Западноевропейское искусство от Хогарта до Сальвадора Дали

Учебный центр «Московский Лицей»

пособие для изучающих английский язык

издание второе переработанное и дополненное

Москва – 1999

Рецензенты:

Е. Б. Яковлева, доктор филологических наук, профессор

И. В. Шевлягина, кандидат филологических наук, доцент

РЕКОМЕНДОВАНО кафедрой иностранных языков исторического факультета МГУ им. М. В. Ломоносова

 

Введение

Данная книга является второй частью цикла учебных пособий «Западноевропейское искусство (для изучающих английский язык)». В первую книгу этого цикла вошли тексты, охватывающие пять веков западноевропейской живописи от Джотто до Рембрандта.

Материалом настоящего пособия, состоящего из 19 уроков, послужили оригинальные тексты видных историков искусства. Тематика текстов охватывает почти три века западноевропейской живописи от Хогарта до Сальвадора Дали. Это дает возможность обучаемым наряду с усвоением обширного лексического материала, составить общее представление о направлениях развития западноевропейской живописи за последние триста лет.

Объем пособия позволяет остановиться только на девятнадцати художниках. В представленных текстах, дается краткая биографическая справка и анализируются некоторые произведения искусства наиболее выдающихся художников нового времени.

Тексты в пособии расположены в хронологическом порядке и позволяют проследить революционный ход развития западноевропейской живописи, с начала XVIII века и почти до конца XX века. Каждый урок включает тексты и упражнения, позволяющие проверить как общее понимание прочитанного, так и закрепить только что усвоенный лексический материал. Все тексты аутентичны.

Пособие может быть использовано не только студентами-искусствоведами, но и самым широким кругом читателей, интересующихся историей западноевропейской живописи. В рамках издания готовятся учебные пособия по скульптуре и архитектуре для изучающих английский язык.

 

Unit I Hogarth (1697-1764)

A strikingly original school of painting arose in eighteenth-century England. The real founder of the modern British school was William Hogarth, a Londoner whose narrative candour and satiric wit are as effective as his dazzling pictorial skill. Although Hogarth tried his hand occasionally at mythological and historical subjects, he was at his best in portraits and moralistic cycles. The latter were painted as bases for engravings, which Hogarth sold widely and profitably. The most successful were A Rake's Progress, A Harlot's Progress, and Marriage a la Mode, 1743-45, whose opening episode is Signing the Contract. The scene is set diagonally in depth for greater theatrical effect. In a room of his London house, lined with Old Masters (which Hogarth professed to hate), the gouty alderman, father of the bride, sits before a table spread with gold coins of the dowry and expatiates about his family tree, to which he proposes to add the earl. That gentleman, who has exhausted his fortune in building the Palladian mansion seen out the window (Hogarth detested the Palladian style) admires himself in a mirror. His betrothed, meanwhile, is listening to the compliments murmured in her ear by the attorney. Clearly, the story will come to a bad end. The energetic composition owes much to the Rococo, but Hogarth's robust handling of poses and his special variety of bold yet soft brushwork are as original as his wit.

Make sure you know how to pronounce the following words:

William Hogarth; alderman; diagonally; Rococo; Palladian; mansion; dowry; earl; betrothed; candour; expatiate; profess

Notes

A Rake's Progress – «Карьера мота»

A Harlot's Progress – «Жизнь куртизанки»

Marriage a la Mode – «Модный брак»

Signing the Contract – «Подписание контракта»

Tasks

I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.

1. A strikingly original school of painting arose in fifteenth-century England.

2. In the main Hogarth painted colossal altarpieces.

3. Hogarth never tried his hand at mythological and historical subjects.

4. The story in the Marriage a la Mode will come to a happy end.

5. Hogarth was fond of the Palladian style.

6. Moralistic cycles were painted as bases for engravings.

II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?

1. What did Hogarth found? What was he at his best?

2. What were Hogarth's most successful cycles?

3. What is the subject of the opening episode of the Marriage a la Mode? Where is the opening episode set? How are the figures arranged? What does the alderman do? How is the bride depicted? What does the earl do?

4. What is seen out the window? What lines the walls of the room?

5. What compositional style dominates in the Signing the Contract? Why is the scene set diagonally?

6. Were all Hogarth's devices original and witty?

III. i Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:

a school of painting; a founder of the school; narrative candour; satiric wit; pictorial skill; moralistic cycles; theatrical effect; Old Masters; the robust handling of poses; the dowry; to owe to; to expatiate about; a family tree; to exhaust the fortune; to profess to hate; the betrothed; bold brushwork; bases for engravings; an opening episode.

ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:

смелые мазки; приданое; цикл нравоучительных картин; генеалогическое дерево; школа живописи; быть обязанным кому-либо; рассуждать на тему; основатель школы; театральный эффект; основы для гравюр; сатирический ум; растратить состояние; искренность; суженая; живописное мастерство; открыто выражать свою неприязнь.

iii. Make up sentences ofyour own with the given phrases

iv. Arrange the following in the pairs of synonyms:

a) to line; to exhaust; alderman; dazzling; strikingly; expatiate; dowry; detest;

b) municipal legislator; to discuss; extremely; to cover; to waste; hate; marriage portion; brilliant.

IV. Translate the text into English.

Национальная живопись в Англии начинается с Уильяма Хогарта. Художник занимался исторической живописью, религиозными сюжетами. Однако истинный Хогарт – это жанровые картины и гравюры. В своих произведениях, объединенных в повествовательные циклы, он обращался к разнообразным темам. Хогарт полагал, что его работы будут способствовать улучшению нравов. Для того, чтобы как можно больше людей могли познакомиться с его произведениями, художник делал с них гравюры, которые часто оказывались интереснее самих оригиналов. Всю свою творческую жизнь Хогарт писал портреты: групповые, парадные, автопортреты. Умение передать характер человека принесли художнику успех. Портрет всегда был в Англии самым любимым жанром живописи.

V. Summarize the text.

VI. Topics for discussion.

1. Hogarth's moralistic cycles.

2. Hogarth's style and characters.

3. Satire in art.

 

Unit II Gainsborough (1727-1788)

The most accomplished and the most influential English painter of the eighteenth century was Thomas Gainsborough. Until 1774 Gainsborough painted landscapes and portraits in various provincial centres before settling in London for the last fourteen years of his life. Although the elegant attenuation of his lords and ladies is indebted to his study of Van Dyck, Gainsborough achieved in his full-length portraits a freshness and lyric grace all his own. Occasional objections to the lack of structure in his weightless figures are swept away by the beauty of his colour and the delicacy of his touch. The figure in Mary Countess Howe, painted in the mid-1760s, is exquisitely posed in front of a landscape background. Gainsborough has expended his ability on the soft shimmer of light over the embroidered organdy of her overdress and cascades of lace at her elbows, sparkling in the soft English air; the only solid accents in the picture are her penetrating eyes. Although Gainsborough was country-born, his landscape elements seem artificial, added like bits of scenery to establish a spatial environment for the exquisite play of colour in the figure.

In later life Gainsborough painted more freely and openly. Although his landscapes, which he preferred to his portraits, exhale a typically English freshness, they were painted in the studio on the basis of small models put together from moss and pebbles. Constructed in the grand manner of Hobbema, a seventeenth-century Dutch master, and painted with soft strokes of wash like those of Watteau, the Market Cart, of 1787, shows an almost rhapsodic abandonment to the mood of nature, which led to the great English landscapists of the early nineteenth century.

Constable said that Gainsborough's landscape moved him to tears, and contemplating the freedom and beauty of the painting of the cart and a boy gathering brushwood, not to speak of the glow of light seeming to come from within the tree in the centre, one can understand why.

Make sure you know how to pronounce the following words:

Thomas Gainsborough; Van Dyck; embroidered; abandonment; rhapsodic; organdy; Howe; aristocracy; Hobbema, Watteau

Notes

Mary Countess Howe – «Графиня Мери Хью»

Market Cart – «Телега, едущая на рынок»

Tasks

I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.

1. Until 1774 Gainsborough lived and worked in Italy.

2. Gainsborough's figures are abundant.

3. Gainsborough's portraits were influenced by Titian.

4. Gainsborough's brushwork was free and bold.

5. Gainsborough's landscapes were classical.

6. Gainsborough was abandoned to nature.

II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?

1. What makes Gainsborough an outstanding painter?

2. Whose influence is felt in Gainsborough's portraits? What did Gainsborough achieve in his full-length portraits?

3. Where is the figure in Mary Countess Howe posed?

4. What do Gainsborough's landscapes exhale? What did Gainsborough prefer to paint in later life?

5. What does the Market Cart show?

6. What was said about Gainsborough's landscape?

III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:

the most influential English painter; the elegant attenuation; a full-length portrait; to pose in front of a landscape background; the embroidered organdy of the overdress; the exquisite play of colour; to prefer landscapes to portraits; to paint landscapes in a studio; the grand manner; to move to tears; the painting of the cart; the shimmer of light; soft strokes; to gather brushwood.

ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:

трогать до слез; наиболее авторитетный художник; позировать на фоне пейзажа; предпочитать пейзажи портретам; хрупкость и изящество несколько удлиненных женских фигур; органди; портрет во весь рост; мягкие блики; писать пейзажи в студии; величественная манера; совершенная игра цвета; собирать хворост; изображение повозки; мягкие мазки.

iii. Make up sentences ofyour own with the given phrases.

iv. Arrange the following in the pairs of synonyms:

a) influential; occasional; exquisitely; environment; artificial;

b) unnatural; surroundings; infrequent; perfectly; important.

IV. Translate the text into English.

На формирование Томаса Гейнсборо – великого английского портретиста XVIII века, значительное влияние оказали работы Ван Дейка.

Пейзаж в портретах Гейнсборо имеет большое значение. В зрелом возрасте, когда Гейнсборо переселился в Лондон, он начал писать портреты во весь рост на фоне пейзажа. Модели Гейнсборо поэтичны. Художник придает особую хрупкость и изящество несколько удлиненным женским фигурам. Светлая колористическая гамма становится отличительной чертой его живописи. В портретах Гейнсборо отсутствуют аллегории. Гейнсборо прошел творческую эволюцию от детальной манеры, близкой «малым голландцам» к живописи широкой и свободной.

V. Summarize the text.

VI. Topics for discussion.

1. Gainsborough's portraits.

2. Gainsborough's style.

 

Unit III Reynolds (1723-1792)

Sir Joshua Reynolds was in his own day a commanding figure, whose authority outlived him and who eventually became a target for Romantic attacks. In Reynolds's day society portraiture had become a monotonous repetition of the same theme. According to the formula, the sitter was to be posed centrally, with the background (curtain, pillar, chair, perhaps a hint of landscape) disposed like a back-drop behind; normally the head was done by the master, the body by a pupil or «drapery assistant», who might serve several painters. Pose and expression tended to be regulated to a standard of polite and inexpressive elegance; the portrait told little about their subjects other than that they were that sort of people who had their portraits painted. They were effigies; life departed.

It was Reynolds who insisted in his practice that a portrait could and should be also full, complex work of art on many levels; he conceived his portraits in terms of history-painting. Each fresh sitter was not just a physical fact to be recorded, but rather a story to be told. His people are no longer static, but caught between one moment and the next. Reynolds was indeed a consummate producer of character, and his production methods reward investigation. For them he called upon the full repertoire of the Old Masters.

Reynolds did the Grand Tour and remained in Rome spellbound by the grandeur of Michelangelo, Raphael, Tintoretto and Titian. He acquired a respectable knowledge of European painting of the preceding two centuries, and gave at the Royal Academy of Arts -which he helped to found in 1768 – the famous Discourses, which in published form, remain a formidable body of Classical doctrine. In his Discourses Reynolds outlined the essence of grandeur in art and suggested the means of achieving it through rigorous academic training and study of the Old Masters. From 1769 nearly all Reynolds's paintings appeared in the Academy. Reynolds's success as a portraitist was so great that he was employing studio assistants to lay out the canvases for him and to do much of the mechanical work. The artist's technique was sound, and many of his works of art suffered as a result. After his visit to the Netherlands where he studied the works of Rubens Reynolds's picture surface became far richer. This is particularly true of his portrait the Duchess of Devonshire and Her Daughter. Reynolds's state portraits of the King and Queen were never successful, and he seldom painted for them. There is inevitably something artificial about the grandiloquence of the Classical or Renaissance poses in which he painted solid English men and women of his own day, investing them with qualities borrowed from a noble past. Nonetheless, we owe our impression of English aristocracy in the eighteenth century to his majestic portraits, with their contrived backgrounds of Classical architecture and landscape. Lady Sara Bun-bury Sacrificing to the Graces, of 1783, speaks eloquently for itself. Among Reynolds's best works are those in which he departs from the tradition of ceremonial portraiture and abandons himself to inspiration, as in The Portrait of Nelly O'Brien, which is aglow with light, warmth and feeling.

Make sure you know how to pronounce the following words:

Joshua Reynolds; Sarah; grandeur; inevitably; majestic; grandiloquence; discourses

Tasks

I. Read the text. Mark the following statements true or false.

1. Reynolds never travelled outside Britain.

2. The Royal Academy of Arts was founded in 1758.

3. Reynolds hired assistants to lay out the canvases for him.

4. Reynolds created state portraits of the King and Queen.

II. How well have you read? Answer the following questions:

1. Who became a target for Romantic attacks? Why?

2. What fascinated Reynolds during the Grand Tour?

3. What remains a formidable body of Classical doctrine?

4. How great was the success of Reynolds as a portraitist?

5. Whom did Reynolds portray? How did he depict them?

III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:

a commanding figure; to speak eloquently; the preceding two centuries; to become a target for smb; the grandiloquence of the poses; the Royal Academy of Arts; to lay out the canvases.

ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:

Королевская Академия искусств; готовить холст для к-л; торжественные позы; великолепные портреты; авторитетная фигура; два предшествующих века; стать мишенью для к-л.

iii. Make up sentences of your own with the given phrases

IV. Here are names of the English painters and the titles of their works of art. Match them up. Describe the paintings.

1. Reynolds

2. Hogarth

3. Gainsborough

a. A Rake's Progress

b. Lady Sarah Bunbury

c. Market Cart

d. Mary Countess Howe

V. Translate the text into English.

Первым президентом Королевской Академии искусства, открытой в 1768, был Джошуа Рейнольдсс. Теоретически он выступал как сторонник классицизма, однако практически выходил за рамки этого направления. В молодости Рейнольдсс посетил Италию, в старости – Голландию и Фландрию. Он восхищался колоритом Тициана и Рубенса и многому научился как у них, так и у Рембрандта. После переезда в Лондон в 1753 г. Рейнольдсс стал самым знаменитым портретистом Британии. Иногда он писал до 150 портретов в год. В форме парадного портрета Рейнольдсс сумел выразить веру в человека. С появлением Рейнольдсса английская живопись получила всеобщее признание.

VI. Summarize the text.

VII. Topics for discussion.

1. Reynolds's portraits.

2. Reynolds's Enlightenment activity.

 

Unit IV Ingres (1780-1867)

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres remained faithful to Neo-classic ideals to the end of his life, he formed the centre of the conservative group that utilised the Principles of Neo-classicism, forged in the Revolution (1789-1799) as a weapon for reaction. Ingres was an infant prodigy, attending art school at eleven, and a capable performer on the violin. He entered the studio of David at seventeen, but as long as he lived he never accepted the cubic mass of David's mature style preferring curving forms flowing like violin melody. Winner of the Grand Prix de Rome, he remained in that city from 1806 until 1820, and returned there from 1835 to 1841, absorbing not only ancient but also Renaissance art, especially that of Raphael. Ingres stayed four years in Florence (1820-24) where he was one of the first to appreciate the Florentine Mannerists. The first pictures he exhibited at the Salon were almost uniformly ridiculed, accused of being everything from Gothic to Chinese, and his special non-political Neo-classicism was worked out in isolation.

In 1808 Ingres did one of his finest paintings, whose pose he revived again and again in later works, the Valpincon Bather, named after the collection it first adorned. This lovely nude is drawn with a subtle contour line delicately flowing over shoulders, back and legs. The surface is modelled to porcelain smoothness, but is never hard; Ingres was always at his best with delicate flesh and soft fabrics.

Ingres fancied himself a history painter, although his narrative pictures are weakened by his inability to project a dramatic situation. A work that embodies his ideal programme of Neo-classicism is the huge Apotheosis of Homer, painted in 1827 and intended for the ceiling of a room of the Louvre. Ingres made no concessions to the principles of illusionistic ceiling perspective from below. He preferred the High Renaissance tradition, as exemplified by Michelangelo. Before an Ionic temple dedicated to Homer, the blind poet is enthroned, crowned with laurel by the muse of epic poetry. Below him sit two women figures, the one with a sword, representing the Iliad, another with a rudder the Odyssey. The geniuses from antiquity and later times whom Ingres considered truly Classical are grouped around. At the lower right are grouped three French Classical writers. Shakespeare and Corneille make the scene in the lower left-hand corner. The cool light of an ideal realm binds the figures together in the kind of artificial composition that became definitive for muralists even into the twentieth century.

