It was a history-making moment at Miller & Miller’s Canadian & Discoveries Arts auction(拍卖)when the hammer finally came down for a rare Maud Lewis painting for $ 350,000.
Lewis was a Canadian artist who painted brightly colored scenes. She sold her paintings by the side of the road for $2 to $3. Painting wasn’t easy, since she suffered from a physical challenge that made moving painful. After reading an article about her, John Kinnear, also an artist mailed her boxes of painting supplies. At the time, Lewis lived in a one-room house with no electricity, using simple house paint to create. After receiving the supplies, Lewis wrote back insisting on repaying him with some of her paintings.
Kinnear sold some of them, sending part of the money back to Lewis and using the remainder to buy her more paint. Gradually, the two artists developed long-lasting friendship.
Kinnear was friends with Irene and Tony Demas, who owned a restaurant where he ate lunch every day. One day, Kinnear told them he had some paintings by an artist and wondered if they might consider buying one of them. “When we saw the paintings, our jaw almost dropped,” recalls Irene. “We had never seen anything like them. They were so childlike, with cats and cows.” They ended up agreeing to the trade, choosing a painting called Black Trunk.
Over 50 years later, they’re long retired and now considering travelling more. They hoped to sell the painting. In the years since Lewis died, her paintings have become famous. But it was recent scare that really urged them into action. After having non-glare glass added to the painting, the business street where the framer(装裱师)lived burned to the ground just days after they picked up their painting. “We saw that Miller &Miller’s had sold one not long ago. We trusted the Miller brothers.” says Irene.
1. Why did John Kinnear send Lewis boxes of painting supplies?| A．To exchange for her paintings. | B．To offer her assistance. |
| C．To teach her painting techniques. | D．To befriend with her. |
| A．Confused. | B．Panicked. |
| C．Shocked. | D．Embarrassed. |
| A．They were eventually persuaded by the framer. |
| B．They were afraid the painting would lose value. |
| C．They fear something unexpected would happen. |
| D．They were in desperate need of money to travel. |
| A．To recommend an auction house. | B．To introduce a painting artist. |
| C．To explain a trend in art collecting. | D．To tell the story of a painting. |
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【推荐1】Claude Monet was born in Paris, France, on November 14,1840. By the time he was fifteen, Monet had become popular as a caricaturist. Through an exhibition of his drawings at a local frame shop in 1858, Monet met Eugene Boudin, a landscape painter. Boudin introduced Monet to outdoor painting, an activity that soon became his life’s work.
Monet was interested in natural light, atmosphere, and color, and recorded them in his paintings as accurately as possible. A striking example of his early style was the Terrace at St. Adresse, which contained a shining mixture of bright, natural colors.
Monet exhibited regularly in the group shows. His painting Impression: Sunrise inspired a newspaper critic Louis Leroy to call all of the artists in the group “impressionists,” and the name stuck.
Monet gradually gained critical and financial success during the late 1880s and the 1890s. This was due to the efforts of Durand-Ruel, who sponsored one-man exhibitions of Monet’s work.
During the 1890s he devoted his energy to paintings of haystacks. In these works Monet painted his subjects from the same physical position, allowing only the light and weather conditions to vary from picture to picture. By 1899 he began to work on his famous paintings of the water lilies in his garden at Giverny, France.
Monet’s late years were very difficult. His health declined rapidly, and he was almost blind. Besides, he struggled with the problems of his art. In 1920 he began to work on twelve large canvases of water lilies, which he planned to give to his country. To complete them, he fought against his own failing eyesight and the fact that he had no experience in creating large-scale mural art. In fact, the task required him to learn a new kind of painting at the age of eighty. The painting was characterized by a broad, sweeping style and depended almost entirely on color.
Monet died on December 5,1926,at his home. He once wrote, “My only merit lies in having painted directly in front of nature, seeking to express my impressions of the fleeting effects.” Most art historians believe that Monet accomplished much more than this. He helped change the world of painting by shaking off the convention of the past. By dissolving forms in his works, Monet opened the door for further abstraction in art and influenced such later artists as Jackson Pollack, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning.
