Вступительный письменный экзамен по английскому языку. Учебные материалы, методические указания и рекомендации. Пособие для абитуриентов

tours, making topographical drawings of picturesque and architectural subjects, views, and landscape, which he was able to sell to engravers or later work up into water-colours. At this time his work was more accurate but less personal and inventive than that of his friend Girtin (with whom he worked for Dr Monro), though there were intimations of his later interest in atmospheric space and the phenomena of light. His first exhibited oil at the Academy was Fishermen at Sea (Tate, London, 1796), a work showing the influence of I7th-century Dutch marine painting. Turner was made ARA in 1799 at the age of 24 and RA in 1802. He became Professor of Perspective at the Academy in 1807 and Deputy President in 1845.

In 1802 Turner made his first journey to the Continent, visiting Paris like so many other painters to see the pictures looted by Napoleon, which were then on exhibition, and travelling through France to Switzerland. His next trip was in 1817; he visited Italy two years later and thereafter made periodic trips until 1845. The mountains and lakes of Switzerland and the haunting beauty of Venice were to provide him with the subjects for some of his most original compositions. He continued throughout life his habit of making rapid shorthand pencil jottings which he used later as reminders for imaginative compositions.

The Dutch influence in Turner’s work soon gave way to that of Wilson and Claude, but already in the early 1800s it was recognized that he was introducing a new and revolutionary approach to landscape. Besides showing attention to luminosity and atmosphere his painting became increasingly Romantic in its dramatic subject-matter and sense of movement, culminating in the powerful Shipwreck (Tate, 1805). During these years he was also exhibiting pictures in a more conventional manner and was still working for engravers. From 1807 to 1819 he published the seventy plates of his famous Liber Studiorum, conceived in emulation of Claude’s Liber Veritatis. Between 1814 and 1830 he made a great many drawings, the result of systematic tours in England and abroad studying the effects of landscape. Some of them were published in George Cooke and William Bernard’s Picturesque Views of the Southern Coast of England (1826), and between 1827 and 1830 he made drawings for the collection of engravings Ports of England and for an illustrated edition of Samuel Rogers’s poem Italy. He was now at the height of his success. Though his work was still controversial and violently attacked by some, he had many admirers and there were those who regarded him as the outstanding genius of the day. His most important patron was the third Earl of Egremont (1751−1837), who was unusual among collectors of the time in buying contemporary British art (sculpture as well as painting) on a large scale. Turner had a studio at Petworth, Egremont’s country house in Sussex, and several of his paintings are still to be seen there (although their ownership was transferred to the Tate Gallery in 1984).

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The 1830s were a period of transition leading up to the more abstract conceptions of Turner’s last years, when his brushwork became breath-takingly free. It was during the 1830s also that Turner was ‘discovered’ by the young Ruskin, who wrote eloquently of him in the first volume of Modern Painters, published in 1843, and was by that time one of his few articulate champions. Late in life Turner became more and more of a recluse, sometimes calling himself Mr Booth (assuming the name of his mistress Sophia Booth). The mystery surrounding his private life was increased when, after Turner’s death, Ruskin destroyed many erotic drawings that he found among his works and which he thought tainted his hero’s memory. Turner left a vast bequest of his work to the nation — some 300 paintings and more than 19,000 drawings and water-colours. These were principally divided between the Tate Gallery and British Museum, but in 1987 a new gallery — the Clore Gallery — was opened at the Tate to house the entire Turner Collection.

Turner’s approach to the great masters of the past was intuitive, but he achieved an unusually wide and intimate penetration into their values and their aims. He made entirely new advances in the expression of atmospheric space and luminosity through colour: Constable wrote ‘He seems to paint with tinted steam, so evanescent and so airy.’ But his great originality lay not only in those features in which he anticipated and inspired the Impressionists. He went further than the Impressionists in his abstract organization of the phenomena of luminosity and he went further than any Romantic before him in the dramatic symbolization of the elements conceived as abstract forces.

Text 16

Pierre Auguste Renoir

(1841−1919)

Renoir — a French painter, one of the greatest of the impressionists. In 1854 he went to Paris to work as a decorator in a porcelain factory. He entered Gleyre’s studio in 1862 and met Sisley, Bazille and Monet, with whom he associated, often painting with Monet in the open air and sharing the same subject matter. The sombre and weighty style of his early canvases gave way to light-filled scenes built up in characteristically Impressionist broken brush-strokes (La Grenouillére, 1869, Stockholm, Nationalmuseum). He exhibited at the first three Impressionist exhibitions before his portraits (such as Mme Charpentier and her children, 1879, New York, Metropolitan) won him success and acceptance at the Salon. In 1881, feeling that he had taken Impressionism as far as he could, he visited Italy, where the Renaissance masters had a decisive influence on his style. More interested than most other Impressionists in the human figure, and less detached from his sitters,

