From “New World” to world power - 从“新世界”到世界列强

The G8¹⁾—the Group of Eight—was founded in 1997 as an international political forum where world leaders gathered to discuss pressing world issues. This group consisted of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and the United States. In a world with almost 200 sovereign countries, this collection of nations were viewed as the economic and political superpowers of the day. And if such a group had existed at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it is fair to write that the freshly created United States of America had not yet acquired enough standing on the world stage to have acquired a seat at this tiny but influential table.

G8²⁾，即八国集团，建立于1997年，是一个国际政治论坛，在那里世界各国领导人聚集在一起讨论紧迫的世界问题。该集团由加拿大、法国、德国、意大利、日本、俄罗斯、英国、欧盟和美国组成。在一个拥有近200个主权国家的世界里，这个国家集团被视为当时的经济和政治的超级力量。而如果在19世纪初就存在这样一个集团的话，那么我可以公平地写道，刚刚成立的美利坚合众国在世界舞台上还没有获得足够的地位，无法在这张小小的但有影响力的桌子上获得一席之地。

And yet over the past 250 years, the American colonies have transitioned from being the mere foreign holdings of European superpowers, to being perhaps the preeminent superpower of our own day. This incremental shift—some taken enthusiastically, others more reluctantly—is, in many ways, the story of the United States itself. And like all of our stories—those of identity, geography, and economics, among others—this story can be both illustrated and told through art. From the colonial times until our own, art eloquently speaks to both who we are and who we have aspired to become.

然而，在过去的250年里，美国殖民地已经从仅仅是欧洲超级大国的外国领地，转变为也许是我们今天的超级大国。这种渐进的转变——有些人对此很热情，而有些人则比较不情愿——从很多方面来说，其就是美国自身的故事。就像我们所有的故事一样——身份、地理、经济等等——这个故事可以通过艺术来展现和讲述。从殖民时代到我们自己的时代，本文基于艺术作品雄辩地说明了我们是谁以及我们渴望成为谁。

An excellent early point of departure is James Wooldridge’s 1675 painting, Indians of Virginia. This oil-on-linen composition measures approximately 30” x 43,” and although Wooldridge completed it in 1675, the painting has a complicated history that has much to tell modern viewers about what people in the seventeenth (and sixteenth!) century thought about those they found living in the New World.

詹姆斯·伍尔德里奇1675年的画作《弗吉尼亚的印第安人》是一个很好的起点。这幅用亚麻油制成的作品尺寸大约为30英寸×43英寸。虽然伍尔德里奇在1675年完成了这幅画，但它蕴藏着有一段复杂的历史，它可以告诉现代观众十七世纪（以及十六世纪!）的人们是如何看待那些生活在新大陆的人们的。

The story of Wooldridge’s Indians of Virginia does not begin in 1675, it actually begins about a century earlier. If Columbus “discovered” the New World during the closing decade of the fifteenth century, then it was during the sixteenth century that European nations turned their attention from discovery to colonizing these lands. On 9 April 1585, Sir Ralph Lane led an expedition that attempted to begin an English colony on Roanoke Island. Although now part of the Outer Banks in North Carolina, Lane—and his patron, Sir Walter Raleigh—named this land after their monarch, Queen Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen. Amongst the 108 people who began the colony at Roanoke was John White, an English mapmaker and illustrator. Sir Walter had asked White to join the group in order to visually document the flora, fauna, and the indigenous people of the Tidewater area.

伍尔德里奇的《弗吉尼亚州的印第安人》的故事并不是从1675年开始的，实际上还要一个世纪之前。如果说哥伦布在十五世纪的最后十年“发现”了新大陆，那么欧洲国家则是在十六世纪将注意力从发现，转向了对这些土地的殖民。1585年4月9日，拉尔夫·莱恩爵士率领一支探险队，试图在罗阿诺克岛开始建立英国殖民地。虽然这个岛现在是北卡罗来纳州外滩的一部分，但莱恩和他的赞助人沃尔特·雷利爵士以他们的君主，处女女王伊丽莎白一世的名字来命名这片土地。在罗诺克开始殖民的108人中，有一位英国地图制作者和插图画家叫约翰·怀特。沃尔特爵士请怀特加入了这支队伍，以便直观地记录潮水地区的动植物与土著居民。

During his time in Virginia, White completed dozens of maps, drawings, and watercolors, and these images became amongst the earliest visual representations of the plants, animals, and people of North America. In this endeavor, White worked closely with Thomas Harriot, who aspired to communicate in words what the artist hoped to illustrate in pictures. When the wordsmith returned to England (either in 1585 or 1586), the artist and his art returned with him. By 1588 Harriot rushed to publish his imageless text A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia. A less hurried edition two years later featured 28 prints by the Flemish engraver Theodor de Bry. These images were largely taken from John White’s in situ drawings and watercolors.

