In March 2020, as the snowstorm held steady, David Hockney released a painting of bright yellow daffodils (黄水仙) titled “Do Remember They Can’t Cancel the Spring”. In the midst of such depression, it offered a burst of optimism, reminding us that nature, with rebirth and renewal, could still offer hope.
Hockney has long appreciated the natural world. “We can only refresh ourselves by looking at nature,” he has said. A mere 20 minutes in a natural environment has been proven to lower stress levels. Even looking at paintings of nature can produce the same effect, so it is no surprise that visitors have been crowding into Hockney-Van Gogh: The Joy of Nature at The Museum of Fine Arts. “The freeze brought everything to a pause and people’s faces just light up when they walk into the museum,” says Ann Dumas, planner of the Houston show.
The exhibition explores the two artists’ response to nature as well as Van Gogh’s obvious influence on Hockney. The response to nature for both artists was influenced by a switch of scene. When Van Gogh moved to France, he made the colour breakthroughs that led to the vividly coloured landscapes. Similarly, Hockney’s return to Yorkshire gave him a renewed appreciation for the local landscapes that he has depicted (刻画) in his own unique colors.
Hockney has said: “I’ve always found the world quite beautiful. And there’s an important thing I share with Vincent Van Gogh: we both really, really enjoy looking at the world.” Perhaps unsurprisingly their themes frequently overlaps (交叠), “We have a beautiful painting by Van Gogh of some tree trunks: he seems to be lying on the ground and in front of him is a great carpet of wildflowers,” says Dumas. Hockney explored the same theme in his The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire, 2011, in which “all the wildflowers are really lively”. says Dumas. The painting, with its thick greens and branches tipped with leaves, is one of the highlights of the show. “People are spellbound.” says Dumas, “They see it very much as about hope.”
1. What effect would “Do Remember They Can’t Cancel the Spring” have on viewers?A.Thrilling. | B.Disturbing. | C.Shocking. | D.Inspiring. |
A.Because paintings of nature help to reduce pressure. |
B.Because Van Gogh’s masterpieces are on show. |
C.Because the freeze outside is unbearable. |
D.Because visitors tend to follow the crowd. |
A.They were deeply influenced by others. |
B.They were good at painting tree trunks. |
C.They found the world quite beautiful. |
D.They reacted actively to nature with the change of scene. |
A.Dumas thinks highly of Hockey. | B.Van Gogh is famous for the Starry Night. |
C.Hockey’s work brings hope to people. | D.Both of the artists enjoy observing the world. |
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【推荐1】We’ve all been told to dress warmly or we’ll catch cold. But science says the common cold is caused by the virus, not the weather. Actually, according to researchers at Yale University, there just might be something to this old wives’ tale.
For decades, researchers have known that the virus replicates (复制) more readily in cooler environments, such as the nose, rather than at the warmer core body temperature. The reason for this, explains Ellen Foxman, an assistant professor at Yale University School of Medicine, long remained a mystery. Scientists didn’t know whether the virus itself worked better at colder temperatures, or the immune system worked worse. “No one could find anything,” she says.
Then Foxman and her colleagues studied what’s called the born immune system, which is present in every cell, and how it responds to various temperatures when the virus is present. In the lab, they examined airway cells from mice and found that the immune system produced fewer chemical substances called interferons at lower temperatures, allowing the cold virus to flourish.
In a study published this year, they found supporting results in human cells: At the warmer core body temperature, born immune systems that block viral growth are more active, and can stop and kill viruses. Now the team is trying to better understand the defenses the body uses to prevent the virus.
While wearing a scarf around your nose to warm it up might help prevent a cold, Foxman recommends washing your hands so you don’t pass the virus to your eyes, nose, or mouth in the first place. “If the virus isn’t in your nose, it can’t cause infection,” she says.
