearby village of West Bergholt， a view which he spent four and a half years painting before shifting to the richer possibilities offered by a single tree. He is still surprised by how hard it is to identify the precise moment when the moon makes its appearance in the sky. At first， it hides amidst the lights of faraway towns， and from there moves surreptitiously into position — a small but powerful dot， beginning now to blaze — just above a distant wood. As it ascends， it undergoes a steady chromatic transformation， starting off a purple-orange， then ten minutes later losing its magenta flush， and at last， against an increasingly black sky， bleaching from yellow to a dazzling pure white.

Slowly，Taylor’s eyes adjust to the gloom. The preponderance of green in the night sky makes him feel as if he were inside an aquarium. A lamp switches on in a house a few miles away. A star， orange-fuchsia in colour， appears on the horizon as the trees below sway in the breeze， like clusters of coral in an underwater current. Taylor turns on a pocket-sized torch which he has hung around his neck， throwing light onto his box of paints， his bags and his easel.

As the night wears on， the human world gradually recedes， leaving Taylor alone with insects and the play of moonlight on wheat. He sees his art as born out of， and hoping to inspire， reverence for all that is unlike us and exceeds us. He never wanted to paint the work of people， their factories， streets， or electricity circuit boards. His attention was drawn to that which， because we did not build it， we must make a particular effort of empathy and imagination to understand， to a natural environment that is uniquely unpredictable， for it is literally unforeseen. His devoted look at a tree is an attempt to push the self aside and recognise all that is other and beyond us—starting with this ancient looking hulk in the gloom， with its erratic branches， thousands of stiff little leaves and remarkable lack of any direct connection to the human drama.