Ingres was financially obliged to accept portrait commissions, which he considered a waste of time, although today his portraits are accepted as his greatest works. He even drew portraits of visitors to Rome, who trooped to his studio. Such pencil studies as the Stamaty Family of 1818, show the exquisite quality of his line.

Ingres's paintings are perfect in colour. All the beauty of his colour and the perfection of his form are seen in the portrait of Comtesse d'Houssonville, painted in 1845. She is posed in a corner of her salon, in an attitude clearly derived from Classical art. No Dutch painter ever produced still lifes more convincing than the vases on the mantle. The reflection in the mirror, going back through Velazquez to van Eyck, reappears again and again in the nineteenth-century art, deeply concerned as it was with the optical phenomena.

Although many of his subjects are drawn from the medieval history and poetry, dear to the Romanticists, Ingres was resolutely opposed to their abandonment to emotion and to the artistic sources on which they drew. Yet, the influence of Ingres later in the nineteenth century was very great.

Make sure you know how to pronounce the foallowing words:

Dominique Ingres; Athens; Salon; Delacroix; Velazquez; Odyssey; Iliad; Eyck; genius; Romanticists; Louvre; exquisite; Shakespeare; Corneille; Renaissance; prodigy; apotheosis; Gothic; laurel; Chinese; phenomena; violin; perspective

Notes

Vcdpinqon Bather – «Купальщица Вальпинсон»

Apotheosis of Homer – «Апофеоз Гомеру»

Stamaty Family – «Семья Стамати»

Comtesse d'Houssonville – «Портрет графини Луизы д'Oссонвиль»

Iliad – 'Илиада»

Odyssey – «Одиссея»

rudder – руль

Tasks

I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.

1. Ingres remained faithful to Romantic ideals to the end of his life.

2. Ingres was a talented pianist.

3. The Grand Prix de Rome was won by Ingres.

4. Ingres fancied himself a mythological painter.

5. Ingres was fond of portrait painting.

6. Ingres drew subjects from contemporary poetry.

II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?

1. What did Ingres form? Did Ingres accept the cubic mass of David's mature style? What forms did Ingres prefer?

2. What did Ingres study in Italy? How did the public accept Ingres's first paintings? What are the drawbacks of Ingres's narrative pictures? What is one of Ingres's finest paintings?

3. What work embodies the ideal programme of Neo-classicism? Did Ingres make any concessions to the principles of illusionistic ceiling perspective from below? What tradition did Ingres prefer?

4. What is represented in the Apotheosis of Homer? How did Ingres arrange the figures? What binds the figures together? How are the Iliad and the Odyssey depicted?

5. What makes the portrait of Comtesse d'Houssonville world-known?

6. What was Ingres's attitude to other painters? What impact did Ingres make on other painters?

III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:

to utilise the principles of Neo-classicism; an infant prodigy; to prefer curving form; a history painter; narrative pictures; an Ionic temple; to be crowned with laurel; the muse of epic poetry; geniuses from antiquity and later times; an artificial composition; muralists; pencil studies; perfect in colour; the perfection of the form; the artistic sources; to derive from Classical art; subjects drawn from medieval history; to bind the figures together; an ideal realm; a subtle contour line; an exquisite quality of the line; optical phenomena.

iii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:

муза эпической поэзии; принципы неоклассицизма; вундеркинд; связать фигуры воедино; предпочитать изогнутые линии; тематические картины; ионический храм; увенчать лавровым венком; гении античности и более поздних времен; идеальное царство; искусственная композиция; заимствовать из классического искусства; изысканность линии; карандашные наброски; совершенные по цвету работы; изящество линии; творческий источник; слегка намеченный контур; совершенство формы; сюжеты из средневековой истории.

iii. Make up sentences of your own with the given phrases.

iv. Arrange the following in the pairs of synonyms:

a) artificial; artistic; perfection; to derive; reflection; phe nomenon; subject; abandonment; laurel; brand;

b) excellence; to obtain; wreath; creative; image; cession; mark of ownership; event; theme; unnatural.

IV. Here are descriptions of some of Ingres's works of art. Match them up to the titles given below.

1. She is posed in a comer of her salon.

2. The surface is modelled to porcelain smoothness.

3. The cool light of an ideal realm binds the figures together in the kind of artificial composition.

a) Apotheosis of Homer

b) Comtesse d'Houssonville

c) Valpinson Bather

V. Translate the text into English.

Жан Огюст Доменик Энгр, превративший давидовский классицизм в академическое искусство и вступивший в противоборство с романтиками, в семнадцатилетнем возрасте приехал в Париж в ателье Давида. Усвоив классическую систему с ее культом античного классицизма, Энгр отказался от революционности стиля своего учителя и стремился уйти от реальной жизни в мир идеального.

В картинах 1810-х годов, оставаясь преданным античным темам, Энгр обращался и к сюжетам из средневековья. Основным произведением художника в это время стал алтарный образ для церкви города Монтобана. Энгр решил образ мадонны близким к Сикстинской мадонне. Эта работа принесла художнику успех в Салоне в 1824 году. Однако некоторые произведения Энгра, такие как «Портрет художника Франсуа Мариуса Гране» и «Купальщица Вальпинсон», предвещают новое мироощущение романтиков.

Последние годы жизни Энгра были омрачены битвами сначала с романтиками во главе с Делакруа, затем с реалистами, которых возглавлял Курбе.

VI. Summarize the text.

VII. Topics for discussion.

1. The principles of Ingres's painting.

2. Ingres's style and characters.

 

Unit V Goya (1776-1828)

The greatest artistic genius of the turn of the eighteenth century was a Spaniard, Francisco Jose de Goya у Lucientes. He made a trip to Italy and was not impressed either by antiquity or by the Renaissance. Goya was a lifelong rebel against artistic or intellectual straitjackets. He managed to skip the Neo-classical phase entirely and passed directly from a personal version of the Rococo to Romantic stage.

In 1786 Goya was appointed painter to the king and in 1799 he became the first court painter. After 1792 Goya was totally deaf, and it liberated him from some of the trivialities of life for meditation on its deeper significance. Goya's brilliant portraits of the royal court may have been influenced by Gainsborough. But his characterisations are far more vivid, human and satiric. Goya's supreme achievement in portraiture is the Family of Charles IV, painted in 1800, an inspired parody of Velazquez's Las Meninas. Thirteen members of the royal family, representing three generations, are assembled in a picture gallery of the palace, with Goya himself painting a large canvas in the shadows at the left. The king, with his red face and with his chest blazing with decorations, and the ugly ill-natured queen are painted as they were. Alfonce Daudet called them «the baker's family who have just won the big lottery prize». Goya's purpose is deeper than satire: he has unmasked these people as evil. Only some of the children escape his condemnation.

The Maja Desnuda is one of the most delightful paintings of the female nude in history. There exists a sketchier clothed version of the picture. The nude was formerly explained as an unconventional portrait of the duchess of Alba, a patron and a close friend of Goya's.

The frivolity of this picture contrasts with Goya's denunciation of the inhumanity of warfare, of which the most monumental example is The Third of May, 1808, at Madrid: The Shooting on Principe Pio Mountain, depicting the execution of Madrid rebels by Napoleonic soldiery. The painting commissioned by the liberal government after the expulsion of the French in 1814 and 'done in the same year, is the earliest explicit example of «social protest» in art. Previously the warfare had been generally depicted as glorious, cruelties – as inevitable. Goya treats the firing squad as a many-legged, faceless monster, before whose level, bayoneted guns are pushed groups of helpless victims, the first already shattered by bullets and streaming with blood, the next gesticulating wildly in the last seconds of life, the third hiding the horror from their eyes with their hands. A paper lantern gives the only light; in the dimness the nearest houses and the church tower of the city almost blend with the earth against the night sky. Through the medium of broad brushstrokes, Goya communicates unbearable emotion with thick pigment, achieving at once a timeless universality and an immediacy of the reality of the event.

Goya's passionate humanity speaks uncensored through his engravings. Goya made several series of etching-aquatints, the earliest of which Los Caprichos (The Caprices), of 1796-98, is widely imaginative. The first section, dealing satirically with events from daily life, is surpassed by the second, devoted to fantastic events enacted by monsters, witches, and malevolent nocturnal beasts from the demonic tradition of Spanish folklore.

The introductory print of the second section shows the artist asleep at his table loaded with idle drawing instruments, before which is propped a tablet inscribed «El sueno de la razon produce monstruos»(«the sleep of reason produces monsters»). Reason, the goddess of the 18-th century philosophers, once put to sleep, allows monsters to arise from the inner darkness of mind. Goya's menacing cat and the rising clouds of owls and bats glowing in light and dark are lineal descendants of the beasts of medieval art.

Instead of merely threatening human life, as in Los Caprichos, the monsters take over entirely in Goya's final series, Los Disparates (The Follies), engraved between 1813 and 1819. The ultimate horror of Goya's imagination seethes through the series of dark frescoes the artist painted with fierce strokes on the walls of his own house from 1820 to 1822, depicting a universe dominated by unreason and terror, and making cruel mock of humanity.

One of Goya's rare references to Classical mythology illustrates the most savage of Greek legends. Saturn Devouring one of his Sons is an allegory of Time which engulfs us all. The glaring, mindless deity holds with colossal hands the body of his helpless son, from which he has torn and is chewing the head and the right arm – all indicated with brushstrokes of an unimagined ferocity.

Now nearing eighty, the great painter was not to live long with these creatures of his despairing imagination. After the restoration of a reactionary monarchic government in 1823, he left for France and died in exile.

Make sure you know how to pronounce the following words:

Francisco Goya; duchess; Alba; Daudet; Saturn; parody; bayonet; malevolent; nocturnal; demonic; caprices; lineal

Notes

Family of Charles IV – «Групповой портрет семьи короля Карла IV»

Maja Desnuda – «Маха обнаженная»

The Third of May, 1808, at Madrid: The Shooting on Principe Pio Mountain – «Расстрел испанских повстанцев французами в ночь на 3 мая 1808 г.»

Los Caprichos (The Caprices) – «Каприччос»

Los Disparates (The Follies) – «Диспаратес»

Saturn Devouring one of his Sons – «Сатурн, пожирающий одного из своих сыновей»

Tasks

I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.

1. Goya's portraits of the royal court were influenced by Van Dyck.

2. The Family of Charles IV, painted in 1799, is an inspired parody of Velazquez's Las Meninas.

3. In 1786 Goya made several series of etching-aquatints.

4. In 1815 after the expulsion of the French from Spain the liberal government commissioned Goya a painting.

5. When Reason sleeps monsters arise from the inner darkness of mind.

6. The monarchy was restored in Spain in 1828.

II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?

1. Was Goya a lifelong rebel against artistic and intellectual straitjackets? What artistic trend did Goya represent?

2. What is Goya's supreme achievement in portraiture? How many figures are portrayed in this portrait? How are the king and the queen depicted? How was this portrait characterised by Alfonce Daudet? What did Goya want to express by this portrait?

3. What is one of the most delightful paintings of the female nude in history? Is there any other version of this picture? How was the nude explained?

4. In what painting did Goya denounce the inhumanity of war? What does this work of art represent? How is the firing squad treated? How are the victims depicted?

5. What is represented in The Caprices? What is pictured in the first section? What does the introductory print of the second section show? What did Goya paint on the walls of his own house?

6. What does one of Goya's rare references to Classical mythology illustrate? What does this work of art symbolise?

III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:

the greatest artistic genius; at the turn of the century; the supreme achievement in portraiture; an inspired parody; a sketchier version of the picture; an unconventional portrait; to commission a painting; a firing squad; helpless victims; brushstrokes of an unimagined ferocity; an example of «social protest» in art; etching-aquatints; denounce the inhumanity of war; lineal descendants; references to Classical mythology.

ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:

офорт с акватинтой; пример «социального протеста» в искусстве; прямые потомки; ссылки на классическую мифологию; высшее достижение портретной живописи; беспомощные жертвы; на рубеже веков; нетрадиционный портрет; энергичные мазки; стрелковое подразделение; гениальный художник; осудить жестокость войны; заказать картину; рабочая версия картины.

iii. Make up sentences of your own with the given phrases.

iv. Arrange the following in the pairs of synonyms.

a) ferocity; lineal; parody; supreme; squad; commission; achievement; monster; evil;

b) satire; order; immoral; viciousness; hereditary; beast; exquisite; unit; feat.

IV. Here are descriptions of some of Goya's works of art. Match them up to the titles given below.

1. This painting is the earliest explicit example of «social protest» in art.

2. Goya unmasked these people as evil.

3. The first section, dealing with events from daily life, is surpassed by the second, devoted to fantastic events.

4. The monsters take over entirely.

5. This work of art is an allegory of Time which engulfs us all.

6. This picture is an unconventional portrait of the duchess of Alba.

a. Maja Desnuda

b. Saturn Devouring one of his Sons

c. Los Disparates (The Follies)

d. The Third of May, 1808, at Madrid: The Shooting on Principe Pio Mountain

e. Los Caprichos (The Caprices)

f. Family of Charles IV

V. Summarize the text.

VI. Translate the text into English.

Франсиско Гойя, величайший художник Испании, работал на рубеже XVIII и XIX вв. Придворный живописец испанского короля Гойя, чтобы скрыть истинный смысл своих произведений, был вынужден прибегать к аллегориям. В знаменитой серии офортов «Каприччос» художник изобразил кошмарный мир чудовищ и уродов. «Каприччос» включает 80 листов. Это обвинительный акт церкви, дворянству, абсолютизму – миру зла, лицемерия и фанатизма.

Значительное место в творчестве Гойи занимают портреты. В них наиболее ярко проявился блестящий талант живописца. В одних портретах Гойя сумел показать красоту людей богатой духовной жизни. В других – мастер изобличил моральное падение стоящих у власти людей. Таков «Групповой портрет короля Карла IV».

В период борьбы испанцев против наполеоновского вторжения Гойя создал одно из наиболее выдающихся своих произведений – «Расстрел испанских повстанцев французами в ночь на 3 мая 1808 г.», в котором изобразил трагическую развязку мадридского восстания и раскрыл могучий дух непокоренного народа.

Искусство Гойи предваряло романтизм – новое художественное направление в западноевропейском искусстве.

VII. Topics for discussion.

1. Goya's portraits.

2. Goya's engravings.

3. Goya as a forerunner of Romanticism.

 

Unit VI Delacroix (1798-1863)

Eugene Delacroix was one of the leading French and European painters for more than a generation. He was a real Romantic – solitary, moody, imaginative, profoundly emotional. Although Delacroix admired Italian art and wanted to go to Italy, he never went there; his journeys were to England, Belgium, Holland, Spain and North Africa. His life was marked by few external events. His real life, of great intensity, was lived on the canvas. «What is most real in me," he wrote, «are the illusions I create with my painting; the rest is shifting sand». In the course of his life he produced thousands of oil paintings and water-colours and innumerable drawings, and not long before his death he claimed that «in the matter of compositions I have enough for two human lifetimes; and as for projects of all kinds, I have enough for four hundred years.» Delacroix wanted to paint scenes of emotional or physical violence. Often he drew his subjects from English poetry, especially Shakespeare and Byron, and from medieval history. He admired Beethoven, but his idol in music was «the divine Mozart». His lifelong loyalty to the sixteenth century Venetians and to Rubens constantly strengthened.

In the Bark of Dante, of 1822, Delacroix illustrates a moment from the Divine Comedy in which the poet, accompanied by Virgil, is steered across the dark tides of the lake surrounding the city of Dis, attacked in the sulphurous dimness by damned souls rising from the waves against a background of towers and flames. In this painting Delacroix has broken up the pyramidal grouping, and is more concerned with effects of colour and of light and dark than with form. Some of the drops of water are painted in pure tones of red and green. Delacroix's basic compositional principle is a series of free curves, arising from the central area and always returning to it. This painting was highly praised.

Delacroix's next major work the Massacre at Chios, of 1824, was not easily accepted. The subject was an incident from the Greek wars of liberation against the Turks, which had excited the sympathies of Romantic spirit everywhere. The foreground is scattered with bodies. The neobaroque composition is diffused in Delacroix's centrifugal curves, which part to display the distant slaughter and conflagration. The observer's sympathies are supposed to be with the sufferings of the Greeks, but their rendering is not convincing. The expressions tend to become standardised; the head of the young woman at the lower left almost repeats that of the dead mother at the lower right. This picture was called the «massacre of painting.» The colour shows a richness and vibrancy not visible in French painting since the Rococo. He brought this huge picture to Paris for the Salon of 1824, and before the exhibition opened he took it down and repainted it in tones emulating those, he found in Constable. From here on, Delacroix's interest in colour was great. He investigated colour contrasts on the canvas and in nature and derived a law – «the more contrast the greater the force.»

