Part I. The Offspring of Western Civilization

Ancient Greece

 

STEP 2: Spelling and Vocabulary

 

Exercise 1: Match a word with a picture (not all the pictures have their names!)

Plate 1

The Egyptian art a) pyramid, a royal tomb 1 b) funerary temple 7 c) Egyptian sphinx 11 d) lotus column 13 e) papyrus column 15 f) palm column 17 g) ornamented column 18

The Art of the Persians a) tower tomb 21 b) stepped pyramid 22

Plate 2

The Greek Art

a) the Acropolis 1-7

b) the Parthenon 1

c) statue 5

d) temple wall 6

e) Doric column 8

f) Ionic column 9

g) Corinthian column 10

h) column shaft 26

i) base 28-31

j) caryatid 36

k) Greek vase 37

l) Greek ornamentation 38-43

m) leaf ornament 40

n) Greek theatre 44

o) scene 45

p) proscenium 46

q) orchestra 47

r) thymele (altar) 48

Plate 6

Historical Costumes

a) Greek woman 1

b) peplos 2

c) Greek man 3

d) petasus (Thessalonian hat) 4

e) chiton, a linen gown worn as a basic garment 5

f) himation, woollen cloak 6

Exercise 2: Developing spelling skills. Fill in the blanks with the missing letters. Remember the spelling of the words.

 

Architecture, sculpture, statue, sculptor, civilization, characteristics, excellent, beauty, measure, balance, portrait, painting, humanity, subtle, tomb.

 

 

Ancient Rome

 

STEP 1: Understanding the Information

Picture 1

c) Colosseum.

The site of ancient spectacles, the Colosseum, was designed in 70 AD in Rome for gladiatorial games and could be flooded to re-create naval battles.

 

STEP 2: Spelling and Vocabulary

Exercise 1: Match a word with a picture (not all the pictures have their names!)

Plate 2

The Etruscan Art a) Etruscan temple 49 b) portico 50

The Roman Art a) aqueduct 53 b) centrally-planned building 55 c) portico 56 d) cupola 58 e) triumphal arch 59

 

Plate 6

Historical Costumes

a) Roman woman 7

b) toupee wig (partial wig) 8

c) stola 9

d) palla, a coloured wrap 10

e) Roman man 11

f) tunica (tunic) 12

g) toga 13

h) purple border (purple band) 14

 

STEP 3: Punctuation and Logic

Exercise 1: Put capitals, hyphens, full stops and commas as needed in the following passages; the number of sentences is indicated in brackets.

1.  During the period of the Old Kingdom (3000-2400 BC.) the basic forms of art came into existence in Egypt. Architecture played the major role among them. At that time colossal edifices were built, such as the tombs of the Pharaohs - the pyramids - and the tombs of the nobility, upon the walls of which reliefs were carved. (3)

2.  The statue of Hyacinth, attributed to Pythagoras of Rhenium, is evidence of the realist features of Greek art in the first half of the fifth century BC. The famous sculptor gave the lean, supple body of the youth spatial life. Hyacinth is portrayed watching the flight of the discus with intense interest. (3)

3.  The distinctive feature of Roman art was the sculptural portrait. Roman sculptors, whose names are unknown to us, portrayed in marble with great realism their contemporaries: statesmen, philosophers, emperors, military leaders, and distinguished Roman men and women. (1)

4.  The Roman sculptors of the second and third centuries, not confining themselves to a realistic representation of man's external appearance, strove to reveal his inner world. They were in fact the originators of the psychological portrait. (2)

5.  From the very outset, clay and marble were the preferred materials for artistic creativity, human figures were the preferred subjects, and a pronounced sense of measure governed the forms that were produced. (1)

6.  The Archaic period (about 700-480 BC) saw a rise of all the arts throughout Greece. Perhaps the single most important development was the emergence of monumental stone sculpture, in the round and in relief. Compared with Egyptians renderings, the body is lifelike, becoming ever more so as sculptors acquired the ability to render not only how it looked but also how it moved. (3)