1. Who helped Monet find his life’s work?| A．Eugene Boudin. | B．Durand-Ruel. | C．Louis Leroy. | D．Mark Rothko. |
| A．Monet tended to paint haystacks from different positions. |
| B．The painting Terrace at St. Adresse reflects Monet’ s late style. |
| C．The name “impressionist” originated from Impression: Sunrise. |
| D．Durand-Ruel was so interested in Monet’ s paintings that he bought a lot. |
| A．He failed to learn a new painting skill due to old age. |
| B．Monet made a fortune by selling canvases to his country. |
| C．Monet came across difficulties in creating large-scale mural art. |
| D．Monet committed himself to maintaining traditional painting style. |
| A．A great artist-Claude Monet | B．Claude Monet and Impressionism |
| C．Brilliant achievements of Monet | D．The greatest painter in the world |
【推荐2】All the paintings and other works of art you find at museums around the world represent just a small percentage of their collections. Most of what they have is, at any given time, stored away, out of the public eye.
One art museum in the Netherlands is trying to change that. Sjarel Ex is director of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. Recently, he showed the museum’s new depot, or storage area, is expected to hold 151,000 artworks when it opens to the public next year. All these works have yet to be made available and shown to the public at any given time. Ex told reporters, “You mount about 6% of the collection, but then you have 90% in storage. What is the public responsibility to not show 90%?”
The project was partly driven by a problem. The old storage space in the basement of the museum was in danger of flooding. That could put the valuable artwork at risk.
The new depot is in the middle of green open space, and surrounded by other museums, in the center of the city. The 39.5-meter-tall depot is covered with 1,664 shiny mirrors. They reflect the surrounding grounds and the city’s tall buildings. Rotterdam is known as Manhattan on the Maas because of its high-rise buildings and the river that runs through it. The island of Manhattan is the heart of New York City. The mirrors have special meaning to Rotterdam residents. Local people and organizations paid for many of them at a cost of about $1,165 each. Their donations helped to pay for the $105 million project. Inside the new depot, visitors will find five different climates, each one designed to protect different kinds of art.
The depot, however, will be a working environment. The inside is very simple. Visitors may see workers preparing artworks for shipping and conservators working to repair old paintings. The depot will also have space for members of the public who want to store their art, which makes it unique.
1. What is Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen expected to do?| A．Rebuild its museum. | B．Change its location. |
| C．Exhibit all its storage. | D．Display 90% of its storage. |
| A．The safety problem of the old depot. | B．The public’s firm request. |
| C．The abundant fund of the government. | D．The decreased amount of artworks. |
| A．This is an inexpensive project. |
| B．The depot has only one kind of climate. |
| C．The locals made great contributions to the project. |
| D．The depot is a high-security building on the edge of the city. |
| A．It stores private collection. | B．It is very simple inside. |
| C．It has hidden secrets. | D．It is a working environment. |
【推荐3】Ian Happ is a professional baseball player for a baseball team in the United States. When he first started playing with the team in 2017, he was looking for pictures to hang in his home. An idea and an unlikely partnership with a British artist came from that simple desire.
Happ wanted to show Wrigley Field, the team’s ballpark, from a different artistic vision. He said that many baseball fans had been to Wrigley Field but had never seen what the ballpark looked like, from the field. He thought looking up from the field was such a cool experience that he intended to bring that to more fans. So, from his point of view, he let the British artist Patrick Vale create three large drawings of Wrigley Field. Instead of having pictures hung in his home, the partnership led to something quite different.
Happ’s views of Wrigley Field became the project, Through My Eyes, in which fans could purchase prints. The money made in this way went toward those people in need. The drawings by Vale became See What I See, an exhibition at a Chicago’s gallery. The show lasted a period of time.