With the Death of Sardanapalus as a manifesto of Romanticism, the artist drew down upon himself the disapproval of royal administrators. The legendary subject concerns the last of the Assyrian monarchs, besieged in his palace for two years by the Medes. On hearing that the enemy had at last breached his walls, the king had all his concubines, slaves, and horses slaughtered and his treasures destroyed before his eyes, as he lay upon a couch soon to become his funeral pyre. Lacking the pretext of humanitarianism that justified the Massacre at Chios and other pictures inspired by the Greek struggle for independence, the painting becomes a feast of violence, spread out in glowing colours against the smoke of distant battle. The picture is a phantasmagoria in which no real cruelty is exerted. Faces are paralysed with fear but no blood flows. Quivering female flesh is heaped like flowers or fruit, among the glittering jewels and the fabrics of crimson. In his solitary fantasy the artist, identifying himself in imagination with the king and the executioners, discharges all his creative and destructive energy in an explosion of tones.

The Revolution of 1830, which placed on the throne Louis Philippe, the «Citizen King» brought Delacroix relief from poverty. In 1832 he travelled through North Africa with the French delegation. He was the first major painter of modern times to visit the Islamic world. And this was the only real adventure of his life. Although he had no opportunity to paint, and found even drawing dangerous on account of Islamic hostility to representation, he brought back with him hundreds of sketches in pencil or pen. His memory of exotic sights and colours, his vivid imagination provided him with endless material for paintings for the next thirty years.

Delacroix's memories of North Africa were realised in the Women of Algiers, a picture of exquisite intimacy and charm, painted and exhibited in 1834. This picture had an enormous influence on the Impressionists of the late nineteenth century and on many paintings of the early twentieth century, especially Matisse.

Most of the pictures of North African subjects painted during Delacroix's later years were less tranquil. The Tiger Hunt, of 1854, is typical, with forms and poses born of the artist's imagination. In 1847 Delacroix wrote, «When the colours are right, the lines draw themselves," and so they do, in the movements of the raging animals and furious huntsmen, flowing out from the centre and back again with passionate intensity and perfect logic. Almost weightless, liberated from matter, these late fantasies of violence carry the artist into a phase of free colouristic movement pointing directly toward the twentieth century.

Make sure you know how to pronounce the following words:

Eugen Delacroix; Mozart; Dante; Romanticism; Venetian; Virgil; massacre; Chios; Medes; Sardanapalus; Assyrian; Matisse; Islamic; Beethoven; Algiers

Notes

Bark of Dante – «Ладья Данте»

Divine Comedy – " Божественная комедия»

Massacre at Chios – «Хиосская резня»

Death of Sardanapalus – «Смерть Сарданапала»

Women of Algiers – «Алжирские женщины в своих покоях»

Tiger Hunt – «Охота на тигров»

Dis – Дит (у Данте имя Люцифера и название области нижнего Ада)

«Citizen King» – король-буржуа

Tasks

I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.

1. Delacroix produced thousands of oil paintings.

2. Delacroix's idol in music was Chopin.

3. Delacroix painted scenes full of harmony.

4. Delacroix was loyal to Raphael and Rembrandt.

5. Colour was the major determinant in Delacroix's works.

6. Delacroix identified himself with the Assyrian monarch.

II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?

1. What artistic movement did Delacroix embody? What did Delacroix write about illusions and reality?

2. What did Delacroix write about his projects?

3. What moment did Delacroix show in the Bark of Dante? What compositional principle did he use in this painting? How was this picture treated by the public?

4. What is the subject of the Massacre at Chios? How was this picture called? What did Delacroix do with the picture when it was brought to the Salon?

5. What painting became a manifesto of Romanticism? What is the subject of this work of art?

6. What was the only real adventure of Delacroix's life? What is realised in the Women of Algiers? What did Delacroix write about painting in 1854?

III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:

to create the illusions; free colouristic movement; to produce water-colours; scenes of violence; to derive the subjects from poetry and from medieval history; sulphurous dimness; to break up the pyramidal grouping; Romantic spirit; centrifugal curves; to display the distant slaughter and conflagration; the richness of colour; a feast of violence; sketches in pencil; to derive a law.

ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:

свободное движение цвета; карандашные наброски; изобразить резню и пожар вдали; дух романтизма; вывести закон; богатство красок; сцены насилия; создать иллюзии; разрушить пирамидальную группу; черпать сюжеты из поэзии и средневековой истории; создавать акварели; основной композиционный принцип; центростремительные линии; разрушительная энергия.

iii. Make up sentences of your own with the given phrases.

iv. Arrange the following in the pairs of synonyms:

a) solitary; emotional; to admire; derive; conflagration

b) lonely; obtain; to praise; fire; passionate.

IV. Here are descriptions of some of Delacroix's works of art. Match them up to the titles given below.

1. This picture is a phantasmagoria with no real cruelty.

2. Delacroix illustrates a moment in which the poet is steered across the dark tides of the lake.

3. These fantasies point directly toward the twentieth century.

4. The subject was an incident from the Greek wars of libe-ration against the Turks.

5. This picture had a great influence on the Impressionists.

a) Massacre at Chios

b) Tiger Hunt

c) Women of Algiers

d) Bark of Dante

e) Death of Sardanapalus

V. Translate the text into English.

Выставленная в Салоне в 1824 г. картина «Резня в Хиосе» сделала Делакруа вождем романтизма. Картина получила неоднозначную оценку. Одни ею восхищались, другие называли картину резней живописи. Делакруа не признавал данное ему звание романтика. Романтизм противопоставлялся классицизму и имел расплывчатое определение. Однако, несмотря на отсутствие программы, стал мощным художественным движением XIX в.

В Салоне в 1827 г. Делакруа выставил большое полотно «Смерть Сарданапала», которое стало манифестом романтизма. Картину оценили должным образом только в 1921 г., когда она была куплена Лувром.

Эжен Делакруа жил интенсивной духовной жизнью. Его кумирами были: в живописи – Гойя и Рубенс, в музыке – Моцарт. Первая работа Делакруа «Ладья Данте», вдохновленная «Божественной комедией» Данте, подверглась сильной критике.

Поездки Делакруа в конце 1831 – 1832 г. в мусульманские страны вдохновили художника на создание прекрасных картин, одной из которых является «Алжирские женщины в своих покоях» 1834).

VI. Summarize the text.

VII. Topics for discussion.

1. Romanticism in art.

2. Delacroix's style and characters.

3. Delacroix's artistic heritage.

 

Unit VII Constable (1776-1837)

The mainstream of English painting in the first half of the nineteenth century was landscape. Constable and Turner, the greatest of the landscapists, approached nature with excitement. At that time nature was beginning to be swallowed up by the expanding cities of the Industrial Revolution.

John Constable, the son of a miller on the River Stour in Suffolk, honoured all that was natural and traditional, including the age-old occupation of farmer, miller, and carpenter, close to the land whose fruits and forces they turned to human use. He loved the poetic landscapes of Gainsborough, he studied the constructed compositions of the Baroque, he admired Ruisdael's skies. Rebelling against the brown tonality then fashionable in landscape painting – actually the result of discoloured varnish darkening the Old Masters – he supplemented his observations of nature with a study of the vivacity of Rubens's colour and brushwork.

As early as 1802, Constable started to record the fleeing aspects of the sky in the rapid oil sketches made outdoors. «It will be difficult to name a class of landscape in which sky is not the keynote, the standard of scale, and the chief organ of sentiment," he wrote. Constable systematically studied cloud formation in 1821-22. These studies show his surrender to the forces of nature, a passionate self-identification with sunlight, wind, and moisture.

Constable never left England and made dutiful sketching tours through regions of acknowledged scenic beauty. His superb The Hay Wain, of 1821, sums up his ideals and his achievements. Composed as if accidentally – though on the basis of many preliminary outdoor studies – the picture, painted in the studio, shows Constable's beloved Stour with its trees, a mill, and distant fields. In his orchestra of natural colour the solo instrument and conductor at once is the sky. The clouds sweep by, full of light and colour, and their shadows and the sunlight spot the field with green and gold. As the stream ripples, it mirrors now the trees, now the sky. The trees are made up of many shades of green and patches of light reflect from their foliage. These white highlights were called «Constable's snow». The Hay Wain was triumphantly exhibited at the Salon of 1824, where Constable's broken colour and free brushwork set in motion a new current in French landscape art, which later culminated in the Impressionist movement.

In 1829 Constable became member of the Royal Academy.

In later life, after the death of his wife, Constable entered a period of depression in which his passionate communion with nature reached a pitch of semi-mystical intensity. One of his late pictures is Stroke-by-Nayland, of 1836-37, a large canvas in which the distant church tower, the wagon, the plough, the horses, and the boy looking over the gate are instruments on which light plays. The symphonic breadth, of the picture, and its crushing chords of colour painted in a rapid technique, bring to the finished painting the immediacy of the colour sketch. Such pictures are equalled in earlier art only by certain landscape backgrounds in Titian or by the mythical reveries of the late Rembrandt.

Make sure you know how to pronounce the following words:

Constable; Turner; Ruisdael Stour; Suffolk; chords; triumphantly; varnish; palette; plough; wain; flexible; culminated; plank

Notes

The Hay Wain – «Телега для сена»

Suffolk – Суффолк (графство)

Stour – р. Ст(а)ур

Tasks

I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.

1. Constable was the greatest English portraitist.

2. In the first half of the eighteenth century nature was beginning to be swallowed up by the expanding cities of the Industrial Revolution.

3. Discoloured varnish darkened the Old Masters.

4. Constable often visited Italy, Belgium, Holland and Spain.

5. The Hay Wain was highly praised at the Salon of 1834.

6. In 1829 Constable became member of the Royal Academy.

II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?

1. What was the mainstream of English painting in the first half of the nineteenth century? What was the attitude of Constable and Turner to nature?

2. What did Constable honour? What did he love and admire?

3. What did Constable start to record as early as 1802? Why? What do Constable's studies show? What tours did Constable make?

4. What does The Hay Wain sum up? What does this picture show? What is the major element of the picture? How has Constable depicted the clouds, the stream and the trees? How were the white highlights called? What did Constable set in motion?

5. Was Constable happy in later life? Why?

6. What was one of Constable's late pictures? What is represented in this work of art? What brings to the finished painting the immediacy of the colour sketch?

III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:

the poetic landscape; the brown tonality; oil sketches made outdoors; a surrender to the forces of nature; self-identification with sunlight and wind; to make sketching tours; regions of scenic beauty; preliminary outdoor studies; patches of light; free brushwork; to set in motion; a flexible steel palette knife; a finished painting; a colour sketch.

ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:

законченная картина; цветной набросок; гибкий стальной шпатель; подчиниться силам природы; пятна света; эскизы маслом, написанные на пленэре; подвижные мазки; богатство цвета; олицетворение с солнечным светом и ветром; живописные места; романтический пейзаж; коричневый тон; ездить по стране и писать этюды.

iii. Make up sentences of your own with the given phrases.

iv. Arrange the following in the pairs of synonyms:

a) triumphant; dapple; preliminary; highlight; hue; ripple;

b) mark; preparatory; victorious; tone; accent; wave.

IV. Here are descriptions of some of Constable's works of art. Match them up to the titles given below.

1. The painting shows the Stour with its trees, a mill, and distant fields.

2. The distant church tower, the wagon, the horses, and the boy looking over the gate are instruments on which light plays.

a. Stroke-by-Nayland

b. The Hay Wain

V. Translate the text into English.

Новое отношение к природе воплотил в своем творчестве Джон Констебл. Констебл никогда не покидал Англию. Он изучал только ту живопись, которую мог видеть на родине. Констебл один из первых стал писать этюды на пленэре, опередив в непосредственности впечатления художников французской школы. Важным нововведением Констебля явились его большие эскизы маслом. Констебл писал смелыми подвижными мазками.

Картины Констебля на парижских выставках 1824 и 1825 гг. явились истинным откровением для французских романтиков. Новаторская живопись Констебля оказала большое влияние на развитие французского пейзажа XIX века.

VI. Summarize the text.

VII. Topics for discussion.

1. Constable's style and colour.

2. Constable's artistic influence.

 

Unit VIII Turner (1775-1851)

Joseph Mallord William Turner was a Londoner. He had no mystical attachment to nature. He made frequent trips throughout the Continent, especially Germany, Switzerland and Italy, revelling in mountain landscapes, gorgeous cities (especially Venice), and the most extreme effects of storms, fires and sunsets. Once he even had himself tied to a mast during a storm at sea so that he could experience the full force of the wind, waves, and clouds swirling about him. Turner made beautiful and accurate colour notes on the spot in water-colour, and painted his pictures in the studio, in secrecy, living under an assumed name and accepting no pupils. He was the first to abandon pale brown in favour of white, against which his brilliant colour effects could sing with perfect clarity.

Turner often painted historical subjects, usually those of Delacroix, involving violence as well as shipwrecks and conflagrations, in which the individual figures appear as scarcely more than spots in a seething tide of humanity. He liked to accompany the labels with quotations from poetry, often his own. Nonetheless, at his death a great many unfinished canvases were found that had no identifiable subject or representation at all. Turner really enjoyed and painted the pure movement of masses of colour – a kind of colour music, strikingly relevant to Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s. Shortly before the opening of an exhibition at the Royal Academy, the ageing Turner, would send unfinished works, and on varnishing day paint in the details to make the pictures exhibitable to a nineteenth-century public.

The Slave Ship, of 1840, represents an incident common in the days of slavery, when entire human cargoes were thrown into the sea, either because of epidemics or to avoid arrest. The ship itself, the occasional figures, and the fish feasting on the corpses in the foreground were obviously painted at great speed only after the real work, the movement of fiery waves of red, brown, gold, and cream, had been brought into completion.

Rain, Stream and Speed, of 1844, is one of the first paintings of a railway train, and its Romantic idealisation of «progress» – man conquering nature by utilising its force. The train with its light carriages moving across the high bridge is enough of a subject already, but Turner lifts it to an almost unearthly realm in which insubstantial forces play through endless space. The veils of blue and gold are real subjects of the picture. Turner's heightened and liberated colour sense provided a revelation to those Impressionists (especially Monet) who took refuge in London in 1870.

Make sure you know how to pronounce the following words:

Joseph Mallord William Turner; attachment; gorgeous; quotation; revelling; revelation; violence; especially; reveries; Monet

Notes

Rain, Stream and Speed – «Дождь, пар и скорость»

The Slave Ship – «Корабль с рабами»

Tasks

I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.

1. Turner had mystical attachment to nature.

2. Turner liked to accompany the labels with quotations from poetry.

3. Turner often painted landscapes which he constructed in the studio.

4. Turner always sent finished works to the Royal Academy.

5. Turner painted the pure movement of masses of colour – a kind of colour music, strikingly relevant to Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s.

6. Turner's heightened and liberated colour sense provided a revelation to the Impressionists.

II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?

1. What countries did Turner visit? What did he want to experience?

2. Where did Turner paint his pictures? What colour did he favour?

3. What subjects did Turner like to paint? What canvases were found after Turner's death?

4. What did Turner enjoy to paint?

5. What does the Slave Ship represent?

6. What is depicted in one of the first paintings with the Romantic idealisation of «progress»?

III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:

Mystical attachment to nature; to make frequent trips; mountain landscapes; to experience the full force of the wind; to make colour notes; to live under an assumed name; to abandon smth in favour of smth; to accompany the labels with quotations from poetry; unfinished canvases; identifiable subject; to paint the pure movement of masses of colour; shortly before; on varnishing day; to make the pictures exhibitable; to bring into completion; colour sense.

ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:

горный пейзаж; незадолго до; подготовить картины для выставки; совершать частые поездки по; незавершенные полотна; передавать мгновенные изменения в природе; сопровождать картины цитатами из поэзии; загадочная привязанность к природе: испытать всю силу волн; в день открытия; чувство цвета; делать цветные наброски.

iii. Make up sentences of your own with the given phrases.

iv. Arrange the following in I he pairs of synonyms:

a) finished; exhibition; label; gorgeous; revelling; revelation;

b) splendid; display; completed; disclosure; marker; amusement.

IV. Here are descriptions of some of Turner's works of art Match them up to the titles given below.

1. It is one of the first paintings of a railway train.

2. The painting represents an incident common in the days of slavery, when entire human cargoes were thrown into the sea.

a. The Slave Ship

b. Rain, Stream and Speed

V. Translate the text into English.

Джозеф Мэллорд Уильям Тернер был типичным романтиком. К нему рано пришло признание. С пятнадцатилетнего возраста он участвовал в ежегодных выставках Королевской Академии искусств. Жизнь Тернера полна загадок. В свои многочисленные путешествия Тернер часто уезжал тайно.

Наследие художника велико: более 21000 произведений на исторические, мифологические, жанровые сюжеты, но главное – пейзажи. Он тщательно изучал природу. Тернеру были нужны лишь некоторые стороны видимой реальности, от которой могла отталкиваться его фантазия, создающая пейзаж, существующий только в его воображении. Стихией Тернера было море, движение туч, бушующие стихии. Передача световых эффектов, возникающих во влажной атмосфере были главной его задачей. Тернера интересовали мгновенные изменения в природе, впечатление от света и воздуха, поиск передачи которого через несколько десятков лет захватят целое поколение живописцев.