在弗吉尼亚州期间，怀特完成了几十幅地图、素描和水彩画，这些图像成为北美植物、动物和人的最早视觉表现之一。在这项工作中，怀特与托马斯·哈里奥特紧密合作，后者希望用文字来传达艺术家希望用图片来说明的东西。当这位文学大师回到英国时（1585年或1586年），艺术家和他的作品也随之返回。到了1588年，哈里奥特匆匆出版了他的无图像文字《弗吉尼亚新发现的土地的简要和真实报告》。两年后，一个重新修订的版本刊登了佛兰芒雕刻家西奥多·德·布莱的28幅版画。这些图片主要取材于约翰·怀特的原地绘画和水彩画。

By including these engravings in his Briefe History, Harriot made White’s watercolors—once removed from the originals the artist painted—available to a comparatively large audience. Although it is unlikely that Wooldridge ever saw White’s original watercolors, there can be little doubt that he had a copy of Harriot’s text. Indeed, a visual analysis of Wooldridge’s painting shows that the composition is an interesting conglomeration of no less than six of de Bry’s engravings that Harriot had published some 85 years earlier. In addition to this transmission—a kind of visual “telephone game”—there is also the interesting idea of exclusivity. White painted his watercolors at the behest of Sir Walter Raleigh, the patron of the expedition. De Bry’s engravings were intended for a much larger audience. And then, not quite a century later, Wooldridge painted the Indians of Virginia for the Earl of Conway, whose grandfather was an early shareholder in the Virginia Company. This image serves as a kind of artistic tribute to his grandfather, even though his grandfather is nowhere to be found in it.

哈里奥特把这些版画放在了他的《简史》中，这样一来，曾经从之前版本中移除的怀特的水彩画就能让相当多的观众看到了。尽管伍尔德里奇不太可能见过怀特的水彩画原作，但毫无疑问，他有哈里奥特的作品副本。事实上，对伍尔德里奇的绘画的视觉分析表明，这幅作品的组成是一个有趣的组合，它汇集了至少六幅德·布里的版画，这些版画是哈里奥特在大约85年前出版的。除了这种传递——一种视觉上的 “电话游戏”——还有一个有趣的想法，就是排他性。怀特的水彩画是在探险队的赞助人沃尔特·雷利爵士的要求下完成的。德布里的雕刻作品是为更多的读者设计的。然后，不到一个世纪后，伍尔德里奇为康威伯爵画了弗吉尼亚的印第安人，康威伯爵的祖父是弗吉尼亚公司的早期股东。这幅画是对他祖父的一种艺术敬意，尽管在这幅画中没有他的祖父出现。

If James Wooldridge’s Indians of Virginia is a view of Native Americans for the English, then, Thomas Birch’s Perry’s Victory on Lake Erie (1814) is a view of the English and the Americans with Native Americans as an unseen, but important, group. At first view this may appear to be a painting about a naval conflict between Great Britain and the United States, and while it is that, Perry’s Victory also has much to tell us about the rising position of the United States of America on the world stage, about westward expansion, and about the displacement of indigenous peoples in the Great Lakes region of North America.

如果说詹姆斯·伍尔德里奇的《弗吉尼亚的印第安人》是英国人对美洲原住民的看法，那么托马斯·伯奇的《佩里在伊利湖上的胜利》(1814年)则是英国人和美国人的看法，美国原住民是一个未被发现但很重要的群体。乍一看，这似乎是一幅关于英国和美国之间的海上冲突的画作，尽管如此，但《佩里的胜利》也告诉我们美利坚合众国在世界舞台上地位的上升、西进扩张以及北美大湖地区土著人的流离失所。

The War of 1812 is often called the second war for American Independence, as it again involved conflict between Great Britain and the country forged from its former colonial holdings in North America. One of the key points of contention in this conflict was the Great Lakes region of North America. This important area—filled with freshwater lakes, streams, and rivers—was vitally important to the profitable trade routes of the area. The United States—then still predominantly on the eastern seaboard—aspired to grow westwards. Great Britain—which still had extensive holdings in what is now Canada—hoped to maintain their mercantile superiority. And, of course, these areas were populated with thousands of indigenous people who had lived there for generations.

1812年的战争通常被称为第二次美国独立战争，因为它又涉及到英国与北美原殖民地所形成的国家之间的冲突。在这场冲突中，争夺的关键点之一是北美五大湖区。这个充满淡水湖、溪流和河流的重要地区对该地区的贸易路线至关重要。当时仍主要依靠东海岸的美国渴望向西发展。大不列颠仍然在现在的加拿大拥有大量的股份，希望保持他们的商业优势。当然，这些地区居住着成千上万根生土长的原住民。

Battle of Lake Erie took place on the 10th of September 1813. Thomas Birch completed his painting that commemorated this great victory for the American navy less than one year later. Birch had completed a blockbuster image that depicted a nearly contemporary event. This was the early nineteenth century version of the newsreels that played before movie theater crowds during the Second World War, the nightly news that broadcast daily casualties during the Vietnam War, or the tallies of COVID-19 victims posted hourly on social media.

