首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Why did Michelangelo choose to build footbridges rather than traditional scaffolding when he painted the chapel?
Why did Michelangelo choose to build footbridges rather than traditional scaffolding when he painted the chapel?
admin
2018-08-16
83
问题
Why did Michelangelo choose to build footbridges rather than traditional scaffolding when he painted the chapel?
Listen to part of a lecture in an art history class.
Professor: As we discussed in our last class, one of the high points in the history of art is certainly the Italian Renaissance of the 14th to the 16th centuries, and surely one main characteristics of the Italian Renaissance was the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. So, how did this particular work of art come to be? Well, in 1508 a famous young sculptor was commissioned to paint a new ceiling for this important chapel. His name was Michelangelo. He was commissioned to paint a ceiling with scenes of various well-known stories. This ceiling was huge: over 900 square meters, plus it was 20 meters or more off the ground. Now, the actual term for the kind of painting he did there is "fresco." "Fresco" in Italian means "fresh" or "wet." It means painting directly onto wet plaster. Now, the method wasn’t new, but it became very popular during the Italian Renaissance.
Anyway, a fresco is a simple enough concept, but much easier said than done. You would have your wall, or in this case a ceiling, already built, and to do a fresco you would take fresh, wet plaster and smooth it onto the wall or ceiling to make a fresh, moist layer, and then paint directly onto that wet plaster. The good thing about this is, as soon as you put on the paint it starts sinking into the plaster, so when the plaster dries, the paint, the color, is locked into it. It has literally become part of the wall or ceiling or whatever and so. lf you do it right, the colors, the images in a fresco, could last a very long time, but remember we said that frescoes are difficult to actually carry out? Well, one big problem is the time limitation. You can only paint while the plaster is wet. As soon as the plaster dries, the paint no longer sinks into it. The paint color would no longer actually become part of the wall or ceiling, so as soon as you lay on a plaster layer, you have to get to work on it with only about 24 hours at most from the time the plaster’s applied until the time it dries, and there’s hardly any room for error either. As soon as the paint touches the plaster, it starts to become part of it. There’s very little opportunity to correct any mistakes.
Ok, so you can only lay out as much plaster as you can to finish painting that day, but how much is that? Well, typically an artist could do about, well, a rectangle, maybe a meter by a meter and a half, so fresco painting was in this respect radically different from other kinds of painting, from painting on canvases and wooden panels. You were always working against the clock. In fact, there’s a story of one Italian painter who would paint with one brush in each hand just to be more efficient.
Now, it wasn’t just the art that Michelangelo had to worry about. He also had to worry about logistical details. Aside from getting paints which were really expensive at the time, there was the particularly difficult problem of painting a ceiling, a ceiling of a church that was still being used for ceremonies the entire time it was being painted. And remember, besides being nearly 1,000 square meters in area, the ceiling he had to paint was 20 meters up or more. Is anyone else here scared of heights? To add to the difficulties, this ceiling wasn’t flat, but curved, so Michelangelo needed special scaffolding to do his work. Traditional scaffolding involves building ladders up from the floor with a platform at the top where you can stand or sit or lie down, as Michelangelo may have done, to do your work. This would have been fine for the height and shape and size of the building itself, but all those ladders holding up platforms would have really cluttered the floor, so instead Michelangelo built a system of wooden footbridges that came out from the walls of the chapel.
So, Michelangelo’s ceiling there in the Sistine Chapel wasn’t just a beautiful work of Renaissance art, but one of the great examples of a very difficult art form, a fresco, with all the logistics involved in this case and the massive kind of undertaking that it was. So, even aside from its beauty and its historical significance, the Sistine Chapel, especially that ceiling, is recognized today as one of the achievements of the Italian Renaissance.
选项
A、To reach both the walls and the ceiling of the chapel
B、To paint while lying on his back for long periods of time
C、To accommodate the curved shape of the chapel’s ceiling
D、To keep the floor clear for ceremonies in the chapel
答案
D
解析
细节题。线索词difficulties,在描述困难部分,教授提到traditional scaffolding的缺点,即会clutter the floor(让地面杂乱),因此米开朗琪罗使用了新的footbridges来解决这一问题。从而keep the floor clean,故D选项正确。此部分使用对比的方法突出footbridges与传统手脚架的区别,需留意对比的信号词but和instead。在介绍传统手脚架时,教授提到:This would have been fine for the height and shape and size of the building itself,可得知适合拱形的天花板的形状,因此C选项错误。此外,A、B选项也都不符合原文。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/INfO777K
0
托福(TOEFL)
相关试题推荐
Completethesentencesbelow.WriteNOMORETHANTHREEWORDSforeachanswer.Thebelongingsmostoftimearerefusedduetopr
Completethesentencesbelow.WriteNOMORETHANTHREEWORDSforeachanswer.Atleastonereferenceneedstobefrom______
Completethetablebelow.WriteNOMORETHANTHREEWORDSAND/ORANUMBERforeachanswer.
ChooseTHREEletters,A-G.WhichTHREEfactorsshouldthestudentconsiderwhileselectingcourses?AclasstimeBcoursetopic
Whatproblemsdothespeakersidentifyforthisproject?ChooseSEVENanswersfromtheboxandwritetheletters,A-H,nexttoq
Completethenotesbelow.WriteONEWORDONLYforeachanswer.NotesonCustomer’sInformationExampleAnswerInforma
ChooseTWOletters,A-E.WhichTWOpossibleobjectionstoaroofgardenarediscussed?AproblemsofaccessBthecostofconstr
Whatadvantagedoesthespeakermentionforeachofthefollowingphysicalactivities?ChooseSIXanswersfromtheboxandwrite
Whatdidthewomanfinddifficultaboutthedifferentresearchtechniquessheused?ChooseFIVEanswersfromtheboxandwritet
In1864theAmericanShakespeareanactorEdwinBoothgainedcriticalacclaimwhenhe______HamletattheWinterGardenTheatrein
随机试题
下列哪些选项可以通过尺寸约束来定位形状特征(FormFeature)
下列关于地下水影响边坡稳定性,叙述错误的是()。
矿山建设项目和用于生产、储存危险物品的建设项目的施工单位必须按照批准的安全设施设计施工,并对( )负责。
施工成本计划作为施工成本控制的指导文件,其内容包括()。
左边给定的是纸盒的外表面,下面哪一项能由它折叠而成?
利害关系人因情况紧急,不能立即申请财产保全将会使其合法权益受到难以弥补的损害的,可以在起诉前向人民法院申请采取财产保全措施,但申请人必须提供担保。()
《论语》中曾子曰:“士不可以不弘毅,任重而道远。仁以为己任,不亦重乎?死而后已,不亦远乎?”这句话对我们实现人生价值的启示是()。
1991年6月15日,菲律宾吕宋岛上的皮纳图博火山突然大喷发,2000万吨二氧化硫气体冲人平流层,形成的霾像毯子一样盖在地球上空,把部分要照射到地球的阳光反射回太空几年之后,气象学家发现这层霾使得当时地球表面的温度累计下降了0.5℃,而皮纳图博火山喷发前
HowlongwasDilyslate?
DeterminingtheAgeofthePlanetsandtheUniverseP1:Asthesolarnebula,alargerotatingcloudofinterstellardustandgas
最新回复
(
0
)