VI. Summarize the text.

VII. Topics for discussion.

1. Turner's mode of life and system of production.

2. Turner's style and colour.

3. Turner's artistic influence.

 

Unit IX Courbet (1819-1877)

The most aggressive apostle of the new school was Gustave Courbet. Born in the bleak village of Ornans in the mountainous region of eastern France, he came to Paris determined to create a lasting effect on the art of the capital, not only through his devotion to concrete reality, but also through his study of the art of the past. Courbet was a strong republican and champion of working-class rights and ideas. Courbet wanted his art to embody his ideas concerning society. At the start Courbet was completely consistent. «The art of painting should consist only in the representation of objects which the artist can see and touch…» he declared; «I hold that the artists of the century are completely incapable of reproducing the things of a preceding or a future century… It is for this reason I reject history painting when applied to the past. History painting is essentially contemporary.»

Courbet's paintings were concerned with events of his own time. The Stone Breakers, of 1849, fully embodied his artistic and social principles, and caused a scandal when it was exhibited at the Salon of 1850. A public accustomed to the grandiloquence of the Neo-classicists and the Romanticists did not understand such a direct and hard study of reality. Courbet depicted the dehumanising labour of breaking stones into gravel for road repairs, undertaken by an old man and a boy with perfect dignity. Proudhon, a Socialist writer, called it a parable from the Gospels. The simplicity of the relief-like composition is deeply Classical. Yet its objectivity betrays Courbet's own devotion to the new art of photography, which he practised as an amateur. The power of Courbet's compositions was matched by the workmanliness of his methods. His paint was first laid on with the palette knife. When the knife-work was dry, he worked up the surface with effects of light and colour with a brush, but it is the underlying palette-knife construction that gives his figures their density and weight.

In the same Salon of 1850 Courbet showed A Burial at Ornans, which fulfilled his requirements for true history painting. The inescapable end of an ordinary inhabitant of the village is represented with sober realism. Accompanied by altar boys, pallbearers, and women the parish priest reads the Office for the Dead before the open grave, around which stand family and friends some with handkerchiefs to their eyes. The canvas, about twenty-two feet long, was so large that the artist could not step back in his studio to see the whole work. In a great S-curve in depth, the figures stand with the simple dignity of the Apostles in Masaccio's Tribute Money. Locked between the rocky escarpment above and the grave beneath, these people realise their destiny is bound to the earth, yet they seem to comprehend and to accept their fate. Each face is painted with all of Courbet's dignity and sculptural density recalling the prophets of Donatello. This is one of the strongest and noblest works of all French painting.

In 1855 Courbet's paintings were rejected by the Universal Exposition. These works included the Burial and a more recent programme work The Studio: A Real Allegory Concerning Seven Years of My Artistic Life, painted in 1854-55. A special shed for a large exhibition of Courbet's paintings, including the rejected works was constructed. The artist called this building The Pavilion of Realism. For the catalogue he wrote a preface setting forth the principles of his art. In The Studio the relationship between artist and sitters as seen by Velazquez and Goya is exactly reversed Instead of playing a subsidiary role at one side, the artist displays himself in the centre, at work on a completely visible landscape, similar to those that adorn the walls of the dim studio. A model who has just shed her clothes, probably representing Truth Iooks on approvingly, her figure is beautifully revealed in light. The group at the left remains obscure, but it comprises figures drawn from «society at its best, its worst, and its average," with whom the painter had come into contact. Few of the figures look at the artist; all are silent. Delacroix called the picture a masterpiece, reproaching the jury for having «refused one of the most remarkable works of our times.»

When Courbet reached material success, something of the rude power of his early works vanished from his portraits of the French aristocracy.

After the revolution of 1870 Courbet joined the short-lived Paris Commune, and took part in the commission that decreed the dismantling of the Colonne Vendome. For this he was sentenced under the Third Republic to six months in prison, which he spent in painting still lifes of extraordinary clarity and simplicity and landscapes from photographs. Later he was charged a huge sum for rebuilding the monument, fled to Switzerland, and died in exile, his belongings were sold by the authorities to pay the debt.

Make sure you know how to pronounce the following words:

Courbet; Paris Commune; Switzerland; Ornans; mountainous: subsidiary; pavilion; exile; France; obscure; escarpment; extraordinary; catalogue; amateur; requirements; dehumanising; region

Notes

The Stone Breakers – «Каменотесы»

A Burial at Ornans – «Похороны в Орнане»

The Studio: A Real Allegory Concerning Seven Years of My Artistic Life – «Ателье: реальная аллегория, определяющая семилетний период моей художественной жизни»

The Pavilion of Realism – «Павильон реализма»

The Universal Exposition – Всемирная выставка

Office for the Dead – заупокойная служба

Tasks

I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.

1. Courbet favoured Neo-classicism.

2. Courbet's art embodied the High Renaissance ideals.

3. Courbet's pictures dealt with historical events.

4. Goya had a strong impact on Courbet's works of art.

5. A special shed for a large exhibition of Courbet's paintings was called The Pavilion of Realism.

6. Courbet set forth the principles of his art in a special monograph.

II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?

1. How was Gustav Courbet characterised? What did he determine to create when he came to Paris? What were Courbet's ideas concerning art? What paintings did the Parisian public favour at that time?

2. What subjects did Courbet prefer to paint? Did the public understand The Stone Breakers. What is depicted in this painting? What does its objectivity betray? What methods did Courbet use to achieve the effect? How did Proudhon call this work of art?

3. What Courbet's work of art fulfilled his requirements for true history painting? What does it represent? What does the arrangement of the figures recall? What did Courbet want to express by placing the figures within these landscape limits? How did Courbet paint the faces? What makes this canvas one of the strongest and noblest works of all French painting?

4. What happened in 1855? What is depicted in The Studio Why did Courbet show the relationship between the artist and the sitters in such an unconventional way? What does the nude model symbolise? How did Courbet group the figures? What did Delacroix say about this painting?

5. What did Courbet do during and after the revolution of 1870? Why was Courbet imprisoned? What did Courbet do when he was in prison?

6. What happened to Courbet later in life?

III. i. Give Russian equivalents of tlie following phrases:

to remain obscure; the representation of objects; a champion of working-class rights; to embody the ideas; to reject history painting; the paintings are concerned with events of; to practise as an amateur; dehumanising labour; to lay paint on with a palette knife; the inescapable end; an ordinary inhabitant; altar boys; pallbearers; the parish priest; simple dignity; sculptural density recalling the prophets; in exile; the rocky escarpment; a parable from the Gospels.

ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:

оставаться в тени; отвергать историческую живопись; изложить принципы реализма; скалистая стена; в ссылке; скульптурная масса, напоминающая пророков; неизбежный конец; приходской священник; евангельская притча; защитник прав рабочего класса; простой деревенский житель; изображение предметов; поддерживающий концы покрова (на похоронной процессии); мальчик, прислуживающий в алтаре; наносить краску шпателем; воплотить идеалы реализма.

iii. Make up sentences of your own with the given phrases.

iv. Arrange the following in the pairs of synonyms:

a) escarpment; extraordinary; amateur; betray; destiny; to decree; dismantle;

b) non-professional; fate; exceptional; wall; reveal; break down; to announce.

IV. Here are descriptions of some of Courbet's works of art. Match them up to the titles given below.

1. The artist placed himself in the centre, at work on a completely visible landscape.

2. The inescapable end of an ordinary inhabitant of the village is represented with sober realism.

3. The simplicity of this relief-like composition is deeply classical.

a. The Stone Breakers

b. The Studio: A Real Allegory Concerning Seven Years of My Artistic Life

c. A Burial at Ornans

V. Translate the text into English.

Становление критического реализма связано с именем Гюстава Курбе. Он приехал в Париж в 1840, чтобы «завоевать его». В 1842 г. художник дебютировал в Салоне. Курбе обращался к темам труда и нищеты. В картине «Каменотесы» выражено сочувствие к доле смирившихся со своей судьбой людей.

Во время революции 1848 г. Курбе подружился с некоторыми будущими участниками Парижской Коммуны. После разгрома революции Курбе уехал в родные места, в Орнан, где создал прекрасные живописные произведения.

Самая крупная работа Курбе – «Похороны в Орнане» Это монументальное произведение на современный сюжет. Курбе передал типичное через индивидуальное. Картина «Похороны в Орнане» считается одним из лучших произведений классического европейского искусства.

В 1855 г., когда Курбе не был принят на Всемирную выставку, он открыл свою экспозицию в деревянном бараке, названном «Павильоном Реализма» и предпослал ей каталог, в котором изложил свои принципы реализма. Декларация Курбе вошла в искусство как программа реализма. В этом же году Курбе создал программное произведение «Ателье», посвященное проблеме места художника в обществе.

Курбе принимал активное участие в Парижской Коммуне. Последние годы художник жил в изгнании, в Швейцарии.

VI. Summarize the text.

VII. Topics for discussion.

1. Realism in art.

2. Courbet's mode of life and work.

3. Courbet's revolutionary art.

 

Unit X Manet (1823 -1883)

Edouard Manet came from a well-to-do Parisian family. The young Manet was trained for a naval career, but then permitted to enter the studio of the conservative painter Thomas Couture, where he received thorough training. Trips to Italy, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria in the 1850s brought him into contact with the work of the Old Masters, through careful coping. He was particularly impressed by the optical art and brilliant brushwork of Velazquez, whose work he saw during a brief visit to Spain in 1865. He also admired Goya and Courbet.

In 1863 Manet exhibited at the Salon des Refuses a canvas entitled Luncheon on the Grass which created an uproar. The grouping of a nude female figure and two fully clothed men in a public park shocked the Parisians as flagrant immorality. In actuality Manet had wittily adapted the composition and the poses from a sixteenth century engraving after a design by Raphael. Manet simply modernised the clothing, surroundings and accessories. Courbet found the painting formless and flat. This flatness was just what Manet was striving for. Illumination seems to come from the direction of the observer, and eliminates mass. By this painting Manet pointed out his belief that the important thing about a picture is not what it represents but how it is painted. The erasure of form allows him to concentrate on the luminosity of the green grass and foliage, the sparkling remains of the picnic, and the glowing flesh of the nude. By posing an insoluble enigma of subject, he has transformed a group of figures into a still life.

Manet soon went even further; in 1867 he painted a subject from contemporary history, the Execution of the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, which records an event that had deeply shocked the French public and for which Napoleon III and his government, who had installed Maximilian, were blamed. Manet treated the incident in a totally unexpected way, almost as a reaction against such an elaborately staged protest composition as Goya's «Third of May, 1808». Manet made a close study of newspaper accounts and photographs of the execution, and even of portrait photographs of the slain emperor, but instead of arranging the figures for maximum emotional effect he has taken a snapshot of the scene. It is impossible to make out the expressions of the doomed men. Only the officer preparing his rifle for the coup de grace receives special attention. The onlookers peering over the wall are merely curious. The picture consists of coloured uniforms, a briskly painted background, and puffs of smoke. Another traditional subject, this time a tragic one, has been modernised in terms of immediate vision.

In the early 1870s Manet gave up his flat style and adopted the brilliant palette and the broken brushwork of the Impressionists. Some of his later pictures are indistinguishable from theirs. The most memorable of these, A Bar at the Folie-Bergere, painted in 1881-82, only two years before the artist's premature death, is a brilliant restatement of Manet's earlier interest in the human figure.

The entire foreground is constituted by the marble bar, laden with fruit, flowers and bottles of champagne and liqueurs. The nearer edge of the bar is cut off by the frame and we have the illusion that its surface extends into our space and that we as spectators are ordering a drink from the solid barmaid who leans her hands on the inner edge. This illusion is reinforced by the reflection in the mirror, which fills the entire background of the picture. We can make out clearly a back view of the barmaid, in conversation with a top-hatted gentleman. Manet certainly remembered Velazquez's Las Meninas, in whose background mirror appear the king and the queen. Manet's extension of the mirror beyond the frame at the top and sides substitutes for the expected space within the picture the reflected interior of the cabaret, which is behind the spectator and, therefore, outside the picture. This is the most complex image in the history of art. In his early works Manet had modernised the subject. In this picture Manet eliminated the Renaissance pictorial space (a vertical section through the pyramid of sight). Manet's masterpiece is painted with a brushwork that combines memories of Velazquez's virtuosity with the most briliant achievements of the Impressionists. The imposing dignity of the figure and the straight lines of the bar and the crowded balcony make this work his most monumental accomplishment.

Make sure you know how to pronounce the fo ll owing words:

Edouard Manet; Velazquez; Parisian; Austria; Folie-Bergere flagrant; Raphael; erasure; Napoleon; Mexico; Maximilian; luminosity; insoluble

Notes

Luncheon on the Grass – «Завтрак на траве»

A Bar at the Folie-Bergere – «Бар «Фоли – Бержер»

Execution of the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico – «Казнь императора Мексики Максимилиана»

Salon des Refuses – «Салон отверженных»

Tasks

I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.

1. Manet was the founder of Impressionism.

2. Manet admired Giotto, Ingres and Delacroix.

3. In the Luncheon on the Grass Manet was striving to produce three-dimensional forms on a flat surface.

4. Courbet liked the Luncheon on the Grass. 4. Manet never painted subjects from contemporary history. 6. A Bar at the Folie-Bergere is a brilliant restatement of Manet's earlier interest in the human figure.

II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?

1. Where did Manet study painting?

2. What did Manet exhibit in 1863? How was this painting accepted by the public?

3. Why did the Luncheon on the Grass create an uproar? What had Manet wittily adapted in this picture? What did Manet point out by this painting? What did the erasure of form allow Manet to do? What enigma did Manet pose in this work of art?

4. What event does the Execution of the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico record? How did Manet treat the incident? How are the figures arranged?

5. What picture was painted two years before Manet's premature death? What is depicted in the background? What role does the mirror play in this picture? What does this mirror recall?

6. Why is A Bar at the Folie-Bergere considered to be the most complex image in the history of art? What makes this painting the most monumental accomplishment of the Impressionists?

III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:

an insoluble enigma; the brilliant brushwork; immediate vision; illumination comes from the direction of the observer; a subject from contemporary history; the broken brushwork; to record an event; to make a close study of; to take a snapshot of the scene; a tragic subject; to give up the Hat style; to adopt the brilliant palette; an elaborately staged protest composition; the reflection in the mirror.

ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:

неразрешимая загадка; сосредоточиться на свете; великолепный мазок; отказаться от плоского стиля; запечатлеть событие; богатая цветовая гамма; разорванный мазок; подражать композиции и позам гравюр XVI в.; отражение в зеркале; свет исходит со стороны зрителя; тщательно изучить; трагическая тема.

iii. Make up questions of your own with the given phrases.

iv. Arrange the following in the pairs of synonyms:

a) brilliant; to eliminate; broken; tragic; subject; to give up;

b) disastrous; to refuse; theme; to exclude; split; dazzling.

IV. Here are descriptions of some of Manet's works of art. Match them up to the titles given below.

1. The picture consists of coloured uniforms, a briskly painted background, and puffs of smoke.

2. The grouping of a nude female figure and two fully clothed men in a public park created an uproar.

3. The entire background is constituted by the marble bar, laden with fruit, flowers and bottles of champagne and liqueurs.

a. A Bar at the Folie-Bergure

b. Execution of the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico

c. Luncheon on the Grass

V. Translate the text into English.

Формирование импрессионистов началось вокруг Эдуарда Мане, который получил образование в мастерской Кутюра, одного из столпов академического искусства. Однако подлинными учителями Мане явились Тициан, Веласкес, Гойя, Хале, Рубенс. Старые мастера, прежде всего, были для него предметом восхищения. Мане отличало от импрессионистов то, что он не отказался от широкого мазка, от обобщенной реалистической характеристики и сохранил синтетичность формы и цельность передаваемых характеров. Однако многое связывает Мане с импрессинизмом. Наиболее «импрессионистическое» произведение Мане – «Бар «Фоли-Бержер». В творчестве Эдуарда Мане, с одной стороны, нашли завершение классические реалистические традиции французского искусства XIX в., с другой – сделаны первые шаги в решении проблем, которые станут основными в развитии западноевропейского реализма XX в.

VI. Summarize the text.

VII. Topics for discussion.

1. Manet's early works of art.

2. Manet's Impressionist paintings.

3. Manet's artistic heritage.

 

Unit XI Monet (1840-1926)

The use of the name Impressionism to characterise the new style came from the first exhibition of members of the group at the recently vacated former studio of photographer Nadar in 1874, where they had often encountered the leaders of Parisian intellectual and cultural life. Claude Monet exhibited among others an extraordinary painting entitled Impression – Sunrise, Le Havre, painted two years earlier, described by Monet himself as «sun in the mist and few masts of boats sticking up in the foreground.» The title gave rise to the name applied to the entire movement. The exhibition was greeted with public derision, the like of which had never been experienced in Paris. Every tradition of European painting seemed to have been thrown aside. Not only form but substance itself has vanished. The picture was a mere collection of coloured streaks and blobs on a light blue ground. Today observers have no difficulty recognising a sailboat and a rowboat in the foreground, masts and equipment, haze, and smoke, all reflected in the rippled surface of the water. This revolutionary painting intended to correspond to the image the eye sees in an instantaneous glimpse of the port of Le Havre at sunrise, summed up the beliefs of the school. In retrospect, the name Impressionism seems one of the few appropriate names in the history of art.