7.  If the Archaic manner of representation depicted the appearance of a subject with maximum clarity, artists of the Classic period (480-323 BC) began to introduce the realities of space, time, and character. The medium of sculpture reached its most exalted expression in the friezes, metopes, and pediments of the Parthenon in Athens. The aspects of human activity that Classic artists favored were those emphasizing human strengths: nobility in victory, valor in battle, restraint in mourning. (3)

8.  With the rise of Macedon under Philip II and Alexander the Great, the Hellenistic period saw the fields of creative energy displaced from the Greek heartland - Attic and the Peloponnesos - to the periphery, including southern Italy and Asia Minor. The great age of Athens was past. When the Romans conquered and destroyed Corinth in 146 BC, the transfer of primacy was consummated. (3)

9.  It was the Roman achievement to hold its vast and diverse domains by a formal system of laws. Moreover, by endowing the symbols of its jurisdiction with the qualities so ardently assimilated from the Greek world, they became an integral part of what is called Western civilization. (2)

 

 

Exercise 2: Arrange the sentences logically within a passage.

 

1. The basic theme of the classical period is the portrayal of the athlete, the bold, valiant defender of his native town, as well as the representation of the gods who personified the wealth and power of the state. The most eminent Greek sculptors during the Golden Age were Myron, Polyclitus, and Pheidias. Myron, who worked in bronze and whose work survived only in Roman copies, was the creator of the famous statue Discobolus.

2. The name of Pheidias is associated with the imposing architectural and sculptural ensemble of the Acropolis in Athens. In this city in the fifth century BC there was erected the marble temple of the Parthenon in honor of the goddess Athena. The temple was adorned with a statue, twelve meters in height, of Athena Parthenos; her clothes and armor were made of gold, the face and hands of ivory. The works of Pheidias have not survived. The Roman copy of a fifth century marble statue of Athens gives us some idea of Pheidias's style; the warrior goddess is portrayed in a calm, majestic pose, leaning against a spear, her head is crowned with a helmet, and the dress, descending in a series of folds, emphasizes the grandeur of the frontally portrayed figure. This representation personified the unshakable power of the Athenian state.

3. The marble group called Heracles Slaying the Lion of Nemea is a reduced-size copy of a bronze sculpture by Lysippus from a series devoted to the twelve labors of Heracles. The powerful figure of Heracles and the body of the beast are represented in such a way that the group can be viewed from all angles. The sculptor depicts the climax of the duel between man and beast. Heracles is strangling the lion, which, as its strength is sapped, sinks down onto its hind paws. The extent of Lysippus's creative scope can be seen from his sculptural portraits. His work crowned the achievements of Greek art of the fifth and fourth centuries BC.

4. The qualities that characterize the art of ancient Egypt - such as rigidity of pose and the use of contradictory perspectives in portraying the human figure - remained consistent for the greater part of Egyptian history. They originated in the Early Dynastic Period (about 3000 BC.) and still exerted a powerful influence long after the conquest of Egypt, first by Persia, then by Macedonia, and finally by Rome. Significant differences appear from period to period, but the reason why a consistent aesthetic endured for some three thousand years lie in the Egyptian conceptions of time and space, which can be linked significantly with the physical setting that gave birth to one of the most splendid civilizations of the ancient world: the Nile Valley.

5. Egyptian art reflected and reinforced the attitudes of the Egyptians towards their physical and spiritual environment and was intimately related to the hieroglyphic system of writing, along with which it developed at an early period. The predominance of funerary objects, which may foster the misapprehension that the ancient Egyptians were obsessed with preparing for their burial and with the preservation of their bodies, is to some degree an accident of Egypt's geography: the desert - where funerary monuments were erected - offers an ideal climate for the preservation of artifacts. But an intense concern for the afterlife certainly permeated the ancient Egyptian culture and initiated many important works of art.

