III. Speech practice.

Exercise 5. Give the description of Venetsianov’s painting “The Sleeping Herdsboy”

Exercise 6. Prove that Venetsianov really loved his native land and its people, especially peasants.

Exercise 7. Make a plan and retell the text.

ІV. Discussion points.

Exercise 8. The author of this article considers the Peredvizhniks’ paintings to be a black and drab-coloured realism. What’s your opinion of it?

Active vocabulary.

painting technique

religious fresco painting

secular painting

visual arts

itinerant artists

drab-coloured realism

draftsman

cartoons

Keys.

Ex. 1. a - 2; b - 4; c - 6; d - 8.

Ex. 3. a - F; b - T; c - T; d - F; e - F; f - T.

Ex. 4. 1 - b; 2 - c; 3 - b; 4 - a; 5 - b; 6 - b; 7 - c; 8 - a.

Text 3

І. Reading.

Read the text “The Lost Sculptor” and do the exercises given after the text.

The Lost Sculptor

In one of his early stories Anatoly Kim de­scribes a young artist struggling against pov­erty and obscurity. One day the artist meets a girl from Australia who happens to be a mil­lionaire. They fall in love, get married, and she takes him to her country, where she buys him a studio with everything an artist could dream of. On the day that the artist's material problems were solved, he stopped producing works of art, switching to pop art instead, which, of course, is nothing but a game for adults. Al­though the connection between easy living and the demise of real art does exist, lack of ac­knowledgment and need can be equally dam­aging, especially in the monumental arts. A fascinating case in point is the life and work of Dmitry Tsaplin (1890-1967).

The would-be sculptor was born in a small vil­lage quite a long distance from Saratov in the Volga country to a poor peasant family, in which he was the fourth of eleven children. The family was so poor that Dmitry only attended elementa­ry school for one winter. He had neither shoes nor clothes to go to school in. Yet the peasant boy became an avid reader, reading scraps of newspapers, religious books, and anything he could lay his hands on. Dmitry's mother died when he was three, his father soon remarried, and the boy's stepmother played the part as­signed to stepmothers in folk tales, including cruel beating. In 1912 Dmitry was drafted into the army. It was in the barracks that Tsaplin learned to draw. World War I broke out soon, and Tsaplin was sent to the Turkish front. In 1915 he saw an ancient monument, the statue of a ram, in a Turkish cemetery, and it produced a profound ef­fect on him. As a soldier of the engineer compa­ny of the 2nd Turkestan Regiment, Tsaplin made the first attempt to create sculptures. His talent was noted by his commanding officers when he made a statuette of the Corps commander. The aide-de-camp called him Girolamo Savonarola, and Tsaplin only learned who Savonarola was when the regimental doctor went on leave and returned with an encyclopedia.

Upon discharge from the army, Dmitry Tsap­lin entered the Saratov Higher Art Workshops. As he later recalled, the experience was not a successful one. He couldn't understand why he had to draw Greek frescoes, while the teachers couldn't understand their pupil and what he wanted from the arts. From his youth Tsaplin adopted a new approach to sculpture. Instead of violating material, imposing his idea on it, the sculptor found images hidden in a tree trunk or a mass of rock. Wood and stone became his fa­vorite materials.

The 1920s in Soviet Russia were a time when the arts flourished, and various groups and trends mushroomed freely. Tsaplin's early works approached Symbolism, although his in­dividuality always came through. His "Load Carrier" carved of wood in 1924-1927 would subsequently bring him world fame. In 1927, the times were still idyllic and Tsaplin set out for the West with a mandate, signed by Commissar for Education Anatoly Lunacharsky, to work and study.Tsaplin lived and worked mostly in Paris, later in Spain and England. Although he refused to sell any of his works so that he could bring them back to Russia, critics applauded him, and buy­ers besieged him with lucrative proposals. In 1930, the sculptor had an exhibition in one of the leading galleries in Paris. Among his friends Tsaplin counted Pablo Picasso and the Russian emigre singer Fyodor Chaliapin. Yet he led a modest and even austere life, devoting himself totally to his work.

It was in Paris that he met Tatiana Leshchen-ko, a pretty girl who would serve as his muse and bear him a daughter. She would also be his first biographer, and her memoirs contain a large part of what we know about the sculptor's private life.

