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画作名称:
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Club Night |
中文名称:
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俱乐部之夜 |
画 家:
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乔治·贝洛斯(George Bellows) |
作品年份:
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1907 年 |
原作材质:
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布面油画 |
画作尺寸:
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109.2 x 135 cm |
馆藏链接:
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美国国家美术馆(National Gallery of Art,Washington,DC) |
备注信息:
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Two men wearing brief-like shorts, shoes, and boxing gloves curl toward each other as they grapple in the middle of a boxing ring in this horizontal painting. We look at the ring from across the heads of the crowd below and around us. The platform of the boxing ring comes about a quarter of the way up the canvas so the boxers themselves nearly brush the top edge of the composition. The boxer on our left has pale, peach skin and wears light blue shorts. He curves to his side as he dips his head and right shoulder toward us in a defensive position, arms shielding his face. To our right and in the center of the composition, the opponent has an olive-toned complextion. He wears dark shorts and is shown in mid-punch with his left leg raised to step forward. His back curves like a comma as his right arm comes forward with the punch. Bright light, like a spotlight, illuminates the men from our left so even the right sides of their bodies are lost in shadow.
The crowd around us is backlit but one grinning man turns to look over his shoulder at or beyond us. The arena across the boxing ring is also plunged into deep shadow, so only the faces in the first few rows are visible before being swallowed in darkness. In fact, the top third of the canvas behind the boxers is black. The faces of the men in the crowd across from us are loosely painted, sometimes with only a few strokes to capture features. Individual features are mostly obscured but one face near the center, between the legs of the attacking boxer, is split wide in an exaggerated grin. That man wears a white tuxedo shirt and black jacket, and raises both hands, as if ready to light a cigar.
George Bellows’s paintings devoted to boxing were among the most popular pictures he produced during his lifetime and remain so today. Executed in August and September 1907, Club Night is the first of three similar boxing subjects that Bellows painted early in his career, from 1907 to 1909. Club Night represents a fight at an athletic club in New York City owned by Tom Sharkey, a former heavyweight champion. The enactment of the Lewis Law in 1900 prohibited boxing in New York State, but Sharkey and others circumvented the law by staging bouts in their private “clubs,” where attendees paid membership dues instead of admission fees to a particular fight, allowing them to legally gamble on matches. The public’s generally positive response to this controversial subject reflected an ambivalent attitude toward the sport. Some regarded boxing as a savage, brutal pastime, but many thought it a natural manifestation of masculinity. When criticized for not accurately representing certain technical aspects of the sport, Bellows responded, “I don’t know anything about boxing. I’m just painting two men trying to kill each other.”