托福阅读材料推荐:艺术类话题Painting

　　England

　　Although France was the great center of art in the 1800's, the English landscapists John Constable (1776-1837) and Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) made valuable contributions to 19th-century painting. Both were interested in painting light and air, two aspects of nature that 19th-century artists explored fully. Constable used a method known as divisionism, or broken color. He put contrasting colors side by side in thick, short strokes or dots over a basic background color. He often used a palette knife to apply the color thickly. The Hay Wain made him famous when it was shown in Paris in 1824. It is a simple rural scene of a hay wagon (wain) crossing a river. Clouds drift over meadows dappled with patches of sunlight. Turner's paintings are more dramatic than Constable's. He painted the majestic sights of nature--storms, seascapes, glowing sunsets, high mountains. Often a golden haze partially conceals the objects in his pictures, making them appear to float in unlimited space.

　　Spain: Goya

　　Francisco Goya (1746-1828) was the first great Spanish painter to appear since the 17th century. As the favorite painter of the Spanish court, he made many portraits of the royal family. The royal personages are outfitted in elegant clothes and fine jewels, but in some of their faces all that is reflected is vanity and greed. Besides portraits, Goya painted dramatic scenes such as The Third of May, 1808. This picture shows the execution of a group of Spanish rebels by French soldiers. Bold contrasts of light and dark, and somber colors pierced by splashes of red, bring out the grim horror of the spectacle.

　　France

　　The period of Napoleon's reign and the French Revolution saw the rise of two opposing tendencies in French art--classicism and romanticism. Jacques Louis David (1748-1825) and Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) were inspired by ancient Greek and Roman art and the Renaissance. They emphasized drawing and used color mainly to aid in creating solid forms. As the favorite artist of the revolutionary government, David often painted historical events of the period. In his portraits, such as that of Madame Récamier, he aimed at achieving classical simplicity.

　　Théodore Géricault (1791-1824) and the romanticist Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863) revolted against David's style. For Delacroix, color was the most important element in painting, and he had no patience for imitating classical statues. Instead, he admired Rubens and the Venetians. He chose colorful, exotic themes for his pictures, which sparkle with light and are full of movement.

　　The Barbizon painters were also part of the general romantic movement that lasted from about 1820 to 1850. They worked near the village of Barbizon on the edge of the Fontainebleau forest. They sketched out-of-doors and completed the paintings in their studios.

　　Other artists experimented with everyday, ordinary subject matter. The landscapes of Jean Baptiste Camille Corot (1796-1875) reflect his love of nature, and his figure studies show a kind of balanced calm. Gustave Courbet (1819-77) called himself a realist because he painted the world as he saw it--even its harsh, unpleasant side. He limited his palette to just a few somber colors, which he sometimes put on with a palette knife. Édouard Manet (1832-83) also took his subject matter from the world around him. People were shocked by his colorful contrasts and unusual techniques. The surfaces of his pictures often have a flat, patternlike texture of brushstrokes. Manet's techniques and methods of recording the effects of light on form influenced younger painters, especially the impressionists.

　　Working in the 1870's and 1880's, the group of artists known as the impressionists wanted to paint nature exactly as it was. They went much further than Constable, Turner, and Manet in studying the effects of light in color. Some of them worked out scientific theories of color. Claude Monet (1840-1926) often painted the same view at different times of day to show how its appearance changed under different conditions of light. Whatever the subject matter, his scenes are made up of hundreds of tiny brushstrokes laid side by side, often in contrasting colors. From a distance the strokes blend to give the impression of solid forms. Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) used the impressionist techniques to capture the festivity of Parisian life. In his Dance at the Moulin de la Galette people in vividly colored clothes mingle and dance gaily. Renoir painted the entire picture with small, even brushstrokes. The dots and dashes of paint create a texture on the surface of the painting that lends it a special kind of unity. The crowds of people seem to dissolve in sunlight and shimmering color.