1 . During the 19th and 20th centuries, Qi Baishi (1864-1957) was one of the best-known Chinese artists. He grew up in a poor peasant family, but this did not prevent him from pursuing his interest in painting.
Qi was schooled for less than a year due to illness, and he dropped out of school. However, he was too weak to do much of the work and this was why he became a carpenter. As a carpenter, he showed his creativity. He could carve figures of animals, woodblock prints, and sniff-boxes. At the age of 20, he taught himself to paint with Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting. He met many mentors who greatly influenced his painting skills through his painting journey, among whom are the renowned artists Zhu Da and Xu Wei. When he was 28, he became a student of the famous artist Hu Qinyuan, and he began to study Chinese painting.
Qi arrived in Beijing in 1917. While he was in Beijing, he stayed devoted to painting. Most of his paintings represented Chinese tradition. Qi’s works are now found in several famous museums, including National Gallery Prague and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. His works now are the most expensive ever sold at auctions.
Qi got noticed by many institutions, one of which is the Ministry of Culture. In 1954 he was selected as the representative of the Chinese people. Also, in 1956, he was awarded the World Peace Prize by World Peace Council. A college was also named after him, the Baishi School of Art in Hunan University of Science Technology.
1. Why did Qi Baishi drop out of school?A.He suffered from illness and was too weak. |
B.He wanted to devote himself to painting. |
C.He wasn’t interested in what he learned at school. |
D.His family was too poor to afford his schooling fees. |
A.He learned Chinese painting on his own. |
B.He showed great creativity of art since childhood. |
C.His works are one of the costliest ever sold at auctions. |
D.At first he learned to paint from some renowned artists. |
A.His painting style. | B.His painting works. |
C.His achievements. | D.His contributions to his hometown. |
A.By giving examples. | B.By using data. |
C.By raising questions. | D.By following the order of time. |
2 . Frederick Phiri, known as the junk-art king of Zambia, set out on a remarkable journey at the age of 22 when he began earning an international reputation for being able to make complex and elegant sculptures from deserted metal found in his community.
Phiri’s path to artistic recognition was filled with challenges. His childhood was marked by the loss of his father and his mother leaving him behind, making him under the care of his grandfather. While his grandfather provided for his basic education, Phiri faced financial struggles when he entered secondary school, forcing him to take on various jobs to fund his studies. Yet, despite these obstacles, his passion for art remained growing, and he dedicated his free time to drawing and crafting in the classroom.
Upon completing his education, Phiri sought to support himself by creating wire animal sculptures (雕塑品), which he sold to tourists. It was during this period that his exceptional talent caught the attention of Karen Beattie, the director of Project Luangwa, a nonprofit organization committed to education and economic development in central Africa.
Teaming up with local welder (焊接工) Moses Mbewe in 2017, Phiri contributed to the creation of a complex set of doors for Project Luangwa during the rainy season. Impressed by his work, Beattie presented Phiri with a challenge: to create art from abandoned waste metal. Undiscouraged, Phiri embraced the opportunity, transforming forgotten keys, broken bike chains, and old metal bottles into attracting abstract animal sculptures, including elephants, cranes, giraffes, and monkeys.
Today, Phiri’s artistic pursuits continue to flourish as he transforms deserted junk into striking sculptures showcased at the Project Luangwa headquarters. His talent has earned recognition and admiration from the community, fueling his dreams of pursuing formal art education at the Evelyn Hone College in Lusaka and creating even more magnificent sculptures in the future. Through creativity and determination, Phiri has turned adversity (逆境) into artistic success, leaving a lasting impact on Zambia’s art scene.
1. What is Phiri distinguished for?A.Serving his community. | B.Collecting works of art. |
C.Being the king of Zambia. | D.Turning trash into treasure. |
A.His struggle to pay for primary schooling by himself. |
B.The loss of his father and abandonment by his mother. |
C.His dedication to part-time jobs while attending school. |
D.His responsibility to support his grandfather financially. |
A.To create sculptures from wire. |
B.To sell his sculptures internationally. |
C.To create art from deserted waste metal. |
D.To design a complex set of doors for Project Luangwa. |
A.Uncertain. | B.Confident. | C.Depressed. | D.Confused. |
Was Air Pollution Monet’s Muse (灵感之源)?
