Read the text and translate it English.

 

2. Answer the following questions:

1. Where is the National Museum of Le Bardo located?

2. How did the travel writer Hesse-Wartegg find the suburb of Le Bardo?

3. When was the present palace where Le Bardo is located built?

4. What is considered “the world’s first known monument of religious inspiration?

5. What is located in the Christian Room’s font?

6. What does the upper patio of the palace look like?

7. What does the ceiling of the Sousse room complement?

8. What busts are considered the masterpieces of Bardo’s collection?

9. What does the Arab Museum occupy?

10. What is the importance of the National Museum of Le Bardo for the history of world art?

 

3. Give Ukrainian equivalents of the following words and phrases:

worth

to sprawl

to amount to

prehistory display-panels

exquisite statues of gods and emperors

to unearth

partly defaced

remarkably lifelike

to flank

to have a magnificent array of antiquity

to spot

adjacent to

to confine to

tapestried with mosaics

to adjoin

bleak

glassware

funerary statues

prudishly

ceramic plaques and pottery

 

4. Give English equivalents of the following words and phrases:

залишки величезного байського комплексу

згодом вирости

забезпечений усім потрібним

купа кременю

стругана галька

гончарні вироби

статуетка

туалетні дрібнички

очевидно єгипетського походження

ознака

вишукані статуї

нависаюча арка

доповнювати

кубик в мозаїці

межувати

канатна мозаїка

надмірно делікатно

 

Make up the sentences with the given words and phrases.

 

Match a line in A with a line in B.

A	B
remains	vessels, etc.,made of baked clay
subsequently	savagely fierce or cruel
earthenware	a small or worthless ornament or piece of jewellery
trinket	an ornament that hangs from a piece of jewellery
ferocious	valuable articles found hidden in the earth or elsewhere of unknown ownership
to unearth	to be located at the side of
to flank	to stand firm against
pendant	occurring after
to resist	to dig up out of the earth
treasure-trove	any pieces, scraps, fragments, etc. that are left unused or still extant, as after use, consumption, the passage of time

 

Summarize the text in English.

Unit 50

TEXT

James McNeill Whistler

An American-born artist who remained an expatriate throughout most of his life, James McNeill Whistler was one of the most original and influential artists of his time. He was a leading figure in the aesthetic movement in America and Europe and an innovator whose quasi-abstract works and experimental techniques had a profound impact on the artists of his era. Whistler's tremendous contribution was acknowledged in 1907 by the American critic Charles Caffin who wrote, "He did better than attract a few followers and imitators; he influenced the whole world of art. Consciously or unconsciously, his presence is felt in countless studios; his genius permeates modern artistic thought."

In his day, Whistler was as famous for his personality as for his art. He not only fit the characteristics of the nineteenth-century dandy, but he also helped to establish its definition. Standing only five feet, four inches high (1.62 meters) and often dressed outlandishly in outrageous colors and patent leather pumps, he affected a style of self conscious eccentricity, projected an aura of confident self-importance, and gave off a cultivated air of aesthetic arrogance. These qualities made him a figure of public scrutiny, controversy, and outrage throughout his career. A century before Andy Warhol broke down the line between art and the commercial media, Whistler understood the value of self-promotion, and his fame and that of his art followed from the stir that he created by shocking the audiences of his time. Known for his sharp wit, he often delighted his friends and followers with clever quips, but just as frequently he alienated them with biting attacks and rebuffs.

Although Whistler clearly enjoyed his notoriety and delighted in seeing his exchanges with other public figures such as the Anglo-Irish author Oscar Wilde repeated in the press, he was utterly serious about art and about his own work. In his "Ten O'clock Lecture" of 1885, he railed against the popular art of

32 Mille Finch on the Sofa, 1870

James McNeill Whistler

 

his day and against ail with moral purpose. He called for art to be looked "at" not "through," to be considered for a beauty that was not linked to virtue. He believed that it was necessary for the artist to go beyond a literal transcription of nature. Nature, he felt, merely contained the elements of color and form from which the artist was to pick and choose, arranging a work like a musician would compose "until he brings forth from chaos glorious harmony."

Whistler did not invent the idea of "art for art's sake," but he was one of the first to explore the idea in the visual arts, using tone and brush handling expressively to produce evocative "arrangements" from portrait and landscape subjects. At the same time, he had a deep love for nature, for the beauty of misty night skies and atmospheric sunsets. Never creating works that were completely abstract, Whistler explained that nature should always be the foundation lot of a work of art. In the "Ten O'clock Lecture" he slated, "In all that is dainty and lovable the artist finds hints for his own combinations and thus is Nature ever his resource and always at his service, and to him is naught refused."

Whistler was inspired by a range of sources, including the work of Velásquez and Rembrandt, Japanese prints, ancient Greek sculpture, and the English eighteenth-century portrait tradition. However, his works never include obvious references. He simplified his designs, omitting details to create an art of suggestion rather than of reportage. He wanted the expressive nature of tone, line, and form to speak for themselves, and he worked to achieve a look of effortlessness so that the viewer would not be distracted by trying to analyze how an image was created. Whistler expressed his dislike of works that revealed evidence of labor, stating in his 1890 book, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, "A picture is finished when all trace of the means used to bring about the end has disappeared." Creating economical designs in which every stroke or element of color played a significant role, he produced elegant and refined works that are both decorative and poetic.

The story of how Whistler's famous butterfly signature evolved provides a key to his persona and his art. During the mid-1860s, Whistler's fascination with the potter's marks on the blue-and-white china he had begun collecting gave him the idea of signing his name with his initials. Over time, he molded his, initials into the shape of a butterfly, an abstract, delicate pattern that became his monogram. This inscription evolved again in 1880. While staying in Venice, Whistler impaled a scorpion on a needle he was using to create etchings. Impressed with the way the scorpion continued to strike out viciously in all directions, he combined the tail of the insect, its stinger, with the graceful butterfly.

The resulting symbol, suggesting both fragility and aggression, sums up an art that was extremely gentle and subdued, yet had considerable shock value during an era when art was still judged by its ability to represent reality. The stinging butterfly also reflects Whistler's personal pugnacity, which masked a sensitive nature that responded to poetic qualities in the places he portrayed and was caring toward the people close to him.

 

 

TASKS