2. Answer the questions:

1. What is art?

2. Is art form and content?

3. What two main groups of arts are distinguished?

4. What are visual arts? Give examples.

5. What is applied art?

6. What are performing arts? Give examples.

7. Why is art important in people’s lives?

Painting

3. Look at the paintings and speak about them and complete the text with the

correct verbs from the box.

admired, was, appeared, were, look upon, has, devote, realize, became

There are a lot of kinds of art. The examples of classical art are the masterpieces of painting and sculpture which are admired by people at picture galleries and museums. Recently another kind of art has appeared. It is cold graffiti and it is favored by the young people mostly but some grownups like it too. At first graffiti was considered to be an example of anti-social behavior, the works of vandal. The first graffiti appeared on the walls of poor neighbor hoods and subway trains. Very often the graffiti slogans were unsightly and aggressive. Many people look upon graffiti as the work of vandals that should be punishable by fines. Since those days graffiti has changed a lot. Nowadays it has a status of street art and you can get graffiti in unexpected places: for example on toys, on clothes. One of the graffiti lovers has his own web-site devote only to the world of graffiti. Today many companies realize the appeal of graffiti at advertising because it has energy and it became a symbol of survival.

4. In pairs, answer the questions.

• What’s your favourite painting?

• How often do you visit art galleries?

• Who do you think is the best-known painter from your country?

• What’s your opinion of his/her work?

Museum of the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan

1. Look at the picture and describe it.

This museum is located in the president’s former residence and offers a unique insight into the birth of a nation and its progress through time. The exhibits reveal the most important stages in the formation of an independent Kazakhstan and talks about the life and work of President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

The interiors are intact and the museum collection of over 60,000 items includes souvenirs, books, archival manuscripts, printed materials, film and documentary photographs, works of fine and decorative arts, weapons, personal

belongings and documents offered by the president.

The Kasteev State Museum of Arts

The Kasteev State Museum of Arts is the largest art museum in Kazakhstan and a well known regional center for research and education in the field of art history. The Museum has a rich collection of artistic treasures comprise about 22,000 pieces. These include works of ancient and contemporary Kazakhstan art, works of the Soviet period (1920s-1990s), Russian artworks from the 17th to early 20th centuries, Western European art of the 16th–20th centuries, and finally, art of the peoples of the East – India, China, Japan and Korea. The building, designed by the architects E. Kuznetsova, O. Naumova and B. Novikov, was constructed in 1976 with the total surface of 19,428 sq.m including the exhibition area of 5,642 sq.m. and the repository area of 1,055.9 sq.m. In 1976 the Gallery together with the Museum of Applied Art moved to the new museum and acquired the name The State Museum of Arts of the Republic of Kazakhstan. In 1984, the museum was renamed in honor of Abylkhan Kasteev (1904-1973), the first Kazakh professional artist and a People's Artist of Kazakhstan.