Happ ever brought Vale to Chicago in September of 2018 and showed him around Wrigley Field. Vale knew little about the sport of baseball. But he understood the connection fans had with Wrigley Field. Happ had to explain to Vale the importance of the 400-foot sign in the center field and the famous manual scoreboard. He had to teach him the correct positioning of the players. He also explained what it felt like standing in the field under the bright lights with a loud crowd.
Vale took pictures and used them to help him create drawings in great detail. He was very modest and would send rough drawings to Happ, who would mark them up in red ink, like a teacher, with suggestions. It was in this way that their cooperation was so successful.
1. What did Happ ask Vale to do?| A．Join the baseball team. |
| B．Find a different baseball field. |
| C．Create three pictures of his home. |
| D．Draw according to his own perspectives. |
| A．To hold an exhibition. | B．To do charity. |
| C．To attract baseball fans. | D．To promote the printing trade. |
| A．What Vale explained to Happ. |
| B．How Vale corrected Happ’s mistakes. |
| C．What Happ and Vale felt about the field. |
| D．How Happ introduced Vale about Wrigley field. |
| A．Humble. | B．Humorous. | C．Casual. | D．Conventional. |
【推荐1】Facebook is a place where we share and celebrate memories with our friends and family. We post words and pictures honoring birthdays, anniversaries and weddings. We also show respect to the people we lost, and find sympathy and support among our friends.
Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, recently shared a moving post about her late husband, Dave Goldberg, on what would have been his 48th birthday.
“Today my family and friends and I mourn that he was taken away from us so suddenly and so young,” wrote Sandberg, 46, tagging Goldberg’s memorial page. “It has been a long 22 weeks, grappling moment to moment and day to day with the often overwhelming void (空虚) that his death has left in our lives.”
She shared photos of Goldberg—one from their wedding and the other of what appears to be him as a child. The Facebook manager went on to thank her family and friends for their ongoing support, and to praise her husband’s achievements as a father and CEO of the company Survey Monkey.
Sandberg said in a Facebook post back in June, in ceremony of the end of the first month for her husband’s death, “I was talking to a friend Phil about a father-child activity that Dave is not here to do. We came up with a plan to fill in for Dave. I cried to him, ‘ But I want Dave. He put his arm around me and said, ‘Option A is not available. So let’s just kick the shit out of option B.”
1. Facebook is a place where we ________.| A．have our daily activities |
| B．have commercial activities |
| C．mainly honor our dead relatives |
| D．exchange something we remember with people around us |
| A．Expecting. | B．Struggling. |
| C．Missing. | D．Reminding. |
| A．He died last May. | B．He was Phil’s boss. |
| C．He died of cancer. | D．He was head of Facebook. |
| A．It’s a game in which Phil is kicked out. |
| B．Sandberg can’t live without Goldberg. |
| C．Sandberg refuses Dave as her husband. |
| D．They will find a person taking the place of Dave. |
【推荐2】Fred Rogers was a curious man, six feet tall and without pretense (虚伪). He liked to pray, to play the piano, to swim, and to write, and he somehow lived in a different world than I did. We became friends for some 20 years, and I made lifelong friends with his wife, Joanne. I remember thinking that it seemed as if Fred had access to another realm (领域) like the way pigeons have some special magnetic compass that helps them find home.
Fred died in 2003, somewhat quickly, of stomach cancer. He was 74. “Just don’t make Fred into a saint (圣人),” That has become Joanne’s refrain (叠句). 91 now, still full of energy, she lives alone in the same roomy apartment, in the university section of Pittsburgh, that she and Fred moved into after they raised their two boys. Throughout her 50-year marriage to Fred, she wasn’t the type to hang out on the set or attend production meetings. That was Fred’s thing. He had his career, and she had hers as a concert pianist. For decades she toured the country with her college classmate, Jeannine Morrison, as a piano duo; they didn’t retire the performance until 2008.