    

STEP 4: Shaping Ideas and Facts in English

Exercise 1: Single out the thesis statements in the Russian passage below

 

Каждый раз, как мастерская знаменитого скульптора IV века до нашей эры Лисиппа выполняла заказ на новую статую, и мастер получал за нее условленную плату, он откладывал из этой суммы одну золотую монету. Когда скульптор в глубокой старости умер, у него нашли 1500 золотых монет. Создал ли Лисипп со своими учениками действительно полторы тысячи статуй, мы не знаем: из них не уцелела ни одна. Только с очень немногих его произведений сохранились копии, сделанные римскими мастерами. Статуи работы Лисиппа все были из бронзы; копии в большинстве случаев – мраморные, поэтому они не совсем точны.

Особенно любил Лисипп изображать подвиги Геракла. Геракл был его любимым героем. Для небольшого города Ализии Лисипп сделал целую серию статуй, изображающих Геракла. Когда римляне завоевали Грецию, они перевезли эти статуи в Рим. До нашего времени ни одна из них не сохранилась.

Скульптурная группа “Геракл, душащий Немейского льва” – копия одной из статуй работы Лисиппа. Она гораздо меньше своего оригинала. Это небольшая мраморная скульптура.

Все, конечно, помнят подвиг Геракла – его победу над Немейским львом, страшным чудовищем, неуязвимым для меча и копья.

Геракл душит льва. Видно, как напряглись все мускулы его могучего тела. Широко расставив ноги, он изо всех сил упирается в землю. В страшном усилии налились мышцы его крепких плеч и правой руки, которая схватила за горло зверя. Еще немного – и зверь задохнется. Лапы льва уже ослабели, в них не чувствуется напряжения мускулов, а все туловище вот-вот бессильно осядет и рухнет на землю.

Каждому, кто стоит перед статуей Геракла, непременно хочется обойти ее вокруг, посмотреть и сбоку, и сзади. Ведь если смотришь только спереди, не все ясно, а если посмотришь и сзади, можно убедиться, что зверь задыхается, что человек победил: пасть льва широко раскрыта, высовывается язык, не ярость на звериной морде, а страх и бессилие.

Лисипп разрешил новую, важную и трудную задачу: он поставил фигуру в свободном пространстве. Получить от нее полное впечатление можно, только обойдя ее со всех сторон и посмотрев с разных точек зрения.

Предшественники Лисиппа научились изображать тело человека, его движение.

Лисипп использовал все их достижения и развил их дальше, разрешил новые, сложные задачи.

Все созданные им фигуры живут, дышат, двигаются.

 

Part II. The Middle Ages

 

STEP 1: Understanding the Information

Picture 2

a) minarets.

In 537 AD the construction of the famous Hagia Sophia was completed in Constantinople. Originally a church, this vast building was converted after the Ottoman conquest in 1453 to a mosque, when the minarets were added.

Picture 3

c) chapel.

In 1050 AD in the town of Pisa, Italy, the beginning of the construction of the Cathedral Group took its place. It was an impressive grouping of Romanesque building, which consisted of a baptistry, a cathedral and a campanile. The Leaning Tower (the campanile) is the best-known element.

 

Picture 4

b) Amiens.

Gothic churches were often named Notre Dame - our lady. Notre Dame de Amien is an excellent example of High Gothic, further developing the design ideas set forth in Chartres. Its construction began in 1220 AD.

 

STEP 2: Spelling and Vocabulary

Exercise 1: Developing spelling skills.

 

a) Fill in the blanks with a silent consonant or vowel. Remember the spelling.

Knight, castle, column, chapel, dome, crude, design, style,  apostle,   scene.

 

b) Choose – c - or – s - to fill in the blank.

Monastery, monasticism, mystery, salvation, crusade, treasure, cloister, civilization, symbol, ancient, skeleton, select, city, technique, style, century, cause, influence, necessary, dimension, increase, advance,   sense, testament, resemblance, release, literacy, trace.