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he rejected the idea of disintegrating form simply to achieve effects of spontaneity. The Umbrellas (c. 1881−1884, London, NG) marks his transition from Impressionism to a more classical structure, its areas of feather brush-strokes contrasting with smoother patches giving greater solidity of form. As one who travelled much, studying the Old Masters, he was never committed to the doctrines of instantaneity and often made many preliminary sketches, as, for instance, for the carefully constructed The bathers (c. 1884−1887, Philadelphia Museum of Art). His sensuous appreciation of colour and light, his ample, glowing nudes, the charm and poetry of his works, have made him one of the best-loved of the Impressionists. Beautiful women, children and people enjoying themselves remained his favourite subjects even in old age, when he realized his earthy female nudes in sculptures ‘dictated’ to his assistants.

Text 17

James Abbott McNeill Whistler

(1834−1903)

American-born painter and graphic artist, active mainly in England. He spent several of his childhood years in Russia (where his father had gone to work as a civil engineer) and was an inveterate traveller. His training as an artist began indirectly when, after his discharge from West Point Military Academy for ‘deficiency in chemistry’, he learnt etching as a US navy cartographer. In 1855 he went to Paris, where he studied intermittently under Gleyre, made copies in the Louvre, acquired a lasting admiration for Velázquez, and became a devotee of the cult of the Japanese print and, in general, oriental art and decoration. Through his friend Fantin-Latour he met Courbet, whose Realism inspired much of his early work. The circles in which he moved can be gauged from Fantin-Latour’s Homage to Delacroix, in which Whistler is portrayed alongside Baudelaire, Manet, and others. He settled in London in 1859, but often returned to France. His At the Piano (Taft Museum, Cincinnati, 1859) was well received at the Royal Academy exhibition in 1860 and he soon made a name for himself, not just because of his talent, but also on account of his flamboyant personality. He was famous for his wit and dandyism, and loved controversy. His life-style was lavish and he was often in debt. Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Oscar Wilde (1854−1900) were among his famous friends.

Whistler’s art is in many respects the opposite to his often aggressive personality, being discreet and subtle, but the creed that lay behind it was radical. He believed that painting should exist for its own sake, not to convey literary or moral ideas, and he often gave his pictures musical titles to suggest an analogy with the abstract art of music: ‘Art should be independent of all claptrap — should stand alone, and ap-

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peal to the artistic sense of eye or ear, without confounding this with emotions entirely foreign to it, as devotion, pity, love, patriotism, and the like. All these have no kind of concern with it, and that is why I insist on calling my works “arrangements” and “harmonies”.’ He was a laborious and self-critical worker, but this is belied by the flawless harmonies of tone and colour he created in his paintings, which are mainly portraits and landscapes, particularly scenes of the Thames. His exquisite taste allowed him to combine disparate sources in a novel, almost abstract synthesis. No less original was his work as a decorative artist, notably in the Peacock Room (1876−1877) for the London home of the Liverpool shipping magnate Frederick Leyland (now reconstructed in the Freer Gallery, Washington), where attenuated decorative patterning anticipated much in the Art Nouveau style of the 1890s. In 1877 Ruskin denounced Whistler’s Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket (Detroit Institute of Arts), accusing him of ‘flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face’, and Whistler sued him for libel. He won the action, but the awarding of only a farthing’s damages with no costs was in effect a justification for Ruskin, and the expense of the trial led to Whistler’s bankruptcy in 1879. His house was sold and he spent a year in Venice (1879−1880), concentrating on the etchings — among the masterpieces of I9th-century graphic art — that helped to restore his fortunes when he returned to London. He made a happy marriage in 1888 to Beatrix Godwin, widow of the architect E. W. Godwin, with whom Whistler had collaborated, but she died only eight years later. In his fifties Whistler began to achieve honours and substantial success. His portrait of Thomas Carlyle (1795−1881) was bought by the Corporation of Glasgow in 1891 for 1,000 guineas and soon afterwards his most famous work, Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter’s Mother (1871), was bought by the Louvre and he was made a member of the Legion d’Honneur.

Whistler’s work is related to Impressionism (although he was more interested in evoking a mood than in accurately depicting the effects of light), to Symbolism, and to Aestheticism, and he played a central role in the modern movement in England. His aesthetic creed was explained in his Ten O’Clock Lecture (1885) and this, and much else on art and society, was republished in The Gentle Art of Making Enemies (1890).

Text 18

Book Art

Book Art (related terms: Artists’ Books, Book as Artwork, Artists’ Bookworks). Book production is an industry in which the division of labour is particularly marked: authors, illustrations, editors, typesetters, printers, binders, papermakers all make their specialist contributions.

