Западноевропейское искусство от Хогарта до Сальвадора Дали

4. Gauguin painted the Vision After the Sermon in 1879.

5. The poses in Gauguin's paintings are as continuous and unbroken as in Egyptian or Archaic Greek Art.

6. Gauguin recommended a return to the Old Masters.

II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?

1. What did Paul Gauguin do early in life? How old was Gauguin when he began painting? What style did Gauguin absorb? Where did he exhibit his works from 1879 to 1886?

2. Why was Gauguin's life nomadic?

3. What did Gauguin renounce and what did he recommend? What did Gauguin seek? What is depicted in the Vision After the Sermon? How did Gauguin outline the figures? What is the subject of this painting? What did Gauguin depict in the background? What did Gauguin show in the foreground at the right? What did it presuppose?

4. What did Gauguin take to the South Seas with him?

5. What is represented in The Day of the God?

6. What did Gauguin say before his death?

III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:

to begin painting as a amateur; to identify painting with; bourgeois existence; European urban civilisation; nomadic life; the departure from Western artistic tradition; the rebellious attitude to; to break from middle-class life; to renounce the formlessness of Impressionist vision; to presuppose Western perspective; the art of the natives; flattened style; to outline figures with clarity; to restore the contours.

ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:

ассоциировать живопись с; бегство от европейской городской цивилизации; бунтарское отношение к; воссоздать контуры; четко обозначить фигуры; искусство туземцев; разрыв со средним классом; критиковать отсутствие формы в картинах импрессионистов; буржуазный образ жизни; кочевая жизнь; плоскостной стиль.

iii. Make up sentences of your own with the given phrases.

iv. Arrange the following in the pairs of synonyms:

a) civilisation; amateur; existence; rebellious; emphasis;

b) defiant; accent; non-professional; being; culture.

IV. Here are descriptions of some of Gauguin's works of art. Match them up to the titles given below.

1. In the background Jacob is depicted wrestling with the angel.

2. A happy nude woman and her two children rest at the water's edge.

a. The Day of the God

b. Vision After the Sermon

V. Translate the text into English.

В истории искусства имя Поля Гогена связывают с символизмом, получившим в конце XIX – начале XX вв. название примитивизм. Несмотря на то, что Гоген стал систематически заниматься живописью довольно поздно, ему удалось выработать собственную манеру письма. Разочарованный в европейской цивилизации, Гоген бежал в экзотические страны. Природа и жизнь туземных племен стали источником его творческого вдохновения. Гоген сознательно пришел к примитивизации формы, стремясь приблизиться к художественным традициям туземного искусства. В общении с первобытной природой Гоген хотел обрести иллюзорный покой. Создав стилизацию таитянского искусства, Гоген вызвал интерес к искусству неевропейских народов.

VI. Summarize the text.

VII. Topics for discussion.

1. Gauguin as a life-long rebel.

2. Gauguin as a founder of modem art.

Unit XVI Van Gogh (1853-1890)

Van Gogh identified art with emotion. The son of a Protestant Dutch minister, the young Van Gogh was by turns the employee of a firm of art dealers, a language teacher, a student of practical evangelism and a missionary to the coal miners. Through these fragmentary careers runs the theme – a love of humanity, and of life. This love was the theme of his art as well, and was to produce one of the most intensely personal witnesses in the spiritual history of mankind. Even Van Gogh's mental illness, that brought about his frequent hospitalisations and his untimely death, did not prevent him from becoming the only Dutch painter whose stature could set him on a level with the three great Dutch masters of the seventeenth century.