Test 12 on fine arts

I. Прочитайте текст и выберите вариант ответа, соответствующий содержанию прочитанных фрагментов (A – D).

A. The Victoria and Albert Museum

Unrivalled as the world's finest museum of decorative arts, London's Victoria and Albert Museum was founded in 1852 to support and encourage excellence in art and design. It is home to 145 galleries, including the national collections of sculpture, furniture, fashion and textiles, paintings, silver, glass, ceramics, jewelry, books, prints and photographs. The magnificent collections constitute a unique international resource. Some four million objects are held by the museum, ranging from the English landscape artist, Constable, to oriental ceramics, and the finest collection of Italian Renaissance sculpture outside Italy, as well as the most impressive collection of Indian art and artefacts outside the subcontinent.

B. The Museum of the Moving Image

The magical world of film and television comes to life before your eyes at the Museum of the Moving Image. Here, you are the star! You can fly like Superman, become a newsreader, audition for a Hollywood screen role, watch hundreds of films and TV clips, and interact with our cast of actor guides. Crossing the drawbridge entrance of our new special exhibition, you can step back through the mists of time to enter the magical world of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. There are hands-on exhibits and a multimedia touchscreen which amazingly allows you to interact with the world around you.

C. Quex House Museum

Quex is one of Kent's finest Regency houses and museums. A vast collection of treasures from different civilizations including splendid pieces of oriental furniture, rugs, ornaments and clocks gathered on expeditions to Africa has been assembled at Quex, making this an exciting place to visit and an important centre for the academic study of different races. In the eight galleries at Quex, you will find an amazing variety of items from the finest animal specimens in the world to striking tribal art, weapons, carvings and costumes, as well as valuable collections of Chinese porcelain and local architecture.

D. Maidstone Museum and Art Gallery

Let us introduce you to a wealth of heritage. This exceptionally fine regional museum, housed in a delightful Elizabethan manor house, boasts a rich and impressive variety of historical objects, fine art and natural history. Fine and decorative arts include European and British paintings, ceramics, glass, furniture, costume and textiles from the 17th to 20th centuries. An extensive collection contrasts artefacts from the Prehistoric Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Medieval periods, and an Egyptian collection including our own mummy. The curator of the museum provides a stimulating range of contemporary and historical exhibitions with an educational program linked to history and science.

1. People fascinated by the orient are recommended to visit

A. The Victoria and Albert Museum, the Museum of the Moving Image and

Quex House Museum

B. Quex House Museum and Maidstone Museum and Art Gallery

C. The Victoria and Albert Museum and Maidstone Museum and Art Gallery

D. The Victoria and Albert Museum and Quex House Museum

2. Interactive exhibitions are available at

A. Maidstone Museum and Art Gallery

B. The Victoria and Albert Museum

C. Quex House Museum

D. the Museum of the Moving Image

3. An anthropologist will probably find useful a visit to

A. The Victoria and Albert Museum and Maidstone Museum and Art Gallery

B. Quex House Museum and the Museum of the Moving Image

C. Maidstone Museum and Art Gallery and Quex House Museum

D. The Victoria and Albert Museum and the Museum of the Moving Image

4. Those who love painting won't miss a visit to

A. the Victoria and Albert Museum and Quex House Museum

B. Quex House Museum and Maidstone Museum and Art Gallery

C. The Victoria and Albert Museum and Maidstone Museum and Art Gallery

D. Quex House Museum and the Museum of the Moving Image

5. The museum that impresses not only by its wealth of exhibits but also by its size

A. Maidstone Museum and Art Gallery

B. The Victoria and Albert Museum

C, Quex House Museum

D. the Museum of the Moving Image

II. Прочитайте текст. Подберите соответствующий заголовок к каждому абзацу (1-7).

(1) Michelangelo was born 6 March 1475 into an old and noble Italian family. By the time he was twelve years old, he already knew that he wanted to be an artist. But when he made his announcement, his father was furious. He had hoped that Michelangelo would bring honor to the family, and the way he saw it, becoming an artist was a step down.

