Unit 6
THE TERMS OF THE ARTIST
When talking or writing about art we use certain words that help explain how a painting, a piece of sculpture or a building looks. Learning the meaning of these words is important. Being able to use them saves long, complicated explanations each time we try to describe a work of art.
One of the most important of these words is proportion. To understand it, imagine that a man you have not met before comes into the room where you are sitting. At once you know whether he is tall or short, fat or thin. How can you tell? Because, almost without thinking, you have considered the proportion of the man’s height to his width, and compared his height and width to that of the door and furniture in the room. As we look at the world around us we are constantly comparing one shape with another in this way, and so forming our judgement of proportion.
Since the time of the ancient Egyptians artists have tried to create perfect proportion – that is, proportion completely satisfying to the human eye. If you take several pieces of paper and draw a line on each of them, and then ask some friends each to divide a line in a way that looks pleasing to them, you will find that most of them divide it in almost the same way – so that one part of the line is nearly twice as long as the other. The ancient Greeks worked out this proportion mathematically. The artists of the Renaissance also used it, calling it the Divine Proportion, and today we call it the Golden Section, or Golden Mean. This proportion, which the Greeks felt was in harmony with the universe itself, does not belong only to works of art. Plants, shells, crystals and many other forms in nature, including the human body, are based on the Golden Mean.
Another word that has to do with measurement is scale. This describes actual size. For instance, you may have seen a map with a scale of one inch to the mile, meaning that every inch on that map represents one real mile. Works of art are often measured by comparing them with the real size of the people or objects they represent: this real size is called life size. The scale of a statue, therefore, might be given as three-quarters life size.
Besides having proportion and scale, every work of art is made up of a number of different things. To begin with, each one has a complete, or outside, shape. If we look at a building or a piece of sculpture we would call this outside shape its mass. The terms of geometry, such as sphere, cube or cone, are often used to describe mass. Mass can have space inside it, or it can be solid — but either way, whatever is inside is called the volume.
In a painting or a drawing, such an enclosed space is called the area. This might be quite irregular, or it might be possible to describe it with other geometrical words like square, circle or triangle. An area is enclosed, not by mass, but by line, and this may be a fine stroke, a broad band, or simply an edge.
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A work of art also has a structure (which is its basic framework, or skeleton), and it has surface. A completely flat surface is called a plane. Threedimensional works, such as buildings and statues, have mass, volume and planes. Two-dimen- sional works, such as paintings, drawings or prints, have only a plane. However, although a plane has no depth, many paintings and drawings do seem to have depth. Any system of drawing which gives this appearance of depth is called perspective.
Finally, every surface has texture – in other words, it may be hard or soft, rough or smooth, dull or shiny. The best way to learn about texture is, of course, to feel it. But even if this is not possible, the way light strikes a surface often tells us something about its texture, so that we can imagine what it feels like.
Proportion and scale, mass and volume, area, line, structure, texture – all these things put together give a painting or drawing, a building or a piece of sculpture what we know as its form.
Упражнения к тексту
I. Найдите русские соответствия словам интернационального корня и определите, к какой части речи относятся их английские эквиваленты.
Sculpture, proportion, furniture, form, artist, human, line, mathematically, Renaissance, section, harmony, scale, universe, crystal, object, cube, nature, mile, represent, real, cone, objects, quarter, mass, term, geometry, area, circle, structure, skeleton, plane, prints, system, perspective, finally, texture, line, form.
II. Найдите в тексте синонимы к представленным ниже словам: painter, employ, assist, house, compensate for, difficult, immediately, high, old, Golden Section, actual, thing, eventually, composition, shape, difficult.
III. Эпизодически пользуясь словарем, найдите антонимы к ниже-
следующим лексемам: unimportant, easy, less, permanently, enemy, unite, different, modern, finish, incomplete, inside, seldom, liquid, regular, impossible, narrow, initially, bright, dull.
IV. Ответьте на вопросы по тексту:
1.What does the author think by the words “the terms of the artist”?
2.What does the concept of proportion mean?
3.Who were the first to create the idea of perfect proportion?
4.What are the synonyms of the word combination “the Divine Proportion”?
5.What things around us are based on the Golden Mean?
6.Why does the notion of scale play an important role?
7.How is a completely flat surface called?
8.What are the intrinsic properties of texture?
V. Истинно или ложно?
1. Using terms saves long, complicated explanation.
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2.The term of proportion is often neglected by professional artists.
3.Proportion always satisfies the human eye.
4.Scale describes an actual size of the object.
5.In painting an enclosed place is called a square.
6.Three dimensional works have mass, volume and plane.
7.The texture of the objects is detected only by a microscope.
8.The form of an object includes knowing its volume, area, line, structure and texture.