“If you make him out to be a saint, people might not know how hard he worked,” Joanne said. Disciplined, focused; a perfectionist — an artist. That was the Fred she and the cast and crew knew. “I think people think of Fred as a child-development expert,” David Newell, the actor who played Mr. “Speedy Delivery” McFeely, told me recently. “As a moral example maybe. But as an artist? I don’t think they think of that.” that was the Fred I came to know. Creating, the creative impulse (冲动), and the creative process were our common interests. He wrote or co-wrote all the scripts for the program — all 33 years of it. He wrote the melodies. He wrote the lyrics. He structured a week of programming around a single theme, many of them difficult topics, like war, divorce, or death.
I don’t know that he cared whether people saw him as an artist. He seemed more intent (急切的) that people not see him at all. The focus was always on you. Or children. Or the tiny things. It was hard to see Fred.
I like you just the way you are. One day he told me where that core message came from. His grandfather, Fred Brooks McFeely, who like the rest of the Rogers family lived in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, about 40 miles east of Pittsburgh. “He was a character,” he said. “Oh, a lot of me came from him.”
His grandfather represented a life of risk and adventure, the very things Fred’s boyhood lacked. He was a lonely kid, an only child until he was 11, when his sister came. He was bullied. Here comes Fat Freddie! He was sickly. He had asthma. He was not allowed to play outside by himself. He spent much of his childhood in his bedroom.
He had music, and he had puppets to keep himself amused. He didn’t need much. He was expected to fill his father’s shoes, become his business partner at the brick company. “My dad was pretty much Mr. Latrobe,” he told me. “He worked hard to accomplish all that he did, and I’ve always felt that that was way beyond me. And yet I’m so grateful that he didn’t push me to do the kinds of things that he did or to become a miniature (缩小的) version of him. It certainly would have been miniature.”
Fred wanted to be like his grandfather. “He taught me all kinds of really neat stuff!” he told me. “I remember one day my grandmother and my mother were telling me to get down, or not to climb, and my grandfather said: ‘Let the kid climb on the wall! He’s got to learn to do things for himself!’ I heard that. I will never forget that. What a support that was. He had a lot of stone walls on his place.” “I think it was when I was leaving one time to go home after our time together,” Fred told me, “that my grandfather said to me: ‘You know, you made this day a really special day. Just by being yourself. There’s only one person in the world like you. And I happen to like you just the way you are.”
1. What is the author’s impression of Fred?| A．Fred had many lifelong friends. |
| B．Fred lived in a strange world. |
| C．Fred could always find way home. |
| D．Fred was an amazing person. |
| A．To show the great success the couple achieved. |
| B．To underline the great pains Fred spared at work. |
| C．To remind people of the contributions she made. |
| D．To keep the weaknesses of Fred’s character hidden. |
| A．David Newell. | B．The author. | C．Common people. | D．Joanne. |
| A．Write scripts and music on his own. |
| B．Act as the man behind the curtain. |
| C．Focus more on difficult topics. |
| D．Present himself as an artist. |
| A．His poor health condition. | B．His father’s expectation. |
| C．His unhappy childhood. | D．His grandfather’s attitude. |
| A．The making of Fred Rogers. |
| B．The importance of a good wife. |
| C．The influence of a moral example. |
| D．The achievements of Fred and his wife. |
【推荐3】My wife and I were down at the beach and trying to find a place to park in one of the many, and somewhat expensive, public parking lots. We were trying to get down to the beach in time to watch the sunset—one of my all time favorite things to do. After several failed attempts, we finally found one spot in the last lot so we pulled into the only space available.
As we were about to pay the price of parking there, a woman came up to us and said she had just paid for two hours(all the time we needed) but she had just been called back home and asked if we would like to have her parking pass. She refused to take any money for it and insisted that we take it. We gladly accepted it and thanked her for her kindness.
It was truly a “paying it forward” experience that we have often done, but one that hasn’t been done to us that often. I smiled at her with such gratitude. It was more than the price of the parking pass. Accepting the kindness of others is part of this process. We felt that and blessed by that kindness.
