铅中毒，而后成名艺术家
How Important Is Lead Poisoning to Becoming a Legendary Artist?
铅中毒，而后成名艺术家？
A self-portrait of Goya being attended to by his doctor, 1820
《戈雅自画像——被医生照顾》，1820
For masters who used lead paints, such as Michelangelo and Goya, art was literally pain.
In 1713, Italian physician Bernardinus Ramazzini described in his De Morbis Artificum Diatriba a mysterious set of symptoms he was noticing among artists:
“Of the many painters I have known, almost all I found unhealthy … If we search for the cause of the cachectic and colorless appearance of the painters, as well as the melancholy feelings that they are so often victims of, we should look no further than the harmful nature of the pigments…”
对于使用铅制颜料的绘画大师，比如：米开朗基罗、戈雅，艺术意味着实实在在的痛楚。
1713年，意大利医生纳迪诺·拉马奇尼(Bernardinus Ramazzini)[1]在其著作《工人的疾病》(De Morbis Artificum Diatriba)中，描述了他从艺术家身上察觉出的一些神秘的症状：
“在我所认识的画家中，几乎无一健康…他们多数都体质孱弱、面容苍白、多愁善感，其罪魁祸首就是那些有害的颜料。”
He was one of the first to make the connection between paint and artists health, but it would take centuries for painters to switch to less-harmful materials, even as medicine gradually clued into the bodily havoc “saturnism” could wreak.
The 1834 London Medical and Surgical Journal describes sharp stomach pains occurring in patients with no other evidence of intestinal disease, thus leading the authors to suspect that this “painter’s colic” was a “nervous affection” of the intestines that occurs when lead “is absorbed into the system.”
拉马奇尼是最早将颜料与画家的健康联系在一起的人之一。尽管医学逐渐发现并告知人们铅毒对人体会造成极大的危害，然而，直到几百年后，画家们才改用其他危害较小的颜料。
1834年，《伦敦医学与外科杂志》(London Medical and Surgical Journal)描述了一种在病患中发现的没有肠道疾病伴随的剧烈的腹痛。于是，撰文的作者便怀疑“画家们的急性腹痛”可能是铅渗入人体后，肠道出现的一种“神经性疾病”。
Paints weren’t the only source of lead overdose in past centuries, though. Through the 1500s, lead was a common sweetener in wine, in the form of “litharge,” causing periodic outbreaks of intestinal distress throughout Europe. Occasionally, lead was even used as a medicine; the 11th-century Persian physician Avicenna’s Canon mentioned its usefulness in treating diarrhea. In the Middle Ages, lead could be found in makeup, chastity belts, and spermicides.
Though typesetters, tinkers, and drinkers of lead-poisoned wine fell victim to saturnism, the disease was perhaps most widespread among those who worked with paint.
不过，在过去的几百年中，并不只是绘画颜料中含有大量的铅。在整个16世纪，铅（主要是以铅黄[2]的形式）都是葡萄酒中的一种普通甜味剂。这就导致当时在欧洲间断性地爆发肠道疾病。少数情况下，铅还会被作为药物对待；11世纪波斯医生阿维森纳(Avicenna)[3]的《药典》(Canon)中就记载了可以用铅治疗腹泻。在中世纪时，铅还被用来制作化妆品、贞洁带和杀精剂。
尽管排字工人、炉匠和含铅酒类的饮用者深受铅毒所害，但中毒最广的恐怕还是跟颜料打交道的人。
The symptoms of this “colic” ranged, but they often included a “cadaverous-looking” pallor, tooth loss, fatigue, painful stomach aches, partial paralysis, and gout, a buildup of uric acid that causes arthritis—all of which resemble the symptoms of chronic lead poisoning seen today. In fact, the ailments that many renowned artists experienced didnt just prompt their gloomy works—they might have been caused by them, too.
Lead poisoning among historical figures is famously difficult to prove, in part because the condition was not known or recognized in most of their lifetimes. We can’t know whether the delusions, depression, and gout many Renaissance masters experienced can be attributed to their paint or just their physiologies.
急性腹痛患者的症状会时而改变，不过，通常都在一定的范围内，这包括：脸色苍白、牙齿脱落、身体倦怠、剧烈腹痛、局部痉挛、痛风及尿酸累积引发的关节炎。所有这些在今天看来都像是患上慢性铅中毒后的症状。事实上，知名艺术家患有的病症不单促使他们创作了那些弥漫着阴郁气息的作品——病症的元凶也许就是这些作品本身。
众所周知，著名历史人物的铅中毒难以被证实。其中一部分原因在于，他们平生的身体状况不为人所知或发现。我们无法确定那些在文艺复兴时期的绘画大师中出现的幻觉、抑郁和中风是由铅中毒导致的，还是只是缘于他们自身的生理机能。
Julio Montes-Santiago, and internist in Vigo, Spain, recently evaluated the existing evidence of lead poisoning among artists across five centuries for a new paper in Progress in Brain Research. Based on the available descriptions of their materials and symptoms, history’s most famous sufferers of lead poisoning, he argues, likely included Michelangelo Buonarroti, Francisco Goya, Candido Portinari, and possibly Vincent Van Gogh.
