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.