《中国的山水画》英译

要说明山水画的布置，先得说明山水画的构图原理。原来山水画的构图，不是对景写实，而是用鸟瞰的方法，将真景缩小，然后加以描写的。眼睛中所能看到的，只有一重山或一重水，这样简单的景物，是不容易构成山水画面的。作画的人，得走入山水的深处，遍观所有的风景，回到家里，把所经历的地方，像画地图似的缩写出来，还得把自己放的很大，把风景缩的很小，好像看假山似的，才能构成“咫尺千里”的画面。<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

In order to explain the disposition of a landscape painting, we have to make clear at first the principle of its composition. Originally the composition of landscapes is not to paint a real picture as we see it, but to depict by means of a bird’s eye view, namely, to diminish the subject matter in a nutshell. What we can see with our naked eyes is generally only a single layer of mountains or rivers. This of course is not enough for us to compose a scene of the landscape. The one who paints ought to go into the heart of mountains and rivers, inspecting all the scenery before he puts down from memory on returning home the whole scope of his travelled regions as a miniature as he draws a map. In doing so, he has to enlarge himself as big as possible and contract the scenery as small as a rock-work to look upon, then he can for the first time compose a picture of thousand miles represented on a few-foot piece of paper or the like.