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Hence the phrase ‘the art of the book’ can refer to skilled craftsmanship in any or all of these specialities; this causes problems of classification; for example, if skill is confined to the author’s text then the book is a work of literature, if skill is deployed in all departments then it may count as a work of visual art and be displayed as an object in a museum showcase rather than read.

Traditional examples of the art of the book include the illuminated manuscripts of the middle ages, the early printed bibles of Gutenberg, and the total design concept of William Morris’ Kelmscott Press publications. However, this is not what is meant by the term ‘Book Art’ in Avant Garde art circles in the West. This term refers to publications by individuals or small groups of artists whose background and training is the visual arts rather than literature. These publications are usually small in size, slim, white, often effete pamphlets, journals, or booklets issued in small editions and marketed via art galleries rather than via bookshops. Although cheap compared to prints or paintings, Bookworks often seem disproportionately expensive when compared to ordinary books. Frequently the text and illustrations are minimal and the majority are not splendid examples of printing or binding; what gives Bookworks their value is the quality, ingenuity, originality, perceptiveness of the artistic idea or concept informing them.

For some time the terms ‘Book Art’ and ‘Artists’ books’ have been used synonymously, but the latter has more recently been used to describe publications which document a work executed in a medium which has an independent status (i. e. using the book format as a way of presenting a work, e.g. a set of photographs, which could be displayed separately) whereas ‘Book Art’ has been used to denote artists’ books in which the book form is intrinsic to the work from its inception.

Books as art shade into books as documentation of evanescent artworks and books as vehicles for written and pictorial work. The book was inevitably ‘discovered’ as a form when artists began to explore the potential of mass communication media; its increased use parallels the development of Conceptual Art and Fluxus. Books were attractive in the 1960s, and subsequently, on account of their relative cheapness, expendability, mass-replication and other conventional advantages, as well as for the wider dissemination and great accessibility of artists’ work which they make possible. Some artists went on to explore the form of the book — sequentiality, diptychal images, narrative, physical materials, word/image relationship — in artworks.

Not all artists-producers of pamphlets, journals, and books approve of their work being included in exhibitions of Book Art. Art & Language, for example, have protested that their medium is language (which the Swiss linguist Saussure defined as ‘sound-image plus concept’) not print on paper, that to treat their journals as if they were ‘things’ or

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Часть 4

Материалы для подготовки к вступительному экзамену

на филологический факультет

4.1.Блок заданий № 1

Task 1

1. Переведите следующий текст на русский язык.

Resources of Punctuation

Punctuation has the same function in writing as silences have in music. A comma represents the shortest pause, then come the semicolon, colon and full stop in that order. Their use must follow certain rules or conventions: bad punctuation may render meaning incomprehensible; idiosyncratic punctuation may baffle or irritate. But in addition to observing rules and conventions the writer has considerable freedom to use punctuation to suit his own purposes, orchestrate his meaning, adjust rhythm and pace, play words and phrases subtly against each other, and create a sense of speaking with his own special voice. So punctuation is not just a matter of rules, though it may be for the workaday writer. It is capable of endless variety, interest and refinement, projecting the personality of the writer and the distinctiveness of his work. Not all writers and even fewer readers are aware of these reserves of punctuation and their role in shaping the music as well as the sense in writing. But a good writer repays careful study. Sensitive readers, or those who wish to develop a good ear, should study his punctuation, using this chapter as guidelines, but asking themselves why a particular piece of punctuation has been chosen and noting how flexibly and individually a writer may interpret the conventions. In this way, the business of reading and understanding, as well as writing, can become a much richer and subtler experience.

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2.Изложите основное содержание текста своими словами на английском языке в 5−6 предложениях.

3.Сформулируйте 5 вопросов, ответы на которые отразили бы основное содержание текста.

4.Переведите следующие предложения на английский язык.

1)В этот раз у входа в церковь, окна которой так ярко освещены, стоит меньше нищих, чем обычно.

2)Мама сказала мне, что эта женщина — одна из двоюродных сестер дяди Тома.

3)Вон деньги. Они на столе. Возьми их. Они тебе пригодятся.

4)Мы узнали, что в этом районе строится большой завод.

5)Это были люди, которые посвятили себя изучению неиз-

вестного.

Task 2

1. Переведите следующий текст на русский язык.

Shakespeare’s Verse

Shakespeare wrote his plays mostly in blank verse: that is, unrhymed lines consisting of ten syllables, alternately stressed and unstressed. The technical term for this form is the ‘iambic pentameter’. When Shakespeare first began to write for the stage, it was fashionable to maintain this regular beat from the first line of the play till the last.

Shakespeare conformed at first, and then experimented. Some of his early plays contain whole scenes in rhyming couplets — in Romeo and Juliet, for example, there is extensive use of rhyme, and as if to show his versatility, Shakespeare even inserts a sonnet into the dialogue.