 

c) Choose – ch-, - sh-,- th-,- ph- to fill in the blanks.

Threaten, Christianity, church, hardship, cathedral, chanting, mythical, architecture, worship, worth, fashion, physical, catholic, reach, characteristic, youthful, sophisticated, philosophy, anarchy, method, calligraphy.

 

 

d) Which doubled letter is missing in the following words?

Classical, massive, progress, assimilate, commission, necessary, endless, buttress.

 

Exercise 5:

1. Pronounce the words below. Match a word with a picture (not all the pictures have their names!).

Plate 2

The Early Christian Art a) basilica 61 b) nave 62 c) aisle 63 d) campanile 65 e) atrium 66 f) colonnade 67 g) fountain 68 h) altar 69 i) triumphal arch 71	The Byzantine Art a) main dome 72 b) semidome 73 c) pendentive 74 d) eye, a lighting aperture 75

Plate 3

The Romanesque Art a) Romanesque church 1-13 b) nave 1 c) aisle 2 d) central tower 6 e) pyramidal tower roof 7 f) frieze of round arcading 9 g) lesene, a pilaster strip 11 h) circular window 12 i) side entrance 13 j) system of vaulting 17 k) cushion capital 21	The Gothic Art a) Gothic cathedral 22 b) rose window 23 c) church door (portal) 24 d) buttress 27 e) flying buttress 28 f) pinnacle 29 g) cross (groin) vault 31-32 h) ribs (cross ribs) 31 i) clustered (compound) pier 34

Plate 4

Knight's castle 1 a) inner ward (inner bailey) 2 b) draw well 3 c) dungeon 5 d) tower platform 8 e) watchman 9 f) ladies' apartments (bowers) 10 g) balcony 12 h) storehouse (magazine) 13 i) curtain wall (curtains, enclosure wall) 15 j) bastion 16 k) angle tower 17 l) inner wall 19 m) battlemented parapet 20 n) drawbridge 25 o) chapel 29 p) great hall 30 q) outer ward (outer bailey) 31 r) castle gate 32 s) moat (ditch) 33 t) approach 34 u) watchtower (turret) 35 v) palisade (pallisade, palisading) 36	Knight's armour 38-65 a) suit of armour 38 b) helmet 39-42 c) skull 39 d) visor (vizor) 40 e) beaver 41 f) throat piece 42 g) epauliere 44 h) breastplate (cuirass) 46 i) knee cap (knee piece, genouillere, poleyn) 53 j) buckler (round shield) 57 k) iron hat 59 l) morion 60 m) light casque 61
Accolade (dubbing, knighting) 66 a) liege lord, a knight 67 b) esquire 68 c) cup bearer 69 d) minstrel (minnesinger, troubadour) 70	Tournament (tourney, joust, just, tilt) 71 a) crusader 72 b) Knight Templar 73 c) caparison (trappings) 74 d) herald (marshal at tournament) 75 e) tilting armour 76 f) tilting helmet (jousting helmet) 77 g) panache (plume of feathers) 78 h) tilting target (tilting shield) 79 i) lance rest 80 j) tilting lance (lance) 81 k) horse armour 83-88

Plate 6

Historical Costumes

a) Byzantine empress 15

b) pearl diadem 16

c) jewels 17

d) purple cloak 18

e) long tunic 19

f) German princess [13^th cent.] 20

g) crown (diadem) 21

h) chinband 22

i) cloak 26

j) Burgundian [15^th cent.] 40

k) young nobleman [ca. 1400] 44

l) dagged sleeves (petal-scalloped sleeves) 46

m) hose 47

STEP 3: Punctuation and Logic

Exercise 1: Put capitals, hyphens, full stops and commas as needed in the following passages; the number of sentences is indicated in brackets.

