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In this part you are going to read two passages about the painters C é zanne and Picasso respectively. After reading you are going to practise your comprehension and learn to use some English words and phrases.
● What type of paintings do you like best: still life, landscape, or figure painting? Why?
● Whatdo you know about Impressionism and Cubism?
● What do you know about Cézanne?
Admittedly , there are paintings by Cézanne which are not so easily understood. His Still Life may not look too promising . How awkward it seems! The fruit-bowl is so clumsily drawn that its foot does not even rest in the middle. The table not only slopes from left to right, it also looks as if it were tilted forward. Cézanne gives us a patchwork of colour dabs which makes the napkin look as if it were made of tinfoil . Small wonder that Cézanne's paintings were at first laughed at as sad daubs . But the reason for this remarkable clumsiness is not far to seek . Cézanne had ceased to take any of the traditional methods of painting for granted . He had decided to start from scratch as if no painting had been done before him. Cézanne had chosen his motifs to study some specific problems that he wanted to solve such as the relation of colour to modelling . A brightly coloured round solid such as an apple was an ideal motif to explore this question.
We know that he was interested in the achievement of a balanced design. That is why he stretched the bowl to the left so as to fill in a void . As he wanted to study all shapes on the table and their relationship he simply tilted it forward to make them come into view . Perhaps the example shows how it happened that Cézanne became“the father of modern art.”In his effort to achieve a sense of depth without sacrificing the brightness of colours, to achieve an orderly arrangement without sacrificing the sense of depth, there was one thing he was prepared to sacrifice if need be : the conventional “correctness”of outline . He was not trying to distort nature; but he did not mind very much if it became distorted in some minor detail provided this helped him to obtain the desired effect.Cézanne did not aim at creating the illusion of space. He wanted rather to convey the feeling of solidity and depth, and he found he could do that without conventional draughtsmanship . He hardly realized that this example of indifference to“correct drawing”would start a landslide in art.
Paul Cézanne 保罗·塞尚 (1839-1906)。法国后期印象画派的代表人物，毕生追求表现形式，对运用色彩、造型有新的创造，被称为“现代绘画之父”(the father of modern art)。
1 Global understanding
Answer the following questions.
(1) What is the passage mainly about?
(2) What does the author want to illustrate with one of Cézanne's paintings of still life?
(3) What conclusion can we draw from the passage?
2 Detailed understanding
Choose the best answers according to the passage.
(1) Cézanne's purpose of drawing the Still Life mentioned in the passage was to___.
A. study the colour of an apple
B. study the relation of colour to modelling
C. show off his excellence in the rendering of an apple
D. make a comparison with each object
(2) Cézanne happened to become“the father of modern art”because___.
A. his painting skill was much better than most of the masters at that time
B. he could display his skillful treatment of still life
C. he didn't care about any of the traditional rules of painting
D. he was much older than other painting masters
(3) Which of the following is not mentioned about Cézanne's Still Life in the passage?
A. The table slopes from left to right.
B. The bowl is stretched to the left so as to fill in a void.
C. The table looks as if it were tilted forward.
D. The apple is painted brightly and beautifully.
(4) Why was Cézanne so interested in painting the apple?
A. He wanted to display his assured treatment.
B. He wanted to enjoy the wonderful smell.
C. He thought the apple was an ideal motif to explore the problem.
D. He thought it was easy to scratch the colour of the apple.
(5) From this passage, we can know that Cézanne was fascinated with___.
A. painting still life
B. skillful painting methods
C. a balanced design of the painting
D. the treatment of the table and fruit
1 Make sure you know the words in the table below. Choose the correct word to complete each of the following sentences. Change the form where necessary.
(1) Today, we must break the wall of silence and_____to the welfare of this group of people.
(2) President Bush says he expects Russia to meet its commitment to_____all military activities in Georgia and withdraw all forces that have entered the country in recent days.
(3)I had no intention of becoming an artist, but to have enough skill to_____an idea in a drawing would be useful.
(4) This journalist_____the spokesman's remarks.
(5) The fat man_____got himself into the car.
(6)_____that no objection is raised, we will set back the program.
(7) His mind could no longer distinguish between_____and reality.
(8)_____changes have taken place in China these years.
2 Translate the following sentences, paying special attention to the different uses of the same word in general English and in painting.
(1) model
a. That model won't go into production before late 1990.
b. Tom has been modelling for Sandra for eleven years.
(2) outline
a. The man's figure was outlined by the light.
b. She pencilled the rough outline of the mountain in front of her house.
(3) distort
a. I don't think I'm distorting her argument.
b. He distorts the images in his painting.
(4) promising
a. A good education has given her a promising future.
b. I believe you are a promising young painter.