But as he matured, he sought greater freedom of expression than rhyme allowed. Rhyme is still used to indicate a scene-ending, or to stress lines which he wishes the audience to remember. Generally, though, Shakespeare moved towards the rhythms of everyday speech. This gave him many dramatic advantages, which he fully and subtly exploits in terms of atmosphere, character, emotion, stress and pace.

It is Shakespeare’s poetic imagery, however, that most distinguishes his verse from that of lesser playwrights. It enables him to stretch the imagination, express complex thought-patterns in memorable language, and convey a number of associated ideas in a compressed and economical form. A study of Shakespeare’s imagery — especially in his later plays — is often the key to a full understanding of his meaning and purposes.

2.Изложите основное содержание текста своими словами на английском языке в 5−6 предложениях.

3.Сформулируйте 5 вопросов, ответы на которые отразили бы основное содержание текста.

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4.Переведите следующие предложения на английский язык.

1)Чем меньше ты будешь говорить, тем лучше.

2)Англичане любят чай как ни одна другая нация. Даже китайцы не пьют так много чая.

3)Он считал, что его долг состоит в том, чтобы помочь бедняку.

4)Мы потеряли ключ от дома, и нам пришлось ждать, когда Петр возвратится с концерта.

5)Между прочим, ему советовали купить эту картину Джона.

Task 3

1. Переведите следующий текст на русский язык.

The Globe

By modern standards, The Globe was small. Externally, the octagonal building measured less than thirty metres across, but in spite of this it could accommodate an audience of between two and three thousand people. (The largest of the three theatres at the National Theatre complex in London today seats 1160.)

The acting company assembled in the Tiring House at the rear of the stage. This was where they ‘attired’ (or dressed) themselves: not in costumes representing the period of the play, but in Elizabethan doublet and hose. All performances were therefore in modern dress, though no expense was spared to make the stage costumes lavish. The entire company was male. By law actresses were not allowed, and female roles were performed by boys.

Access to the stage from the Tiring House was through two doors, one on each side of the stage. Because there was no front curtain, every entrance had to have its corresponding exit, so an actor killed on stage had to be carried off. There was no scenery: the audience used its imagination, guided by the spoken word. Storms and night scenes might well be performed on sunny days in mid-afternoon; the Elizabethan playgoer relied entirely on the playwright’s descriptive skills to establish the dramatic atmosphere.

Once on stage, the actors and their expensive clothes were protected from sudden showers by a canopy, the underside of which was painted blue, and spangled with stars to represent the heavens. A trapdoor in the stage made ghostly entrances and the grave-digging scene in Hamlet possible.

2.Изложите основное содержание текста своими словами на английском языке в 5−6 предложениях.

3.Сформулируйте 5 вопросов, ответы на которые отразили бы основное содержание текста.

4.Переведите следующие предложения на английский язык.

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1)К сожалению, я не смог прийти так рано, как обещал.

2)В жизни моего друга Джонни стали происходить странные события: вначале он потерял фотоаппарат, затем плеер и, наконец, зонтик.

3)В газете говорилось, что требуются медсестры для ухода за ранеными.

4)Юрий рассказывал нам, что он надеялся застать юношу еще дома.

5)Вы не могли бы узнать, как зовут человека, который принес это письмо?

Task 4

1. Переведите следующий текст на русский язык.

Performances in the Globe

Performances were advertised by means of playbills posted around the city, and they took place during the hours of daylight when the weather was suitable. A flag flew to show that all was well, to save playgoers a wasted journey.

At the entrance, a doorkeeper collected one penny (about 60p in modern money) for admission to the ‘pit’ — a name taken from the old inn-yards, where bear-baiting and cock-fighting were popular sports. This was the minimum charge for seeing a play. The ‘groundlings’, as they were called, simply stood around the three sides of the stage, in the open air. Those who were better off could pay extra for a seat under cover. Stairs led from the pit to three tiers of galleries round the walls. The higher one went, the more one paid.

A full house might consist of 800 groundlings and 1500 in the galleries, with a dozen more exclusive seats on the stage itself for the gentry. A new play might run for between six and sixteen performances; the average was about ten. As there were no breaks between scenes, and no intervals, most plays could be performed in two hours.

The acting company assembled in the Tiring House at the rear of the stage. This was where they ‘attired’ (or dressed) themselves.

2.Изложите основное содержание текста своими словами на английском языке в 5−6 предложениях.

3.Сформулируйте 5 вопросов, ответы на которые отразили бы основное содержание текста.

4.Переведите следующие предложения на английский язык.

1)Кошка упала с крыши, но чувствует себя нисколько не хуже от этого.

2)Молодежи нравится все делать по-своему.

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