 

1. The ecclesiastic, religious character of the culture of medieval society is reflected in both the style and the function of relics of art dating back to feudal times. (1)

2. With the Edict of Milan in 313 the Emperor Constantine the Great (reigned 306-337) formally recognized Christianity. Although this was a critical turning point, the transition from classical to Christian art was not abrupt, since for several hundred years both cultures coexisted and competed with each other. (2)

3. The Franks, who established the only lasting political power in Roman Gaul and converted to Christianity under Clovis I (reigned 481-511), ultimately founded the Carolingian Empire, which unified much of Europe. The essential qualities of barbaric art – its abstract, nonnarative, geometric elements – were inappropriate for expressing the revival of the western Roman Empire. A cultural revival was therefore begun by Charlemagne, who was crowned in 774, and continued by Otto the Great, who in the tenth century inaugurated the Christianization of central Europe. (3)

4. Some writers consider Charlemagne’s coronation day to be the end of the “Dark Ages”. The Emperor was crowned not by his own people but rather by the Pope, the leader of the Christian religion, and he was crowned Holy Roman Emperor. For the first time a political ruler had the sanction of the Church of Rome, and this opened a new chapter in European history. (3)

5. Historians generally divide the art and architecture of the high Middle Ages into two periods: the Romanesque, from about 1050 to 1200, based on southern styles from the old Roman Empire; and the Gothic, from about 1200 into the 15^th century, which has more of a northern flavor. (The term “Gothic” derives from the Goths, who were among the many nomadic tribes sweeping through Europe during the 4^th and 5^th centuries. It was applied to this style by later critics in the Renaissance, who considered the art and architecture of their immediate predecessors to be vulgar and “barbarian”.) (3)

 

 

Exercise 2: Arrange the sentences to make a logical piece of description.

1. The Cathedral of St. Sernin is a splendid example of the Romanesque style. Although the interior of the nave soars upward to a breath-taking height, from the outside the church seems to hug the ground - solid, durable, Roman. The plan is absolutely symmetrical, with a single tower rising from the center. (The tower is of a later date and has some Gothic influence.) Arches around the windows are classic round Roman arches, and they are arranged in a regular, logical progression, with columns in between. Also, we see a minimum of decorative detail on the facade; most statuary is inside the building. This cathedral was meant to turn inward, to gather worshipers inside its core and shelter them there. St. Sernin gives us an impression of stability, of a church firmly rooted and dependable, representing a faith meant to endure forever.

2. Chartres has two tall spires, notable for their very different designs and the consequent lack of symmetry. Its arches are not the round ones of a Romanesque building, but rather the pointed arches developed in the Gothic period. Another innovation of Gothic architecture was the flying buttress, an exterior support meant to control the outward thrust of thin masonry walls built very high. All in all, the Gothic cathedral, as interpreted at Chartres, reveals architecture of soaring ambitions, celebrating a faith that simultaneously reaches outward to the townspeople and up to the skies.

3. The fourteenth century devotional images, painted on wooden panels in tempera, are notable for their bright colors and the abundance of gold. One such image, the work of an unknown fourteenth century artist, is The Madonna and Saints. The Madonna, seated on a throne, is represented as the heavenly queen; her face wears a majestic, austere expression, and around her head is a halo, the symbol of sanctity. The Madonna's position of supremacy is emphasized by the fact that she is placed in the center of the composition and considerably exceeds in size the figures of the saints standing beside her.

4. A fine example of the painting of the period is the work of one of the foremost Italian artists of the fourteenth century, Simone Martini (1283-1344), who hailed from Siena. He depicts the Madonna in a scene from the Annunciation, when she humbly listens to the word of the angel. The lithe, elongated figure of the Madonna, smoothly wrapped in a blue cloak reaching down to the ground, stands out sharply against a gold background. Finely executed and beautiful in its colors, the painting has an unusual poetic quality.

 

STEP 5: Paragraphing

Exercise 1: Read over the text below and try to discover where each new paragraph begins              (8 paragraphs).