VI. Прочтите мини-лекцию для учеников школы искусств о терминах, знание которых необходимо для художников.
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Unit 7
THE RENAISSANCE
Part I. Michelangelo
The Italian sculptor, painter, and architect Michelangelo is considered one of the greatest artists of all times. He lived during the Italian Renaissance, a period known for its achievements in science, literature, politics, and, most of all, in art. Michelangelo dominated the field of art, particularly in sculpture.
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was bom on March 6, 1475. His birthplace, Caprese, was a small town near Florence, in central Italy. A few months after Michelangelo’s birth, the family moved from Caprese to Florence. At that time, Florence was the center of artistic activity. It produced the best painters and sculptors in Europe.
When Michelangelo was 13, he began an apprenticeship, or a period of training under a master. Michelangelo’s master was Domenico Ghirlandajo, a leading painter in Florence. However, Michelangelo left the apprenticeship after a year. His talent brought him to the notice of Lorenzo de’ Medici, the ruler of Florence.
Lorenzo surrounded himself with poets and scholars. Michelangelo may have benefited from their company. He was able to study the Medici art collection. He may also have received some instruction from the sculptor Bertoldo. The sculptor was a friend of the Medici family and looked after their art collection.
At that time Florence did not offer artists many work opportunities. Many of them moved to other cities. Moreover, in 1494 the Medici family was overthrown. This led to political disturbance in Florence. Michelangelo left for Bologna, a city north of Florence.
By 1496 Michelangelo was in Rome. In 1498 he was given the project of carving a pieta – an artwork that shows the Virgin Mary supporting the body of Jesus after his death. Michelangelo’s Pieta is a large sculpture carved from one block of marble. It is now in St. Peter’s Basilica, a cathedral in Rome. The sculpture made Michelangelo famous.
In 1501 Michelangelo returned to Florence for his second major project, to create a huge statue for the city. In 1504 Michelangelo completed David. It is the figure of a young man holding a slingshot. David was a king of ancient Israel who is said to have used only a slingshot to kill the giant Goliath. David is one of the world’s greatest statues. It represents the Renaissance ideal of perfect humanity.
In 1505 Michelangelo was called to Rome. He was to work on a giant tomb for Pope Julius II. The tomb was to have some 40 statues around it. However, the pope soon became disturbed by the cost of the project. Michelangelo left Rome, but the pope had him brought back.
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Michelangelo was put to work painting the vaulted ceiling of the pope’s own chapel, the Sistine Chapel in Rome (now in Vatican City). Michelangelo thought of himself as mainly a sculptor.
He was not happy to begin the project. Between 1508 and 1512 Michelangelo covered the ceiling of the chapel with majestic frescoes, or paintings created on wet plaster. The main scenes show biblical stories and Hebrew prophets. Perhaps the best-known fresco shows God creating Adam.
Michelangelo worked perched on a platform about 60 feet (18 meters) above the floor. His paintings covered 10,000 square feet (930 square meters) of ceiling area. Most of the time he painted lying on his back. Each day fresh plaster was laid over a part of the ceiling.
Michelangelo then had to complete that portion while the plaster was still wet. He could not undo mistakes.
After finishing the ceiling frescoes, Michelangelo returned to work on the tomb of Julius II. In about 1513–1515, he carved Moses, an enormous marble statue of the Hebrew prophet.
In 1534 Michelangelo started another fresco for the Sistine Chapel called the Last Judgment. The large painting covers the end wall. It shows the biblical story of the judgment of humankind by Jesus at the end of the world.
In his later years Michelangelo was more involved with architecture, painting, and poetry than he was with sculpture. He designed the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica and the Capitoline Square in Rome. These are now among Rome’s most impressive sights. However, Michelangelo did not live to see them completed.
Michelangelo died on February 18, 1564, in Rome. He was buried in the church of Santa Croce in Florence.
Упражнения к тексту
I. Найдите русские соответствия словам интернационального корня и определите, к какой части речи относятся их английские эквиваленты.
Sculptor, architect, artist, Renaissance, period, literature, politics, dominate, central, family, centre, activity, master, leading, talent, poet, scholar, company, collection, instruction, city, project, block, cathedral, statue, represent, ideal, humanity, fresco, scene, platform, area, portion, biblical, impressive.
II. Найдитевтекстесинонимыкпредставленнымнижесловам: artist, especially, studying, governor, well-known, main, large, finish, prize, church, glad, probably, new, finish, nevertheless.
III. Эпизодическипользуясьсловарем, найдитеантонимыкнижесле-
дующим лексемам: die, large, far, below, worst, enemy, outskirts, place, south, servant, modern, floor, unhappy, dry, old, before, layman, birth, minor, tiny.
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