1. What does the underlined sentence in the first paragraph mean?A.Listen to the elders. | B.The tale makes sense. |
C.The tale is interesting. | D.The research is useless. |
A.The virus increased in warmer environments. |
B.The mice was more active in warmer conditions. |
C.The immune system produced more antivirus in warm air. |
D.A chemical in the immune system can stop and kill virus. |
A.Wearing a scarf. | B.Dressing warmly. |
C.Washing the hands. | D.Stay warm in winter. |
A.Cold weather causes cold. | B.Tips on protecting immune system. |
C.Cold impact the body’s immune system. | D.Many viruses can cause the common cold. |
【推荐2】At the end of 1978, China put forward a package of new thoughts on national development. The most important of them was to shift the priority of the nation to economic development, which has since become the central task of CPC organizations and governments at all levels. Economic growth was the primary measurement of the development of a region and performance of an official. It became national agreement that economic growth offered the solution to the problems facing China.
Seeing that manufacturing was a strong promoter of economic growth, China's central and local governments put great emphasis on it. But in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s the country was short of money to build up this capital-intensive (资本密集) sector, which requires buying equipment and land, building factories, and hiring workers. It therefore looked to foreign investors who were looking for opportunities in the Chinese market.
Foreseeing the multiple benefits of foreign investment including tax contribution, job creation, raise in local income, local governments raced to look for foreign capital. To compete against their peers, some regions offered extra favorable policies like tax cuts or breaks, discounted land prices or even free land. Some even went to the extent of lowering or abandoning environmental protection requirements.
While going after foreign investors, regional governments also struggled to seek domestic banks for loans to local enterprises. Meanwhile, they set up their own financing platforms to raise funds for local manufacturing and infrastructure (基础设施) to stimulate economic growth.
These efforts paid off. The economy rose rapidly all over the country, with few regions reporting GDP growth rate below 10 percent. A series of new infrastructure was completed, and manufacturing sprang in both rural and urban areas. But the side effects soon came up. The supply of low-priced or even free land to foreign investors led to a sharp rise in land development for industrial projects and a steep fall in farmlands. Realizing these problems, China began to correct its neglect of other aspects during the pursuit of economic growth.
1. What central task did the Chinese government advocate in 1978?A.Environmental protection. | B.Economic growth. |
C.Manufacture promotion. | D.Capital accumulation. |
A.By loaning money from foreign banks. | B.By selling equipment and land. |
C.By seeking foreign investors. | D.By raising funds from the public. |
A.China's economy experienced ups and downs. |
B.Foreign investment was a win-win policy. |
C.GDP growth in many regions was below 10 %. |
D.Policies were adopted for better environment. |
A.China's Problems in Promoting Economy |
B.China's Policy in Foreign Investment |
C.China's Success in Fighting Against Poverty |
D.China's Efforts in Economic Development |
【推荐3】In the early days of covid-19, the tech industry was consumed by a sense of excitement. With billions of people locked down at home, work and play were shifting online. Many hoped that the new normal would spark a huge productivity boom as firms digitized and workers spent less time commuting. The excitement was most evident in stock-markets, where any firm related to this trend saw its share price surge. The tech-heavy NASDAQ rose by 88%.
The crazy has ended. Today the lockdown lunacy index(疯狂指数) — which includes Netflix, a streaming service; Peloton, a maker of fancy exercise bikes; Robin-hood, a stock-trading app; Shopify, and e-commerce platform; and Zoom, a videoconferencing firm - has fallen by more than 80% from its peak.
How worrying is this return to Earth? To be sure, some of it reflects gloomier prospects for the global economy. And it is disappointing that two years of digitization and remote work have not provided clear evidence of a productivity boom. Yet there are reasons still to be techno-optimistic. Much of the early enthusiasm may simply have been focused on the wrong types of firm. Though the pandemic darlings have fizzled, the shift towards ever greater digitization continues. The true winners are not the flashy consumer-tech firms, but the companies that provide the infrastructure to enable this shift.
Look beyond the boom and bust of consumer tech, and you see the real successes. The market for the infrastructure technology that underpins people’s daily lives, such as cloud computing, cyber-security and digital payments, is booming. The cloud-computing industry is expected to grow to almost $500bn this year, up from $243bn in 2019. Amazon’s cloud offering, the largest in the world, is still growing at 33% each year. It accounted for three-quarters of the firm’s operating income over the past 12 months, and is propping up the tech giant’s ailing e-commerce business. Its closest rivals are the cloud services of Microsoft and Google. Their annual sales are growing by 40% and 36%, respectively.