HILDEGARD OF BINGEN

 

 In summer of the year 1098, in the German town of Bermersheim, a knight called Hildebert and his lady Mechthilde welcomed their tenth and last child, a daughter, whom they named Hildegard. The little girl was frail in health, but from early childhood she showed unusual spirituality. At about age five, as she would tell it much later, young Hildegard experienced a mystical vision of brilliant light, accompanied by images from Heaven. It was this combination of fragility and religious devotion, apparently, that caused her parents to place Hildegard in a convent at the age of seven or eight.

At the convent Hildegard was tutored in Latin, music, the scriptures, and religious studies. She took her vows as a nun when she was about eighteen. Little is known of her life for the next twenty years, until 1136. In that year Hildegard, at age thirty-eight, was elected abbess of the convent.

Perhaps her new status gave Hildegard the courage to confide in others, to reveal the secret she had kept for so long - that she was subject to visions of God, Christ, the cosmos, biblical events, and religious symbols. In any case, she did so, and she was taken seriously. Encouraged by her churchly mentors, Hildegard began to write.

Her first major work, started in 1142, was called Scivias, which translates from the Latin as Know the Ways (of the Lord). In this book, a ten-year project, Hildegard tells of her visions, describing them in exact detail and illustrating them with painted illuminations that are startlingly modern in their simplicity. Some believe she made the paintings herself, but it is more likely they were done by others under her close supervision.

For example, vision two is a portrait of Hildegard at the moment of her spiritual awakening. Seated in a small room, dressed in the robes of a courtly woman, Hildegard is struck by heavenly tongues of fire, which engulf her head. She is poised ready to record the event, as is her secretary, Volmar, standing awestruck at right. Symbolically, the spiritual flames will unloose Hildegard's own tongue, inspiring her to speak of God's ways.

Mystical thought she may have been, Hildegard was no stranger to worldly concerns. She seems to have been an exceptionally good administrator, strong-willed and skillful at getting her own way. For long years her nuns had occupied the tiny women's quarters of a monastery, forced to endure domination and crowding by the monks. When she proposed to leave and establish a separate convent, she met bitter opposition from the men, who would thus lose the considerable wealth the nuns had brought to the community. Hildegard was undeterred. Taking care to enlist the protection of highly placed clergy and nobility, she departed with her nuns, about 1150, for a new convent site at Rupertsberg, near the town of Bingen.

Hildegard's last decades were extremely productive. Several other books followed the Scivias, including a medical text and a nine-book tretise on botany, biology, geology, and astronomy. She wrote the music and text for some sixty-three hymns and also a miracle play, which was performed as an opera. All the while she maintained a vast correspondence, exchanging letters with monarchs and church leaders, scholars and ordinary people. In her last years she traveled rather widely, and she was called to preach in the great cathedrals. Her services were much in demand as an exorcist, capable of driving out evil spirits.

Many contemporary accounts about Hildegard report her recurring, serious illnesses, but we do not know how she died. We have only the date. The extraordinary life of Hildegard of Bingen, spanning eighty-one years, came to an end on September 17, 1179.

 

Part III. The Renaissance

STEP 1: Understanding the Information

Picture 5

1. c) Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) is one of the greatest universal men produced by the Renaissance. Leonardo’s intellectual powers were such that he anticipated many later discoveries in anatomy, aeronautics, and several other fields, as well as being one of the greatest of Italian artists. His intellectual powers were so diffused over an enormous range.

 

2. c) The Mona Lisa.

The painting’s expressive power has made this work known even to those relatively uninformed in the field of art history.

 

3. a) atmospheric perspective.

Renaissance artists developed a technique of painting with oils in a way that added a sense of atmosphere deep into the distance.

 

Picture 6

b) Michelangelo.

Michelangelo, here as Heraclitus, is portrayed as brooding and oblivious to others. This is not far from the actual impression he made in contemporary society.

 

Picture 7

c) Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci began work on his mural “The Last Supper” at Sta. Maria delle Grazie in 1495. The fresco, created with an unknown technique, marks the beginning of the High Renaissance in Italy.