We got down to the beach in time to watch the sun setting because of this woman’s kindness and we were so grateful. It was a wonderful experience and the sunset was such a wonderful sight！
1. What problem did the author meet at the beach?| A．He couldn’t afford the parking fee. | B．He didn’t find time to watch sunset. |
| C．He failed to find a good place to relax. | D．He met with difficulty when parking his car. |
| A．It would be out of date soon. | B．She had to go home quickly. |
| C．It offered too short a parking period. | D．She expected the author to watch the sunset on time. |
| A．Apology. | B．Appreciation. | C．Regret. | D．Sadness. |
| A．The Gift of a Sunset | B．A Hard Parking |
| C．The Beauty of Dawn | D．A Woman’s Bad Luck |
【推荐1】TIANJIN, Dec.12, 2018 (Xinhua)—Striking Chinese gongs(锣) for 50 years, Liu Zibin, a 70-year-old folk artist in Tianjin Municipality, is eager to introduce the traditional musical instrument used in Chinese opera to more people.
Liu became addicted to Chinese opera in his childhood when his grandfather frequently took him to watch performances. At the age of 13, he joined Hebei bangzi training team. Hebei bangzi is one of the oldest types of Chinese opera in northern China, which became popular in the Qing Dynasty. It is a traditional Chinese opera combining music, vocals, dance and acrobatics(杂技).
“It took me hours to practice the basic skills of gongs,” he said. “This round piece of metal can help performers on the stage to express joy and sorrow when hit by a stick with different rhythms, so I must bear in mind all kinds of rhythms(节奏) for various situations. For example, striking gongs with a quick tempo(速度) can create a tense atmosphere for action scenes.”
In the 1960s and 1970s, the reorganization of opera troupes in Tianjin forced many members to switch their jobs to those in factories. Thanks to Liu’s brilliant skills, he was fortunate enough to go to one of the three biggest Beijing Opera troupes in Tianjin to continue his gong life.
Ten years ago, Liu retired, but he still goes to an opera tea house almost every afternoon to strike the gong for opera performances. In 2006, Hebei bangzi was listed into China’s national intangible cultural heritage. However, he worries about maintaining the art as fewer and fewer youngsters are learning percussion(敲打乐器), especially gongs. “People who strike the gong stay behind the scenes. It is hard for them to gain fame and fortune,” he said. Although many amateurs(业余爱好者) have learned from Liu over the years, some gave up easily. “It’s a bit dull and boring to continuously strike a gong for 40 minutes at the practice stage. It requires patience. Few can bear the hardship,” he said.
Various kinds of Chinese gongs are neatly placed at Liu’s home. He is waiting for more people to take over his career and spread the traditional Chinese art.
1. What can we know about Liu Zibin from the 2nd paragraph?| A．His grandfather founded Hebei Opera Troupe. |
| B．He showed interest in Chinese opera as a child. |
| C．He was the only one who could strike gongs in the troupe. |
| D．His grandfather taught him to sing Hebei bangzi. |
| A．Because of the reform of the opera troupes. |
| B．Because no one showed interest in opera then. |
| C．Because they could earn more money in factories. |
| D．Because the opera troupe was badly lacking in funds. |
| A．55 years old. | B．60 years old. |
| C．65 years old. | D．70 years old. |
| A．People striking the gong will never become famous. |
| B．Grasping the skill of striking the gong is anything but challenging. |
| C．Liu expects the traditional Chinese art will draw more people’s attention. |
| D．Hebei bangzi is now the world’s intangible cultural heritage. |
【推荐2】John Otway
John Otway has been playing music and making records in the UK for more than 40 years. Over the years he has released more than ten albums. He has played hundreds of concerts. He has written two autobiographies. He has worked with some of the country’s best musicians and he has even made a film about his life. But despite all of this, most people have never heard of him.