伊利湖战役发生在1813年9月10日。托马斯·伯奇在不到一年后完成了他的画作，以纪念美国海军的这一伟大胜利。伯奇完成了一幅轰动一时的作品，描绘了一个几乎当代的事件。这是第二次世界大战期间电影院观众面前播放的新闻短片的19世纪早期版本，是每天播放越南战争伤亡人数的晚间新闻的19世纪早期版本，也是是每小时在社交媒体上发布的2020年新冠疫情死亡人数统计的的19世纪早期版本。

If the American Revolutionary War was a conflict (mostly, although not exclusively) of soldiers on the ground, then the War of 1812 was a skirmish of navies, and the naval battle that shifted the tide of this conflict was the Battle on Lake Erie. Perry’s painting chronicled this battle and can be divided into three overlapping bands. To begin, we can observe the surface of the lake; the white-tipped crests suggest it is a windy day. The low, pyramidal shape of the ships comprises the second band of the composition. Their billowing sails—even those that have been riddled with cannon shot—and the sweeping smoke from the cannon fire likewise suggest the day’s meteorological conditions. The rest of the composition is filled with clouds bathed in early-morning light (although the first shot of the conflict was not fired until almost noon).

如果说美国独立战争是一场地面士兵的冲突(不完全是)，那么1812年的战争就是海军的小规模冲突，而改变这场冲突潮流的海战就是在伊利湖的战役。佩里的画作记录了这场战役，可以分为三个重叠的层次。首先，我们可以观察湖面，白尖的波峰表明这是一个风和日丽的日子。船只的低矮、金字塔形的形状构成了构图的第二段。它们飘扬的风帆——即使是那些已经被炮弹打得七零八落的风帆——以及炮火产生的扫射烟雾，同样暗示了当天的气象条件。构图的其余部分则充满了沐浴在清晨光线中的云彩（尽管冲突的第一枪直到近中午才打响）。

The ship closest to the picture plane is the USS Lawrence, a 20-gun brig that was formally commissioned in August 1813 and named in honor of James Lawrence, an American naval officer who had been killed on 4 June. She served as the flagship for Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry. Although the American flag still prominently flies, the sails have been riddled with cannon shot and the ship has clearly been disabled. In the midst of the battle, Perry transferred to the USS Niagara, the ship to the left of center along the horizon line with three flags hoisted upon the mast. Although smoke obscures our chaotic view, we can clearly see both American and British flags flying from a variety of ships. Some vessels remain seaworthy; others still appear to sink.

离图片平面最近的舰艇是“劳伦斯”号，这是一艘20门火炮的护卫舰，于1813年8月正式服役，为纪念6月4日遇难的美国海军军官詹姆斯·劳伦斯而命名。她曾是奥利弗·哈扎德·佩里准将的旗舰。虽然美国国旗依然醒目地飘扬着，但船帆已被炮弹打得破破烂烂，船体明显已经残破。在战斗中，佩里转移到了“尼亚加拉”号上，这艘船沿着地平线向中间偏左，桅杆上挂着三面旗帜。虽然烟雾遮住了我们混乱的视线，但我们可以清楚地看到各种船只上飘扬着美国和英国的旗帜。有的船仍然适航，有的船则似乎仍在沉没。

Although Birch does not make it immediately clear within this composition which side will be victorious—after all, the American brig in the foreground has been shot to shreds and has been abandoned—Perry and the United States Navy defeated their vastly more experienced British counterparts. At the conclusion of the battle, Commodore Perry penned to Major General William Henry Harrison—the future ninth president of the United States—what might be the most famous words in the history of American naval conflict. On the back of a used envelope Perry hastily wrote, “Dear General: We have met the enemy and they are ours. Two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop” With this victory, the balance of this conflict began to teeter the American way. Two important and related historical events resulted from the United States victory on Lake Erie, the British were expelled from the area, leaving their Native American allies in the Great Lakes area vulnerable to the westward expansion of the United States, a nation that was eager to expand beyond the eastern seaboard.

虽然伯奇并没有在这个构图中立即明确哪一方将获得胜利——毕竟，前景中的美国军舰已经被击碎并被抛弃——但佩里和美国海军击败了他们经验丰富的英国敌人。在战斗结束时，佩里准将给威廉·亨利·哈里斯少将（未来的美国第九任总统）写下了可能是美国海军冲突史上最著名的话。在一个用过的信封背面，佩里匆匆写道：“亲爱的将军。我们已经遇到了敌人，他们被我们拿下了。两艘船，两艘旅，一艘帆船和一艘单桅帆船。”随着这场胜利，这场冲突的天平开始向美国方向倾斜。美国在伊利湖的胜利导致了两个重要的相关历史事件，英国人被驱逐出该地区，使他们在五大湖区的美洲原住民盟友容易受到美国这个急于向东部沿海地区以外扩张的国家的影响。

Birch’s painting, then, is about two things. It certainly chronicles a great American naval victory and heroized the commanding officer, Commodore Perry. It also eloquently speaks to shift in the position of the United States on the world stage. They neither won nor lost any land, but they had again faced a military and economic super power and had prevailed. But the naval victory this painting commemorates was also a turning point for the thousands of Native Americans who had lived in the Great Lakes area. With their British allies gone, the United States believed it had carte blanche to occupy these lands regardless of who might have already been there.