*** *** ***

Monet was born in Paris, his father was a grocer, and the family soon moved to Le Havre on the coast of Normandy, where his father became a ship chandler, and the boy could constantly observe ships and the sea. This was very important for his later preoccupation with light, water, and human experience in relation to the unending stream of time. He started as a caricaturist. In 1858 he was introduced to landscape painting.

In 1867 Monet submitted to the Salon a revolutionary work. the huge Women in the Garden. The entire picture, more than eight feet high, was painted outdoors and required him to devise new methods in order to record the immediate impression of light on the dresses, the flowers, and the trees. The feeling of sunlight is warm and rich, but the colours are still local, though soft blue and lavender shadow does reflect into the faces of the women and their flowing dresses. The leaves are coloured in varying shades of green. In this and other pictures Monet established the new Impressionist subject – the moment of experience in light.

However successful from an artistic and historical point of view, the painting was a worldly failure. Manet made fun at it. But a few years later when he had come to understand Monet's style and adopted his brilliant colouring, Manet bought this picture for himself.

During the disorder of 1870-71 Monet fled, first to London, where he studied the art of Constable and Turner, then to Holland and Belgium, where he was interested chiefly in landscape. On his return to France Monet's style changed radically: he dissolved the object. In Impression – Sunrise, Le Havre, he demonstrated that colour belongs not to the object but to the moment of the visual experience. This was hard for his contemporaries to accept.

In 1873 Monet set up a floating studio in a boat on the Seine. The world passing before his eyes formed a continuous stream of experience, from which he singled out moments, recorded in series.

At the financially disastrous third Impressionist exhibition of 1877 Monet showed eight canvases devoted to the railway. In the Gare Saint – Lazare in Paris, of 1877, Monet depicted a locomotive drawing cars into a station. The iron-and-glass train shed offered to him a tissue of changing light and colour, dominated by blue and silver, but touched on the ground with tan, green, rose and gold. The Impressionists eliminated black from their palette and the shadows and the massive black locomotive were painted in blue. The people in Monet's picture are spots of blue; the puffs of steam are bubbles of blue and pearl. The locomotive's bumper is red, and this is the only bright colour in the picture. The fleeting effects that absorbed Monet's attention could not pause long enough for him to paint them. A picture like this was the product of several sessions.

By 1880 Monet's paintings were beginning to sell and he threw himself into the work with a passion as if nature were at once a friend and an enemy. He painted on a beach during a storm to ascertain the height and power of wind-driven waves, one of which swept him under (he was rescued by fishermen).

To achieve his effects Monet had to work systematically in series. By the 1890s, still faithful to Impressionist principles when others had long deserted them, Monet brought with him daily in a carriage, to the place chosen to paint, stacks of canvases on each of which he had begun the study of a certain light effect at a given moment of the day.

Monet painted series of cliffs, of haystacks, of poplars bordering a river, of the Thames in London, and the Grand Canal in Venice. But the most impressive was the series of views of Rouen Cathedral. This building an example of Flamboyant Gothic dematerialisation of stone appealed to him as an analogue of his own Impressionist insubstantiality. Systematically he studied the effects of light and colour on the lacy facade. In 1895 he exhibited eighteen views of the facade and two other views of the Cathedral. Monet's moments had, in the process of being painted, become the work of art.

The painting known as Rouen Cathedral in Full Sunlight represents the moment just about noon when the low winter sun is still striking the southern flanks of the masses masonry, and has not yet entered the west portals, illuminated by reflections from the square in front. Dazzling as the cathedral paintings are, Monet was discouraged by the impossibility of registering with his hand what he saw with his eyes.

In 1899 Monet began a series of water landscapes that occupied him till his death twenty seven-years later. These late pictures are the most magical of all. He won his battle with nature by annexing it. He constructed an environment that he could control absolutely, a water garden filled with water-loving trees and flowers, and crossed at one point by a Japanese footbridge. Here in the gigantic canvases he submerged himself in the world of changing colour, a poetic fabric in which visual and emotional experience merge. Abandoning the banks the aged artist gazed into the water, and these paintings show a surface in which the reflections of sky and trees blend between the floating water lilies. In Monet's last works the stream of experience has become timeless. Monet symbolically conquered time.

Make sure you know how to pronounce the fo llowing words:

Claude Monet; Impressionist; photographer; retrospect; Normandy; Japanese; Flamboyant; Gothic; Cathedral; Le Havre; Rouen; Seine; Thames; caricaturist; locomotive; instantaneous

Notes

Impression – Sunrise, Le Havre – «Впечатление Восходящее солнце»

Women in the Garden – «Женщины в саду»

Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris – «Вокзал Сен-Лазер в Париже»

Rouen Cathedral in Full Sunlight – «Руанский собор в полдень»

Tasks

I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.

1. The first exhibition of the Impressionists was held in 1872.

2. In Impression – Sunrise, Le Havre, Monet demonstrated that colour belongs not to the object but to the moment of the visual experience.

3. At the third Impressionist exhibition in 1879 Monet showed ten canvases devoted to the railway.

4. By the 1890s Monet had long deserted the Impressionist principles.

5. In 1899 Monet began a series of seascapes that occupied him ten years.

6. The fleeting effects that absorbed Monet's attention could not pause long enough for him to paint them.

II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?

1. Where was the first exhibition of the Impressionists held? Why was this exhibition greeted with public derision? What picture gave name to the whole movement? What does it represent? What did this revolutionary painting intend to correspond? What did this revolutionary painting intend to correspond?

2. What did Monet constantly observe in Le Havre when he was a boy?

3. What did Monet submit to the Salon in 1867? What is depicted in this painting? What did Monet establish in this painting? What was hard for Monet's contemporaries to accept? What was Manet's attitude to this painting?

4. Where was Monet during the disorder of 1870-1871? What did he study there?

5. What did Monet set up in 1873? What did Monet depict in the Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris? What offered to Monet a tissue of changing light and colour? What colour did the Impressionists eliminate from their palette? Why was the Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris the product of several sessions?

6. Why did Monet have to work in series? What series did Monet paint? What appealed to Monet? What did Monet exhibit in 1895? What does the painting known as Rouen Cathedral in Full Sunlight represent?

7. What are Monet's most magical pictures? What do they show? What battle did Monet win? What environment did Monet construct? What did Monet symbolically do?

III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:

a recently vacated studio; public derision; a revolutionary painting; an instantaneous glimpse; to observe ships; the unending stream of time; to devise new methods; to record the immediate impression of light on smth; to establish a new Impressionist subject; successful from the artistic point of view; to single out moments; landscape painting; to record in series; a lacy faзade.

ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:

удачная с художественной точки зрения (картина); недавно освободившееся ателье; презрение публики; пейзажная живопись; ажурный фасад; новаторская картина; написать серию работ; наблюдать за кораблями; бесконечный поток времени; разработать новые методы; создать новый образ; момент восприятия света; запечатлеть непосредственное отражение света.

ii. Make 'p questions of yoir own with the given phrases.

iv. Arrange the following in the pairs of synonyms:

a) to establish; to demonstrate; impressive; flank; derision; streak; blob;

b) to show; to found; moving; lateral edge; contempt; stripe; a huge lump.

IV. Here are descriptions of some of Monet's works of art. Match them up to the titles given below.

1. In this painting Monet demonstrated that colour belongs not to the object but to the moment of the visual experience.

2. In this picture the new Impressionist subject – the moment of experience in light was established.

3. The iron-and-glass train shed offered to Monet a tissue of changing light and colour, dominated by blue and silver.

4. The painting represents the moment just about noon when the low winter sun is still striking the southern flanks of the massive masonry.

a. Rouen Cathedral in Full Sunlight

b. Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris

c. Impression – Sunrise, Le Havre

d. Women in the Garden

V. Translate the text into English.

Клод Моне является истинным главой школы импрессионистов. В его произведениях воплотилась основная идея импрессионизма – идея света и воздуха. Мир Моне с его растворяющимися предметами постепенно лишается материальности и превращается в гармонию световых пятен.

Моне нередко писал один и тот же вид в разное время суток и в разное время года. Таковы его серии «Стога» и «Руанский собор». Беглыми, как будто небрежными мазками Моне создавал впечатление колышущегося от ветра поля или полной движения улицы Парижа. Он мог запечатлеть и знойное марево летнего дня, и влажный снег французской зимы. Все схвачено как бы случайно, но увидено зорким взглядом художника.

Моне прошел все этапы: он знал нищету, непризнание, насмешки, затем приобрел известность, переросшую в триумф. Моне пережил свою славу. Он был свидетелем того, как устаревали его идеи, которым он был верен до конца жизни.

VI. Summarize the text

VII. Topics for discussion.

1. Impressionism.

2. Monet's principles and methods of painting.

3. Monet's artistic heritage.

 

Unit XII Pissarro And Renoir

An extremely gifted member of the Impressionist group was Camille Pissarro (1830-1903). He was the most careful and craftsmanly of them all. His companionship and advice provided a technical foundation for Cezanne, who called him «humble and colossal». Pissarro is both in the scrupulously painted Boulevard des Italien, Paris – Morning Sunlight, of 1897. With infinite care he recorded the innumerable spots of colour constituted by people, carriages, omnibuses, trees, windows, and kiosks in this view of one of the great metropolitan thoroughfares, whose activities provided the subject for many Impressionist paintings. Impressionist artists often worked side by side painting the same view of a street, a cafe, or a riverbank at the same moment of light and atmosphere, and it is often only the special sensibility and personal touch of each painter that makes it possible to tell their works apart.

The sparkling Les Grands Boulevards, of 1875, by Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) shows how much latitude remained for individuality in treating a similar subject at the height of the collective phase of the Impressionist movement. Renoir, the most exciting and active of the group, has not bothered with details. He has captured a moment of high excitement as we look across a roadway from the shadow of the trees to the trotting white horse pulling a carriage filled with people in blazing sun. Warmth, physical delight, and intense joy of life are the perpetual themes of Renoir. Trained at first as a painter on porcelain, he later studied with the academic painter Charles Gleyre and soon made the acquaintance of the Impressionist group, with whom he exhibited until 1886.

The best painting of the Impressionist highest point is Renoir's Le Moulin de la Galette, of 1876, depicting a Sunday afternoon in a popular outdoor dancing cafe on Montmartre. Young couples are gathered at tables under the trees, or dancing happily through the changing interplay of sunlight and shadow Characteristically, there is no trace of black, even the coats and the shadows turn to blue. One could scarcely imagine a more complete embodiment of the fundamental theme of Impressionist painting, the enjoyment of the moment of light and air. Although he later turned toward a Post-Impressionist style, Renoir never surpassed the beauty of this picture, which sums up visually the goal he once expressed in words: «The earth as the paradise of the gods, that is what I want to paint».

Make sure you know how to pronounce the following words:

Camille Pissarro; paradise; Auguste Renoir; perpetual; Post-Impressionist; thoroughfare; companionship; acquaintance; Montmartre; boulevard [

Notes

Boulevard des Italien, Paris – Morning Sunlight – «Итальянский бульвар. Париж»

Les Grands Boulevards – «Большие Бульвары»

Le Moulin de la Galette – «Мулен де ла Галетт»

Charles Gleyre – Чарльз Глейр, швейцарский художник, в студии которого собирались импрессионисты

Tasks

I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.

1. Cezanne called Renoir «humble and colossal».

2. Pissarro, the most exciting and active of the group, never bothered with details.

3. Impressionist artists often worked side by side painting the same view of a street, a cafe, or a riverbank at the same moment of light and atmosphere.

4. Pissarro was the most exciting and active of the group.

5. At first Renoir was trained as a sculptor.

6. Pissarro exhibited with the Impressionist group until 1886.

II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?

1. How is Camille Pissarro characterised?

2. What is depicted in the Boulevard des Italien, Paris – MomingSunlight?

3. What provided subjects for many Impressionist paintings? What is the fundamental theme of Impressionist paintings?

4. What is the best painting of the Impressionist highest point? What does it represent? Did the painter manage to surpass the beauty of this picture?

5. What were Renoir's perpetual themes? What were Renoir's goals? What did Renoir picture in Les Grands Boulevards?

6. When did Renoir turn toward the Post-Impressionist style?

III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:

an extremely gifted painter; the Impressionist group; to provide a technical foundation for; to record spots of colour; a great metropolitan thoroughfare; to work side by side; to paint the same view of a street; at the height of the phase of; the Impressionist movement; to capture a moment of high excitement; to make acquaintance; to surpass the beauty of the picture.

ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:

никогда не превзойти красоты картины; работать бок о бок; запечатлеть наиболее волнительный момент; очень талантливый художник; широкая магистраль крупного города; писать один и тот же городской пейзаж; обеспечить технической базой; зарисовывать пятна цвета; наивысший период творчества; познакомиться.

iii. Make up sentences of your own with the given phrases.

iv. Arrange the following in the pairs of synonyms:

a) to surpass; perpetual; to provide; paradise; fundamental;

b) Eden; essential; to exceed; to furnish; continuous.

IV Here are names of the painters and the titles of their works. Match them up Describe these works of art.

1. Pissarro

2. Renoir

a. Les Grands Boulevards

b. Le Moulin de la Galette

c. Boulevard des Italien, Paris – Morning Sunlight

V. Translate the text into English.

В картине «Бульвар Монмартр в Париже» Камиль Писсарро запечатлел один из красивейших бульваров столицы Франции. Этот пейзаж написан художником из верхних окон отеля. Зритель видит длинную улицу в день ранней весны. Деревья еще без листьев, видимо, только что прошел дождь. Благодаря свободным и быстрым мазкам художнику удалось передать живое ощущение улицы, заполненной пешеходами и потоком катящихся экипажей.

Огюста Ренуара называли «певцом счастья». Его искусство радостно и лучезарно. Пейзажная живопись мало увлекала Ренуара, в центре внимания живописца был человек. Художник оставил много портретов, главным образом женских. В них нет психологических углублений. Высоким живописным мастерством также отмечены созданные Ренуаром жанровые сцены и натюрморт с цветами.

VI. Summarize the text.

VII. Topics for discussion.

1. The methods of painting of Pissarro and Renoir.

2. The artistic heritage of Pissarro and Renoir.

 

Unit XIII Cezanne (1839-1906)

The leading painter of the late nineteenth century in France, one of the most powerful artists in the history of Western painting, was Paul Cezanne. Son of a prosperous banker in the southern French city of Aix-en-Provance, Cezanne never experienced financial difficulties. He received some artistic training in Aix. Cezanne arrived in Paris for the first time in 1861, but he never set up permanent residence there. At first Cezanne was interested m the official art of the Salons but soon achieved an understanding of Delacroix and Courbet, and before long of Manet as well, but his early works were Romantic. Only in the early 1870s Cezanne adopted the Impressionist palette, viewpoint, and subject matter under the tutelage of Pissarro. Cezanne exhibited his paintings with the Impressionists in 1874, 1877, 1882.

During most of his independent career Cezanne remained in Aix. His isolation from other artists helped him to concentrate on the formation of a new style of painting. Cezanne's mature style is often interpreted in the light of his celebrated sayings: «I want to do Poussin over again, from nature," «I wish to make of Impressionism something solid and durable, like the art of the museums," and «Drawing and colour are not distinct… The secret of drawing and modelling lies in contrasts and relations of tones.»

Among the subjects Cezanne repeatedly studied was Mont Sainte Victoire, the rocky mass that dominates the plain of Aix. His Mont Sainte-Victoire was painted about 1885-1887. Nothing indicates the time of the day or even the season. It neither rains nor snows in this landscape. Time is defeated by permanence. In this picture it is not clear where Cezanne places the observer. It is not certain where the tree is rooted. Some objects are identifiable as houses, trees, fields, but Cezanne's visual threshold is high and below that level nothing is defined. The effect of durability and massiveness is produced by a new use of the Impressionist colour spots. The landscape becomes a colossal rock crystal of colour – a cubic cross section of the world. Its background and foreground planes are established by branches and by the mountain whose rhythms they echo. The constituent planes embrace a great variety of hues of blue, green, yellow, rose, and violet. The delicate differentiation between these hues produces the impression of three-dimensional form. To construct form Cezanne has used the very colour patch the Impressionists had used ten years before to dissolve it. He has achieved from nature a construction and intellectual organisation much like that Poussin had derived from the organisation of figures, and made of Impressionism something durable, reminding us of the airless backgrounds of Giotto. Cezanne created a world remote from human experience. The beauty of his colour constructions is abstract, and it is no wonder that many artists of the early twentieth century, especially the Cubists, claimed him as the father of modern art.

