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  3. The haunting paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck, on show in the final leg of a travelling tour that has already attracted thousands

The haunting paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck, on show in the final leg of a travelling tour that has already attracted thousands

admin2011-03-11  4
问题     The haunting paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck, on show in the final leg of a travelling tour that has already attracted thousands of visitors in Hamburg and The Hague, may come as a surprise to many. Few outside the Nordic world would recognise the work of this Finnish artist who died in 1946． More people should.  
    The 120 works have at their core 20 self-portraits, half the number she painted in all. The first, dated 1880, is of a wide-eyed teenager eager to absorb everything. The last is a sighting of the artist’s ghost-to-be; Schjerfbeck died the year after it was made. Together this series is among the most moving and accomplished autobiographies-in-paint.  
    Precociously gifted, Schjerfbeck was 11 when she entered the Finnish Art Society’s drawing school. "The Wounded Warrior in the Snow", a history painting, was bought by a private collector and won her a state travel grant when she was 17．Schjerfbeck studied in Paris, went on to Pont-Aven, Brittany, where she painted for a year, then to Tuscany, Cornwall and St Petersburg.  
    During her 1887 visit to St Ives, Cornwall, Schjerfbeck painted "The Convalescent". A child wrapped in a blanket sits propped up in a large wicker chair, toying with a sprig. The picture won a bronze medal at the 1889 Paris World Fair and was bought by the Finnish Art Society. To a modern eye it seems almost sentimental and is redeemed only by the somewhat stunned, melancholy expression on the child’s face, which may have been inspired by Schjerfbeck’s early experiences. At four, she fell down a flight of steps and never fully recovered.  
    In 1890, Schjerfbeck settled in Finland. Teaching exhausted her, she did not like the work of other local painters, and she was further isolated when she took on the care of her mother (who lived until 1923). "If I allow myself the freedom to live a secluded life", she wrote, "then it is because it has to be that way. " In 1902, Scherfbeck and her mother settled in the small, industrial town of Hyvinkaa, 50 kilometers north of Hetsinki.  
    Isolation had one desired effect for it was there that Schjerfbeck became a modern painter. She produced still lives and landscapes but above all moody yet incisive portraits of her mother, local school girls, women workers in town (profiles of a pensive, aristocratic looking seamstress dressed in black stand out ). And of course she painted herself. Comparisons have been made with James McNeill Whistler and Edvard Munch. But from 1905, her pictures became pure Schjerfbeck.  
    "I have always searched for the dense depths of the soul, that have not yet discovered themselves", she wrote, "where everything is still unconscious-there one can make the greatest discoveries. " She experimented with different kinds of underpainting, scraped and rubbed, made bright rosy red spots;  doing whatever had to be done to capture the subconscious-her own and that of her models.  
    In 1913, Schjerfbeck was rediscovered by an art dealer and journalist, Gosta Stenman. Once again she was a success. Retrospectives, touring exhibitions and a biography followed, yet Schjerfbeck remained little known outside Scandinavia. Th_at may have had something to do with her indifference to her renown. "I am nothing, absolutely nothing", she wrote. "All I want to do is paint". Schjerfbeck was possessed of a unique vision, and it is time the world recognised that.
Why did Schjerfbeck choose to live a secluded life?
选项 A、She was exhausted by her teaching job.
B、Her personality preferred this kind of life style.
C、She could not appreciate the work of the other local painters.
D、Her mother’s health condition required her to adopt such a fife style.
答案B
解析 Schjerfbeck选择了过隐居生活，这在文章第五段中有具体描述。首先她厌倦了教授绘画的工作，也不喜欢当地其他画家的作品，再加上她负担起照顾母亲的责任，她就最终选择了隐居，她自己提到这个时说：“如果我允许自己选择了一种隐居的生活，那是因为事情只能如此。”可见，她隐居的最主要的原因还是前两个，一个是厌倦了绘画工作，一个是不喜欢当地其他画家作品，这都与她的个性有关。因此，追根究底其原因是她本身性格所致。   
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