因此，伯奇的画是关于两件事的。它确实记录了美国海军的一次伟大胜利，并将指挥官佩里准将奉为英雄。它还雄辩地说明了美国在世界舞台上地位的转变。他们没有赢得或失去任何土地，但他们再次面对一个军事和经济超级大国，并取得了胜利。但这幅画所纪念的海军胜利，对居住在大湖地区的成千上万的印第安人来说，也是一个转折点。由于他们的英国盟友已经离开，美国认为它已经全权占领这些土地，不管谁可能已经在那里。

If Birch’s Perry’s Victory on Lake Erie celebrates the growing military might of the United States, then Chide Hassam’s World’s Columbia Exposition, Chicago (1892), painted almost 80 years later, depicts another kind of growth. During the second half of the nineteenth century, various countries hosted a World Exposition as a way of highlighting their advancements in art, architecture, science, and industry. These include Great Britain (1851 and 1863), France (1855, 1867, 1878, and 1889), Austria-Hungary (1873), Australia (1880), and Spain (1888). The United States hosted its first such event-called the Centennial Exposition in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence—in 1876. But it was the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 that most clearly announced the elevation of American art, architecture, science, and industry to the world at large. Hassam’s modestly-scaled painting is about more than just a pleasant vista; it is about the advancement of the United States and its sudden cultural maturity.

如果说伯奇的《伊利湖上的胜利》颂扬了美国不断增长的军事实力，那么近80年后，奇德·哈萨姆的《世界哥伦比亚博览会，芝加哥》（1892）则描绘了另一种增长。在19世纪下半叶，各个国家都举办了世界博览会，以此来彰显自己在艺术、建筑、科学和工业方面的进步。这些国家包括英国（1851年和1863年）、法国（1855年、1867年、1878年和1889年）、奥匈帝国（1873年）、澳大利亚（1880年）和西班牙（1888年）。美国在1876年举办了第一个这样的活动，称为百年博览会，以纪念独立宣言100周年。但最清楚地宣告美国艺术、建筑、科学和工业提升到世界水平的是1893年的世界哥伦比亚博览会。哈萨姆这幅比例适中的画作所描绘的不仅仅是一幅怡人的风景，而是关于美国的进步和其文化的突然成熟。

Chide Hassam was born in Boston in 1859 and worked as a freelance illustrator in the early 1880s, completing drawing for such prominent periodicals as The Century, Harper’s Weekly, and Scribner’s Monthly. In 1883 he embarked on a European Grand Tour to study the Old Masters; he visited (among other counties) Great Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain. He returned to the United States after this extended trip, but moved back to Paris in 1886 and studied at the Académie Julian, a prestigious private art school particularly attractive to aspiring American artists who could not successfully pass the French language exam then required for admission into the École des beaux-arts. Hassam was a quick study; he submitted four paintings to the art competition in the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1889 and won a bronze medal.

契德·哈萨姆1859年出生于波士顿，19世纪80年代初担任自由插画家，为《世纪》、《哈珀周刊》、《斯克里布纳月刊》等著名期刊完成绘画。1883年，他开始了欧洲大旅行，学习大师们的作品。他访问了英国、法国、意大利、荷兰和西班牙。在这次长途旅行之后，他回到了美国，但在1886年又搬回了巴黎，并在朱利安美术学院学习，这是一所著名的私立艺术学校，对那些不能顺利通过当时进入巴黎艺术学院设计学院所需的法语考试，但却有抱负的美国艺术家特别有吸引力。哈萨姆学得很快，他向1889年巴黎世界博览会的艺术竞赛提交了四幅画作，并获得了一枚铜牌。

By the time he returned to the United States, Hassam had fully embraced the impressionistic style then in fashion in Paris, and World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago (1893) is an excellent example of his mature style. Utilizing bright, vibrant greens, blues, and reds, he has sketchily depicted the lush grounds on the left and right side of the composition, and a path that begins in the middle of the painting and then meanders off to the right. A woman and small child rest on a bench while others promenade about the grounds. Some move towards the viewers, while others advance into the picture plane towards a building of vast proportions in the background.

当他回到美国时，哈萨姆已经完全接受了当时在巴黎流行的印象主义风格，《芝加哥世界哥伦比亚博览会》（1893年）是他成熟风格的一个很好的例子。他利用明亮、鲜艳的绿色、蓝色和红色，对构图左右两边郁郁葱葱的场地，以及一条从画作中间开始，然后向右蜿蜒的小路进行了素描。一个女人和小孩在长椅上休息，其他人则在场地上散步。一些向观众走来，而另一些向背景中巨大比例的建筑前进。

The American-born but French-trained architect William LeBaron Jenney designed that gleaming white structure in Hassam’s World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago. Called the Horticulture Building, critics (errantly!) claimed that it held every variety of flora on earth. Although it is not evident from Hassam’s painting—and it might not have been immediately clear to the visitors at the time, either—Jenney’s building was not made of a permanent material such as marble, but was instead composed of temporary plaster and stucco. Indeed, almost all of the buildings in the so-called White City were made to be dismantled at the end of the exposition. But despite the temporary nature of these buildings, the most famous American architects from the end of the nineteenth century lent their talents to the exposition as a way to showcase the advancements of American architecture. These included Richard Morris Hunt, Charles McKim, Dankmar Adler, Louis Sullivan, and Sophia Hayden. From an architectural point of view, the World’s Columbia Exposition aspired to highlight all that the United States had to offer.

