现代大学英语听力原文及答案unit

darker. Most of these pictures were painted in blue, and showed very clearly what the artist saw and felt. The paintings of this \

Picasso did not have to wait long for success. As he began to sell his pictures and become recognized as a painter, his pictures took on a warmer look. At the same time he began to paint with more and more freedom. He began to see people and places as simple forms or shapes. He no longer tried to make his pictures true to life.

The results at first seemed strange and not real. The

pictures were difficult to understand. His style of painting was known as Cubism, from the shape of the cube. Many people did not like this new and sometimes frightening style. But what great paintings give us is a view of life through one man's eyes, and every man's view is different.

Some of Picasso's paintings are rich, soft-colored, and beautiful. Others are strange with sharp, black outlines. But such paintings allow us to imagine things for ourselves. They can make our own view of the world sharper. For they force us to say to ourselves, \he see\

Birds, places, and familiar objects play a part in

Picasso's painting. But, when one thinks of him, one usually thinks of the way he painted the human face and figure. It is both beautiful and strange. Gertrude Stein wrote, \the face, the human body--these are all that exist for Picasso. The souls of people do not interest him. The reality of life is in the head, the face, and the body.\

Task 3

【答案】

American Decorative Arts and Sculpture:

colonial period, furniture, ceramics, ship models American Art:

The Far East, Islam, scroll painting, Buddhist sculpture, prints, the third millennium

European Decorative Arts and Sculpture:

Western, the fifth century, Medieval art, decorative arts, English silver, porcelain, the musical instruments Paintings:

11th century, 20th century, impressionists, Spanish, Dutch Textiles and Costumes:

high quality, a broad selection, weavings, laces, costumes, accessories 【原文】

Welcome to the Museum of Fine Arts. Boston has long been recognized as a leading center for the arts. One of the city's most important cultural resources is the Museum of Fine Arts, which houses collections of art from antiquity to the present day, many of them unsurpassed. Now let me introduce to you some of the collections here.

The Museum's collections of American decorative arts and sculpture range from the colonial period to the present time, with major emphasis on pre-Civil War New England. Furniture, silver, glass, ceramics, and sculpture are on exhibition, as well as an important collection of ship models. Favorite among museum-goers are the collection of 18th-century American furniture, the period rooms, and the superb collection of silver.

The Boston Museum's Asiatic collections are universally recognized as the most extensive assemblage to be found

anywhere under one roof. Artistic traditions of the Far East, Islam, and India are represented by objects dating from the third millennium B.C. to the contemporary era. The collections of Japanese and Chinese art are especially noteworthy. The variety of strengths in the collection are reflected in such areas as Japanese prints, Chinese and Japanese scroll painting, Chinese ceramics, and a renowned collection of Buddhist sculpture.

The Department of European Decorative Arts and Sculpture houses Western European works of art dating from the fifth

century through 1900. Outstanding among these holdings are the collection of medieval art and the collection of French 18th-century decorative arts. Also of exceptional importance are the English silver collection, the 18th-century English and French porcelain, and the collection of musical instruments.

The Museum has one of the world's foremost collections of paintings ranging from the 11th century to the early 20th century. This department is noted for French paintings from 1825 to 1900, especially works by the impressionists. The Museum's great collection of paintings by American artists

includes more than 60 works by John Singleton Copley and 50 by

Gilbert Stuart. There is also a strong representation of paintings from Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands.

The collection of textiles and costumes is ranked among the greatest in the world because of the high quality and rarity of individual pieces and because it has a broad selection of representative examples of weavings, embroideries, laces,

printed fabrics, costumes, and costume accessories. The textile arts of both eastern and western cultures are included, dating from pre-Christian times to the present.

Apart from what I have mentioned, the Museum has got much more to offer, for example, the collections of classical art, Egyptian and ancient Near Eastern art, and 20th-century art. I'll leave you to explore by yourselves and enjoy your time here.

Task 4

【答案】 A.

1) specialists, specialized settings, money, sharp division 2) conventions, some societies and periods 3) commodity B.

1) Because they lacked opportunity: The necessary social, educational, and economic conditions to create art rarely existed for women in the past.

