1. Read the text and translate it into Ukrainian.
2. Answer the following questions:
1. Who created paintings of almost photographic clarity?
2. What were Jan Vermeer’s works valued for?
3. How was Jan Vermeer described by the Goncourt brothers?
4. What does “camera obscura “mean?
5. Who used the basic principle of camera obscura since antiquity?
6. What did a Dutch art lover Jan Vermeer say after he had witnessed the device of camera obscura in action in 1622?
7. What could artists do by using a mirror?
8. Why did Vermeer have access to the latest optical devices?
9. How does the picture “The Lacemaker”by Vermeer look like?
10. How did camera exert influence on art of Jan Vermeer?
3. Give Ukrainian equivalents of the following words and phrases:
to enable artists to represent something
a controversial issue
enormous speculation
to be valued for something
a living daguerreotype
a tiny hole
upside down
to invert the image
to resemble
fleeting images
incredible accuracy
to have access
preliminary drawings
to have blurred appearance
evidence
delicate sensitivity
4. Give English equivalents of the following words and phrases:
змальовувати реальність
створити картини виключної прозорості
цінуватися
володіти пристроєм
послідовно коментувати
головний принцип
приголомшливі результати
перевертати зображення
бути свідком
підносити
приваблювати
проектувати зображення на полотно
дивовижно гострий
рівень спостереження
покладатися виключно на
підривати яскравість художника
5. Make up the sentences of your own with the given words and phrases.
6. Match a line in A with a line in B.
A |
B |
clarity |
the act of approaching or entering |
enormous |
beyond belief or understanding |
to observe |
to turn or cause to turn upside down or inside out |
startling |
unusually large in size |
to invert |
to possess some similarity to; be like |
to resemble |
to succeed in representing or describing |
to capture |
to weaken gradually or insidiously |
incredible |
causing surprise or fear, astonishing |
access |
clearness, as of expression |
to undermine |
to see, perceive, notice |
7. Summarize the text in English. Unit 36 text
In Britain, satirical art is used to comment on social behaviour
In an era when political and moral satire became a popular subject for writers, William Hogarth took the mood of the times and created a new kind of satirical art, combining topical subjects with biting humour and moral indignation.
The withering satire on contemporary life found in John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, first performed in London in 1728, was both phenomenally successful and highly influential. During the same period, the popular satirical verse of Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope was widely distributed. The artist William Hogarth was to do for art what these authors had done for literature. Hogarth originally aspired to produce grandiose history paintings, but he found that there was little interest in this type of subject in Britain at the time. The public was clearly more interested in the present than in the past. Hogarth was particularly impressed by Gay's work, which inspired him to create a new type of art form—a sequence of pictures that told a story in a way he described as "similar to representations on the stage."
In parodies on one of the most famous books in the English language, John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress (1678), Hogarth ventured into satire with a series entitled A Harlot's Progress and A Rake's Progress. While Bunyan described a progress to faith and spirituality, Hogarth's sequences tell of the journey into moral decline. The rake is Tom Rakewell, who inherited a fortune from his miserly father, squandered it thoughtlessly, was imprisoned for debt, and ended up in a madhouse. In this, the second of eight scenes, Tom has just received his inheritance, and is immediately surrounded by a bevy of people ready to relieve him of his money. A dancing master, a fencing master, and a landscape gardener, among others, surround him, coaxing him into wasting his inheritance on indulgent, fashionable pursuits.
18 A Rake’s progress II: The Rake’s Levée
William Hogarth, 1733
Hogarth devised a novel way of financing this type of project. Customers were invited to buy a subscription ticket in advance, at a cost of 10 guineas (a guinea was a pound and a shilling) for the full series of eight engravings. The artist first produced the scenes as paintings, which then became the basis for the prints. Hogarth displayed the paintings in his studio to boost the sale of tickets, but otherwise made no great effort to sell the original paintings. He kept the Rake's Progress paintings for a decade before selling them at auction, where they fetched only a fraction of the amount he had earned from the prints. Hogarth sought to maximize his income by campaigning vigorously for a copyright act, which would protect prints from being pirated. This legislation, for a time known as "Hogarth's Act," was finally passed in 1735, just as A Rake's Progress was being published.
Hogarth was able to incorporate an enormous amount of humorous detail in his work, while still ensuring that the overall scene looked fairly realistic, and was executed with care and skill. Prints were important, as they enabled artists to earn a decent living without having to rely on state commissions or wealthy patrons. With this came the independence they needed to select their own subjects, and comment on society as they chose.
TASKS