Exercise 20. Project work

Prepare a report on one of your favorite technique.

Describe one of the pictures using phrases from table 1 (Appendix).

X Reading and Comprehension

Exercise 21. Make an abstract in English. Use the following phrases:

Give the title to the text.

1. The text/article under review … (gives us a sort of information about …)
2. The article deals with the problem …
3. The subject of the text is …
4. At the beginning (of the text ) the author describes … (dwells on …; explains …; touches upon …; analyses …; comments …; characterizes …; underlines …; reveals …; )
5. The article begins with the description of … , a review of …, the analysis of … .
6. Then (after that, further on, next) the author passes on to …, gives a detailed analysis (description ), goes on to say that … .
7. To finish with, the author describes …
8. At the end of the article the author draws the conclusion that …; the author sums it all up (by saying …)
9. In conclusion the author …

Text C

Cave painting of aurochs, Lascaux, France, prehistoric art

Notes:

1. rhinoceros –носоріг

2. buffalo – буйвол

3. cave – печера

4. impact – вплив

5. deprive – позбавляти

6. deter – утримувати

7. belie –не справджувати

The oldest known paintings are at the Grotte Chauvet in France, claimed by some historians to be about 32,000 years old. They are engraved and painted using red ochre and black pigment and show horses, rhinoceros, lions, buffalo, mammoth, abstract designs and what are possibly partial human figures. However the earliest evidence of the act of painting has been discovered in two rock-shelters in Arnhem Land, in northern Australia. In the lowest layer of material at these sites there are used pieces of ochre estimated to be 60,000 years old. Archaeologists have also found a fragment of rock painting preserved in a limestone rock-shelter in the Kimberley region of North-Western Australia that is dated 40 000 years old. There are examples of cave paintings all over the world—in India, France, Spain, Portugal, China, Australia, etc.

In Western cultures oil painting and watercolor painting have rich and complex traditions in style and subject matter. In the East, ink and color ink historically predominated the choice of media with equally rich and complex traditions.

The invention of photography had a major impact on painting. In the decades after the first photograph was produced in 1829, photographic processes improved and became more widely practiced, depriving painting of much of its historic purpose to provide an accurate record of the observable world. A series of art movements in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—notably Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, and Dadaism—challenged the Renaissance view of the world. Eastern and African painting, however, continued a long history of stylization and did not undergo an equivalent transformation at the same time.

Modern and Contemporary Art has moved away from the historic value of craft and documentation in favour of concept; this led some to say in the 1960s that painting, as a serious art form, is dead. This has not deterred the majority of living painters from continuing to practice painting either as whole or part of their work. The vitality and versatility of painting in the 21st century belies the early declarations of its demise. In an epoch characterized by the idea of pluralism, there is no consensus as to a representative style of the age. Important works of art continue to be made in a wide variety of styles and aesthetic temperaments, the marketplace being left to judge merit.

XI. Oral Practice