Complete the lead-in text using the words and phrases given.

Expressionism misery and conflicts the unconscious convulsed and tortuous reflected social awareness completely transformed alienation agonized person stressed out and angst-ridden visual symbol advances social and political agenda is distorted skull-like head ghostly naturalistic imagery shrieks of terror penetrated popular culture howled basic fears and anxieties

Edvard Munch, Norway's most popular artist, is looked upon as one of the most significant influences on the development of German and Central European ____________. Munch's ______________ art was formed by the ______________ of his time, and, even more important, by his own unhappy life. Childhood tragedy, intense and dramatic love affairs, alcoholism, and ceaseless traveling are __________ in his works, particularly in paintings like The Sick Child, The Scream, and Vampire. Munch's pictures show his _____________ and his tendency to express many of the ____________________ of mankind.

Munch’s The Scream is possibly the most powerful _____________ ever created for the anxieties of modem life. During the final years of the 19^th century, when the artist did this work, society was being _______________________ — politically, socially and technologically. New machines like the airplane, the automobile the telephone, and the radio were changing people’s lives. Modern cities were growing rapidly, and with them a sense of isolation and__________. And __________ in science and psychology were establishing the importance of emotions and ______________. Artists of the time like Munch, needed to express their feelings about these disturbing changes. In The Scream, Munch doesn’t just paint what a person in pain might look like. He sees the world through the eyes of this _____________. In this painting, the entire landscape ______________ by pain and despair. A _______figure clutches its ______________ in agony. Blood-red lines vibrate around it like _____________.

Critics _______ when the Norwegian artist first exhibited the lurid canvas in Berlin in 1893. It caused a huge scandal. But the bleak, agonizing figure depicted in Munch’s canvas - and so alien to the __________________ of the 19th century - resonates with meaning in the wired world of the 1990s. In recent years, The Scream has joined The Mona Lisa as one of art history’s most reproduced icons. The image has been used for every __________________ you can possibly think of, from feminism to the environment to politics. Just how deeply the image has __________________ is clear in the art gallery’s companion exhibit, which features editorial and humorous cartoons, posters, advertising material and an array of mugs, T-shirts, mouse-pads, inflatable dolls and even a beer bottle and a night-light emblazoned with The Scream. It has become this image of modern man—totally _____________________.

 

2 Look through the NOTES and watch the Episode “The Private Life of a Masterpiece”. (Мультимедийный каталог 1556 →Unit 9)

Edvard Munch (Norwegian pronunciation: [muŋk], 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) - a Norwegian Symbolist painter, printmaker and an important forerunner of expressionistic art.

Expressionism, as a cultural movement, originated in Germany at the start of the 20th-century. It sought to express the meaning of "being alive" and emotional experience rather than physical reality. It is the tendency of an artist to distort reality for an emotional effect.

Hans Jaeger, novelist

Evening on Karl Johan – Munch’s painting

 

Watch the episode again and fill in the gaps with the missing information. Write no more than THREE words. (00:00 – 00:46)

Why do people love this image so much? It’s very ________ to me, I mean, it’s _____________. It’s a __________________. And yet people love the damn thing.

It’s an image that is ___________. I think that’s what _______ people.

The Scream, by Edward Munch, one of the world’s _____________. Even, it’s said, ________________ around the world, than The Mona Lisa. This is not just a painting anymore; it’s _________, an idea that has entered our psyche and spread ___________ through popular culture.

Listen to a short paragraph of the Episode and write it down (classwork).

5 Check you know the meanings of the words and phrases given in the box, make use of them when covering the information provided in the episode:

1. Edward Munch’s obsession.

 

the bare fact of by definition conceptual idea in anguish paradoxical idea to emit a sound to transcend into

 

 

2. Interpreting The Scream.

 

to emanate from the intensity of to come from the enormity of the sound of a real-life experience

 

 

3. Munch’s background

 

to vibrate with memories an asylum for to recall sounds a scruffy spot manic depression to overwhelm dizzy and frightful to be burdened with literal truth to condemn smb to to lay in store to deteriorate bouts of sickness

 

 

4. Munch’s social and artistic environment.

 

a bourgeois town a puritanical society Lutheran a bohemian group to proclaim a commandment as gospel the dissolute life to join in with the anguish of the swarming Oslo bourgeoisie heartbroken to face the trauma of to pertify smb to deplore smth

 

 

5. Writing his own manifesto.

 

abundant material a conscious decision to take shape in a vast landscape to lean over railings at face value in a state of seizure to resound to the foreground vicious yellow sky

 

 

6. From The Despair to The Scream. Munch’s Expressionism.

 

the terrible shriek a mood painting further versions a pastel drawing to look outwards to twist like a connoisseur of a spiritual experience a sort of a universe image a Peruvian mummy a fetal position a fascinating exhibit a psychic self-portrait to distort

 

 

Speaking points. Comment on the following quotations.

 

1. “Hans Jaeger was saying ‘write your own life, this is the material,’- Munch had abundant material for an art that was emotionally charged.”

2. “Art should be emotionally charged, otherwise it is a photography. An artist’s spiritual experience is doomed to be shared by a viewer.”

3. "Great poets and painters are seldom understood at first, seldom honoured. They can be glad if they are not shown the door and politely thrown out, like Mr. Munch..."

4. “The art market nowadays is considered to be a good investment with possible earnings far in excess of usual financial instruments with modernistic art being the most expensive. But its attraction is purely financial.”

5. “What appeals to us in modernistic art? Well … it is a fashion nowadays, isn’t it?”

 

Superstitions - Part 1

1 Look through the NOTES and watch the Episode “Superstitions - Part 1”. (Мультимедийный каталог 1556 →Unit 10 )

The Last Supper -the meal eaten by Christ with his disciples on the night before his Crucifixion; Тайная вечеря (последняя совместная трапеза Христа и апостолов)

Absenteeism – the high rate of absence where regular attendance is expected

Incantation – the speaking or singing of certain words for the purpose of raising spirits or performing magical actions.

‘Mojo’ - magical power with its magical spell, acts, or charm. Widely believed in among sportsmen.

Thespian – (of or pertaining to Thespis, a Greek tragic poet and the traditional founder of Greek tragedy) a tragedian, an actor or actress.

a coven - a group or meeting of witches

Pandora -the first woman, made out of earth by the gods. Given a box (Pandora’s box) that she was forbidden to open, she disobeyed out of curiosity and released from it all the ills;

 

 

2 Check you know the meanings of the words and phrases given in the box, make use of them when covering the information provided in the episode:

 

 

1. An ancient man and a modern man have a lot of superstitions in common.

 

to fend off far from to squelch smth trouble spots a rational creature to exhibit a behavior federal case

 

2. Unlucky numbers.

 

to trace to to stand from optimal size to total 13 to heighten the anxiety to be associated with a conjunction of to consider smth troublesome estimates reduced commerce absenteeism related to a homonym

 

 

3. Superstitions in the theatre.

 

fair share of Pandora’s Box a public event the Scottish play to bring bad luck on to reverse the bad luck the standard cure to date back to creepy things an evil spell to do an incantation to be fascinated by to conjure up a spell-binding image

 

 

4. Sports and superstitions.

 

in the realm of to resort to to ensure success to alleviate the pressure to drop to to concentrate on the wrapper from to peel the foil off

 

 

Listen to a short paragraph of the Episode and write it down (classwork).