中国网站品牌栏目（频道）
这是一只凶猛的华南虎？错，她们是3个裸体模特——左右两人的背部是华南虎的眼睛和耳朵，中间一人的背上则是老虎的额部和鼻子。著名人体彩绘艺术家及摄影师克雷格•特雷西应英国一个拯救中国虎的慈善组织之邀创作了这个华南虎形象，以表示对拯救华南虎项目的支持。在2010年联合国宣布的严重濒危动物中，华南虎高居榜首，成为最需要保护的动物之一。拯救中国虎国际基金会组织一直致力于拯救中国虎以及老虎所赖以生存的整个生态系统，他们希望通过这个人体彩绘作品在中国虎年到来之际，唤起人们对华南虎以及中国虎的关注，并筹得善款帮助拯救这些濒危的动物。
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Craig Tracy's tiger image now only survives in pictures |
For centuries, artists have painted the naked female form in all its exquisite beauty – but not like this.
You are looking not into the eyes of the tiger but at the backs of two lithe models. And the jaw of the beautiful beast is actually the shapely posterior of a third.
The work of art was created by body-painter Craig Tracy at the request of a British charity dedicated to saving the subject of the picture.
This year the United Nations has put the tiger at the top of its list of ‘most important’ endangered animals to be saved in 2010. And, among those species, the most perilously close to extinction is the beautiful South China Tiger.
The principal charity dedicated to their salvation, London-based Save China’s Tigers, asked Craig to perform his magic to publicize their plight.
He did so by inviting three models into his New Orleans studio and placing them in the precise positions that would allow him to create the shape of a tiger’s head. With his background already colored in, the models were then painted in stages.
The resulting image will help raise awareness and money for the charity to mark the Sunday, February 14, start of Chinese New Year – which for 2010 is the Year of the Tiger.
The charity’s founder Li Quan, a London-based fashion executive turned conservationist, said yesterday: “The South China Tiger is assumed to be extinct in the wild. The last credible sighting was 25 years ago.
“But we have successfully bred healthy cubs from adults loaned to us from zoos. Eventually, they will be relocated to their former habitat, in one of two purposely established nature reserves in China.”
Save China’s Tigers was launched in London in 2000 by Li Quan and her American husband, investment banker Stuart Bray. The project, involving the purchase of a 33,000-hectare reserve in South Africa’s Free State and Northern Cape Province, has since cost more than £12million and needs £250,000 a year to maintain. Eventual relocation to China will involve at least as much again for each new colony founded.
The most prolific of the breeding adults on the reserve are the romantic duo of Madonna and her amorous mate Tiger Woods, who has so far fathered seven cubs.
“Since the Chinese Year of the Tiger coincides with Valentine’s Day this year,’ says Li Quan, ‘we hope for further offspring from this pair!”
The Chinese Year of the Tiger occurs every 12 year and honours courage, passion, self-reliance, friendliness, hope and resilience.
“The tiger needs all those virtues to be shown by mankind,” says Li Quan.
Tigers strode the planet two million years before Man, whose first art form was likely to have been body daubing.
But now revived by Craig Tracy, who is well-known in his native America, it has taken on a whole new meaning.
He says: “Artists throughout the centuries have painted, sculpted and interpreted the human form but few have physically used the human form as their fine art medium.”
Li Quan says: “I hope this stunning work will inspire people to help our cause.
“We hope to start returning our tigers to the wild within the next two years. All the Earth’s tiger species originated from China two million years ago and it is wonderful that we can now be planning to bring them home.
“Then we will again hear the wild roar of this magnificent animal.”
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(Agencies)
（中国日报网英语点津 Helen 编辑）
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