Still life was to Cezanne second only to landscape. His Still life with Apples and Oranges was painted between 1895 and 1900. The arrangements of fruits, bottles, plates and a rumpled cloth on a tabletop never suggest the consumption of food or drink; they are spheroid or cylindrical masses. The appearance of reality is neglected; the table has a tendency to disappear under the table-cloth at one level and emerge from it at another, and the two sides of a bottle can be sharply different. Whether Cezanne did not notice such discrepancies in his search for the right colour to make a form go round in depth, or whether he decided on deformations consciously, has never been convincingly determined. He cared for subjects as arrangements of form and colour, but they also possessed for him strong psychological significance.

For his rare figure pieces Cezanne chose subjects as quiet, impersonal, and remote as his still lifes. The Card Players, of about 1890-1892, shows three men, two of whom are clad in the blue smock of the farmer labourer, sitting around a table, while a fourth gazes downward, arms folded. The card game had been a favourite subject among the followers of Caravaggio. The quite figures contemplate the cards, themselves planes of colour on white surfaces. The Giotto-like folds of the smock of the man on the right echo in reverse those of the hanging curtain, locking foreground and background in a single construction. Yet the background wall fluctuates at an indeterminable distance like the sky in one of Cezanne's landscapes.

The full beauty of Cezanne's developed style is seen in his Woman with the Coffee-pot, of about 1895. Cezanne's planes of varying hues of blue and blue-violet have built majestic cylinders from the arms and a fluted column from the body. Stability is very important for Cezanne. Yet the door panels in the background tilt slightly to the left, compensating for the turn of the head toward the right, and the placing of the coffee-pot and cup. The adjustments are so exquisite that the removal of one element inflicts the whole picture a fatal blow. Cezanne's search for the exact plane of colour to fit into his structure was so demanding that at times the plane eluded him. Surprising elements are the mysteriously vertical spoon, and the cylinders of cup and pot, definitely out of drawing.

By the end of his life Cezanne's development toward abstraction became more evident. The large Bathers, of 1898-1905, is the culmination of his series of nude compositions. The figures were neither painted from life, nor in the open air (women in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries did not bathe naked in streams and sun themselves on the banks). The fantasy gave Cezanne the materials with which to build a grand imaginary architecture, composed of strikingly simplified figures, overarching tree trunks, blue sky and white clouds – a modern cathedral of light and colour. The figures and heads remained schematic, features are suppressed and mouths are omitted entirely. The end result is a simplification of the human figure that had not been seen since the Middle Ages.

Make sure you know how to pronounce the fo llowing words:

Cezanne; Provance; Aix; fatal; threshold; majestic; imaginary; indeterminable; Victoire

Notes

Mont Sainte-Victoire – «Гора Сент-Виктуар»

Card Players – «Игроки в карты»

Still life with Apples and Oranges – «Натюрморт с корзиной фруктов»

Woman with the Coffee-pot – «Женщина с кофейником»

Bathers – «Купальщицы»

Tasks

I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.

1. Cezanne was born in Normandy.

2. Cezanne's early works were Neo-classic.

3. Cezanne exhibited his paintings at the Salon in 1877.

4. Portraiture to Cezanne was second only to still life.

5. Cezanne developed abstractionism.

6. The figures in the Bathers were painted from life.

II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?

1. What interested Cezanne at the beginning of his career? What sayings illustrate Cezanne's mature style?

2. What subject did Cezanne repeatedly study? What is depicted in the Mont Sainte-Victoire^. How did Cezanne produce the effect of durability and massiveness? What did Cezanne achieve from nature?

3. What is shown in the Still life with Apples and Oranges? What discrepancies are seen in this work of art?

4. What subject did Cezanne choose for his figure pieces? What is depicted in the CardPlayers? How did Cezanne arrange the figures?

5. Where is the full beauty of Cezanne's developed style seen? What dominates in this painting?

6. What makes the Bathers a masterpiece? Why is Cezanne claimed to be the father of modern art?

III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:

to adopt the Impressionist palette; objects are identifiable; a colossal rock crystal of colour; colour construction; spheroid or cylindrical masses; psychological significance; to inflict a fatal blow; search for the exact plane of colour; a developed style; a visual threshold; a fluted column; indispensable elements; the formation of a new style; simplified figures.

ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:

неотъемлемый элемент; упрощенные фигуры; зрительный порог; зрелый стиль; формирование нового стиля; постоянно изучать; сферические и цилиндрические фигуры; излюбленная тема; цветовые формы; не поддающиеся определению предметы; овладеть палитрой импрессионистов.

iii. Make up sentences of your own with the given phrases.

iv. Arrange the following in the pairs of synonyms:

a) to inflict; fatal; indispensable; imaginary; to develop;

b) unreal; essential; to impose; to improve; doomed.

IV. Here are descriptions of some of Cezanne's works of art. Match them up to the titles given below.

1. Cezanne's planes have built majestic cylinders from the arms and a fluted column from the body.

2. The painting shows three men sitting around a table, while a fourth gazes downward, arms folded.

3. The fantasy gave Cezanne the materials with which to build a grand imaginary architecture, composed of simplified figures.

4. The table disappears under the tablecloth at one level.

5. Nothing indicates the time of the day or even the season.

a. Still life with Apples and Oranges

b. Bathers

c. Woman with the Coffee-pot

d. Mont Sainte-Victoire

e. Card Players

V. Translate the text into English.

До конца жизни Поль Сезанн подписывал свои произведения «ученик Писсарро», таким образом подчеркивая свою связь с импрессионистами. Сам Сезанн не принадлежал к этому направлению. У Сезанна нет картин сложного содержания. Наиболее сильная сторона таланта Сезанна – колорит. В передаче цветом реальности выявляются геометрические фигуры природных форм. «Все в природе лепится в форме шара, конуса, цилиндра; надо научится писать на этих простых фигурах, и, если вы научитесь владеть этими формами, вы сделаете все, что захотите». Взамен кажущейся случайности импрессионистов Сезанн принес чувство массы, выразительность образов.

Элементы абстрагирования, заложенные в искусстве Сезанна, позволили его последователям считать его основоположником абстракционизма.

VI. Summarize the text.

VI. Topics for discussion.

1. Cezanne's artistic concepts.

2. Cezanne and Cubists.

3. Cezanne's as the forerunner of Abstract painting.

 

Unit XIV Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901)

Henry Toulouse-Lautrec, born to one of the oldest noble families in France, broke both his legs in early adolescence, and they never developed properly. For the rest of his brief existence he remained a dwarf, alienated from his family's fashionable life. He learned to paint, and took refuge in the night life of Paris, which he depicted with consummate skill – scenes of cafes, theatres, and cabarets. All of his portrayals are prompted by the same uncritical acceptance of the facts of Parisian night life that he wished for his own deformity and found only in this shadowy world. At the Moulin Rouge, of 1892, was influenced by Degas, whom he deeply admired. Toulouse-Lautrec's line was sure, almost as much as that of his idol, but his tolerant humanity was entirely his own. The little artist can be made out toward the top of the picture in profile, just to the left of centre alongside his towering cousin and constant companion. It is significant that, to reinforce the psychological impact of the picture, Toulouse-Lautrec extended it on all four sides, particularly at the bottom and at the right. The plunging perspective of a balustrade in the added section pushes the little group huddled about the table into the middle distance, while it forces toward us with startling intensity the face of a heavily powered entertainer, so lighted from below that the shadows are green. Toulouse-Lautrec's smart and vivid drawing style, his brilliant patterning, and surprising colour contrasts were the dominant influence in Paris when in 1900, eight years after the picture was painted, the young Pablo Picasso arrived from Spain.

Make sure you know how to pronounce the following words:

Toulouse-Lautrec; Degas; Picasso; adolescence; alienated; balustrade; cabaret; cafe; dwarf; profile; psychological

Notes

At the Moulin Rouge – «Мулен Руж»

Tasks

I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.

1. Toulouse-Lautrec's parents were French aristocrats.

2. Toulouse-Lautrec took refuge in the wilderness.

3. Toulouse-Lautrec depicted poplars and cathedrals.

4. At the Moulin Rouge was influenced by Renoir.

5. Degas admired Toulouse-Lautrec's works of art.

6. Toulouse-Lautrec's line resembled that of Cezanne's.

II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?

1. Why was Toulouse-Lautrec alienated from his family's fashionable life?

2. What did Toulouse-Lautrec like to depict? Why?

3. Who was Toulouse-Lautrec's idol?

4. What is represented in Toulouse-Lautrec's At the Moulin Rouge? How did the painter depict himself and his cousin in this picture?

5. What did Toulouse-Lautrec do to reinforce the psychological impact of this picture? What did Toulouse-Lautrec do to impress the observer?

6. What was the dominant influence in Paris in 1900? Who was influenced by Toulouse-Lautrec's works of art?

III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:

for the rest of one's existence; to take refuge in; uncritical acceptance; to be influenced by; tolerant humanity; it is significant that; the psychological impact; at the bottom of the picture; surprising colour contrasts; the dominant influence; to extend the picture on all four sides; the plunging perspective; to light from below; drawing style; at the right.

ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:

неожиданные цветовые контрасты; раздвинуть картину с четырех сторон; терпимость; осветить снизу; психологическое влияние; глубинная перспектива; знаменательно то, что; основное влияние; в течение оставшейся жизни; найти убежище в; стиль рисунка; быть под влиянием.

iii. Make up questions of your own with the given phrases.

iv. Arrange the/allowing in the pairs of synonyms:

a) noble; existence; alienated; humanity; deformity; idol; tolerant;

b) ugliness; aristocratic; life; favourite; patient; hostile; kindness.

IV. Translate the text into English.

Анри Тулуз-Лотрека историки искусства называют постимпрессионистом. Он работал в основном в графике и оставил острые, доходящие до гротеска образы. Это в основном литографии, посвященные типажам парижской богемы. Тулуз-Лотрек делал плакаты с изображением знаменитых танцовщиц и певиц кабаре. В «Мулен де ла Галетт» и «Мулен Руж» художник экспрессивно и драматически изобразил веселье Парижа.

Многочисленные рисунки, эстампы, литографии свидетельствуют о Тулуз-Лотреке как о выдающемся рисовальщике XIX века.

V. Summarize the text.

VI. Topics for discussion.

1. Toulouse-Lautrec's style and characters.

2. Toulouse-Lautrec as a great draughtsman.

 

Unit XV Gauguin (1848-1903)

Paul Gauguin, a French painter, sculptor and printmaker, was a founder of modern art. A successful businessman without any artistic training Gauguin began painting as an amateur while working as a stockbroker. He soon met Pissarro and Cezanne, as well as the Impressionists. Gauguin absorbed their ideas and techniques and from 1879 to the last Impressionist exhibition in 1886 showed regularly with this group.

Paul Gauguin lived a life that reads like a classic tale of the misunderstood, and uncompromising artist, searching for verities against all odds. He was born in Paris and four years of his childhood lived in Peru (he was partly of Indian origin); six years of his youth he spent as a sailor and was incurably drawn to the exotic and the faraway.

For Gauguin painting itself became identified with his wanderlust and drew him away from all his daily associations. In 1883 he gave up his business career and his bourgeois existence to devote his life to art. Gauguin was convinced that European urban civilisation was incurably ill. His life was nomadic; he moved back and fourth between villages in Brittany and the island of Martinique. Impoverished, deadly ill, and in trouble with the law, Gauguin died on the Marquesas Islands.

Gauguin's departure from Western artistic tradition was prompted by the rebellious attitude that impelled his break from middle-class life. But Gauguin, too, was not an Impressionist at heart. He sought art using ideas rather than the tangible world as a starting point. In this he was influenced by the artist Emil Bernard and by the Symbolist poets Rimbault and Baudelaire. Joining him in renouncing naturalism were the Symbolists, and van Gogh.

Gauguin renounced the formlessness of Impressionist vision and recommended a return to the «primitive» styles as the only refuge for art. What he sought was immediacy of experience. Gauguin did this in his brilliant Vision After the Sermon or, alternatively, Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, painted in 1888, during his second stay in Brittany. This painting marked Gauguin break with Impressionism to follow his own style. He rejected realism in favour of the imagination, and through his expressionist means he made one of the most influential impacts on Western art. In the background Jacob is depicted wrestling with the angel. This event forms the lesson in the Breton rite for the eighth Sunday aflei Trinity. On the preceding day the blessing of horned beasts took place, followed by wrestling contests and a procession with red banners, and at night fireworks, a bonfire that turned the fields red with its glow, and an angel descending from the church tower. In the foreground Gauguin has shown at the right the head of a priest and next to it praying women in Breton costumes. Although the figures are outlined with the clarity that Gauguin derived from his study of Oriental, medieval, and primitive arts, the contrast between the large foreground heads and the smaller groups in the distance still presupposes Western perspective, and is drawn from theatre subjects developed by Duamier, Degas, and Renoir.

In Oceania Gauguin was influenced only to a limited degree by the art of the natives with whom he lived. He took his flattened style with its emphasis on brilliant colour to the South Seas with him, and fitted into it the people whose folkways and personalities attracted him. The attitudes in which he drew and painted them still derive from Impressionist vision. In The Day of the God, of 1894, a happy nude woman and her two children rest at the water's edge below the towering image of the god in the background. But while the poses are free in the Western tradition, the contours have been restored, as continuous and unbroken as in Egyptian or Archaic Greek Art.

Before his death Gauguin said, «I wanted to establish the right to dare everything… The public owes me nothing, since my pictorial oeuvre is but relatively good; but the painters who today profit from this liberty owe me something.» So indeed they did, especially Matisse, but no more than Cubism and abstract movements owe to the pioneer researches of Cezanne.

Make sure you know how to pronounce the fo llowing words:

Paul Gauguin; Duamier; Degas; Breton; Brittany; Oceania; van Gogh; Egypt; Archaic; Marquesas; Tahiti; Peru; Jacob; Martinique; bourgeois; Rimbault.

Notes

Vision After the Sermon – «Видение после проповеди»

The Day of the God – «День Бога»

Tasks

I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.

1. Paul Gauguin began painting as a professional.

2. In 1880 Gauguin devoted his life to business career.

3. Gauguin was convinced that European urban civilisation was incurably ill.

4. Gauguin painted the Vision After the Sermon in 1879.

5. The poses in Gauguin's paintings are as continuous and unbroken as in Egyptian or Archaic Greek Art.

6. Gauguin recommended a return to the Old Masters.

II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?

1. What did Paul Gauguin do early in life? How old was Gauguin when he began painting? What style did Gauguin absorb? Where did he exhibit his works from 1879 to 1886?

2. Why was Gauguin's life nomadic?

3. What did Gauguin renounce and what did he recommend? What did Gauguin seek? What is depicted in the Vision After the Sermon? How did Gauguin outline the figures? What is the subject of this painting? What did Gauguin depict in the background? What did Gauguin show in the foreground at the right? What did it presuppose?

4. What did Gauguin take to the South Seas with him?

5. What is represented in The Day of the God?

6. What did Gauguin say before his death?

III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:

to begin painting as a amateur; to identify painting with; bourgeois existence; European urban civilisation; nomadic life; the departure from Western artistic tradition; the rebellious attitude to; to break from middle-class life; to renounce the formlessness of Impressionist vision; to presuppose Western perspective; the art of the natives; flattened style; to outline figures with clarity; to restore the contours.

ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:

ассоциировать живопись с; бегство от европейской городской цивилизации; бунтарское отношение к; воссоздать контуры; четко обозначить фигуры; искусство туземцев; разрыв со средним классом; критиковать отсутствие формы в картинах импрессионистов; буржуазный образ жизни; кочевая жизнь; плоскостной стиль.

iii. Make up sentences of your own with the given phrases.

iv. Arrange the following in the pairs of synonyms:

a) civilisation; amateur; existence; rebellious; emphasis;

b) defiant; accent; non-professional; being; culture.

IV. Here are descriptions of some of Gauguin's works of art. Match them up to the titles given below.

1. In the background Jacob is depicted wrestling with the angel.

2. A happy nude woman and her two children rest at the water's edge.

a. The Day of the God

b. Vision After the Sermon

V. Translate the text into English.

В истории искусства имя Поля Гогена связывают с символизмом, получившим в конце XIX – начале XX вв. название примитивизм. Несмотря на то, что Гоген стал систематически заниматься живописью довольно поздно, ему удалось выработать собственную манеру письма. Разочарованный в европейской цивилизации, Гоген бежал в экзотические страны. Природа и жизнь туземных племен стали источником его творческого вдохновения. Гоген сознательно пришел к примитивизации формы, стремясь приблизиться к художественным традициям туземного искусства. В общении с первобытной природой Гоген хотел обрести иллюзорный покой. Создав стилизацию таитянского искусства, Гоген вызвал интерес к искусству неевропейских народов.

