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  3. Frank Lloyd Wright is best known as a revolutionary American architect. A hallmark of his work is sensitivity to the natural env

Frank Lloyd Wright is best known as a revolutionary American architect. A hallmark of his work is sensitivity to the natural env

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问题     Frank Lloyd Wright is best known as a revolutionary American architect. A hallmark of his work is sensitivity to the natural environment—Fallingwater, the house he built over a waterfall, is a prime example. But Mr. Wright had a second career as a collector of and dealer in Japanese block prints, continuing this business until his death in 1959 at the age of 91. At times, he made more money selling prints than he did from architecture.
    A small but insightful exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, comprising prints, architectural drawings from Mr. Wright’s studio and archival objects, highlights the Japan’s deep influence on his work.
    Mr. Wright was first captivated by Japanese art in 1893, when he saw Japan’s pavilions at the sprawling world fair in Chicago. His interest in Japan’s art and culture blossomed during several trips there starting in 1905. He opened an office in Japan in 1915 and lived there for a few years while building the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. "At last I had found one country on earth where simplicity, as nature, is supreme," he wrote.
    He returned from his first trip to Japan with hundreds of ukiyoe prints, planning to sell them in America. Mr. Wright often sold his clients art to hang on the walls he had built, explaining that they complemented his streamlined interiors. Japanese prints, especially traditional bird and flower images, had easily understandable motifs.
    The prints were a commercial hit but Mr. Wright was also personally enthralled by them. "A Japanese artist grasps form always by reaching underneath for its geometry, never losing sight of its spiritual efficacy," he wrote in The Japanese Print, a slim, 35-page book published in 1912. "These simple coloured engravings are indeed a language whose purpose is absolute beauty. "
    According to Janice Katz, associate curator of Japanese art at the Art Institute of Chicago, Mr. Wright favoured prints by Utagawa Hiroshige, a Japanese artist who emphasized environment over human structures. Prints such as Mr. Hiroshige’s Goyu: Women Stopping Travellers show buildings from a wide perspective. The flattened space and naturalistic detail of prints influenced architectural drawings in Mr. Wright’s studio.
    For instance, a vertical scroll-like drawing called Perspective of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Thomas P. Hardy House, Racine, Wisconsin leaves most of the brown page blank except the top right corner where a house perches precariously. A flowering branch, like those in bird and flower prints, pokes into the blank space. The draft was made by Marion Mahony Griffin, who worked for Mr. Wright. An architect in her own right, Ms Griffin later incorporated elements of Japonism in own work. Another drawing, Perspective View of Marion Mahony Griffin and Walter Burley Griffin’s Rock Crest/Rock Glen, Mason City, Iowa, shows clouds and buildings nestled among lush foliage. It is rendered in gouache on a horizontal slice of pale green satin with two side panels that echo Japanese hand scrolls.
    Mr. Wright was also influential in cultivating American interest in Japanese prints. In 1906 he exhibited his collection of Hiroshige prints at the Art institute. Two years later he loaned several pieces to the institute for what Ellen Roberts, associate curator of American art at the institute, reckons was the largest display of Japanese prints in America at the time. Mr. Wright designed the installation for that exhibition, including sleek furniture and special frames reminiscent of screens.
    It is unfortunate then that the institute’s current show lacks pointed comparisons between Japanese design and actual Wright buildings. Still, it sheds new light on Mr. Wright’s signature works. The long horizontal lines of the Robie House in Chicago’s Hyde Park reflect the flat landscape of America’s mid-west—yet they also evoke Japan’s minimalist sensibility. Closeness to the earth is the stuff of expansive American prairies but also of traditional Japan. As Mr. Wright wrote in his autobiography: "Why are we so busy elaborately trying to get earth to heaven instead of seeing this simple Shinto wisdom of sensibly getting heaven decently to earth?"  
The function of the first paragraph is to______.
选项 A、serve as a prelude to the key event in the passage
B、bring into focus an artist’s less-known aspect of career
C、introduce the author’s comments on art
D、foreshadow the unexpected ending of the passage
答案B
解析 篇章题。作者在第一段首先总结了著名建筑设计师赖特的成就，接着概括地指出赖特的艺术生涯中不为人知的另一面——在日本版画方面的成就；作者在后面的段落中围绕这一主题展开，描述了赖特如何接触到日本版画，为何对其着迷，他的几次日本之行，日本版画对其画作的深远影响，以及他如何将日本版画介绍给美国大众。综上所述，第一段在全文中的作用是将读者的注意力聚焦于一位知名艺术家的艺术生涯中不为人知的另一面，故选[B]。纵观全文，作者详述了赖特另一方面的艺术成就，不仅只有一个关键事件，故排除[A]；作者未发表对现代艺术的任何个人的评价，故排除[C]；第一段的作用也不是给出人意料的结尾进行铺垫，相反，结尾不出乎意料，而是对首段的呼应，故排除[D]。
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