Translator: Thu-Huong Ha Reviewer: Youna Jung

讓我告訴各位一件我很苦惱的事

現在進行式

I&#39;m going to tell you about an affliction I suffer from.

And I have a funny feeling that quite a few of you

When I&#39;m walking around an art gallery,

走過一間又一間滿是畫作的房間

I realize I&#39;m not thinking about the paintings.

Instead, I&#39;m thinking about that cup of coffee

超過20分鐘，有時甚至撐不了那麼久

but I think we all suffer from it. And do you have

對我來說，當我看著牆上的畫作

For me, I look at the paintings on the wall

我想，某個人決定要把這些畫掛在牆上

and I think, somebody has decided to put them there,

thinks they&#39;re good enough to be on that wall,

事實上，絕大部分時間我都看不懂

In fact, most of the time I don&#39;t see it.

我認為我看不懂是因為我有問題

rather than thinking there&#39;s something wrong with the painting,

I think there&#39;s something wrong with me.

所以像這樣離開畫廊的經驗很差

And that&#39;s not a good experience, to leave a gallery like that.

The thing is, I think we should give ourselves a break.

If you think about going into a restaurant,

當你看菜單的時候，你會想去點

when you look at the menu, are you expected to order

If you go into a department store to buy a shirt,

你會試穿店裡的每一件襯衫嗎？

are you going to try on every single shirt

當然不會！你有所選擇，本應如此

Of course not, you can be selective. It&#39;s expected.

to be selective when we go to an art gallery?

憑什麼我們對每一幅畫都要有感覺？

Why are we supposed to have a connection with every single painting?

Well I&#39;m trying to take a different approach.

我去畫廊的時候 我很快地先把畫廊走一遍

When I go into a gallery, first of all, I go quite fast,

把所有的畫都瀏覽一下 然後我選出幾幅

and I look at everything, and I pinpoint the ones

因為某些因素讓我想慢慢看的畫

that make me slow down for some reason or other.

我甚至不知道為什麼這些畫吸引我佇足

I don&#39;t even know why they make me slow down, but something

但是他們像磁鐵般吸住我的目光

然後我不再回顧其他的畫 就直接走去那幅我想看的

and then I ignore all the others, and I just go to that painting.

所以這是我先做的事 自己當博物館館長

So it&#39;s the first thing I do is, I do my own curation.

I choose a painting. It might just be one painting in 50.

然後第二件事是我站在那幅畫前

And then the second thing I do is I stand in front of that painting,

為什麼是一個故事？嗯，我想這是天生的

Why a story? Well, I think that we are wired,

We tell stories all the time about everything,

我認為我們之所以這麼做 是因為這是個瘋狂混亂的世界

and I think we do it because the world is kind of a crazy, chaotic place,

有時候我們用故事來讓這個世界更合理一點

and sometimes stories, we&#39;re trying to make sense of the world a little bit,

為什麼不在看畫時如法炮製呢？

Why not apply that to our looking at paintings?

所以現在我就像在餐廳裡選菜一般

So I now have this sort of restaurant menu

There are three paintings I&#39;m going to show you now

that are paintings that made me stop in my tracks

The first one needs little introduction --

揚‧維梅爾的「戴珍珠耳環的女孩」

&quot;Girl with a Pearl Earring&quot; by Johannes Vermeer,

後來我馬上就去買了一張它的海報

and I immediately went out and got a poster of it,

其實我仍保留著那張海報 30年後我還把它掛在家裡

and in fact I still have that poster. 30 years later it&#39;s hanging in my house.

It&#39;s accompanied me everywhere I&#39;ve gone,

一開始讓我在畫廊佇足欣賞這幅畫的理由

What made me stop in my tracks about her to begin with

但是我想會讓我年復一年的回來看這幅畫

But I think what&#39;s kept me still coming back

year after year is another thing, and that is

那就是她臉上的表情，充滿矛盾的表情

the look on her face, the conflicted look on her face.

I can&#39;t tell if she&#39;s happy or sad,

在我買了那張海報16年後的某一天

One day, 16 years after I had this poster on my wall,

畫家對她做了什麼 使她有那樣的表情

the painter did to her to make her look like that.

And it was the first time I&#39;d ever thought that

the expression on her face is actually reflecting

在那之前，我僅僅把它視為一幅女孩的肖像

Always before I&#39;d thought of it as a portrait of a girl.

現在我開始認為它在描繪一段關係

Now I began to think of it as a portrait of a relationship.

然後我就想，喔，那這是段什麼樣的關係？

And I thought, well, what is that relationship?

So I went to find out. I did some research and discovered,

事實上，我們對維梅爾畫作裡的模特兒

In fact, we don&#39;t know who any of the models

我們對維梅爾本身的瞭解也不多

and we know very little about Vermeer himself.

我可以盡情發揮編造出各式各樣的故事

I can do whatever I want, I can come up with whatever story I want to.

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【TED】特雷西-切瓦利埃。尋找畫裡的故事（Tracy Chevalier: Finding the story inside the painting）。 (【TED】Tracy Chevalier: Finding the story inside the painting (Tracy Chevalier: Finding the story inside the painting))