1 . Blek le Rat is a French street artist who calls himself "The Man Who Walks Through Walls". He is a pioneer of street art. He began his work as a city decorator in Paris in the early 1980s, when he was twenty. Blek began his artwork in 1981, painting (用模板制成的图案) of rats (老鼠) on the walls of Paris streets.
His real name is Xavier Prou, and he does not draw violent images, only reflective ones, and he says, "My images are a present I make for everyone to enjoy, even children. " He has had a great influence on today's graffiti (涂鸦) art, the main drive of his work being social awareness and his wish to bring art to people. His dream is to be allowed to provide art to the city streets without having any problems. Once he was caught by the police, and afterwards he turned to putting posters instead. They are after all better for the walls, aren't they?
His designs, based on life-size stencils of human beings and animals, don't just decorate cities but awaken people's emotions. Their social observation makes them touching, humorous and political. In 2006 he began his series of images representing the homeless, in attempts to bring attention to what he views as a global problem.
He says that when you go on the street with a spray can (喷漆罐)，and pry your name，you will go back and see it, because when you leave something in the street, you leave part of yourself. Street artists cannot help coming back to admire their own work; it is the main reason for doing it.
The Internet has made street at a global movement, but it is the art of the common people and not of highly paid and respectable artists. There is nothing bigger culturally in the world at the moment than street art. It is taking over the planet Mot cites are covered with it, so much so that it is noticeable when there isn’t any. It is even bring sold, like "real" woks of art.
1. What did Blek le Rat do in 1981?| A．He gave up his job. | B．He took up street art. |
| C．He made his name as an artist. | D．He drew people on the street. |
| A．It is good-sized. | B．Ii violent and black. |
| C．It presents social realities. | D．It employs cartoon characters. |
| A．It attracts well-known artists. | B．It is culturally important. |
| C．It is high-priced in Paris. | D．It becomes less popular. |
| A．The History of Street Art | B．Global Love for Modern Art |
| C．Stencil Art Pioneer Blek le Rat | D．The Big Comeback of Graffiti Art |
2 . At the first exhibition of Henri Rousseau’s paintings in 1886, the public laughed out loud, and critics made fun of his original, unschooled style, one writing "Monsieur Rousseau paints with his feet, and his eyes covered.”
Despite heavy criticism throughout his life, Rousseau kept painting, confident in his gift. He never received formal training in the arts because his family was too poor. For more than twenty years, he worked at the Paris customs office. It wasn’t until the age of 40 that he took up the brush, teaching himself to paint by copying works at the Louvre and studying nature. “Nothing makes me so happy as to observe nature and to paint what I see.” he said.
Though his best-known paintings are of jungle scenes with monkeys, lions, and small woods, Rousseau never left France or saw a jungle. To paint foreign plants and animals, he relied on books, botanical gardens(植物园) in Paris,and his imagination. "When I go into the glasshouse and I see the strange plants of faraway lands,” he once said, "it seems to me that I enter into a dream.”
Rousseau claimed to have invented a new style of painting called the landscape-portrait, in which he paints a background view and then adds a person in the foreground later, as he did in Myself: Portrait-Landscape (1890).
Called a naive (天真) artist due to his childlike, untrained style, Rousseau painted colors one at a time, starting from the top and working his way down. While critics described his works as flat and inexact descriptions of nature, he earned the respect of artists like Pablo Picasso and Wassily Kandinsky, who thought Rousseau was onto something new.
Though his work was never accepted by the art world in his time, Rousseau’s paintings hang in museums around the world today. And Rousseau’s original approach to art has inspired countless artists to follow their own unique views.
1. Why did Rousseau have no formal training in arts?| A．Because he preferred painting in his own way. |
| B．Because he was afraid of being criticized by others. |
| C．Because his family couldn’t afford the training. |
| D．Because there were more to be found in nature. |
| A．He was unwilling to develop a personal style. |
| B．He moved to a jungle to study nature. |
| C．He came from an artistic family. |
| D．He was indeed a self-taught painter. |
| A．It is black-and-white. | B．It is simple and original. |
| C．It presents social reality. | D．It employs persons in the background. |
| A．Rousseau ’s works have now been recognized. |
| B．Rousseau earned a good reputation in his time. |
| C．Rousseau encouraged young artists to follow his footsteps. |
| D．Rousseau’s paintings have hardly ever been shown in museums. |
3 . The outbreak of the epidemic has caused inconvenience to people’s life. Being forced to stay at home during the COVID-19 lockdown has been something of a
The 72-year-old multi-Grammy Award-winner, whose
The singer was first
Olivia says that she believes there are always going to be
| A．beginning | B．belonging | C．blessing | D．ending |
| A．guilty | B．confused | C．excited | D．strange |
| A．attended | B．enjoyed | C．cancelled | D．reserved |
| A．changing | B．waiting | C．fighting | D．travelling |
| A．records | B．books | C．stories | D．movies |
| A．calling on | B．resting on | C．carrying on | D．looking on |
| A．single | B．aim | C．purpose | D．position |
| A．explored | B．observed | C．contracted | D．launched |
| A．receives | B．permits | C．carries | D．improves |
| A．examined | B．diagnosed | C．found | D．inspected |
| A．swears | B．happens | C．refuses | D．threatens |
| A．meals | B．hospitals | C．medicines | D．companies |
| A．sold | B．owned | C．controlled | D．founded |
| A．volunteer | B．advocate | C．protester | D．follower |
| A．normally | B．specially | C．extremely | D．eventually |
| A．natural | B．exhausted | C．conscious | D．healthy |
| A．diseases | B．challenges | C．decisions | D．comments |
| A．determines | B．realizes | C．lifts | D．demands |
| A．anger | B．anxiety | C．curiosity | D．negativity |
| A．open | B．honest | C．grateful | D．generous |