Cloudification has created new demands for cybersecurity, another tech winner. The combined revenue at the three largest listed cybersecurity firms has almost doubled since the start of the pandemic. Their market capitalisation has tripled, and has come down only a fraction since the start of the year. Digital payments are another bright spot, thanks to lockdowns and social distancing. Three-quarters of iPhone owners use Apply Pay, up from half in 2019, and nine out of ten American retailers now accept it as a payment method. Almost 200m people in India and China have used some form of digital payment for the first time since the onset of covid.
The bubble may have burst on the pandemic’s darlings, but the drumbeat of digitization continues. The less obvious technologies that provide the underlying infrastructure for the shift are the true beneficiaries of covid. Whether these will fuel a productivity boost one day remains to be seen. But there was more going on during the pandemic than lockdown crazy.
1. According to the article, which of the following statements is TRUE?A.Tech industry predicted a productivity boom in the lockdown, which proved true. |
B.The share prices of customer-tech companies sharply rocketed and then declined. |
C.Robinhood is a tech company specializaing in meeting demands for cybersecurity. |
D.The prospects of the tech industry are too gloomy to be optimistic. |
A.emerged | B.benefited | C.failed | D.sustained |
A.Digital payment wasn’t available to Indians at all until the start of covid. |
B.In the past year, Amazon has mainly depended on its e-commerce business of profits. |
C.In the shift of working online, cloudification is no longer optional! |
D.The market capitalization of three largest listed cybersecurity firms has kept rising. |
A.Techno-pessimists Rule the Lockdown. |
B.The Lockdown Index Sounds the Alarm. |
C.Economic Depression Is Arriving. |
D.Tech Losers and Winners of the Pandemic. |
【推荐1】“Painters, do not fear perfection. You will never achieve it! Just try as you will if you are ordinary. Even if you paint terribly, badly, people will still see that you are ordinary. ”
-Salvador Dali
“Every morning when I awake,” wrote the artist of the soft watches and burning giraffes, “the greatest of joys is mine: that of being Salvador Dalí. . .” The Spanish artist, so famous and so rich, was creative not only in his art. He talked nonstop too; his favorite topic was how to be a genius. “Oh Salvador,” he concluded, “now you know the truth: that if you act the genius, you will be one!”
Had he lived during the Renaissance (文艺复兴), Dalí would have been recognized sooner as a genius. In our age, though, which he felt was growing increasingly stupid, Dalí represented an air of challenging and annoying everyone else. Today he is ranked alongside Picasso as one of the modernist greats, and the general public quite clearly loves his art as well; therefore, it is difficult to understand why he should still be seen as so challenging and annoying, and why many people should still consider him as mad. Dalí himself declared: “The only difference between myself and a madman is the fact that I am not mad!” Writer Michel Déon once said, “His personality -whether it is loved or hated-is based on something deep and appealing, and that is his roots and his feelings. Roots that reach deep into the earth, absorbing everything that has been produced in four thousand years of painting, architecture and sculpture. Feelings that are picking up things to come, from the future, expecting it and flying to it at lightning speed. It cannot be emphasized enough that Dalí is a man of tireless scientific curiosity.” One might say that Dalí was typical of his age: he had grasped how to make himself a star.
1. What does Dali actually want to say to other painters?A.“Be brave to show yourself.” |
B.“Be honest to yourself.” |
C.“Be pleased to stay ordinary.” |
D.“Be respectful to the public.” |
A.He was too proud of himself. |
B.He was undoubtedly a genius. |
C.He was too challenging and annoying. |
D.He was unfairly understood. |
A.He was not only learned but advanced. |
B.He was not only honest but emotional. |
C.He was a scientist rather than an artist. |
D.He was a star rather than a genius. |
A.His amazing achievements in art. |
B.His special ability in learning. |
C.His extraordinary belief in himself. |
D.His annoying behavior in public. |
【推荐2】Hedy Lamarr, a Hollywood actress, who was called “the most beautiful woman in the world,” starred in dozens of films over a career that lasted decades. But there was more to Lamarr than met the eye. An enthusiastic inventor, she worked on everything from a tablet to frequency hopping — a World War II-era secure communications technology that’s used today in wireless internet, GPS, and cellphones, which makes her regarded as the “mother of Wi-Fi.”