2) Because the art of indigenous peoples did not share the same expressive methods or aims as Western art. C. 1) F 2) T 【原文】

The functions of the artist and artwork have varied widely during the past five thousand years. It our time, the artist is seen as an independent worker, dedicated to the expression of a unique subjective experience. Often the artist's role is that of the outsider, a critical or rebellious figure. He or she is a specialist who has usually undergone advanced training in a university department of art or theater, or a school with a particular focus, such as a music conservatory. In our

societies, works of art are presented in specialized settings: theaters, concert halls, performance spaces, galleries, and museum. There is usually a sharp division between the artist and her or his audience of non-artists. We also associate works of art with money: art auctions in which paintings sell for

millions of dollars, ticket sales to the ballet, or fundraising for the local symphony.

In other societies and parts of our own society, now and in the past, the arts are closer to the lives of ordinary people. For the majority of their history, artists have expressed the dominant beliefs of a culture, rather than rebelling against them. In place of our emphasis on the development of a personal or original style, artists were trained to conform to the conventions of their art form. Nor have artists always been specialists; in some societies and periods, all members of a society participated in art. The modern Western economic mode, which treats art as a commodity for sale, is not universal. In societies such as that of the Navaho, the concept of selling or creating a salable version of a sand painting would be

completely incomprehensible. Selling Navaho sand paintings created as part of a ritual would profane a sacred experience.

Artists' identities are rarely known before the Renaissance, with the exception of the period of Classical Greece, when artists were highly regarded for their individual talents and styles. Among artists who were known, there were fewer women than men. In the twentieth century, many female artists in all the disciplines have been recognized. Their absence in prior centuries does not indicate lack of talent, but reflects lack of opportunity. The necessary social, educational, and economic conditions to create art rarely existed for women in the past.

Artists of color have also been recognized in the West only recently. The reasons for this absence range from the simple--there were few Asians in America and Europe prior to the middle of the nineteenth century--to the complexities surrounding African Americans. The art of indigenous peoples, while far older than that of the West, did not share the same expressive methods or aims as Western art. Until recently, such art was ignored or dismissed in Western society by the dominant cultural gatekeepers.

Task 5

【答案】

A.1) a) 2) c) 3) b) B.

Ⅰ. observant, a dog, Leather Bar

Ⅱ. Magnificent visual memory, essentials Ⅲ. Rhythm, Dustmen

Ⅳ. everyday scenes, Her salty sense of humour C. 1) T 2) F 3) T 4) T 【原文】

Few artists can have made such an immediate impact on the public as Beryl Cook. At one moment she was completely unknown; at the next, so it seemed, almost everyone had heard of her. First, a few paintings appeared quietly in the window of a remote country antique shop. Then there were exhibitions in Plymouth, in Bristol, in London; an article in a colour

supplement, a television programme, a series of greetings cards and a highly successful book. Her rise was all the more

astonishing since she was completely untrained, and was already middle-aged by the time she began to paint.

Faced with such a series of events, the temptation is to discuss Beryl's art in the context of naive art. This seems to me a mistake, for she is a highly sophisticated and original painter, whose work deserves to be taken on its own terms. What are those terms If one actually meets Beryl, one

comes to understand them a little better. The pictures may seem extrovert, but she is not. For example, she is too shy to turn up at her own private viewings. Her pleasure is to stay in the background, observing.

And what an observer Beryl Cook is! It so happens that I was present when the ideas for two of the paintings in the present collection germinated. One is a portrait of my dog, a French bulldog called Bertie. When Beryl came to see me for the first time, he jumped up the stairs ahead of her, wearing his winter coat which is made from an old scarf. A few days later his picture arrived in the post. The picture called Leather Bar had its beginnings the same evening. I took Beryl and her husband John to a pub. There was a fight, and we saw someone being thrown out by the bouncers.

The point about these two incidents is that they both

happened in a flash. No one was carrying camera; there was no opportunity to make sketches. But somehow the essentials of the scene registered themselves on Beryl, and she was able to

record them later in an absolutely convincing and authoritative way.

The fact is she has two very rare gifts, not one. She has a magnificent visual memory, and at same time she is able to rearrange and simplify what she sees until it makes a