Otway released his first record in 1972, but it was the Punk Movement a few years later that really gave him his big chance. Otway wasn’t the greatest musician but his songs were always fun, and his performances on stage were always entertaining - there was a good chance he would fall off the stage at least once in each show. The punks liked him, and in 1977 he had a small hit when his single Really Free made it to No. 27 in the UK top 40 charts. Otway really enjoyed his success but unfortunately, no more came. Not one of his records over the next 30 years was a hit.
Although he never had much commercial success, Otway had a lot of very loyal fans. When someone asked him what he would like for his 50th birthday, his reply was: “A second hit.” His fans went out and bought as many copies of the new single Bunsen Burner as they could. And in October 2002, Otway finally saw his wish come true. In a chart that featured international superstars like Pink, Will Young and Oasis, Bunsen Burner made it to No. 9. Many high street shops refused to sell the record, saying that Otway was too old and unattractive for the teenage market. Otway didn’t care. He celebrated his success with an appearance on TV’s biggest music show Top of the Pops.
These days John Otway continues to play his music around the country, and there are always plenty of people who are happy to go and watch him perform. He’s a great example for anyone who loves making music. You don’t have to be young, good-looking (or even very talented) to enjoy a long career in the music business.
1. From paragraph 1, we know that ________.| A．John Otway has released hundreds of albums |
| B．John Otway never worked with best musicians |
| C．John Otway has written hundreds of autobiographies |
| D．John Otway is not well-known in the UK as a musician |
| A．Really Free | B．Bunsen Burner |
| C．Top of the Pops | D．his first record |
| A．They thought it was terrible. |
| B．It wasn’t a very big hit. |
| C．John Otway didn’t want them to have it. |
| D．They thought teenagers would not like to buy it. |
| A．Musicians have to be young and attractive. |
| B．Success isn’t important in our life. |
| C．We should be determined to do what we love. |
| D．Musicians do much better as they get older. |
【推荐3】In his famous painting, Impression, Sunrise, Claude Monet keeps the details to a bare minimum. Alight mist provides a foggy background to the sunrise in the French seaport of Le Havre while boats are just suggested by a few rough brushstrokes in the foreground, where orange and yellow colors contrast sharply with the dark boats and water. The whole picture seems like an unfinished work.
Actually, Monet himself saw the work as unfinished since he just had enough time to catch a rough impression of the moment. And it was for that reason that he adopted the title “Impression” to distinguish it from his other works about Le Havre.
From the April 15 to May 15,1874, Monet exhibited this work with those of Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Edouard Manet, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, and some other thirty artists. They organized the exhibition on their own as they were rejected at the Paris Salon.
Monet’s Impression, Sunrise enjoyed the most attention and visitors even claimed that they were absolutely unable to recognize what was shown at all. A critic, Louis Leroy, who attended the exhibition, wrote a now-famous article in Le Charivari in which he used the term “Impressionist” based on the title of this painting. Despite the fact that Leroy had used the word in a negative sense, the group decided to adopt it and the painters were happy to be called Impressionists. Today, Impression, Sunrise is considered as one of the best-known paintings.
Although the painting is very famous, it is in many ways untypical of Monet’s own work of this period and of Impressionism. It shows little of the Impressionist treatment of light and colour and the painting is strongly emotional rather than analytical.
Nevertheless, the highly abstract technique employed to catch a rough impression of the moment does illustrate particularly well the revolutionary feature of an Impressionist painting. At that time, this technique was still completely alien to viewers.
1. Which statement can best describe Impression, Sunrise?| A．It is a typical Impressionist work. | B．It is analytical rather than emotional. |
| C．It appears very rough and unfinished. | D．It is best-known for the treatment of colors. |
| A．Cautious. | B．Disapproving. | C．Favorable. | D．Tolerant. |
| A．Terrible. | B．Understandable. | C．Affordable. | D．New. |
| A．Impression, Sunrise by Claude Monet | B．Selected Works of Impressionists |
| C．Representatives of Impressionism | D．Features of Impressionism |
