The later years of both Claude Monet and Edgar Degas were marked by failing vision and corresponding changes in the style of their paintings, creating an ambivalence about their later work among both their contemporaries and today's critics.

莫內和竇加這兩位畫家晚年為視力衰退所苦，相對的，也表現在他們畫風的轉變上，使他們當代和今天的畫評家，對他晚期的作品產生互相矛盾的看法。

Monet had cataracts that severely limited his color discrimination, which may help explain the increasingly muddied tone of his paintings from 1912 to 1923, when he had a cataract removed. After his surgery, he destroyed many later canvases.

莫內有白內障，這嚴重限制他辨識顏色的能力，這可能有助於解釋他1912至1923年的畫作愈來愈模糊的基調。他手術後，摧毀很多晚期的畫布。

And in Degas's work, the shading lines and details of the faces became increasingly blurred as his disease, probably a form of macular degeneration, progressed over 20 years. A French critic called his later sketches "the tragic witnesses of the battle of the artist against his infirmity."

至於竇加的作品，臉部陰暗的線條和細部，也隨著他的病，可能是一種黃斑病變持續了20年之久，視力愈來愈模糊。一位法國畫評家稱他晚期的素描「悲劇性的見證了藝術家和病魔的奮戰」。

In a recent article in The Archives of Ophthalmology, Dr. Michael F. Marmor, a professor of ophthalmology at Stanford, used computer simulations to create images of what these artists might have seen as their vision declined.

史丹福大學眼科學教授馬默博士最近在一篇發表於眼科學檔案的文章中，使用電腦模擬，創造出這些藝術家視力衰退後可能看見的影像。

"Here we can see ourselves what they were seeing through their eyes," Dr. Marmor said. "Critics have known that these men had failing vision, but I don't think they could appreciate what it meant to these artists. It gives both new respect for what they could do with limited vision, but also gives us reason to re-examine perhaps what these paintings mean in the evolution of these artists' style and work."

「從這裡，我們可以看見他們眼睛所見，」馬默博士說。「畫評家早已知道，這些人視力衰退，但我想，他們無法理解這對這些藝術家的意義。它不只使人對他們以有限的視力做畫產生新的敬意，也給我們理由，重新審視這些畫在這些畫家的風格和作品演化過程中，代表什麼意義。」

《詞解》
Im pressionists 印象派畫家
ambivalence 矛盾的看法
macular degeneration 黃斑病變
simulations 模擬
cataract 白內障
muddied 模糊
infirmity 病
ophthalmology 眼科學