Good morning. Let's look for a minute at the greatest icon of all, Leonardo da Vinci. We're all familiar with his fantastic work -- his drawings, his paintings, his inventions, his writings. But we do not know his face. Thousands of books have been written about him, but there's controversy, and it remains, about his looks. Even this well-known portrait is not accepted by many art historians.
早上好。 让我们先花一分钟的时间来看看伟大的传奇人物列奥纳多·达·芬奇。 我们对他的杰作是再熟悉不过了── 他的画作、他的发明、他的写作。 但我们却不知道他长什么样。 虽然关于他的著作成百上千, 但对于他的样貌,人们仍旧是充满分歧。 即使是这幅著名的肖像画,也无法得到很多艺术史学家的认可。
So, what do you think? Is this the face of Leonardo da Vinci or isn't it? Let's find out. Leonardo was a man that drew everything around him. He drew people, anatomy, plants, animals, landscapes, buildings, water, everything. But no faces? I find that hard to believe. His contemporaries made faces, like the ones you see here -- en face or three-quarters. So, surely a passionate drawer like Leonardo must have made self-portraits from time to time. So let's try to find them.
你们觉得呢? 这到底是不是列奥纳多·达·芬奇的面孔呢? 让我们一同寻找答案。 达·芬奇是一个会画身边各种事物的人。 他画过人物、人体结构、动植物、风景、建筑、江河湖海、各种事物。 但却从来没有画过脸? 我觉得这有点让人难以置信。 他同时代的画家都画过自画像,就好比你们现在看到的这些。 正面或者是四分之三的侧面像。 所以像达·芬奇这样充满热情的画家 也一定会时不时地画些自画像。 就让我们试着把他们给找出来。
I think that if we were to scan all of his work and look for self-portraits, we would find his face looking at us. So I looked at all of his drawings, more than 700, and looked for male portraits. There are about 120, you see them here. Which ones of these could be self-portraits? Well, for that they have to be done as we just saw, en face or three-quarters. So we can eliminate all the profiles. It also has to be sufficiently detailed. So we can also eliminate the ones that are very vague or very stylized. And we know from his contemporaries that Leonardo was a very handsome, even beautiful man. So we can also eliminate the ugly ones or the caricatures. (Laughter)
我认为如果我们仔细查阅他所有的作品, 并从中寻找自画像,我们就可以发现他的面孔。 于是我认真查看了他所有的画,700多幅, 从中寻找男士的画像。 这里所看到的,就是我找到的120幅。 这里面有哪些有可能是自画像呢? 就如我们前面所看到的,自画像一定要是正面或者四分之三侧面的才可以。 所以我们排除所有的侧面画像。 自画像也应该有充分的细节。 所以我们也可以排除那些模糊不清的或者是过于风格化的画像。 同时我们从达·芬奇同时代的人中也了解到 达·芬奇长得非常帅气,甚至可以说是美男子。 这样一来,我们又排除了那些长得丑的以及那些漫画像。 (笑声)
And look what happens -- only three candidates remain that fit the bill. And here they are. Yes, indeed, the old man is there, as is this famous pen drawing of the Homo Vitruvianus. And lastly, the only portrait of a male that Leonardo painted, "The Musician."
现在再来看一看──只剩下三个符合条件的候选画像了。 就是这三张 的确,老人画像是其中之一, 这幅著名的铅笔画《维特鲁威人》也在其中。 最后一幅就是达·芬奇所画的唯一一幅男性肖像油画《音乐家肖像》。
Before we go into these faces, I should explain why I have some right to talk about them. I've made more than 1,100 portraits myself for newspapers, over the course of 300 -- 30 years, sorry, 30 years only. (Laughter) But there are 1,100, and very few artists have drawn so many faces. So I know a little about drawing and analyzing faces. OK, now let's look at these three portraits. And hold onto your seats, because if we zoom in on those faces, remark how they have the same broad forehead, the horizontal eyebrows, the long nose, the curved lips and the small, well-developed chin.
在我们开始研究这些面孔之前, 我应该解释一下我有什么资格在这里发表关于他们的评论。 我画过超过1100张的人物画像, 为各类报纸所做,历时300多──30多年,不好意思,只有30多年。 (笑声) 但还是画了1100张。很少有画家画过这么多张脸。 所以我对绘画和分析脸孔还是略知一二的。 好了,现在让我们来看看这三幅画像。 你们可要坐好了,因为如果我们将这些脸孔放大的话, 我们就会发现他们都有着同样宽广的额头、平直的眉毛、 高长的鼻子、弯曲的嘴唇、小而丰满的下颚。
I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw that. There is no reason why these portraits should look alike. All we did was look for portraits that had the characteristics of a self-portrait, and look, they are very similar. Now, are they made in the right order? The young man should be made first. And as you see here from the years that they were created, it is indeed the case. They are made in the right order. What was the age of Leonardo at the time? Does that fit? Yes, it does. He was 33, 38 and 63 when these were made.
当我第一次注意到这一切的时候,我简直不敢相信自己的眼睛。 这些画像怎么可能如此相像。 我们只是搜寻有自画像特色的肖像, 但找到的画像却是如此得相像。 问题是,他们是不是依照正确的时间顺序绘制的呢? 年轻人的画像应该是最先绘制的。 而如果你们看看这些画像创作的年份, 就会发现事实的确如此。 他们是按照正确的时间顺序绘制的。 而达·芬奇在创作这些画像的时候的年龄又是多大呢?和画中人的年龄相符吗? 是的,完全相符。他在创作这些画像的时候分别是33岁、38岁和63岁。
So we have three pictures, potentially of the same person of the same age as Leonardo at the time. But how do we know it's him, and not someone else? Well, we need a reference. And here's the only picture of Leonardo that's widely accepted. It's a statue made by Verrocchio, of David, for which Leonardo posed as a boy of 15. And if we now compare the face of the statue, with the face of the musician, you see the very same features again. The statue is the reference, and it connects the identity of Leonardo to those three faces.
也就是说,我们现在这里的三幅画像,有可能是同一个人的画像, 平且画中人和达·芬奇创作这些画像时的年龄是一致的。 但我们如何知道这画中之人是达·芬奇而不是别人呢? 我们需要一个可供参考的标准。 这里是唯一一幅被广泛接受的达·芬奇的照片, 是韦罗基奥创作的大卫雕像, 由15岁的达·芬奇当作人体模特。 如果我们把这个雕塑的脸 和之前那个音乐家的脸相比较的话,我们就会再次发现之前那些相同的特征。 这个雕像就是参考物,将达·芬奇的身份 同那三张脸联系起来。
Ladies and gentlemen, this story has not yet been published. It's only proper that you here at TED hear and see it first. The icon of icons finally has a face. Here he is: Leonardo da Vinci. (Applause)
女士们、先生们,这个故事暂未发表, 由在座的TED观众们对之先睹为快是再为合适不过了。 伟人中的伟人终于有了脸孔。 他就是──列奥纳多·达·芬奇。 (掌声)