(2) Still, Michelangelo was determined, and finally his father gave in. On 1 April 1488, Michelangelo was apprenticed to the Ghirlandaio brothers—the leading fresco painters of Italy. But what Michelangelo really wanted to be was a sculptor. He thought sculpting was the art closest to God.

(3) Michelangelo lived in the beautiful and powerful city of Florence. Its ruler was a man called Lorenzo de' Medici. A generous and cultivated nobleman, Lorenzo decided to start a school for young sculptors in his garden. In 1489, Michelangelo left the workshop of the Ghirlandaio brothers to join the school of the Medici gardens. There Lorenzo, the great and powerful man, noticed him. Indeed, he thought the fourteen-year-old boy so talented that he invited Michelangelo to come and live at the palace.

(4) Bit by bit, he grew into an artist capable of sculpting the Pieta. The Pieta was Michelangelo's first masterpiece. He began working on it in 1498, when he was only twenty-three. A Pieta is a painting or a sculpture of Jesus in the arms of his mother Mary after the crucifixion. Many artists have done one, but Michelangelo's is probably the most beautiful of all.

(5) After completing the Pieta, Michelangelo turned his attention to other projects. In Florence there was a huge slab of marble nicknamed The Giant. Michelangelo hoped that the city officials would let him sculpt it. They did, and this was how the famous statue of David came to be. According to the Bible, David was a young shepherd boy who killed the enemy of his people — the giant Goliath — with a simple slingshot. The result of Michelangelo's efforts was a celebrated masterpiece.

(6) In 1508, Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo did not want the job. He was not a painter, he argued. He was a sculptor. But the pope insisted. So, with a heavy heart, Michelangelo began to work. But the paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel turned out to be one of the most astounding achievements in art history. They include what is probably Michelangelo's most famous single painting — the creation of Adam.

(7) Michelangelo lived until he was ninety, and when he died, he left many works unfinished. Several of these incomplete works are so interesting that some people think they are the most important of his career. In his unfinished sculptures, Michelangelo may have been experimenting with the idea of leaving figures half-formed, as if caught trying to struggle free from the marble in which they are trapped.

1. First Masterpiece

2. Lorenzo, Civilized Ruler of Florence

3. Work in the Sistine Chapel

4. Michelangelo's Heritage

5. Father's Surrender

6. Florence the Beautiful

7. Family Roots

8. Birth of David

9. David, Young Shepherd Boy

III. Прочитайте текст и выполните послетекстовые задания.

(1) Tom Keating was born in 1917 in a poor area of London. He loved to draw and from an early age dreamed of going to art school and becoming an artist. But his father was a poor house painter, and Tom had to leave school at the age of fourteen to get a job.Over the years he worked as a barber, an elevator attendant, and a bellhop. He joined the Royal Navy during the Second World War and afterward got a small grant to attend art classes. But he had so little money that he couldn't even afford to buy paints, so instead of painting pictures for a living, he entered his father's business, painting houses.

(2) But all this time, whenever he had a free moment and a bit of paper, Keating would draw or paint. And he got better and better. Gradually, he found that he could make a living by restoring old paintings that had been damaged. In this way he learned about the techniques and materials used by painters in the past. In London, late in the summer of 1976, there was to be an auction of paintings by the nineteenth-century landscape painter Samuel Palmer. A journalist named Geraldine Norman was investigating a rumor that not all of the paintings were genuine. The problem wasn't that they didn't look like Palmers. The problem was that there were just too many of them. Then someone told Norman about Tom Keating. She went to see him at his cottage, and a few days later this shy old man with a white beard was making headlines all over the world.