The Austrian-born Lamarr grew up in Vienna without a lot of education in science. Her natural curiosity drove her to explore and understand the world around her.Therefore, her father, who was also interested in science and technology, often walked with her around the city, pointing out what made things work.
Lamarr's informal scientific training continued when, as a young girl in 1933, she married a wealthy arms merchant who worked with the German and Italian military. When all of these generals and admirals were coming around, she listened, absorbed and learned.
The marriage didn’t last, and Lamarr set out to seek her acting career. When she got to Hollywood in the 1930s, she quickly became an international icon(偶像). After watching World War II break out, with growing concern, Lamarr began inventing on her own. As an Austrian, she thought she should do more to contribute to the allies’s(同盟国) war efforts.
In Hollywood, Lamarr met George Antheil, a composer who would become her cooperator on the frequency-hopping technology. Together, they invented a system that made it harder for the enemy to track or jam signals on radio-guided weapons. However, it wasn’t until 1997, three years before her death, that Lamarr received professional acknowledgment(认可) for her invention.
Lamarr played the role she expected to play in Hollywood-a beautiful object to admire on the big screen. However, She never yielded to society’s expectation to women. Her story really encouraged young people, and especially young women, to go into fields that are traditionally male-oriented, and not to judge a book by its covers.
1. What mainly made Lamarr develop her interest in science?A.Her father. | B.Her first husband and his friends. |
C.Her own curiosity. | D.Her teachers. |
A.She was the most beautiful woman in the world at one time. |
B.She was gracefully beautiful as well as scientifically intellectual. |
C.She encouraged young women to invent. |
D.She decided to give up her acting career after World War II broke out. |
A.worried about | B.looked down on |
C.disagreed with | D.gave in to |
A.A Great Inventor. |
B.A Famous Actress. |
C.A Film Star With A Great Contribution. |
D.A Wireless Communication. |
【推荐3】Robyn Rihanna Fenty has rocked the entertainment world with her contributions to pop music. She was born on February 20, 1988, in Saint Michael, Barbados. In her early teens, Rihanna was greatly inspired by reggae (雷盖音乐) singer Bob Marley and pop singer Madonna. She was lucky enough to get her first opportunity at the age of 15, when her friend introduced her to an experienced music composer Evan Rogers from New York.
Rihanna moved to US to start a career in music, and recorded under the guidance of Rogers and his partner Carl Sturken. Later, Shane Carter recognized her talent and had her sign a contract with Def Jam Recordings.
Rihanna has been musically influenced by famous artists, such as Beyonce Knowles, Madonna, Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys, and Bob Marley. In 2005,Rihanna released her debut album (首张专辑) “Music of the Sun'”, which included the single hit “Pon de Replay”. This single broke all records and peaked at No. 2 on the US Billboard Hot 100 charts, as well as the UK charts. Her second single “If It’s Lovin’ That You Want” was at No. 36 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, and No. 11 on the UK charts.
Rihanna released her second album, “A Girl Like Me” in 2006, which included the hit song and lead single “S.O.S” (Rescue Me). This single peaked at the number one position on the Billboard Hot 100.
In 2006, Rihanna also tried her luck in films, and made her acting debut playing a role in “Bring It On: All or Nothing”. The next year, she released her third album “Good Girl Gone Bad”',which had hit tracks like “Umbrella”, “Hate That I Love You”,and “Don’t Stop the Music'”, among others. In the same year, at the MTV Video Music Awards, Rihanna won two awards for the hit single “Umbrella”. In 2008, Rihanna won her first Grammy Award for her hit single “Umbrella”. So far, Rihanna has won 45 awards in various categories.
1. What plays an important role in Rihanna’s success?A.The support of her friends. |
B.The encouragement of her family. |
C.The education she received at school. |
D.The help and influence of successful musicians. |
A.She started a career in music. |
B.She began to act in films. |
C.She began to release albums. |
D.She won her first Grammy Award. |
A.It was released in 2006. |
B.It was included in her third album. |
C.It was not as successful as her first single. |
D.It was more successful than her third single. |
A.Umbrella. | B.Pon de Replay. |
C.Hate That I Love You. | D.Don't Stop the Music. |