出生于美国但受过法国训练的建筑师威廉·勒巴伦·詹尼在芝加哥哈萨姆的哥伦布世界博览会上设计了那座闪闪发光的白色建筑。它被称为园艺大楼，评论家们（错误地！）声称它容纳了地球上所有品种的植物。虽然从哈萨姆的画作中看不出——而且当时的参观者也可能不会立即明白——但詹尼的建筑并不是由大理石这样的永久性材料制成的，而是由临时的石膏和灰泥组成。事实上，所谓的白城中几乎所有的建筑都是为了在世博会结束时拆除的。不过，尽管这些建筑是临时性的，但十九世纪末美国最著名的建筑师们还是把他们的才华借给了世博会，以此来展示美国建筑的进步。这些人包括理查德·莫里斯·亨特、查尔斯·麦金、丹克马尔·阿德勒、路易斯·沙利文和索菲亚·海登。从建筑学的角度来看，世界哥伦比亚博览会希望突出美国所能提供的一切。

But it was not only the outside of these buildings that spoke to American accomplishments and advancements. The exhibitions inside those buildings also demonstrated to the world the ways in which the United States—young though it may have been when compared to its European counterparts—had reached a kind of artistic, cultural, and scientific maturity. Fourteen different buildings were centered around an enormous reflecting pool, and each of these structures highlighted a different branch of American ingenuity. For example, George B. Post’s Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building highlighted American advancements in literature, sciences and the fine arts. Notable American painters and sculptors who exhibited at the 1893 Columbian Exposition comprises a Who’s Who of late nineteenth century American art, a lineup that justifiably bragged that the United States was proud of its artistic achievements. The artists who exhibited in the exhibition included (amongst dozens of others) Mary Cassatt, Thomas Eakins, Daniel Chester French, Winslow Homer, Frederick MacMonnies, and John Singer Sargent. After six wildly successful months and more than 27 million visitors, the Great White City closed on 30 October 1893. Even if the United States had not fundamentally changed during those six months, its international reputation had.

但是，不仅仅是这些建筑的外部体现了美国的成就和进步。这些建筑内的展览也向世界展示了美国是如何在艺术、文化和科学方面达到成熟的——尽管与欧洲国家相比，美国可能还很年轻。14个不同的建筑围绕着一个巨大的倒影池，每一个建筑都突出了美国独创性的不同分支。例如，乔治·B·波斯特的“制造业和文科大楼”突出了美国在文学、科学和美术方面的进步。在1893年哥伦比亚博览会上展出的著名的美国画家和雕塑家包括一个十九世纪后期美国艺术的名人，他们有理由夸耀美国为其艺术成就感到自豪。参加展览的艺术家包括玛丽·卡萨特、托马斯·埃金斯、丹尼尔·切斯特·弗兰奇、温斯洛·霍默、弗雷德里克·麦克蒙尼斯和约翰·辛格·萨金特。在经历了六个月的巨大成功和服务了2700多万游客之后，大白城于1893年10月30日关闭。即使美国在这六个月期间没有发生根本变化，它的国际声誉却提升了。

If the infancy of the United States was the eighteenth century, and its adolescence during the nineteenth century, then it was in the twentieth century when it came in to its majority. As with people, so too with nations: the transition to adulthood can be a difficult time. In the two decades on either side of the year 1900, the United States was determining what role it wanted to play on the world stage. Did we aspire to remain focused on North America and to preventing European intervention there, or did we wish to expand our political and geographic influence, and become engaged in global affairs more broadly? This was a challenging question for the United States, and it can be claimed—with some justification—that World War I, the Great War, was the catalyst for the United States of American to shed its isolationist ways and become a geopolitical superpower.

如果说美国的幼年时期是十八世纪，青春期是十九世纪，那么，美国的成年时期是二十世纪。与人一样，国家也是如此：向成年过渡是一个艰难的时期。在1900年左右20年里，美国正在确定它想在世界舞台上扮演什么角色。我们是希望继续专注于北美并防止欧洲对那里的干预，还是希望扩大我们的政治和地理影响，更广泛地参与全球事务？这对美国来说是一个具有挑战性的问题，可以说有一定的道理——第一次世界大战，也就是伟大的战争，是美国摆脱其孤立主义方式，成为一个地缘政治超级大国的催化剂。

But this transition was taken somewhat reluctantly. Historians point to 28 June 1914 as the beginning of World War I, for this was the day in which the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated in Sarajevo. By August, almost every nation in Europe had mobilized their armed forces, lines were drawn, and preexisting alliances were set to be cemented in blood. On one side of this conflict—the Allied Powers¹⁾—of France, Great Britain, Russia, Japan, and Italy (among a dozen others). While on the other, The Central Powers²⁾ consisted of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire. Bullets were fired. Bombs were dropped. Torpedoes were launched. Mustard gas released. Between August 1914 and April 1917, millions died. And yet the United States stayed distant from what it perceived to be a uniquely European conflict.

