Step 3: Punctuation and Logic

Exercise 1: Put capitals, hyphens, full stops and commas as needed in the following extracts; the number of sentences is indicated in brackets. In each extract, identify and single out with the quotation marks quotes or bits with a transferred meaning.

1. the baroque was but one of the stimulating if at times perplexing multiplicity of styles that vied for preeminence during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries the term baroque was itself coined only at a later date by unsympathetic critics who wished to condemn an artistic and literary style that they judged eccentric and irreconcilable with the precepts of classicism the principal rival to baroque style during the seventeenth century (2)

2. rembrandts danae is based upon a subject that was rather common in the art of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but was interpreted by the artist with freshness and originality it is not gold, as in the famous painting by titian but sunlight pouring in from the depth of the canvas in a warm stream that rushes towards danae illuminating the face of the young woman her naked body comes to life as it were at the touch of the magic rays what a dazzling feast of live wrote the belgian poet emile verhaeren of danae (3)

3. the finest paintings produced by rembrandt in the genre of portrait are the psychological portraits of the 1650s when the artists attention was particularly struck by the faces of old people bearing as it were the wisdom of experience portrait of an old man in red portrait of an old woman and portrait of an old man in these paintings rembrandt subtly conveys mans inner world the face and hands are touched with light the rest details of dress and of the immediate surroundings melt away in a warm semidarkness the death of the ruined painter forgotten by all passed almost unnoticed by his contemporaries his genius was only rediscovered in the nineteenth century (5)

4. as befitted an age where splendor bespoke power kings courtiers and burghers all insisted on furnishings appropriate to their station workers in stucco wood and marble crafted rooms of splendid proportions and exquisite detail goldsmiths and porcelain designers produced objects that epitomize luxury and in france where the sun king demanded unparalleled splendor the weavers at beauvais the porcelain factories at sevres and the royal cabinetmakers at versailles developed the grand gout a style forever associated with france in its splendid century (4)

5. jacob van ruisdael born at harlem, was the greatest discoverer of hollands moody beauty the very flatness of holland is an advantage as the eye travels over the extensive landscape to the cloudy sky the lesson constable said was the best he ever learnt remember light and shade never stand still was instinctively grasped by ruisdael as it had already been by rembrandt. (3)

6. a contemporary writer might describe the twentieth century in this way it was a time when mans knowledge of the world around him was expanding at a frightening rate when the old governments were torn by political strife when the traditions of the church were called into question by the development of modern religious ideas this paragraph is in fact a description not of the twentieth century but of the baroque period the late sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries the age of the baroque in europe was filled with turmoil as the term shows the works of the artists of the period reflect with great insight and sensitivity the excitement the conflict and the richness of the time (4)

Exercise 2: Here are some groups of sentences. Convert them into complex sentences, trying to use a variety of subordinators and coordinators. Mind your punctuation!

Example

The kings and queens of this period are still exemplars of glorious majesty and shrewd statesmanship.

The artists of the century remain the Old Masters of European art.

In every medium the clash and complicity of the traditional Classical style and the newer Baroque vision bequeathed us a rich treasure.

Just as the kings and queens of this period are still exemplars of glorious majesty and shrewd statesmanship, so the artists of the century remain the Old Masters of European art, and the clash and complicity of the traditional Classical style and the newer Baroque vision bequeathed us a rich treasure in every medium.

1. Baroque art differs from that of the Renaissance in several important respects. Whereas Renaissance art stressed the calm of reason and enlightenment, Baroque art was full of emotion, energy, and movement.

2. Colors are more vivid in Baroque art than in Renaissance, with greater contrast between colors and between light and dark.

3. In architecture and sculpture, where the Renaissance sought a classic simplicity, the Baroque favored ornamentation, as rich and complex as possible.

4. Parts of the North had broken utterly with the Catholic South; but that was only one sign of the shift which new knowledge had brought to the established pattern.

5. No painter responded more intensely to Rome as the city of classical antiquity than Nicolas Poussin, a Frenchman who settled there in 1624 for the rest of his life, interrupted only by a miserable eighteen months in Paris.

6. The century loved genre painting, even when - as with Murillo - genre was prettified and the sting of actuality removed.

Exercise 3: Build up nice sentences to name the main characteristic features of Baroque art. Arrange the statements in the order of their significance.

Exercise 4: Compile a stretch of text of your own: dwell upon a characteristic feature or two of Baroque art as different from similar aspects in the period of the Renaissance. Support your statements with bits of description and opinions of experts.