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  3. Scientist, engineer, musician and great artist, Leonardo da Vinci is the arc

Scientist, engineer, musician and great artist, Leonardo da Vinci is the arc

游客2023-12-05  18
问题     Scientist, engineer, musician and great artist, Leonardo da Vinci is the archetypal Renaissance man. This undisputed genius, who lived to be 67, was also one of history’s most accomplished underachievers. He started many projects he did not finish; he accepted commissions he never began; his many planned treatises remained just notes. Only 18 of his paintings survive. Half of them are included in a show that opened on November 9th at London’s National Gallery, making this the most important da Vinci display ever.
    The artist was born near Florence in 1452 and went to Milan at the age of 30. Luke Syson, the show’s curator, has come to believe that the freedom da Vinci enjoyed there as court painter to Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, was the key that unlocked his genius.
    Mr. Syson’s contention that Leonardo’s great breakthrough came in Milan and not later in Florence, as has generally been accepted until now, has captivated curators, collectors and museum directors who have been generous in loaning works to the show; from the Vatican, Prague, Cracow, Paris and the Royal Collection.
    All the pictures on show were painted during da Vinci’s 18 years in Milan. Never has it been possible to see so many of da Vinci’s paintings together. There are also some 50 drawings, including the monumental Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist(sometimes called The Burlington House Cartoon).
    The one picture missing from this period is The Last Supper, which is painted on a wall. This work, which is badly damaged, is represented here by a large photograph and a near-contemporary(though far inferior)copy. In pages from a notebook da Vinci’s slanted "mirror" writing describes the guests at a dinner. With a novelist’s interest in detail, he carefully observed the shrug of one man’s shoulders, the position of another’s hands, the scowl on one face and the frown on yet one more.
    The exhibition is arranged thematically; in addition to "Beauty and Love", there is also "Character and Emotion" and "Body and Soul". The visitor quickly comes face to face with the portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, also known as The Lady with an Ermine. Although the image is familiar from reproductions, the radiance of the painting is surprising. Further along is an unfinished, yet searing, Saint Jerome. For the first time, both versions of The Virgin of the Rocks, one the National Gallery’s own and the other belonging to the Louvre, are shown together.
    The two versions hang at opposite ends of the long exhibition space. The more one looks at the two pictures, the more visible are the differences between them; the strangely formed rocks in the Louvre’s version create a protective atmosphere, whereas in the National Gallery’s painting the rocks seem quite eerie, contributing to the overall sepulchral feel of the work.
    As a philosopher and scientist, da Vinci strove to understand what he observed in his close studies of nature. Art was an expression of his thoughts. The Lady with an Ermine shows the Duke of Milan’s teenage mistress in a fashionable red gown, its slit sleeves revealing a pale underdress. Da Vinci, always fascinated by knots, carefully details the way the black ribbons are tied on Cecilia’s left sleeve. Her right arm is in shadow. The ties on that sleeve are sketchy. The artist has taken into account his observation that visual acuity declines in the dark. The brain fills in necessary information. The sketchiness of the right sleeve helps bring the portrait to life, creating what Walter Pater, a 19th-century British essayist and art critic, described as a "reality which almost amounts to illusion".
    Da Vinci would sometimes spend years thinking about a single painting. Mr. Syson hopes visitors to the National Gallery will, in turn, look long and hard at these works. Advance tickets for entry to the end of the year had sold out by the opening day. The show does not close until February 5th 2012, but advance tickets for its final weeks are going fast. Meanwhile, the only way to get in now is to queue for one of the 500 tickets being held back for sale each morning. The security checks are elaborate, but the wait is well worth it. [br] That Leonardo da Vinci " was also one of history’s most accomplished underachievers"(Paragraph One)means______.
选项 A、he failed to complete many of his works
B、his achievements have been exaggerated
C、he did not deserve the fame in the history
D、he could have achieved more with his genius
答案 D
解析 语义题。“most accomplished”肯定了达·芬奇的成就，同时“underachievers”(字面意思为“成就不足者”)又暗示他本应取得更高的成就。纵观文中对达·芬奇画风的描述，特别是第八段前两句指出他善于深入地观察和细致地表现，第九段首句指出他有时候会花上几年的时间去思索一幅画。可见，达·芬奇一方面表现出了杰出的艺术才能，另一方面正是因为他绘画时极其认真、细致，所以完成的作品不多，不是一个高产的画家，故选[D]。他的很多作品半途而废只是其中一个方面，显然作者无意将达·芬奇描写成一个虎头蛇尾的人，故排除[A]；作者对其成就和历史地位是充分肯定的，故排除[B]和[C]。
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