Claude Monet was a French painter who lived at the turn of the 20th century, from 1840 to 1926. He is credited as the founder of impressionism, a painting style characterized by its use of many thin brushstrokes
Many of Monet’s paintings portray the passage of time, like clouds
Monet was painting at a time when heavy industry was starting to seriously impact the environment. This was especially true in urban centers like London and Paris. The supposition is that Monet’s works reflect the increasing levels of air pollution that Europe
In letters to his wife, Monet sometimes described the smoke and fog in London, for
Zhao Chuang is a science artist working in Beijing,
5 . Artist Susan Shepherd is best known for her flower paintings, and the large garden that surrounds her house is the source of many of her subjects. It is full of her favourite flowers, most especially vancties of tulips and poppies. Some of the plants are unruly and seed themselves all over the garden. There is a harmony of colour, shape and structure in the two long flower borders that line the paved path which crosses the garden from east to west. Much of this is due to the previous owners who were keen gardeners, and who left plants that appealed to Susan. She also inherited the gardener, Danny. “In fact, it was really his garden,” she says. “We got on very well. At first he would say, “Oh, it’s not worth it” to some of the things I wanted to put in, but when I said I wanted to paint them, he recognized what I had in mind.”
Susan prefers to focus on detailed studies of individual plants rather than on the garden as a whole, though she will occasionally paint a group of plants where they are. More usually, she picks them and then takes them up to her studio. “I don’t set the whole thing up at once,” she says. “I take one flower up at once,” she says. “I take one flower out and paint it, which might take a few days, and then I bring in another one and build up the painting that way. Sometimes it takes a couple of years to finish.”
Her busiest time of year is spring and early summer, when the tulips are out, followed by the poppies. “They all come out together, and you’re so busy,” she says. But the gradual decaying process is also part of the fascination for her. With tulips, for example, “you bring them in and put them in water, then leave them for perhaps a day and they each form themselves into different shapes. They open out and are fantastic. When you first put them in a vase, you think they are boring, but they change all the time with twists and turns.”
1. In the first paragraph, the author describes Susan’s garden as ________.A.being only partly finished |
B.having a path lined with flowers |
C.having caused problems for the previous owners |
D.needing a lot of work to keep it looking attractive |
A.He felt she was interfering in his work. |
B.He immediately understood her feelings. |
C.He was recommended by the previous owners. |
D.He was slow to see the point of some of her ideas. |
A.She creates her paintings in several stages. |
B.She spends all day painting an individual flower. |
C.She likes to do research on a plant before she paints it. |
D.She will wait until a flower is ready to be picked before painting it. |
A.look best some time after they have been cut. |
B.should be kept in the house for as long as possible. |
C.are not easy to paint because they change so quickly. |
D.are more colourful and better shaped than other flowers. |
6 . A pencil drawing of a broken old man, head in hands, looking extremely exhausted, has been identified as a newly-discovered work by Vincent Van Gogh.
The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam said yesterday that it had
The drawing has been titled Study for
He called these models his “orphan men” and “orphan women”. A favourite was the man in the newly discovered drawing, Adrianus Jacobus Zuyderland, the only one of these models whose name is known.
Van Gogh used a thick carpenter’s pencil on rough watercolour paper. The sheet
Experts have
Van Gogh talked about the two drawings in a letter to his brother, Theo. “Today and yesterday I drew two
At the time Van Gogh was
The drawing, which has been in a
Meedendorp recalled his
“Whenever you have a
A.denied | B.doubted | C.recognized | D.concealed |
A.expensive | B.extraordinary | C.impossible | D.useless |
A.Worn Out | B.Reach Out | C.Hands Up | D.On the Way |
A.animals | B.people | C.buildings | D.nature |
A.lent | B.protected | C.showed | D.paid |
A.costs | B.values | C.measures | D.weighs |
A.traced | B.favoured | C.displayed | D.withdrew |
A.squares | B.figures | C.triangles | D.servants |
A.design | B.scenery | C.sight | D.drawing |
A.talented | B.ambitious | C.modest | D.pessimistic |
A.fine | B.new | C.private | D.public |
A.annoyance | B.disappointment | C.excitement | D.indifference |
A.absolutely | B.barely | C.hardly | D.instantly |
A.ruins | B.classifies | C.handles | D.accompanies |
A.purchase | B.laugh | C.scream | D.peer |
7 . That day when Ludwig van Beethoven died was one of the saddest of my life. I had stayed with him for more than twenty years and lived through many of his happiest moments and his triumphs as well as his most unhappy times.
He wasn’t, however, the easiest of men to work for. His moods were changeable so that he could be reasonable at one moment but most impatient and intolerant at the next. All these problems began in 1802 when he discovered his loss of hearing was not temporary.
The loss of hearing brought him to a crossroads in his life. It was then that he realized that his future lay in composing music. Luckily, although his deafness brought him fear and anxiety, he was able to use these emotions to inspire his work.