但这一转变是在某种程度上勉强实现的。历史学家指出，1914年6月28日是第一次世界大战的开始，因为这一天，奥匈帝国王位继承人弗朗茨·斐迪南大公在萨拉热窝被暗杀。到了8月，欧洲几乎每个国家都动员了自己的武装力量、划定了战线，已有的同盟关系也将在血腥中得到巩固。在这场冲突的一方——法国、英国、俄国、日本和意大利（还有其他十几个国家）的协约国³⁾。而在另一边，德国、奥匈帝国和奥斯曼帝国组成了同盟国⁴⁾。子弹出枪、炸弹扔下、鱼雷发射、毒气释放。从1914年8月到1917年4月，数百万人死亡。然而美国却对它所认为的一场独特的欧洲冲突保持着距离。

On 7 May 1915 a German U-boat sunk the British passenger ship RMS Lusitania, part of the country’s unrestricted submarine warfare. This sinking of a civilian passenger vessel killed almost 1,200 people including 128 Americans. Yet not even this terrible event brought the United States into the great conflict. Germany complied with President Woodrow Wilson’s demand at halting the practice of targeting civilian vessels until January 1917, when it again began to target non-military ships as a way of starving Britain into submission. January 1917 also coincides with the infamous Zimmermann Telegram, a clandestine communique between the German foreign minister Arthur Zimmermann and the German ambassador to Mexico. In a coded message, Zimmermann wrote that Germany was set to commence its earlier strategy of unrestricted submarine warfare against the United States on 1 February, and that Germany was prepared to offer Mexico the states of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico if they would declare war on the United States. On 28 February Wilson released this text to the media, and the anti-German sentiment that had been rising since the sinking of the Lusitania hit a full crescendo, and the United States finally declared war on Germany on 6 April.

1915年5月7日，德国的一艘U型潜艇击沉了英国的 “卢西塔尼亚号 “客轮，这是该国无限制潜艇战的一部分。这艘民用客轮的沉没，造成包括128名美国人在内的近1200人死亡。然而，即使是这个可怕的事件也没有把美国卷入这场大冲突。德国遵照伍德罗-威尔逊总统的要求，停止了以民用船只为目标的做法，直到1917年1月，德国又开始以非军用船只为目标，以此来饿死英国。1917年1月也恰逢臭名昭著的齐默尔曼电报，这是德国外交部长阿瑟-齐默尔曼与德国驻墨西哥大使之间的秘密公报。齐默尔曼在密电中写道，德国准备在2月1日开始对美国实施先前的无限制潜艇战战略，如果墨西哥愿意对美国宣战，德国准备向墨西哥提供德克萨斯、亚利桑那和新墨西哥州。2月28日，威尔逊向媒体发布了这篇文字，自 “卢西塔尼亚 “号沉没后不断高涨的反德情绪全面进入高潮，美国终于在4月6日对德国宣战。

Of course, many people had been calling for the United States to enter the war against the Central Powers for many months, if not years. Some artists—George Bellows was but one of them—picked up their paint brushes, their pens, or their burins to reaffirm the United States’ decision to join the Allied Powers in 1917. Bellows had studied with Robert Henri at the New York School of Art and was vaulted to fame towards the end of the first decade of the twentieth century as a member of the Ashcan School⁵⁾. Fame notwithstanding, Bellows volunteered to join the war effort in 1917 when we learned of the Report of the Committee on Alleged German Outrage—commonly called the Bryce Report. In this account, James Bryce, the former British Ambassador to the United States, chronicled the debauched behavior of the German army. Partly factual but with a heavy measure of propaganda and misdirection, it was the release of the Bryce Report in the United States as much as the sinking of the Lusitania that ultimately brought the United States into World War I.

当然，许多人已经呼吁美国参加反对同盟国的战争好几个月，甚至好几年了。一些艺术家（如乔治·贝洛斯（George Bellows）只是其中的一位）抓起它们的画笔、钢笔和錾刀，再次声明美国于1917年加入盟国的决定。贝洛斯曾师从纽约州立大学的罗伯特·亨利，并在二十世纪第一个十年末作为垃圾箱画派⁶⁾的成员而声名鹊起。。

The paintings, drawings, lithographs that Bellows made are less about visual truth and more about creating the visual pathos of war. Return of the Useless (1918) is a great example of this. Germany’s first offensive in World War I was the invasion of Belgium and many civilians were forced into labor camps. Bellows gives us a scene where those who were unable to work—too young, too old, too sick, too injured—are being returned. It is a painting that testifies to the pain and suffering of war. The majority of the image is given over to the red box car that has transported the figures. On the left side, a German soldier stands on a prone person and is about to strike them with the butt of his rifle. The soldier’s left hand is already covered with blood, and so too are the hands of the helpless figure who is about to receive his ferocity. On the right side, another soldier is about to strike a woman whose back is to the viewer while a man—already bloodied and terribly pallid—valiantly attempts to intervene. In the center, a young woman—wearing a white shirt—descends steps made from boxes. She has used her right arm to open the sliding door of the boxcar, but that arm remains elevated as if to shield her from the atrocities that surround her. A woman lies on the ground, and in the back of the car a mother holds her young child. A slightly more aged man embraces a girl on the left side of the boxcar, while another man—in deep shadow—sits on the far side of the car, holding his own head. The visual story that Bellows gives us is clear: the ruthlessness of the German army is indiscriminate.