近日，西班牙维戈市[4]的内科医生胡里奥·蒙特·圣地亚哥(Julio Montes-Santiago)研究了过去500年中艺术家的铅中毒现象，并对现存的相关证据进行了评估。这篇论文刊登在《脑科学研究进展》(Progress in Brain Research)杂志中。蒙特·圣地亚哥指出，根据文献中对绘画材料和画家病症的描述，历史上最著名的铅中毒受害者恐怕包括：米开朗基罗·博纳罗蒂(Michelangelo Buonarroti)、弗朗西斯科·戈雅(Francisco Goya)[5]、坎迪多·波尔蒂纳里(Candido Portinari)[6]及文森特·梵高(Vincent Van Gogh)。
Michelangelo in The School of Athens, 1509.
《雅典学派》中的米开朗基罗，1509
Michelangelo, for example, was painted into Raphaels fresco, The School of Athens, with a deformed, likely arthritic knee, according to the author. That, combined with letters from Michelangelo in which he complains of passing stones in his urine, suggests to Montes-Santiago that he might have suffered from paint- and wine-induced gout.
Many art historians think Van Gogh might have suffered from epilepsy and bipolar disorder, but Montes-Santiago argues that lead poisoning likely contributed to his delusions and hallucinations. The artist was known to have sucked on his brushes, possibly because lead has a sweet aftertaste. Meanwhile, other scholars have disputed the lead poisoning hypothesis, arguing that the root of Van Gogh’s distress was porphyria, malnutrition, and absinthe abuse.
蒙特·圣地亚哥在书中写道，在拉斐尔的壁画《雅典学派》中，米开朗基罗的膝盖看上去有些变形，似乎患有关节炎。另外，在其书信中，他也抱怨过自已尿液中的结石。这些资料让蒙特·圣地亚哥认为米开朗基罗很可能患有痛风，并且这是由其所使用的颜料和饮用的葡萄酒导致的。
许多艺术史学家认为梵高可能患有癫痫和躁狂抑郁性精神病，但蒙特·圣地亚哥认为铅中毒也许才是导致其妄想和幻觉的根源。传说梵高有吮吸笔刷的习惯，也许是由于铅有微甜的回味。与此同时，另外一些学者反对这种铅中毒的假说，他们认为梵高的忧郁特质是由紫质症[7]、营养不良和酗酒（苦艾酒）引起的。
Goya occasionally applied his paints directly to the canvas with his fingers, which Montes-Santiago argues is one reason he experienced problems like constipation, trembling hands, weakness of the limbs, blindness, vertigo, and tinnitus. In his famous 1820 self-portrait, Goya painted himself being embraced by his doctor.
Musicians Beethoven and Handel also might have been afflicted with saturnism, but not because of the nature of their craft. Samples of Beethoven’s hair examined by the Pfeiffer Research Center in Illinois showed high lead concentrations, possibly as a result of the “high content of lead in the Hungarian wines that the musician drank, the repeated biting of his lead pencils, and lead-rich medicines prescribed by his doctor,” Montes-Santiago notes.
有时，戈雅会直接用手指蘸颜料作画，蒙特·圣地亚哥认为这可能是导致其便秘、手抖、四肢无力、眼瞎、头晕及耳鸣的一个原因。闻名于世的戈雅自画像创作于1820年，画中的戈雅依偎在医生的怀抱中。
音乐家贝多芬和亨德尔[8]大概也受铅毒所害，不过，却并非行业属性使然。根据位于伊利诺斯州的普菲佛研究中心(the Pfeiffer Research Center)的检测结果，贝多芬的头发样本中含有大量的铅。蒙特·圣地亚哥写道，究其原因可能“与饮用铅含量较高的匈牙利葡萄酒、经常咬铅笔及医生所开的富铅药物有关。
The best evidence for lead poisoning, though, exists for Candido Portinari, the 20th-century Brazilian painter of massive, neorealist murals. Portinari used paints that were similar to those used by Van Gogh and was diagnosed with saturnism after digestive hemorrhages prompted a hospitalization in 1954.