Dealing with his inner problems and worries, his music was obviously subjective, which was not the most popular type of its time. But people recognized his greatness. They did so even when they knew he could not acknowledge it. When he was conducting his ninth and last symphony on its first performance he was totally deaf. So he just didn’t realize that the music had finished and continued to conduct the orchestra. One of the singers had to turn him round so he could receive the cheers of the audience. From one angle it was a sad moment but from another it was an even greater triumph. That a man with such a condition could have written such dynamic music was overwhelming! It brought tears to my eyes to think that I had contributed in some small way by looking after him.
He dressed rather like a wild man himself. His hair was always untidy, his skin marked with spots and his mouth set in a downward curve. He took no care of his appearance and walked around our city with his clothes carelessly arranged. This was because he was concentrating on his next composition.
Helping him move house many times, preparing his meals and looking after his everyday comforts were my reward for a life living so close to such a musical genius. I consider myself a lucky man!
1. The author was most likely to be Beethoven’s _______.A.student | B.doctor | C.servant | D.relative |
A.Beethoven’s music was underestimated at that time. |
B.Beethoven’s work was inspired by his fear and anger. |
C.Beethoven’s music stayed in step with the mainstream music of the time. |
D.Beethoven lost his ability to hear when first conducting his ninth symphony. |
A.Because the performance was a complete success. |
B.Because he played a part in Beethoven’s success. |
C.Because Beethoven was completely deaf then. |
D.Because the audience cheered for Beethoven. |
A.intolerant but cheerful |
B.stubborn but reasonable |
C.changeable but dedicated |
D.unsociable but easy-going |
Tobias Le Compte, a 35-year-old Belgian musician, has become a
A.wrestler | B.influencer | C.actor | D.conductor |
A.was capable of | B.was moved by | C.was impressed by | D.was eager for |
A.local people | B.native speakers | C.descendants | D.foreign residents |
A.joined to | B.limited to | C.addicted to | D.devoted to |
A.inspired | B.scared | C.discouraged | D.awarded |
Recently, Ma Xiaohui, a famous Chinese erhu
Attendees from different backgrounds and participants in the World Madam Global Awards Ceremony were
The concert began
In the next three
“This beautiful and
10 . Passing the Cities through the Lens (镜头) of Women, a solo exhibition by Swiss artist Catherine Gfeller, is being held at the Swiss embassy in Beijing.
Between 2016 and 2019, Swiss artist Catherine Gfeller embarked on a journey to a number of Chinese cities, weaving a narrative as she engaged with the stories of women from different backgrounds. Her vision of the women, the challenges they confront, and their distinctive spirit are the focuses of the artist’s subsequent explorations.
In the bustling streets of Guangzhou, Guangdong province, Hong Kong, Beijing and Kunming in Yunnan province, Gfeller found a means of exploring the essence of these urban landscapes by focusing her lens on women. On Saturday, the Swiss embassy in Beijing launched a solo exhibition, Passing the Cities through the Lens of Women, which spotlights the perspectives and voices of women with photographs, texts, and videos. Through her lens, Gfeller skillfully establishes a dialogue and builds a bridge between the narratives of the women and the liveliness of the cities they inhabit.
For Gfeller, women’s voices are very important in modern Chinese society. During shooting, she learned how the women perceive the new ways of life and how they find an anchor in their cities. “The moment I pressed the shutter, I felt like I became part of the city,” Gfeller says.
Ambassador of Switzerland to China Jurg Burri said at the opening ceremony, “Ms Gfeller cares very much about people, especially women in cities. Women’s issues are a global topic and I hope that more women’s voices will be heard.”
The exhibition is open to the public until the end of March. The 58-year-old artist is known for her focus on landscape photography. Using techniques like montage, collage, and superimposition, she creates unique photographic artworks.
1. Where is the passage probably taken from?A.A leaflet. | B.A newspaper. | C.A brochure. | D.A research paper. |
A.Chinese women’s viewpoints. | B.Chinese urban landscapes. |
C.Chinese traditional roles of women. | D.Chinese women’s status in society. |
A.Jurg Burri is the Ambassador of Switzerland to China. |
B.The theme of Catherine Gfeller exhibition is a global topic. |
C.Jurg Burri is in favor of Catherine Gfeller’s means of exploring cities. |
D.Catherine Gfeller attaches great importance to women’s perspectives. |
A.To introduce an exhibition. | B.To educate readers. |
C.To persuade readers. | D.To advertise an exhibition. |