In 1930, Tsaplin began to hew out of stone and wood his famous animals. His love for ani­mals was reflected in an incident described by Tatiana Leshchenko in her memoirs. The couple decided to go and watch a Spanish bull-fight. The place was so tightly packed that they could not budge. When Tsaplin saw the wanton and cruel slaughter of the bulls and horses, he flew into a rage, but they were unable to leave until the very end. Tsaplin never went to a corrida again, in contrast to some bull-fight lovers of the art world, such as Hemingway. Tsaplin's life in Spain, however, marked the peak of his work and also of his fame.

The London-based "Left Review" wrote that his exhibition in that city was history-making. It was a step forward in the critic's idea of what so­cialist art would be. Tsaplin, in his view, had found expressive means for socialist art, and they were fine.

This elation was not shared by artists and crit­ics in the Soviet Union. In 1935, Tsaplin returned to Russia, only to see the Iron Curtain descend. While for decades Soviet critics have written that Tsaplin played an important part in public life fol­lowing his return, the return was, in fact, a trage­dy for the sculptor and his loved ones. Tatiana Leshchenko would soon be sent off to the Gulag, after going through the hell of the third degree. Tsaplin was criticized for being a "modernist" and "decadent.-" He remained cooped up in his tiny studio in the center of Moscow.

I visited him there in 1959, when things had relaxed somewhat in the Soviet Union, and re­member the gentle, self-effacing old sculptor, who wore a beret and invariably modest clothes. He was still totally absorbed in his work, although the years of persecution had obviously taken their toll. During my visit Tsaplin was going through a phase of slender elongated sculptures reminiscent of African primitive art, which struck me as singularly appropriate since his last name comes from the Russian word "heron."

Instead of becoming one of the world's lead­ing sculptors, which Tsaplin certainly would have done had he stayed on in the West, he was and still is largely consigned to oblivion. Al­though articles about Tsaplin did appear in the press, particularly a decade ago when his cen­tenary was marked, today, when we mark his 110th anniversary, there is still no monograph about and little interest in this extraordinary sculptor and man.

Although Tsaplin was unswervingly loyal to the Soviet regime, he was rejected by it and re­duced to depicting Vladimir Lenin. For seventy years, Soviet sculpture churned out endless likenesses of a short, bald and ugly man in bag­gy pants and a worn jacket - not exactly a treat for the eye. And things do not seem much better today, when rogues such as Tsereteli dominate the sculpture scene.

ІІ. Comprehension.

Exercise 1. Find where in the text it is said:

a). that Tsaplin was born in the Volga country

b). that Tsaplin learned to draw in the Army.

c). that Tsaplin’s early works approached Symbolism

d). that Tsaplin hated corridas.

Exercise 2. Find in the text the answers to the following questions:

a). To what family was Tsaplin born?

b). When did Tsaplin make his first attempt to create sculptures?

c). Why wasn’t his experience at the Saratov Higher Art Workshops successful?

d). What was his new approach to sculpture?

e). Why did Tsaplin set out for the West?

f). Why did he refuse to sell his works in the West.

g). Why was his return to Russia a tragedy for Tsaplin and his family?

h). What did Soviet sculpture do for seventy years?

Exercise 3. Say whether the following statements are true or false:

a). As a boy Tsaplin got an excellent education.

b). His favourite materials were marble and clay

c). Arts flourished in Soviet Russia in 1920-s.

d). When living abroad Tsaplin stayed mostly in the USA.

e). When Tsaplin lived abroad his friends were Pablo Picasso and Fyodor Chaliapin.

f). Tsaplin’s wife was sent off to the Gulag when he returned to Russia.

g). Tsaplin had a very big studio in the center of Moscow.

Exercise 4. Reading comprehension test..

1. Tsaplin’s stepmother was

a). a loving and kind woman;

b). a cruel woman;

c). a very beautiful and clever woman.

2. In a Turkish cemetery he saw

a). the statue of a horse;

b). the statue of a camel;

c). the statue of a ram.

3. His first sculpture was

a). a statuette of his friend soldier;

b). a statuette of the Corps commander;

c). a statuette of a goddess.

4. The sculpture that brought him world fame was “Load Carrier” carved of

a). wood;

b). stone;

c). marble.

5. In 1930 the sculptor had an exhibition in one of the leading galleries in

a). London;

b). New York;

c). Paris.

6. His first biographer was

a). his friend;

b) his wife;

c). his daughter.

7. Artists and critics in the Soviet Union

a). highly appreciated his work;

b). criticized his work;

c). liked his “modernist” works very much.

8. Tsaplin was rejected by the Soviet regime

a). although he was loyal to it;

b). because he criticized it;

c). because he made sculptures of animals.