Practice Comprehension Check

Activity 1. Scan the texts about the greatest artists of Great Britain and complete the profile of each painter:

The most important dates in the artist's life and career

The most important events in the artist's life and career

The most famous and spectacular works of art

Epithets and terms to characterize the peculiarities of the artist's style and manner of painting, his artistic achievements

Phonetic transcription of the most important proper nouns

Activity 2. How carefully have you read the texts? Answer the questions and provide your commentaries if necessary:

1. What are the major peculiarities of British art in general?

2. What can you say about the historical background against which British art developed?

3. Why do we usually regard English painting as beginning with the Tudor period?

4. What did English royalty do to paint the people of the court and to record the historical events? Why?

5. Why did portraiture flourish in England in the 18^th century?

6. What did Hogarth do as a painter of social life? Don't forget to give examples from Text B.

7. What are the rules and standards of painting professed by the representatives (Reynolds, for example) of the Grand Style? Don't forget to give examples from Texts A, C.

8. What genre of painting did Gainsborough introduce into British art? What are the influences on Gainsborough’s art?

9. Why did Constable concentrate on rendering the atmosphere and light of nature? Don't forget to give examples from Text E.

10. What is the dominant difference in the subject and in the manner of painting between two great Romantic artists – Constable and Blake? Don’t forget to give examples from Texts A, F.

11. How did poetry and light influence Turner’s mature outlook? What are the most characteristic features of his style? Don't forget to give examples from Text G.

12. What are the key themes the Pre-Raphaelites preferred to develop and explore in their works? Comment on the peculiarities of their artistic manner.

Activity 3. Here are the descriptions of some famous works of art created by the artists of Great Britain. Match them to the titles given below:

1. The lines in this painting are generally blurred and indistinct. There is no definite outline of many recognizable objects, except for the rails of the bridge and a faint outline of a train moving toward the viewer. The artist used blurred splotches of paint including yellows, browns, orangish-reds, light blue, and white. The colours are mostly light, except for the dark red and rust colours that suggest the railroad. There is an overall hazy and misty feeling, as a result of the blue and gold veils of paint that he applied to the sky and surrounding scenery. The painter makes the main subjects of his work become part of his colouring and lighting effects, and they add to the general feeling of uncertainty. But what makes the whole picture look really great is the fact that the reflection of light alone gives shape to reality.

2. In a series of six pictures the painter tells the moralizing tale of the marriage of convenience between the son of a count and the daughter of a rich merchant, which leads to irretrievable breakdown and violent death. One of them shows a room rendered in the wide-angle perspective typical of the period. Seated on the left are the two marriage candidates who display not the slightest interest in each other. To the right, the fathers are negotiating the deal. The count needs his daughter-in-law’s dowry in order to finance his palace which, as can be seen through the window, is under construction. All details in the scene, even the small paintings – copies of well-known Italians – are relevant to the action.

3. The subject of the painting is the death of a famous literary heroine. She is driven mad by the behaviour of her betrothed. Picking flowers one day she slips, falls into a stream and drowns. It is unclear from the writer’s description whether she could have saved herself. In the painter’s interpretation she is still alive, buoyed up by her outspread clothes and singing “snatches of old tunes”. The artist spent the summer painting the background on the bank of the river Ewell, near London. He then painted the figure from a model lying in a bath in his London studio. Such procedures are typical of his approach to realism.

4. This is a typical family group portrait in the Grand Style of English portrait painting. The lady was the wife of a Member of Parliament and belonged to the privileged class of the landed nobility. Here, with an air of apparently casual informality, she is shown on the terrace before her country house, while behind stretch the broad acres of her family estate. The painter has taken care that the gestures, facial expressions, and poses of his subjects are appropriate to their age, character, and social status. In this portrait, the sitter is dignified and gracious, secure in the knowledge of her beauty and wealth. Her son John, aged five, as if sensing the responsibilities of manhood, gazes sternly toward the distant horizon. Her other son, Emelias Henry, in unmasculine skirts as befits his three years, is coy and winsome. The fourth member of the group, the unkempt Skye terrier, is the embodiment of loyal affection. Note the simplicity of the pyramidal design and the low-keyed color scheme. These features were for the painter symbols of dignity and good taste.

5. The trees, river and meadows have been dissolved into one moving, shimmering surface, making it appear as if the cart crossing the river has lost contact with the firm ground under its wheels. Bulging cloud formations have given way to some flashes of blue sky. This painter loved the changes that wind and weather effected on the landscape. Before finishing his painting he spent over three months sketching a particular view at different times of day, for in nature “not even two hours are the same”.

6. A painter of landscapes by passion and of portraits by financial necessity, this great artist took over elements of Dutch genre and landscape painting. These he combined with an air of cool casualness in the people represented, a trait which was regarded as typically English. In this famous portrait his client and the client’s wife are illuminated by cold, “sober” light. It makes them appear detached from the landscape, which is painted in lively, warm, earthy colours. A dynamic relationship between foreground and background is established by the perspective lines to the left and right of the figures, which lead the eye into the distance.

1. Joseph Mallord William Turner’s Rain, Steam, and Speed

2. Sir Joshua Reynolds’ Lady Elizabeth Delme and Her Children

3. Thomas Gainsborough’s Mr and Mrs Andrews

4. William Hogarth’s Marriage a la Mode: The Marriage Contract

5. John Constable’s The Haywain

6. Sir John Everett Millais’ Ophelia