He was advised by doctors to switch materials, and he tried, but he ultimately returned to his old paints. He died at age 58 in 1962 after a bout of severe digestive bleeding.
然而，最确凿无疑的铅中毒患者莫过于坎迪多·波尔蒂纳里——这个创作大幅新写实主义壁画的巴西画家。波尔蒂纳里所使用的颜料与梵高的类似。他先是出现了肠道出血的情况，之后被诊断出了铅中毒。在1954年，他不得不进行住院治疗。
医生建议他更换绘画颜料，他照做了，但最终还是改用了以前的颜料。1962年，波尔蒂纳里又一次出现严重的肠道出血，之后便去世了，享年58岁。
Though some of the earlier artists may not have known about the connection between their materials and their health, Portinari certainly must have.
尽管一些早期的画家并不清楚他们所使用的颜料与自身健康之间的关系，波尔蒂纳里却非常清楚这一点。
"Discovery of the Land" by Portinari, 1941
波尔蒂纳里的《发现新大陆》，1941
By the mid-1800s, the health impacts of lead had become clear. An 1836 book notes, for example, “The business of a Painter or Varnisher is generally, and not without reason, considered an unhealthy one. Many of the substances which he is necessarily in the habit of employing are of a nature to do injury both to the nerves and the inside.”
19世纪中叶，人们已清楚地认识到了铅对人体的危害。比如，在1836年的一本书中就记录了这样的话，“通常来讲，画家和油漆匠的行当对人体健康不利，这点已有相关根据。他们对工作中不可避免要用到的材料也许感到习以为常，但这些材料却会对人体的神经及器官造成很大的伤害。”
According to Montes-Santiago, though, Portinari seemed to strongly prefer working with the lead paints, reportedly saying “They forbid me to live,” about the doctors who urged him to give them up.
“Sometimes, art hurts,” Montes-Santiago writes. “But it also can save.”
然而，根据蒙特·圣地亚哥的研究，波尔蒂纳里似乎十分偏好使用铅制颜料。据说波尔蒂纳里在谈及那些敦促他停止使用铅制颜料的医生们时说，“他们不让我活下去。”
蒙特·圣地亚哥写道，“有时，艺术会给人带来痛楚，但它也可以延展生命。”
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译注：
[1]纳迪诺·拉马奇尼(Bernardinus Ramazzini): (1633 – 1714)意大利医生，他是最早提倡用金鸡纳皮（Cinchona Bark）（从中提取金鸡纳霜碱，又称奎宁）治疗疟疾的人之一。对医学最大贡献是在治疗职业病方面，主要成果记录在其著作《工人的疾病》中。
[2]铅黄:一氧化铅，化学式PbO，俗称铅黄、黄丹、密陀僧。为两性氧化物，常温时为淡黄色结晶粉末。用作颜料铅白、制造铅皂、冶金助溶剂、油漆催干剂、陶瓷原料、橡胶硫化促进剂、杀虫剂，铅盐塑料稳定剂原料，铅玻璃工业原料，铅盐类工业的中间原料。少量用作中药和用于蓄电池工业，
[3]阿维森纳(Avicenna)：(980～1037)又称伊本.西那。塔吉克人，生于布哈拉附近。中世纪波斯哲学家、医学家、自然科学家、文学家。所著《医典》是十七世纪以前亚洲、欧洲广大地区的主要医学教科书和参考书。主要著作还有《治疗论》、《知识论》等。
[4]维戈（Vigo）：西班牙西北部的一座港城，加利西亚自治区第一大城，面积109.1平方公里，人口293,725人（2005年普查）。维戈是西甲著名足球俱乐部维戈塞尔塔的所在地。
[5]弗朗西斯科·戈雅(Francisco Goya):(1746-1828)全名：弗朗西斯科·何塞·德·戈雅-卢西恩特斯，西班牙浪漫主义画派画家。
[6]坎迪多·波尔蒂纳里(Candido Portinari)：(1903－1962），巴西最重要的画家之一。他也是绘画界新写实主义（Neorealism）风格突出且具有影响力的实践者。
[7]紫质症（Porphyria）：又称卟啉症、吡咯卟啉症。一种引发精神症状及皮肤对光过敏的血液病。
[8]格奥尔格·弗里德里希·亨德尔（George Frideric Handel）：（1685－1759），巴洛克音乐（Italian Baroque）的作曲家，出生于德国，后来定居并入籍英国，曾受聘为英国宫廷教堂乐长，写了约46出歌剧及36出神剧。最著名的神剧是《弥赛亚》（Messiah）、《水上音乐》组曲(Water Music)和《皇家烟火》（Music for the Royal Fireworks）。亨德尔晚年得了眼疾双目失明。
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