贝洛斯创作的绘画、素描和石印不是为了视觉上的真实，而是为了创造战争的视觉感伤。《遣返无用者》(1918)就是一个很好的例子。德国在第一次世界大战中的第一次进攻是入侵比利时，许多平民被迫进入劳改营。贝洛斯为我们呈现了这样一个场景:那些因太年轻、太老、病太重而无法工作的人正在被遣返。这是一幅证明了战争的痛苦和苦难的画。图像的大部分都分给了运送数字的红色厢车。左边，一名德国士兵站在一个俯卧的人身上，准备用枪托攻击他们。士兵的左手已经沾满了鲜血，无助的人的手也沾满了鲜血，他即将接受残酷的惩罚。在画面的右侧，另一名士兵正准备攻击一名背对观众的女子，而一名已经浑身是血、极其平静的男子勇敢地试图抵抗。在广场中央，一名身穿白衬衫的年轻女子从用盒子做成的台阶上走下来。她用右臂打开了车厢的推拉门，但那只胳膊仍然举得很高，好像是为了保护自己免受周围的暴行。一个女人躺在地上，在车的后面，一个母亲抱着她年幼的孩子。一个年纪稍大一点的男人拥抱着车厢左侧的一个女孩，另一个男人在车厢的另一边，坐在阴影里，抱着自己的头。贝洛斯给我们的视觉故事很清楚:德国军队的残酷是不分青红皂白的。

History is a complicated matter, of course, and the United States of America was not immune own immoral behavior. Like in World War I, America was a reluctant participant in the Second World War. The conflict began in earnest on 1 September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. The United States was hardly neutral in the two years that followed. For example, the Lend-Lease policy—An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States—that began on 11 March 1941 allowed the United States to lend (but not sell) supplies to the war effort. Yet despite this commitment to supply warplanes and warships to Britain, France, and the Soviet Union (among other Allied countries), it took the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 for the United States to commit to sending troops to the European and Pacific theaters. Once that happened, the United States acted swiftly. Congress declared war on Japan the following day, and it declared war on both Germany and Italy on 11 December.

当然，历史是一个复杂的问题，美国也不能避免自己的不道德行为。和第一次世界大战一样，美国在第二次世界大战中也是不情愿的参与者。1939年9月1日，德国入侵波兰，冲突正式开始。在接下来的两年里，美国几乎没有保持中立。例如，1941年3月11日开始的“租借政策”——一项旨在促进美国防卫的法案——允许美国向战争提供物资(而不是出售)。然而，尽管承诺向英国、法国和苏联(以及其他盟国)提供战机和战舰，美国还是在1941年12月7日日本轰炸珍珠港之后，承诺向欧洲和太平洋战区派遣军队。一旦发生这种情况，美国迅速采取了行动。国会第二天对日本宣战，12月11日又对德国和意大利宣战。

In the aftermath of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the United States government became immediately distrustful of Japanese Americans. Indeed, on the same day that War was declared on Japan—8 December—the United States also seemingly declared war on Japanese Americans (and Japanese citizens living in America) by freezing their bank accounts. Four days later—12 December—President Franklin D. Roosevelt loosened these restrictions and allowed Japanese Americans to withdraw up to $100 a month from their personal bank accounts. But things quickly took a turn. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on 19 February 1942. The importance of this document necessitates an extensive quote:

在轰炸珍珠港之后，美国政府立即开始不信任日裔美国人。事实上，就在日本宣战的同一天——12月8日——美国似乎也通过冻结日裔美国人(以及居住在美国的日本公民)的银行账户，向自己的公民宣战。四天之后，也就是12月12日，美国总统富兰克林·罗斯福放宽了这些限制，允许日裔美国人每月从个人银行账户中提取最多100美元。但事情很快发生了变化。罗斯福于1942年2月19日签署了第9066号行政命令。鉴于该文件的重要性，有必要广泛引用:

In Executive Order 9066 lay the germ for one of the more shameful stanzas in United States history: the forced imprisonment of American citizens in internment camps. In total, the United States opened ten of these concentration camps in seven different states between March and October 1942, imprisoning almost 120,000 men, women, and children whose only crime was being of Japanese descent. On 18 December 1944, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Ex parte Mitsuye Endo¹⁾ that the United States Government could not detain any citizen without cause. This, in effect, declared the illegality of Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066. Roosevelt was made aware of the decision before it was made public, and on 17 December he released Public Proclamation No. 21 which repealed his own Executive Order. Nine of the ten concentration camps were closed by the end of 1945.