VI. Summarize the text.

VII. Topics for discussion.

1. Gauguin as a life-long rebel.

2. Gauguin as a founder of modem art.

 

Unit XVI Van Gogh (1853-1890)

Van Gogh identified art with emotion. The son of a Protestant Dutch minister, the young Van Gogh was by turns the employee of a firm of art dealers, a language teacher, a student of practical evangelism and a missionary to the coal miners. Through these fragmentary careers runs the theme – a love of humanity, and of life. This love was the theme of his art as well, and was to produce one of the most intensely personal witnesses in the spiritual history of mankind. Even Van Gogh's mental illness, that brought about his frequent hospitalisations and his untimely death, did not prevent him from becoming the only Dutch painter whose stature could set him on a level with the three great Dutch masters of the seventeenth century.

In 1881 Van Gogh started to study art, but remained in a somewhat provincial Dutch tradition, out of touch with the colouristic discoveries of Impressionism. In 1886 he came to Paris for a two-year stay with his brother Theo, and under the influence of Impressionism and Japanese prints freed his palette and worked out a fresh, new, highly original sense of pattern in contour. Having shown signs of depression and emotional instability, he left the north early in 1888, hoping to find a happier existence in Arles, in Provence. During the next two years, he painted at white heatoften a canvas a day – his series of masterpieces in a style unprecedented in European art. He was fascinated by the beauty of the landscape, by the southern light, absolutely different from that of northern France with its mists and rain. He noted that the intense sunlight could drive a man mad.

An excellent example of his brief period of happiness is his A View of La Craw, painted in June 1888, with its almost Renaissance perspective of fields and farms, a surprising revival of the principles that had been swept aside by the Impressionists and Gauguin. To Van Gogh space construction became an expressive device, moving the observer forcefully toward the distant mountains. The whole picture is coloured in red-gold and blue that were his own colours. The thick pigment, blazing colour, and strong, straight strokes are Van Gogh's personal transformation of Impressionist technique. The happy period did not last long. In September 1888 Van Gogh painted the first of his disturbing pictures, The Night Cafe. The perspective is so strongly exaggerated here that it seems to catapult the observer into the end wall, in which the red-and-green contrast is insoluble.

In late December of the same year Van Gogh threw with violence a knife at Gauguin and then cut off his own ear. Van Gogh was cared for at first in the hospital at Arles, and then in the asylum at nearby Saint-Remy. He was allowed to paint and produced beautiful and moving works. Van Gogh's Self-portrait, painted in the asylum in September 1889, reveals the period of desperation through which the artist had passed. The brushstrokes are now curved and vibrate throughout the picture. In a mood of renewed confidence, the artist has endowed the painting with his own physical colouring: his ivory face, gold hair, red-gold beard float in tides of deep blue, the colour of the artist's eyes. Only in Rembrandt's self-portraits it is possible to find such intense self-revelation.

In the fields near the asylum, by day and at night, Van Gogh drew and painted the wonders of the earth and sky. These pictures communicate a mood of self-identification, which is the mark of religious ecstasy in Van Gogh. The Starry Night, painted in June 1889, shows not only the stars Van Gogh observed but exploding masses of gold fire, expanding against the blue. Two of these swirl through the sky in a kind of cosmic embrace, unimagined by the sleeping town below.

In May 1890 Van Gogh went to Paris for a three-day stay with his brother, then to Auvers where Dr. Paul Gachet took care of him. Despairing of the cure, he shot himself on July 27, and died two days later. For all the tragic circumstances of his life, Van Gogh won a spiritual victory in opening a new path for artistic vision and expression.

Make sure you know how to pronounce the following words:

Vincent Van Gogh; Theo; Protestant; evangelism; Provence

Notes

A View of La Craw – «Вид на долину Ла Кро»

The Night Cafe – «Ночное кафе»

The Starry Night – «Звездная ночь»

Tasks

I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.

1. In 1886 Van Gogh started to study art but he was out of touch with the colouristic discoveries of Impressionism.

2. Van Gogh's favourite colours were green, white and blue.

3. In Italy Van Gogh painted his series of masterpieces in a style unprecedented in European art.

4. Van Gogh constantly drew and painted the wonders of the earth and sky.

5. Van Gogh was fascinated by the beauty of the landscape of northern France with its mists and rain.

6. Van Gogh won a spiritual victory in opening a new path for artistk vision and expression.

II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?

1. What did Van Gogh do in his youth? What was the theme of Van Gogh's art? What did Van Gogh work out in Paris under the influence of Impressionism and Japanese prints?

2. Why did Van Gogh leave Paris? What did he do during the next two years? How many canvases did Van Gogh paint in Arles? What inspired Van Gogh?

3. What was revived in A View of La Craw? What expressive device was used in this painting? How did Van Gogh transform the Impressionist technique?

4. Why is The Night Cafe characterised as a disturbing picture? What happened in late December of 1889? What was Van Gogh allowed to do in the hospital?

5. What does Van Gogh's Self-Portrait reveal? What colours dominate in this work of art? What mood does the picture communicate?

6. What does The Starry Night represent? What were Van Gogh's innovations?

III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:

to identify art with emotion; the colouristic discoveries of Impressionism; to free the palette; space construction; to work out a new, original sense of pattern in contour; emotional instability; Renaissance perspective; an expressive device; brushstrokes vibrate throughout the picture; to endow the painting with; cosmic embrace; tragic circumstances; to win a spiritual victory; artistic vision and expression; a style unprecedented in European art; transformation of Impressionist technique; against the blue.

ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:

одержать духовную победу над; модифицирование техники импрессионистов; колористические открытия импрессионистов; быть очарованным; мазки пульсируют в картине: видение художника; трагические обстоятельства; объятие космоса; одержать духовную победу; оригинальный стиль; на голубом фоне; построение пространства; для достижения большей выразительности; разработать новый оригинальный контур; перспектива Ренессанса.

iii. Make up sentences of your own with the given phrases.

iv. Arrange the following in the pairs of synonyms:

a) to vibrate; expressive; device; to endow; technique; spiritual; victory;

b) ethereal; to bestow; meaningful; triumph; invention; to wave; method.

IV. Here are descriptions of some of Van Gogh's works of art. Match them up to the titles given below.

1. In this painting the perspective is so strongly exaggerated that it seems to catapult the observer into the end wall.

2. Exploding masses of gold fire expand against the blue.

3. Renaissance perspective of fields and farms is revived in this painting.

4. In a mood of renewed confidence, the artist has endowed the painting with his own physical colouring.

a. The Starry Night

b. The Night Cafu

c. Self-Portrait

d. A View of La Craw

V. Translate the text into English.

Винцент Ван Гог – «великий голландец» – неразрывно связан с французской живописной школой. Художника, воплотившего душевную смятенность современного человека, называют постимпрессионистом. В своих произведениях Ван Гог выразил глубокий трагизм, с которым он воспринимал жизнь. Любой портрет, пейзаж или натюрморт у Ван Гога исполнен скрытой драматической силы. Ощущение беспокойства выражено в резком звучании красок.

Творчество Ван Гога охватывает десятилетие, причем самыми важными являются последние пять лет. Это были годы нечеловеческого труда, в результате которого Ван Гог создал произведения, оставившие неизгладимый след в мире искусства.

VI. Summarize the text.

VII. Topics for discussion.

1. Van Gogh's style and colour.

2. Van Gogh's theme.

3. Van Gogh's artistic heritage.

 

Unit XVII Matisse (1869-1954)

When the twentieth century opened, Henry Matisse, already past thirty, was a competent painter in a modified Impressionist style. He was not interested in the innovations of the Post-Impressionists. Soon after the turn of the century Matisse began experimenting with figures so simplified that their masses could be stated in bold areas of pigment. Then he turned to the divided touches of bright colour introduced by the Neo-impressionists. In 1905 came the Fauve explosion. Matisse burst upon the art world with astonishing series of paintings in which masses of brilliant colour were applied in broad areas and full intensity. His Green Stripe, of 1905, exhibited in the celebrated group of Fauve pictures in the Salon d'Automne, excited horror because this blazing bouquet of colours was applied not only to the background but also to the face, dominated by the green stripe through the centre of the forehead and down the nose. Matisse intensified the differentiation of hues already analysed by the Impressionists in order to produce a strong emotional effect. Not even Gauguin had dreamed of such distortions.

The triumphant affirmation of Matisse's Fauve period is the huge Joy of Life, of 1905-6, almost eight feet long. A forest glade is inhabited by a happy company of nudes, male and female, embracing, playing pipes, picking flowers, draping garlands about their bodies, or dancing in a ring, all indicated with an unbroken contour of the utmost flexibility. In a sense, Matisse's new scale and contour were prepared by Gauguin. But Matisse has gone farther, especially in his heightening of colour to intensify the fluidity of contour. The primitivism desired by Gauguin has been reached here without reference to exotic cultures. Matisse's figures abandon themselves to nature physically as the Impressionist painter and viewer had visually.

In 1908 Matisse wrote: «What I am after, above all, is expression… Expression to my way of thinking does not consist of the passion mirrored upon a human face or betrayed by a violent gesture. The whole arrangement of my pictures is expressive. The place occupied by figures or objects, the empty spaces around them, the proportions, everything plays a part… What I dream or is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter…» Matisse's Red Studio sums up his art and philosophy. Walls and floor are coloured the same strong surprisingly airy red. As there are no shadows, the painting looks flat at first sight, but then the beautiful clear red begins to suggest a kind of space in which the objects float. Against the walls hang or lean canvases by Matisse. Among the furniture contoured in wavering yellow lines are modelling stands bearing small sculptured nudes by Matisse. The idea of the picture as an arrangement in colour has been perfectly fulfilled by Matisse. The recapitulation of his artistic achievements becomes a delicate web of line and colour, in which Renaissance perspective survives only as an echo.

For more than forty years Matisse continued to paint the relaxed themes he loved. He never deserted his basic Fuave message of linear and colouristic freedom, calm and beauty. In 1921 he took up residence at Nice, where he created a series of masterpieces. Typical of his Nice period is Decorative Figure Against an Ornamented Background (nicknamed Nude with the Straight Back). The strongly modelled, grandly simplified forms of the nude are played off against the movement of the Rococo shapes in the wallpaper and the mirror. Between the browns, rose tones, and yellows of the Oriental rug and wallpaper the richness of colour is almost overwhelming.

In 1943 Matisse moved to the Riviera hill-town of Vencc, where during a serious illness he was cared for by Dominican nuns. In gratitude he designed and financed a wonderful chapel for them. He created architecture, murals, stained glass, vestments the altar, candlesticks, and crucifix, between 1948 and 1951. Despite the fact that Matisse professed no formal religion, this chapel is one of the few greatest works of the religious art done in the twentieth century.

Although in old age Matisse was confined to bed, his scope and freedom of art widened. Zulma, of 1950, is dominated by blue, green and pink. Its pulsating contours, flat surfaces and brilliant colour revive on a new scale the energy of Matisse's Joy of Life. To many critics Matisse remain, from a purely pictorial stand point, the most sensitive painter of the twentieth century.

Make sure you know how to pronounce the/allowing words:

Henry Matisse; Nice; Vence; nun; Fauve; Fauvism; Oriental; bouquet; distortion; Dominican; forehead; triumphant; decorative

Notes

The Green Stripe – «Зеленая полоса»

Joy of Life – «Радость жизни»

Red Studio – «Красная комната»

Decorative Figure Against an Ornamented Background (Nude with the Straight Back) – «Декоративная фигура на фоне орнамента» (Обнаженная с прямой спиной)

Zulma – «Зульма»

Tasks

I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.

1. Matisse was an amateur painter.

2. In 1900 came the explosion of Cubism.

3. Matisse's new scale and contour were prepared by Gauguin.

4. Matisse reached Gauguin's primitivism only with reference to exotic cultures.

5. In 1943 Matisse took up residence at Nice, where he created a series of masterpieces.

6. Matisse is considered to be the most sensitive painter of the twentieth century.

II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?

1. What innovations interested Matisse? What experiments did Matisse perform? What attracted Matisse then?

2. Why did The Green Stripe excite horror? What is depicted in this painting?

3. What is the triumphant affirmation of Matisse's Fauve period? What did Matisse reach in this picture?

4. What did Matisse write in 1908? What painting sums up Matisse's art and philosophy? What was the idea of this picture? What has survived as an echo in this painting?

5. What did Matisse create in 1921? What is typical of Matisse's Nice period? What is represented in this painting?

6. What did Matisse do in 1943? What did he create between 1948 and 1951? What did Matisse produce in his old age?

III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:

the innovations of the Post-Impressionists; simplified figures; the art world; the celebrated group of Fauve pictures; to intensify the differentiation of hues; to produce a strong emotional effect; to intensify the fluidity of contour; exotic culture; a delicate web of line and colour; stained glass; from a pictorial stand point.

ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:

упрощенные формы; перспектива Ренессанса; знаменитые работы фовистов; утонченная изысканность линии и контура; витраж; экзотическая культура; произвести сильный эмоциональный эффект; подчеркнуть плавность линий; мир искусства; с точки зрения живописи; усилить контраст тонов.

iii. Make up questions of your own with the given phrases.

iv. Arrange the following in the pairs of synonyms:

a) contour; vestment; masterpiece; mural; touch; revive;

b) artistic scene; style; masterwork; recover; shape; garment

IV. Here are descriptions of some of Matisse's works of art. Match them up to the titles given below.

1. This painting is dominated by blue, green and pink.

2. A forest glade is inhabited by a happy company of nudes, male and female, embracing, playing pipes and picking flowers.

3. Renaissance perspective survives here only as an echo.

4. The strongly modelled, grandly simplified forms of the nude are played off against the movement of the Rococo shapes in the wallpaper and the mirror.

5. The blazing bouquet of colours was applied not only to the background but also to the face.

6. It is a great work of art of the 20-th century.

a. Red Studio

b. Zulma

c. The Green Stripe

d. The Chapel

e. Decorative Figure Against an Ornamented Background (Nude with the Straight Back)

f. Joy of Life

V. Translate the text into English.

Анри Матисс, самый талантливый из фовистов, прошел через увлечение импрессионистами и в поисках интенсивности и яркости цвета пришел к упрощенности и плоскости форм. Предметом изображения Матисса служат самые простые мотивы: цветы, кресла, ткани. В его полотнах почти нет объема, композиции строятся на контрасте цветов. Линии у Матисса очень лак9нич-ны. «Матисс-декоратор» – это особая страница монументально-декоративной живописи первой половины XX в. Одна из последних его работ – декоративное оформление капеллы в Вансе.

VI. Summarize the text.

VII. Topics for discussion.

1. Matisse's artistic philosophy.

2. Matisse's mature works of art.

 

Unit XVIII Picasso (1881-1973)

The long career of Pablo Ruiz у Picasso cast across the twentieth century a shadow as long as those of Michelangelo and Titian across the sixteenth century. Picasso created one of the most important movements of the twentieth century, participated in many others, and influenced every phase of artistic activity throughout the world in one way or another until his extreme old age. Throughout his entire life he showed an incredible range of ideas and styles, and even in later years he remained a towering figure. The best works among his immense output have taken their place among the masterpieces of twentieth-century art.

A fully trained painter at the age of nineteen, the Spanish-born Picasso took up residence in France in 1900. He fell under the influence of Toulouse-Lautrec. Picasso became concerned with the lives of those who lived as he did on the periphery of society. The woman in his AbsintheDrinker, of 1902, is enveloped in self-pity and helplessness, a figure of extraordinary sculptural simplicity and beauty. The painting is coloured by blue – the proverbial colour of melancholy – which has given its name to this period in Picasso's evolution, lasting about four years (1901-4). For the young painter it was a period of hopeless maladjustment to the art world of Paris.

By late 1904 Picasso's mood of depression had lightened, and so also had his palette. A brief Rose Period (1904-6) followed, in which he was less concerned with the tragic aspects of poverty than with the nostalgic charm of circus performers. Salimbanques, of 1905, shows a family of these strolling players grouped together physically, but emotionally detached, before a mysterious desert landscape. Figures and costumes, surely drawn and modelled blend with the ground and the sunny haze in tones of softly greyed blue, rose and beige, creating mother-of-pearl effects. This is one of the loveliest pictures of the 20-th century.

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, of 1907, heralds the beginning of Cubism. The attitude and methods of the Cubists are not easy to explain. Cezanne had founded planes in real objects and had used them to establish a structure of form seen by means of colour; the Cubists do the opposite, imposing their own structure of mono-chromic planes upon the object. The composition of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon was derived from a small bather composition by Cezanne. The intensity of the partially decomposed figures contrasts with a still life in the foreground. Instead of Cezanne's lovely roses, blues and greens, the figures are largely light brown, their anatomy is indicated by uneven white or black contours. A harsh blue, as if a sudden glimpse of sky, surrounds the figure at the upper right. The staring expressions of the central figures give way at all sides to simplified, influenced by African sculpture, faces.

Heads, busts, still life and occasional landscapes form the subject matter of early Cubist painting. In the Seated Woman, of 1909, the individual forms – the characteristic swelling and distortion of the neck muscles, or the reduction of the eyes to trapezoids – are not derived from nature. Soft tans and olive tones prevail.