(3) Tom Keating had decided to tell Geraldine Norman his life story. He cheerfully admitted that over the last twenty-five years he had faked the work of over a hundred well-known painters, ranging from contemporary artists to those who had painted three hundred years ago. But sometimes, he said, the spirit of the original artist would come to him and guide his hand.

(4) The art world was in an uproar over Keating's fakes. But Keating didn't think he had done anything wrong. He'd never made a secret of his fakes and never tried to make money from them, either. Most he had just given away to friends. Keating deceived many famous scholars, and he did admit that he enjoyed doing that. But he was basically an honest man and didn't want anyone to be fooled permanently. So, in every fake he did something that, sooner or later, would give it away.

(5) Sometimes he'd paint with colors that had not been used by the painter he was copying. Sometimes he'd paint over the top of an old painting, using paints that would peel off after fifty years. Sometimes he'd add a tiny detail that an expert could see wasn't right. And sometimes, when the artist was guiding his hand, he'd start with white lead paint and write a message for future generations, letting them know the truth: "Fooled you, did I? Sorry. This one's a Keating!"

(6) Those future generations have a lot of work to do. The trouble was, he'd done so many over the years that he couldn't remember them all. Next time someone tells you that a famous painting is by Goya, Turner, or Constable, who knows? Perhaps, underneath the paint, a different message is waiting, "Is it real or is it a Keating?"

Выберите вариант ответа, соответствующий содержанию прочитанного текста (задания 1 – 5).

1. Tom had to leave school at the age of fourteen because …

A. he couldn't find a common language with his classmates.

B. his father didn't have enough money to pay for Tom's education.

C. he found a job to financially support his family.

2. He entered his father's business, painting houses, because …

A. he wanted to continue the family tradition.

B. thus he got access to paints, which he couldn't afford to buy himself.

C. he needed to earn his living.

3. Tom learned about the techniques and materials used by painters in the past by…

A. studying specialized literature.

B. restoring old paintings that had been damaged.

C. imitating painters' styles.

4. A rumor about Samuel Palmer's paintings spread on the basis that …

A. they didn't look like Palmers.

B. there was an abundance of them, which seemed weird.

C. an article with Keating's interview about his fakes appeared in the press.

5. There was a scandal in the art world over Keating's fakes, but…

A. he never considered himself a criminal.

B. he was immensely pleased with himself.

C. he didn't care much about it.

Определите значение указанного слова в тексте (задания 6 –8).

6. grant (1)

A. fee B. scholarship C. salary

7. genuine (2)

A. original B. duplicate C. false

8. permanently (4)

A. flexibly B. constantly C. daily

Выберите правильный вариант перевода в соответствии с содержанием текста (задания 9 – 12).

9. In London there was to be an auction of paintings by the nineteenth-century landscape painter Samuel Palmer (2).

A. В Лондоне должен был состояться аукцион картин Самуэля Палмера, пейзажиста 19 века.

B. В Лондоне состоялся аукцион работ Самуэля Палмера, пейзажиста 19 века.

C. Самуэль Палмер, пейзажист 19 века, планировал проведение аукциона своих работ в Лондоне.

10. He'd never made a secret of his fakes and never tried to make money from them, either (4).

A. Он никогда не делал секрета из своих подделок, а также никогда не пытался заработать на них деньги.

B. Он никогда не секретничал о своих подделках и не зарабатывал ими деньги.

C. Это не было секретом, что он подделывал картины, но он никогда не пытался зарабатывать на них деньги.

11. But he was basically an honest man… (4).

A. Но в основном, он был честным человеком …

B. Но он, в целом, был честным человеком …

C. Но он был по своей натуре человеком честным …

12. Sometimes, he said, the spirit of the original artist would come to him and guide his hand (3).

A. Иногда, говорил он, дух настоящего художника посещал его и направлял его руку.

B. По утверждению Китинга, временами его душевное состояние было близким настоящему художнику и это управляло его рукой.

C. Иногда, говорил он, дух оригинального художника являлся ему и направлял его руку.