Unit 10 arts and artists

PRE-LISTENING SECTION

Exercise 1. Answer the following questions. Be guided by the information below.

1. What do you know about Vincent van Gogh?

2. Have you ever heard about Goupil & Cie? What is it?

Van Gogh Short Facts

• Vincent had an older brother who died at birth. His name was also Vincent van Gogh.

• Van Gogh was close friends with Paul Gauguin, another famous artist.

• Van Gogh suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy as well as other mental and physical conditions.

• Vincent shot himself in a wheatfield in Auvers, France but did not die until 2 days later at the age of 37.

• Vincent’s brother Theo died six months after Vincent and is buried next to him in Auvers, France.

• Vincent’s brother’s wife collected Vincent’s paintings and letters after his death and dedicated herself to getting his work the recognition it deserved.

• In a short period of ten years Van Gogh made approximately 900 paintings.

• Vincent only sold one painting during his lifetime and only became famous after his death.

• Vincent van Gogh did not cut off his ear. He only cut off a small portion of his ear lobe.

• Van Gogh created his most famous work The Starry Night while staying in an asylum in Saint-Remy-de-Provence, France.

• Vincent’s earliest career aspiration was to be a pastor in the Dutch Reformed Church like his father.

• Van Gogh wrote over 800 letters in his lifetime. The majority of them written to his brother and closest friend Theo.

Goupil & Cie was a leading art dealership in 19th century France, with headquarters in Paris. Step by step, Goupil established a worldwide trade with reproductions of paintings and sculptures, with a network of branches in London, Brussels, The Hague, Berlin and Vienna, as well as in New York and Australia. Instrumental for this expansion were the Ateliers Photographiques, a plant north of Paris, in Asnières, which took up work in 1869. The leading figure was Adolphe Goupil (1806–1893). His daughter Marie married the French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme.

Goupil and Van Gogh

"Uncle Cent", as he was called by his nephews, moved to Paris in 1858 and took residence at 9 Rue Chaptal, which housed Goupil's head quarters, too. In 1861, he became partner of Goupil & Cie, but retired in 1872, due to his degrading health, to settle in Princenhage for the summers and in Menton for the winters. Six years later, he withdrew his shares.

As Uncle Cent had no children, his nephews were evidently supposed to follow him up in the firm: Vincent entered in 1869, Theo in 1873. When Vincent was sacked by Léon Boussod in 1876, the balance between the shareholders suffered - and so Theo got his chance. Called to the Paris office for the time of the World Fair 1878, he was offered to stay in Paris, and finally entrusted with the direction of the branch on Boulevard Montmartre.

In these years, Vincent took up his vocation and began to study art, based on the Cours de dessin, compiled by Charles Bargue "in collaboration with J.-L. Gérôme" and edited by Goupil & Cie, 1868–1873. In 1880, he asked his former director Herman Gijsbert Tersteeg, at Goupil's in The Hague, to lend him a copy, which he finally received with the support of his brother Theo.

Theodorus "Theo" van Gogh (1 May 1857 – 25 January 1891) was a Dutch art dealer. He was the younger brother of Vincent van Gogh, and Theo's unfailing financial support allowed his brother to devote himself entirely to painting. Theo died at the age of 33, several months after Vincent had died at the age of 37.

Theo admired his elder brother Vincent for his whole life. But communicating with him proved to be difficult, even before Vincent opted to follow his artistic vocation. The communication between both brothers suffered from diverging definitions of standards, and it was evidently Theo who kept on writing letters. Therefore, mostly Vincent's answers survived and little of Theo's input. Theo was often concerned about Vincent's mental condition and he was amongst the few who understood his brother.

The Van Gogh Museum is an art museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Van Gogh Museum is a young museum. It opened its doors in 1973 and has since grown into one of the world’s most prominent and popular museums. Its reputation stems from its unique collection, the quality of its exhibitions, its outstanding research, pristine publications, and its two internationally renowned buildings on one of Europe’s leading cultural locations. The museum collects and preserves Western paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints from the period 1840 to 1920. At the heart of the museum is the estate of Vincent van Gogh, the largest collection of Van Gogh’s work anywhere in the world. Around this the museum presents a broad range of nineteenth-century art.

Exercise 2. Match these words and collocations to their definitions (synonyms). Translate them into Ukrainian.

enshroud	stupidly obstinate
irascible	a person who travels about on foot, usually with no permanent home, living by begging or doing casual work
pigheaded	reject (someone or something) in an abrupt or ungracious manner
tramp	a potent green alcoholic drink, technically a gin, originally having high wormwood content
rebuff	easily made angry
stalker	a person who stealthily hunts or pursues an animal or another person
absinthe	envelop completely and hide from view
asylum	reduced-size versions of pictures
embedded	an institution offering shelter and support to the mentally ill
thumbnail	attached

Exercise 3. Explain the meaning of following words and word-combinations.

Heart-lifting, to form the core, an art dealer, engaging (adj.), high-minded, love-struck (adj.), to place in the canon, unequalled (adj.), crack-up (n.), centenary (adj.).

LISTENING SECTION

Exercise 1. Listen to the recording and insert missing words and word combinations.

1. It is told, in his own words and works, in _____________ “Vincent van Gogh: The Letters”.

2. The first letter was written when Vincent, aged 19, was a trainee at The Hague branch of Goupil & Cie, a firm of _______________________________________.

3. He wrote beautifully about _____________________________________.

4. Other failures followed, as _________________________________.

5. When the letters resume, Vincent refers to himself as ______________________________.

6. He also painted nearly ________pictures, among them “The Night Café” and “The Yellow House”.

7. The very last letter reproduced, addressed to _________ but unfinished, was written on July 23rd 1890.

8. Letters and illustrations fill ______________; the sixth has commentaries, maps and indexes.

9. Now the letters have been _______________, comprehensively ________________ and there are 20 new items.

10. Sketches are embedded in many of van Gogh’s letters; the ___________________________ he sometimes tucked into envelopes before posting are reproduced.

Exercise 2. Listen again and answer the questions below.

1. What is the six-volume “Vincent van Gogh: The Letters” and why is this edition unique?

2. What was Vincent’s philosophy about art and literature?

3. What was his first work experience?

4. What were his first paintings?

5. How did Vincent van Gogh die?

DISCUSSION SECTION

Exercise 1. Express your opinion on the following.

1. Should a person dress like a tramp to demonstrate his/her refusal to hypocritical society?

2. How do you think, a real art should send some message to the viewer or state the reality just as it is?

3. Should a person be guided by his/her heart even when it is contrary to the facts?

Exercise 2. Comment on the Van Gogh Quotes below.

1. “I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate."

2. "A good picture is equivalent to a good deed."

3. "The diseases that we civilized people labor under most are melancholy and pessimism."

4. "If ... boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?"

5. "To do good work one must eat well, be well housed, have one's fling from time to time, smoke one's pipe, and drink one's coffee in peace."

6. "There is no blue without yellow and without orange."

7. "We spend our whole lives in unconscious exercise of the art of expressing our thoughts with the help of words."

TRANSLATION SECTION

Exercise 1. Make the transcript of the recording; translate it into your native language.

Exercise 2. Present a translation-oriented analysis of the text.

Exercise 3. Translate the following text into Ukrainian and analyze the basic transformations.