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ramener ces formes à des notions exprimables, explicables.
English translation: Transform these forms into notions that could be expressed and explained.
GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)
French term or phrase:
ramener ces formes à des notions exprimables, explicables.
English translation:
Transform these forms into notions that could be expressed and explained.
15:21 May 4, 2020
The asker opted for community grading. The question was closed on 2020-05-08 08:55:27 based on peer agreement (or, if there were too few peer comments, asker preference.)
French to English translations [PRO] Art/Literary - Poetry & Literature
French term or phrase:ramener ces formes à des notions exprimables, explicables.
Description de l'etat d'esprit dans lequel l'artiste a peint son tableau :
"Après avoir découvert ces mondes aux formes parfaites, tels des fractales à la complexité infini, l’intérêt pour la géométrie sacrée arrive rapidement, comme une tentative de ramener ces formes à des notions exprimables, explicables"
Yes, quite. I can see we're both on the same wavelength here! As you say, the idea is very much more 'boils down to' or 'comes down to' — neither of which, sadly, would be in the right register here. I think we have some good suggestions here, even though I stand by my objections to certain others, for exactly the reasons we've both been saying.
ph-b (X)
France
Tony,
05:01 May 6, 2020
I agree that "to reduce" is perhaps not the best verb here, as I mentioned above, and it's for native speakers, not for me, to decide what the best verb would be. My earlier message was to point out that ramener... à... doesn't mean to "bring/steer back" here. How could anyone want to bring/steer these formes back to a state they never were in in the first place? On the basis of two reliable sources in French that I quoted, this is about their essence, about what they "boil down" to, as it were. See also: 3. Réduire à un état élémentaire ou plus simple ; diminuer. Ramener une fraction à sa plus simple expression. (https://www.dictionnaire-academie.fr/article/A9R0389). Choosing a verb that wouldn't convey this meaning would make the translation unsafe, unless you decide to go for poetic licence, which is a different matter.
"Bring/steer back" was not my first choice but knowing a bit more about the underlying idea now, I think it's possible. Etymologically, it's interesting to note that the word "reduce" originally derives from that meaning: "re" = back and "ducere" = to lead or steer.
Absolutely! That was the way I instinctively understood it (we use it a lot, for example, in Applied Maths) — and like yourself and Asker, I do think it is important to keep this specific sense, rather than just replace it with any old verb that seems applicable in EN. I woulld venture to suggest that rendering this idea correctly is central to the whole translation here. But as another user has mentioned, to use 'reduce' in EN is perhaps more problematic — certainly, we have the notion of 'simplify' or 'bring down to the viewer's level'; but there is a tendency to read a negative connotation into this, with the sense of 'diminish', which I feel would be highly unwelcome here, unless we are seeking to patronise viewers of this work: "The artist thought it would be too complicated for you to understand, so they have sought here to simplify it to make it easier for you"! Although it helps us understand the sense, we should perhaps not lose sight of the fact that the writer elected to use 'ramener' rather than 'réduire', which was after all available to them in FR.
I agree with you entirely about needing to keep the important sense of 'ramener. 'steer back' would not really be right here — it suggests more returning something to a state it was already in before, maybe 'putting something back on track' — think more 'réorienter'...
ph-b (X)
France
Hugues,
05:56 May 5, 2020
I understand ramener here as: RAMENER QQCH. À… : porter à un certain point de simplification ou d'unification (Le Grand Robert de la langue française). Also: III.A.2. Faire converger (plusieurs notions) vers un point de simplification et d'unification. Synon. réduire à. ( https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/ramener ). R&C translates it as "to reduce to". Don't know if this translation is possible here, but this idea should be kept.
I would like to keep the meaning of "ramener", which still litterally means "to bring back", or "to steer back"... I would like to keep that. Because the underlying idea is that you can go from forms to concepts, from concepts to forms, hence the verb "ramener", et non pas "amener". "Ramener" is used on purpose here.
Je n'ai pas plus de contexte moi même, n'ayant pas vu les peintures. En ce qui concerne mon "problème", je cherche juste une formulation intéressante, qui "sonne EN", et qui rende la traduction un peu créative.
peer agreement (net): +6