介绍 | Introduction

落基山脉的首次隆起，弗兰特山脉，向 19 世纪的先驱者揭示了美国西部的壮丽，并提出了如何应对它的问题。几乎每个人都认为这里的地理位置令人惊叹；派克在 1806 年将其描述为“崇高”，而凯瑟琳·李·贝茨最终在他发现的山顶上写下了“美丽的美国”。尽管如此，作为现实，大多数人都希望改变和开发这个地区。山仍然代表着边疆，尽管我们的期望已经成熟，土地的意义也因此发生了变化——我们希望与它和谐相处。与我们的前辈相比，这似乎是一个温和的目标，但实际上这场斗争是绝望的，因为它也是与我们自己生活，反对我们自己的创造物、城市以及它滋生的厌恶和虚无主义。

许多人怀疑地指着一排排的房屋和广告牌问，为什么要拍下这些？这个问题听起来很简单，但它却暗示了一个难题——为什么要在国家公园等未受破坏的地方以外的任何地方睁开眼睛？

一个原因当然是我们不住在公园里，我们需要改善家里的东西，而要做到这一点，我们必须毫不犹豫地看到事实。例如，我们需要看到一位老妇人在 8 月的高温下被迫在 50 英亩的停车场上搬运杂货；然后我们知道，从投机者的安慰谎言中解脱出来，我们必须重新开始。画家 Arthur Dove 是对的：

我们还没有做出合脚的鞋子

像沙子

也没有像水一样合身的衣服

也没有像空气一样适合的思想

有很多事情要去完成。。。

然而，自相矛盾的是，我们还需要看到整个自然和人造的地理环境，才能体验和平。所有的土地，无论发生了什么，都有一种优雅，一种绝对持久的美。从这个意义上说，这些照片的主题不是房屋或高速公路，而是所有形式的源泉，光。 

弗兰特山脉令人惊讶，因为它被如此丰富的光所覆盖，以至于平庸是不可能的。即使是我们因投机者的贪婪而讨厌的被分割成碎片的土地，在一天中的某些时候也会发出干燥、冰冷的光辉。

许多人现在认为，城镇是对神圣景观的入侵，看看我们在美国造成的肮脏，谁能否认呢？但即使我们看到我们所做所为的危害并决心纠正它，我们也看到归根结底没有任何东西可以侵入。没有什么能永久削弱太阳的肯定。图片提醒我们这一点，因此我们可以与诗人西奥多·罗特克（Theodore Roethke）一起说：“与我同在，Whitman，这目录的作者：世界于我的再次侵入“。

The first uplift of the Rocky Mountains, the Front Range, revealed to nineteenthcentury pioneers the grandeur of the American West, and established the prob-lem of how to respond to it. Nearly everyone thought the geography amazing;Pike described it in 1806 as "sublime," and Kathryn Lee Bates eventually wrote"America the Beautiful" from the top of the peak he discovered. Nonetheless, as apractical matter most people hoped to alter and exploit the region.The mountains still synopsize the frontier, though our expectations have matured and the significance of the land has therefore changed--we want to livewith it harmoniously. This may seem a tame goal when compared to that of ourforebears, but in fact the struggle is desperate because it is also to live withourselves, against our own creation, the city, and the disgust and nihilism itbreeds.

Many have asked, pointing incredulously toward a sweep of tract homes andbillboards, why picture that? The question sounds simple, but it implies a difficultissue-_why open our eyes anywhere but in undamaged places like nationalparks?

One reason is, of course, that we do not live in parks, that we need to improvethings at home, and that to do it we have to see the facts without blinking. Weneed to watch, for example, as an old woman, alone, is forced to carry hergroceries in August heat over a fifty acre parking lot; then we know, safe from thecomforting lies of profiteers, that we must begin again. Arthur Dove, the painter,was right:

We have not yet made shoes that fit

like sand

Nor clothes that fit like water

Nor thoughts that fit like air

There is much to be done . .

Paradoxically, however, we also need to see the whole geography, naturaland man-made, to experience a peace; all land, no matter what has happened toit, has over it a grace, an absolutely persistent beauty.The subject of these pictures is, in this sense, not tract homes or freewaysbut the source of all Form, light. The Front Range is astonishing because it is over-spread with light of such richness that banality is impossible. Even subdivisions, which we hate for the obscenity of the speculator's greed, are at certain times of day transformed to a dry, cold brilliance.

Towns, many now suggest, are intrusions on sacred landscapes, and whocan deny it, looking at the squalor we have laid across America? But even as wesee the harm of our work and determine to correct it, we also see that nothingcan, in the last analysis, intrude. Nothing permanently diminishes the affirmation of the sun. Pictures remind us of this, so that we are able to say with the poetTheodore Roethke, "Be with me, Whitman, maker of catalogues: For the world invades me again."