实用艺术英语unit 4 A课件.ppt

Unit 4 Text A Painting ; Read the following questions first, which will help you understand the following passage better, and then answer the questions after reading it carefully. What role does painting play in the world of works of art? 2. Which materials or tools are involved in the process of painting? 3. How much do you know about encaustic paints and frescos?; 1 In the Western tradition, painting is the queen of the arts. Ask ten people to form a quick mental image of “art,” and nine of them are likely to visualize a painting. There are several reasons for the prominence of painting. For one thing, paintings usually are full of color, which is a potent visual stimulus. For another, paintings usually are framed, some quite elaborately, so that one has the impression of a precious object set off from the rest of the world. Even without a frame, a painting may seem a thing apart – a focus of energy and life, a universe unto itself. Whatever the painting shows, it establishes its own visual scope, sets its own rules.  2 If we consider some of the earliest cave images, especially the more elaborate and colorful ones, to be paintings, then the art has been practiced for at least thirty thousand years. During that long history the styles of painting have changed considerably, as have the media in which paintings are done – the physical substances the painter uses. In the latter case it might be more accurate to say broadened, rather than changed, for few media have been completely abandoned, while many new options have been added to the painter’s repertoire. ; 3 To begin this discussion of painting, we should define some terms that allow us to understand how, physically, such a work of art is put together. Paint is made of pigment, powdered color, compounded with a medium or vehicle, a liquid that holds the particles of pigment together without dissolving them. The vehicle generally acts as or includes a binder, an ingredient that en