By 1911, in the phase known to art historians as Analytical Cubism, the tension has burst, and so has the object. The entire foreground is filled with its component planes, floating as if in a thick mist. The planes are no longer opaque; one seems to see through them, and a great deal of the effect of an Analytical Cubist picture is derived from the delicacy of the intersection of these planes. They are rendered with a divided touch recalling that of Impressionism. These planes build up a pyramidal structure, superseding the structure of observed reality.

Cubism rapidly became a common style. During 1912 the Cubist artists began to turn to a new series of interests and a new kind of experience, responsible for the phase known generally as Synthetic Cubism, since the painters no longer sought to disintegrate the object but to reassert it. In Synthetic Cubism the barrier between reality and representation is unexpectedly broken. Now bits of the real objects make their entrance into the picture: newspaper clippings, lengths of rope, etc. Picasso's The Bottle of Suze, of 1913, is an epitome to this Synthetic phase. Once established, the Cubist mode of vision and construction continued vital for many years. Every abstract current in abstract art during the period from the 1920s to the present owes a debt to Cubism. For the rest of his life Picasso continued to make use of Cubist forms and ideas.

During the years immediately after World War I, it is not possible to talk of «periods» in Picasso's work; two sharply different styles, superficially opposed, but in reality strongly related to each other, exist side by side. The gorgeous Three Musicians, of 1921, is a Synthetic Cubist picture in that the planes are, now locked into a total design, governed by the recognisable image. The three musicians are undoubtedly a Pierrot, a Harlequin and a Franciscan monk. The planes into which they have been divided proceed according to their own laws and not those of natural appearances. The colouring is as brilliant as that of any Fauve painting. Its hard clear tones together with the astonishing size create a splendid decorative effect.

In 1917 Picasso visited Italy. He was greatly impressed by the grandeur of the Italian past, especially Roman sculpture and the mural paintings of Giotto. Quite unexpectedly Picasso developed a monumental and largely monochromatic Classical style with complete figures heavily modelled as if they were statues. He experimented with every aspect of Classical style, but his most imposing Classical creations are the majestic compositions involving seated giantesses seeming to derive from a legendary past. In Three Women at the Spring, of 1921, Picasso has made the figures graceless, emphasising the bulk and weight of their hands and feet, and intensifying the impersonality of their stony faces. For several years this Classical style coexisted in Picasso's production with late Cubism.

Picasso's post-Cubist works are characterised by the lightning changes of styles. Sometimes incompatible styles appear side by side in the same painting. During the 1930s Picasso took an active part in the Surrealist movement. His best work of this decade, and the greatest of all social protest pictures is Guernica. Picasso executed this enormous painting to fulfil a commission for the pavilion of the Spanish republican government at the Paris Exposition of 1937, while the civil war was still going in Spain. Intended as a protest against the destruction of the little Basque town of Guernica in April 1937, by the Nazi bombers in the service of the Spanish Fascists, the picture has become in retrospect a memorial to all crimes against humanity in the twentieth century. As he worked, Picasso combined images drawn from Christian iconography with motives from Spanish folk culture, especially the bullfight, and from his own past. Actual destruction is reduced to fragmentary glimpses of walls and tiled roofs, and flames shooting from a burning house at the right. A bereft mother rushes screaming from the building, her arms thrown wide. Agonised heads and arms emerge from the wreckage. At the left a mother holding her dead child looks upward, shrieking. The merciless bull above her, is surely related to the dread Minotaur, adopted by the Surrealists, as an embodiment of the irrational in man. If the bull signifies the forces of Fascism, the dying horse suggests the torment of the Spanish people, and the oil lamp held above is the resistance of humanity against the mechanised eye, whose iris is a electric bulb. The spiritual message of combined terror and resistance is borne, unexpectedly, by the Cubist aesthetic means. An explosion of shattered planes of black, white, and grey reshapes itself as one watches into a giant pyramid, as if triumphant even in the destruction.

Picasso never again reached this height, and though he continued painting with great energy for 36 years, much of his work is a recapitulation of motives he had invented.

Make sure you know how to pronounce the following words:

Picasso; Cubism; wreckage, Toulouse-Lautrec; synthetic; abstract; Pierrot; Harlequin; Franciscan; Minotaur; Dadaism; Basque; Spanish; France; absinthe; monk; Guernica; melancholy

Notes

Absinthe Drinker – «Любительница абсента»

Salimbanques – «Комедианты»

Les Demoiselles d 'Avignon – «Авиньонские девушки»

Seated Woman – «Сидящая женщина»

The Bottle ofSuze – «Бутылка «Сьюз»

Three Musicians – «Три музыканта»

Three Women at the Spring – «Три женщины у источника»

Guernica – «Герника»

Tasks

I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.

1. Picasso created one of the most important movements of the nineteenth century.

2. In Paris Picasso was influenced by Van Gogh's works of art.

3. During the Rose Period Picasso was concerned with the charm of circus performers.

4. Picasso invented Dadaism.

5. In 1917 Picasso was greatly impressed by the grandeur of the Italian past, especially Roman sculpture and the mural paintings of Giotto.

6. During the 1930s Picasso took an active part in the Neo-impressionist movement.

II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?

1. What did Picasso paint in 1902? How is the figure depicted? What colour dominates in this painting? What does this colour mean?

2. What is one of the loveliest pictures of the twentieth century?

3. What heralds the beginning of Cubism? How are the figures depicted in this painting? In what way did Cezanne influence the development of Cubism? What forms dominate in the SeatedWoman? What phases are distinguished within Cubism? What are their peculiarities? How long did Cubism exist?

4. What is an epitome to the Synthetic phase of Cubism? What is a typical Synthetic Cubist picture? How are the figures depicted in this painting? How do the planes proceed? What style prevailed in Picasso's work during the years immediately after World War I?

5. What impressed Picasso when he was in Italy? What style did Picasso develop in 1921? What were the results of Picasso's experiments with the Classical style? How did Picasso make the figures? How long did this Classical style coexist with late Cubism in Picasso's production?

6. What artistic movement attracted Picasso during the 1930s? What is Picasso's best painting of this decade? What images did Picasso combine in this picture? How is the actual destruction pictured? What is depicted at the left? Where is the bull pictured? What symbols dominate in this painting? What do they mean? What is borne by the Cubist aesthetic means? How can Picasso's latest works be characterised?

III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:

to cast a shadow across the twentieth century; artistic activity; to fall under the influence of; a figure of extraordinary sculptural simplicity and beauty; the proverbial colour of melancholy; strolling players; to herald Cubism; the partially decomposed figures; to derive from nature; art historians; component planes; abstract current; the mural paintings; incompatible styles; to execute an enormous painting; to fulfil a commission; crimes against humanity; Christian iconography; motives from Spanish folk culture.

ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:

творческая деятельность; попасть под влияние; легендарный цвет печали; фигуры чрезвычайной скульптурной простоты и красоты; искусствоведы; сопутствующие планы; провозгласить кубизм; частично деформированные фигуры; христианская иконография; преступления против человечества; элементы испанской фольклорной культуры; движение абстракционистов; фрески; написать огромную картину.

iii. Make up questions of your own with the given phrases.

iv. Arrange the/allowing in the pairs of synonyms:

a) current; melancholy; aesthetic; mysterious; deserted; wreckage; fragmentary; epitome; to herald;

b) abandoned; smashed ruins; trend; broken; to proclaim; summary; sad; enigmatic; beautiful.

IV. Here are descriptions of some of Picasso's works of art. Match them up to the titles given below.

1. This painting shows a family of the strolling players grouped together physically, but emotionally detached, before a mysterious desert landscape.

2. This picture is an epitome to the Synthetic Cubism.

3. This is the greatest of all social protest pictures.

4. Picasso has made the figures graceless, emphasising the bulk and weight of their hands and feet, and intensifying the impersonality of their stony faces.

5. The figures in the painting are a Pierrot, a Harlequin and a Franciscan monk.

6. This painting heralds the beginning of Cubism.

7. The individual forms – the characteristic swelling and distortion of the neck muscles or the reduction of the eyes to trapezoids -are not derived from nature.

8. The figure of extraordinary sculptural simplicity and beauty is enveloped in self-pity and helplessness.

a. Guernica

b. Three Musicians

c. Three Women at the Spring

d. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

e. The Bottle ofSuze

f. Seated Woman

g. Absinthe Drinker

h. Salimbanques

V. Translate the text into English.

Эволюция искусства XX века наиболее ярко выражена в творчестве Пабло Пикассо.

Родившись в 1881 г. в маленьком испанском городке Малага, Пикассо уже в 1901 г. в Париже открывает свою первую персональную выставку, чтобы стать на последующие семьдесят лет центральной фигурой в западноевропейском искусстве. Период с 1901 по 1907 г. принято называть в его творчестве соответственно «голубым» (1901-1904) и «розовым» (1905 -1906). Картины, посвященные нищим, странствующим актерам, бродягам, выражают настроение усталости и обреченности. Они написаны в сине-зеленой гамме. С 1905 г., хотя темы остаются прежними, пространство заполняется розовато-голубоватой или золотистой дымкой.

Полотном «Авиньонские девушки» (1907) Пикассо ознаменовал рождение кубизма. В картине «Три женщины у источника» художник обращается к реалистическим формам. Пикассо отдал дань и сюрреализму, создав ряд произведений, чудовищно деформировав реальный образ человека.

Панно под названием «Герника» стало настоящим событием мировой художественной жизни. Эта композиция связала искусство Пикассо с жизнью всех народов, борющихся с насилием. До конца жизни Пикассо стремился раскрыть новые возможности искусства.

VI. Summarize the text.

VII. Topics for discussion.

1. Picasso's Blue and Rose periods.

2. Picasso's period of Cubism.

3. Picasso's paintings of social protest.

4. Picasso as the greatest artist of the XX-th century.

 

Unit XIX Salvador Dali (1904-1989)

Salvador Dali typifies in his art the Surrealist movement at its height in the 1930s. After his visit to Paris in 1928 Dali experimented briefly with semi-abstract forms, as he was then under the influence of Picasso. Soon Dali set out on his individual path, based on his study of Freud, which seemed to clarify to him his personal fantasies and obsessions. Dali began producing what he called «hand-coloured photographs of the subconscious.» His desire to «materialise images of concrete irrationality with the utmost imperialist fury of precision» resulted in pictures of a quality and brilliance that cannot be ignored, done in bright colour, with an exactitude of statement that at times recalls less his idols Vermeer and Velazquez than the technique of the Netherlandish masters of the fifteenth century. Dali's terrifying images are always brought home with tremendous force by the magical virtuosity of his draughtsmanship and colour.

The Persistence of Memory, of 1931, is one of Dali's most striking and best-known early Surrealist paintings. Dali said the idea for the work occurred to him while he was eating ripe Cam-embert cheese. The «wet watches», as they were termed by the astonished, horrified and fascinated New York public when the picture was first exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, are disturbing in their destruction of the very idea of time. Three watches lie or hang limply, and the fourth is devoured by ants while a severed chinless head – its tongue hanging from its nose, its enormous eyelashes extended on its cheeks – lies equally limp on a barren plain. In the background, rendered with hallucinatory clarity, are the rocky cliffs of a Catalan bay.

A contrast to this small picture is the larger and overpowering Soft Construction with Boiled Beans: Premonition of Civil War, painted in 1936. Monstrous fragments of humans – arms, a breast being squeezed by a clawlike hand, a convulsed and screaming head – tower against a desolate sky partly covered with filmy clouds. The rocky terrain in the foreground pullulates with beans, while above one clenched fist a tiny bearded man gazes disconsolately at the scene. One of the most frightful images in the entire history of art, this picture is nonetheless, endowed by Dali's astonishing skill with an unexpected and terrible beauty.

After considerable activity in the fields of stage design, jewellery design, and even shop window decoration, Dali moved to Christian art. His technique is brilliant and his fantasy is magical.

Make sure you know how to pronounce the fo llowing words:

Surrealist; Camembert; Catalan; monstrous; Vermeer; Freud

Notes

The Persistence of Memory – «Постоянство памяти»

Soft Construction with Boiled Beans: Premonition of Civil War – «Мягкая конструкция с вареными бобами: предчувствие гражданской войны»

pullulate – бот. прорастать

Tasks

I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.

1. In Parish 1926 Dali fell under the influence of Matisse.

2. In the early 1920s Dali produced paintings that recalled the works of his idols Botticelli and Goya.

3. Dali painted terrifying images with tremendous force.

4. The idea of The Persistence of Memory occurred to Dali while he was eating oranges.

5. The Persistence of Memory was first exhibited at the British Museum.

6. The Soft Construction with Boiled Beans: Premonition of Civil War is the most fearful image in the entire history of art.

II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?

1. What does Salvador Dali typify?

2. What was Freud's impact on Dali's creative activity?

3. What did Dali begin producing when he set out on his individual style? What was Dali's desire? What was the result of it?

4. What is Dali's best-known early Surrealist painting? How was this painting termed by the New-York public? Why is this painting disturbing? What is represented in this picture? What is shown in the background?

5. What is depicted in the Soft Construction with Boiled Beans: Premonition of Civil War? What is shown in the foreground? Why is this painting the most frightful image in the entire history of art?

6. When did Dali move to the Christian art?

III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:

the Surrealist movement; to experiment with semi-abstract forms; to set out on his individual path; pictures of a quality and brilliance; terrifying images; the magical virtuosity of his draughtsmanship and colour; astonished, horrified and fascinated public; to render with hallucinatory clarity; a Catalan bay; monstrous fragments; against a desolate sky; the history of art; to move to Christian art; magical fantasy.

ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:

высокохудожественные произведения; сюрреализм; великолепное мастерство рисунка и цвета; вступить на свой собственный путь; экспериментировать с полуабстрактными формами; изумленные, очарованные зрители; обратиться к христианскому искусству; на фоне «мертвого» неба; передать с удивительной точностью; чарующая фантазия; ужасные образы; искусствоведение.

iii. Make up sentences of your own with the given phrases.

iv. Arrange the following in the pairs of synonyms:

a) frightful; magical; public; desolate; virtuosity;

b) enchanting; barren; terrifying; excellence; people.

IV. Here are descriptions of some of Dali's works of art. Match them up to the titles given below.

1. Monstrous fragments of humans tower against a desolate sky partly covered with filmy clouds.

2. The «wet watches» are disturbing in their destruction of the very idea of time.

a. The Persistence of Memory

b. Soft Construction with Boiled Beans: Premonition of Civil W a r.

V. Translate the text into English.

Сальвадор Дали воплотил в своем творчестве кульминацию сюрреализма. Алогичность Дали уводила зрителя в область фантазии. Устрашающим ассоциациям художник иногда придавал определенный политический смысл.

Исследователи отмечают два приема в творчестве Дали: либо в абсолютно нереальный пейзаж художник вводит предметы нарочито будничные, либо искажает реальное до какого-либо чудовищного образа.

Во время второй мировой войны центр сюрреализма переместился в Америку, туда переехал и Дали. В 1947 г. с выставки в нью-йоркском музее современного искусства начался католический сюрреализм Дали. Произведения 50-х годов не имеют никакой деформации. Они выполнены на высоком профессиональном уровне («Тайная вечеря», 1955; «Св. Иаков», 1957). Дали также писал картины, в которых он пытался примирить религию и науку.

В 60-е годы сюрреалист стал уступать свои позиции новой волне абстракционизма и новым направлениям авангардизма, прежде всего искусству поп-арта.

VI. Summarize the text.

VII. Topics for discussion.

1. Dali's fantasy and reality.

2. Dali's form and colour.

3. Dali's subject-matters.

 

Literature

Andersen, Wayne, Gauguin’s Paradise Lost, Viking, N.-Y., 1971

Antal, Frederick, Hogaith, Routledge & Kegan Paul, Lnd., 1962

Barr, Alfred H., Jr., Matisse, His Art and His Public. N. -Y., 1960

Boeck, Wilhelm and Sabartes, J., Picasso, Abrams, N. -Y., 1955

Breton, Andre, Surrealism and Painting, Harper & Row, N. -Y., 1972

Christensen, Ervin O., A Pictoi lal History of Western Art, Lnd., 1968

Fried lander, Walter F., From David to Delacroix, Schocken, N. -Y., 1968

Hudson, Derek, Sir Joshua Reynolds: A Personal Study, G. Bles, Lnd., 1958

Nochhil, Linda, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism 1874-1904: Sources and Documents in the History of Art, N. -Y. 1966

Pach, Walter, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Abrams, N. -Y. 1950

Pbacock Саrlos, John Constable: The Man and His Work, Lnd., 1971

Reynolds, Graham, Turner, N. -Y. 1969

Rewald, John, Camille Pissarro, Аbrаms N. -Y. 1963

Rewald, John, The History oj Impressionism. N. -Y., 1973

Waterhouse, Ellis К. Gainsborough, 2d ed., Spring Books, Lnd., 1966

Детская энциклопедия. Изд., 2, т. 12 М., 1968

Энциклопедический словарь, Брокгауз – Эфрон. М., 1991