大衆藝術網：“我畫的是想法而不是事物“ —— 英國畫家、雕塑家 George Frederic Watts 繪畫、雕塑、素描作品

大衆藝術網已經走進第四個年頭，

感謝不離不棄、棄而走之的新老朋友們，

愛也好，嫌也好，

藝術本身就是一種信仰、教育和奉獻，

是人生的一種責任，

是人生的一門功課，

是人生的精神世界，

是人生的共同財富。

當物質的飢餓得不到滿足時，

那藝術就什麼都不是，

當你不想打開自家的門戶時，

那世界就什麼都不是。

當你只想活在自己的世界裏，

那他人就什麼都不是。

放眼世界，人類就是一個家庭，

不分你我，共同創造，共同分享。

世上有一羣人造福着人類的精神世界，

讓我們不寂寞、不平庸、不飢餓。

大衆藝術網盡藝術的天職，

胸懷世界，爲您開啓世界之窗，

爲藝術執着而奮鬥的藝術家們點個贊！

感謝一路有您，

大衆藝術網不會孤單，纔有動力！

—— 大衆藝術網 / 應爲平（旅美油畫家、瓷畫家）

George Frederic Watts

關於畫家

George Frederic Watts，OM，RA（倫敦1817年2月23日 - 1904年7月1日）是一位英國維多利亞時代的畫家和雕塑家，與象徵主義運動有着關係。他說“我畫的是想法，而不是事物。” 瓦茨在他的一生中因其寓言作品而聞名，如希望與愛情和生活。這些繪畫旨在形成一個名爲“生命之屋”的史詩象徵循環的一部分，其中生命的情感和願望都將以一種普遍的象徵性語言來表現。

George Frederic Watts, OM, RA (London 23 February 1817 – 1 July 1904) was an English Victorian painter and sculptor associated with the Symbolist movement. He said "I paint ideas, not things." Watts became famous in his lifetime for his allegorical works, such as Hope and Love and Life. These paintings were intended to form part of an epic symbolic cycle called the "House of Life", in which the emotions and aspirations of life would all be represented in a universal symbolic language.

Watts was born in Marylebone, London on the birthday of George Frederic Handel (after whom he was named), to the second wife of a poor piano-maker. Delicate in health and with his mother dying while he was still young, he was home-schooled by his father in a conservative interpretation of Christianity as well as via the classics such as the Iliad. The former put him off conventional religion for life, while the latter was a continual influence on his art. He showed artistic promise very early, learning sculpture from the age of 10 with William Behnes, starting to devotedly study the Elgin Marbles (later writing "It was from them alone that I learned") and then enrolling as a student at the Royal Academy at the age of 18. He first exhibited at the Academy in 1837. He also began his portraiture career, receiving patronage from his close contemporary Alexander Constantine Ionides, who later came to be a close friend.

He came to the public eye with a drawing entitled Caractacus, which was entered for a competition to design murals for the new Houses of Parliament at Westminster in 1843. Watts won a first prize in the competition, which was intended to promote narrative paintings on patriotic subjects, appropriate to the nation's legislature. In the end Watts made little contribution to the Westminster decorations, but from it he conceived his vision of a building covered with murals representing the spiritual and social evolution of humanity.

The prize from the Westminster competition did, however, fund a long visit to Italy from 1843 onwards, where Watts stayed and became friends with the British ambassador Henry Fox, 4th Baron Holland and his wife Augusta at their homes in Casa Feroni and the Villa Careggi. Also while in Italy Watts began producing landscapes and was inspired by Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel and Giotto's Scrovegni Chapel. In 1847, while still in Italy, Watts entered a new competition for the Houses of Parliament with his image of Alfred the Great, Alfred Inciting the Saxons to Prevent the Landing of the Danes by Encountering them at Sea, on a patriotic subject but using Phidean inspiration. Leaving Florence in April 1847 for what was intended to be a brief return to London, he ended up staying. Back in Britain he was unable to obtain a building in which to carry out his plan of a grand fresco based on his Italian experiences, though he did produce a 45 ft by 40 ft fresco on the upper part of the east wall of the Great Hall of Lincoln's Inn entitled Justice, A Hemicycle of Lawgivers (completed 1859), inspired by Raphael's The School of Athens. In consequence most of his major works are conventional oil paintings, some of which were intended as studies for the House of Life.

（注：轉載藝術家原文，請自行翻譯中文）

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