在第9066号行政命令中，孕育了美国历史上最可耻的一幕：将美国公民强行关进集中营。1942年3月至10月间，美国在7个不同的州共开设了10个这样的集中营，关押了近12万名男女老少，他们的唯一罪行是日本人后裔。1944年12月18日，最高法院在Ex parte Mitsuye Endo一案²⁾中一致裁定，美国政府不能无故拘留任何公民。这实际上宣布了罗斯福的9066号行政命令的非法性。罗斯福在公开之前就知道了这个决定，12月17日，他发布了第21号公开公告，废除了自己的行政命令。到1945年底，10个集中营中有9个被关闭。

Diary: December 12 1941 (1980) shows the ways in which Shimomura fused his post-World War 2 Pop Art style with traditional style of Japanese ukiyo-e prints. The subject is one that is wonderfully personal for the artist, for in this work Shimomura is creating a work that specifically references a diary entry his own grandmother penned on 12 December 1941 in which she referenced Roosevelt’s decision that day to allow Japanese Americans to withdraw $100 a month from their own bank accounts.

《日记：1941年12月12日》（1980）展示了岛村将二战后的波普艺术风格与日本传统的浮世绘版画风格相融合的方式。这个主题对艺术家来说是一个非常私人的，因为在这件作品中，岛村的创作特别参考了他祖母在1941年12月12日写下的日记：她在日记中提到了罗斯福在当天决定允许日裔美国人每月从自己的银行账户中提取100美元。

Thus, while we can presume that the young woman in the painting is Shimomura’s grandmother, she sits in a traditional Japanese home (despite the fact that she immigrated to the United States in the early twentieth century). She wears a kimono and sits upon a tatami mat, while her diary and ink brush rest on the desk before her. She is surrounded by rice-paper screens; one partially obscures her left side while the screen left of center shows the silhouette of a standing male figure. His hands are seemingly placed upon his hips, and there seems to be a cape that flutters in a strong breeze. It becomes clear, then, that this is not just any man. It is Superman.

因此，虽然我们可以推测画中的年轻女子是岛村的祖母，但她坐在一个传统的日本家庭中（尽管她是在20世纪初移民到美国的）。她穿着和服，坐在榻榻米上，面前的桌子上放着她的日记本和毛笔。她被米纸屏风包围着，其中一个屏风部分遮住了她的左侧，而中间左边的屏风则是一个站立的男性人物的轮廓。他的双手似乎放在臀部，似乎有一件披风，在强风中飘动。很明显，这不是普通的男人。他是超人。

There are at least two ways to interpret this depiction of the silhouetted Superman. The first is that of a kind of protector. Since his debut in Action Comics #1 in June 1938, the Man of Steel was made famous for protecting the innocent, defeating the bad guys, and promoting “Truth, Justice, and the American Way.” But in the early 1940s, the covers of the Superman comic books made it clear that the enemy of Superman (and by association, the United States) was not just Lex Luthor (who first appeared in April 1940), but also the Axis Powers. For example, on the cover of Superman No. 17 (July-August 1942), Superman triumphantly stands, clinching a caricature of Adolph Hitler in his right hand and a caricature of Emperor Hirohito of Japan in his left. In the following issue (September-October 1942) Superman rides a red torpedo and the text reads, “War savings bonds and stamps do the job on the Japanazis!” The cover from the issue dated January 1944 (Superman #26) shows Superman about to ring the Liberty Bell with the head of a German soldier who wears a swastika armband.

至少有两种方式来解释这种对超人剪影的描述。第一种是一种保护者的形象。自1938年6月在《动作漫画》第1期中首次亮相以来，“钢铁之躯”就以保护无辜、打败坏人、宣传”真理、正义和美国之道”而闻名。但在20世纪40年代初，超人漫画书的封面明确指出，超人的敌人（也包括美国）不仅仅是莱克斯·卢瑟（1940年4月首次出现），还有轴心国。例如，在《超人》第17期（1942年7-8月）的封面上，超人胜利地站在那里，右手夹着一幅阿道夫·希特勒，左手夹着日本裕仁天皇。在接下来的一期（1942年9月至10月）中，超人骑着红色的鱼雷，文字内容是：“战争储蓄债券和邮票在日本鬼子身上做文章！”。1944年1月号（《超人》第26期）的封面上，超人即将用一个戴着纳粹臂章的德国士兵的头颅敲响自由钟。

It is clear, then, that Superman protects the United States from all enemies, both domestic and foreign. And given the the distrust of the United States government toward Japanese Americans, it is seems easy to recognize that the Superman in Shimomura’s painting is not here to protect the seated young woman; he is there to both menace and survey her. Her posture—she sits with her right hand supporting her head—suggests a kind of dreamlike state, and a lack of awareness of the powerful, shadowed figure who appears ready to read the intimate thoughts she is set to write in her diary. In doing so, Shimomura suggests Superman (and, by proxy, the United States government) believed that his grandmother was threat, a possible extension of Hitler, Hirohito, and the “Japanazis” around the world.

很明显，超人是保护美国不受国内和国外一切敌人的伤害，而考虑到美国政府对日裔美国人的不信任，似乎很容易认识到：岛村画中的超人并不是来保护这个坐着的年轻女人的，他是来威胁和打量她的。她的姿势——她坐在那里，右手托着头——暗示着一种梦境，以及对这个强大的、影子般的人物缺乏认识，而这个人物似乎准备阅读她准备写在日记里的私密想法。岛村以此暗示超人（以及，美国政府）认为他的祖母是威胁，可能是希特勒、裕仁和世界各地的“日本人”的延伸。