(5) conventional
a. The conventional answer is no when you dislike something.
b. He employed conventional techniques to express his interpretation of life in his painting masterpiece.
3 I dentify what functions the following expressions and sentence patterns convey in Passage A and use each of them to introduce a painting work.
(1) aim at
(2) illusion of space
(3) sense of depth
(4) come into view
(5) still life...
(6) take...for granted
4 Translate the following paragraph about the People's Artist Qi Baishi into English.
人民艺术家齐白石（1863—1957）是中国现代杰出画家、书法家、篆刻家。他重视创新，不断变化，创造了独特的风格。其所画作品都洋溢着对生活的热爱。其篆刻朴茂有力，书法刚劲沉着，诗文、画论也有独到之处。齐白石画的虾栩栩如生、情趣盎然。懂得笔墨也善于操纵笔墨的齐白石，他在下笔画虾时，既能巧妙地利用墨色和笔痕表现虾的结构和质感，又能以富有金石味的笔法描绘虾须和长臂钳，使纯墨色的结构里也有着丰富的意味，蕴含着高妙的技巧。
Early artists’ simplification of their subjects made their paintings look flat. Perhaps there were means to avoid that flatness , to build up the picture of simple objects and yet retain a sense of solidity and depth . It was this problem which led Picasso back to Cézanne.
In one of his letters, Cézanne advised a young painter to look at nature in terms of spheres , cones and cylinders . Picasso and his friends decided to take this advice literally .
I suppose they reasoned somewhat like this:“Let us follow Cézanne's example. If we think of an object, let us say a violin, it does not appear before the eye of our mind as we would see it with our bodily eyes. We can, and in fact do, think of its various aspects at the same time. Some of them stand out so clearly that we feel that we can touch and handle them; others are somehow blurred . And yet this strange medley of images represents more of the‘real’violin than any single snapshot could ever contain.”This, I suppose, was the reasoning which led to such paintings as Picasso's still life of a violin.
The scroll and one peg are seen from the side as we imagine them when we think of a violin. The sound-holes, on the other hand, are seen as from in front—they would not be visible from the side.The curve of the rim is greatly exaggerated , as we are apt to over-estimate the steepness of such curves when thinking of the feeling it gives us to run our hand along the sides of such an instrument. The bow and the strings float somewhere in space; the strings even occur twice, once related to the front view,once towards the volute .
1 Global understanding
Match the main ideas with the corresponding paragraphs.
2 Detailed understanding
Decide whether the following statements are true (T) or false (F).
______(1) Cézanne advised a young painter that when he represented an object he should think of it as a round one.
______(2) Picasso painted the various parts of a violin as he could imagine it in his mind.
______(3) Picasso believed what we saw with our mind's eye was the same as that we saw with our bodily eyes.
______(4) The reasoning behind Picasso's still life of a violin was that the image we see is different from what we imagine.
______(5) Picasso and his friends decided to learn from Cézanne to represent things as they appear to their eyes.
1 Make sure you know the words in the table below. Choose the correct word to complete each of the following sentences. Change the form where necessary.
(1) He refused to allow his secretary to____________confidential letters.
(2) The painting____________the scene of a bumper （丰富的） harvest.
(3) The steamy windows____________the view.
(4) She is always____________when she tells something she's done.
(5) This village still____________its old world character （古香古色） .
(6) In comparison to their____________, Mondrian's paintings have depth.
(7)____________is not the only criterion to judge a realistic painting.
(8) Van Gogh's exploration in art finally____________expressionism, which has long been one of the most popular art movements.
2 Translate the following sentences, paying special attention to the different uses of the same word in general English and in painting.
(1) solidity
a. Allow yourself to follow his teaching and to feel—well, we would say a sense of solidity underneath your feet.
b. Many people admire the solidity of Rembrandt's painting.
(2) flat
a. It's cheaper for you to hire a flat when you stay in Europe.
b. Some pictures look solid and some are flat . They are different styles of painting.
(3) image
a.When they think of the term brand,generally an image or a symbol such as a logo, or a tag line come to mind.
b. The aim of his sculpture is to create an image of a romantic musician rather than a quiet thinker.
(4) still
a. She sat alone by the lake and stared at the still waters of the lake all the afternoon.
b. Even before a still life, like an apple or a bottle, it is surprising to suddenly discover a shape, a profile, or a color.
(5) represent
a. I was ever so proud to be an athlete and to represent China.
b. Any painting, sculpture or design is to represent or express some ideas of the artist.
3 I dentify what functions the following expressions and sentence patterns convey in Passage B and use each of them to introduce a painting work.
(1) the eye of one's mind
(2)...are apt to over-estimate
(3) stand out
(4) image of
(5) in space