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
What makes an artist great? Brilliant composition, no doubt. Superb draughtsmanship, certainly. Originality of subject or of con
What makes an artist great? Brilliant composition, no doubt. Superb draughtsmanship, certainly. Originality of subject or of con
admin
2015-01-10
39
问题
What makes an artist great? Brilliant composition, no doubt. Superb draughtsmanship, certainly. Originality of subject or of concept, sometimes. But surely true greatness means that the creator of a painting has brought a certain je ne sais quoi to the work as well.
There is, however, a type of person who seems to sait perfectly well what that quoi is, and can turn it out on demand. In 1945, for example, a Dutchman named Han van Meegeren faced execution for selling a national art treasure, in the form of a painting by Vermeer, to Hermann Goring, Hitler’s deputy. His defence was that it was a forgery he had painted himself. When asked to prove it by copying a Vermeer he scorned the offer. Instead he turned out a completely new painting, "Jesus Among the Doctors", in the style of the master, before the eyes of his incredulous inquisitors.
Goring, who was facing a little local difficulty at the time, did not sue van Meegeren. But that has not been the experience of Glafira Rosales, an art dealer in New York who admitted this week that she has, over the past 15 years, fooled two local commercial art galleries into buying 63 forged works of art for more than $ 30m. She is being forced to give the money back, and is still awaiting sentence. Ms Rosales is guilty of passing goods off as something they are not, and should take the rap for the fraud. But although art forgers do a certain amount of economic damage, they also provide public entertainment by exposing the real values that lie at the heart of the art market.
That art market pretends that great artists are inimitable, and that this inimitability justifies the often absurd prices their work commands. Most famous artists are good: that is not in question. But as forgers like van Meegeren and Pei-Shen Qian, the painter who turned out Ms Rosales’s Rothkos and Pollocks, show, they are very imitable indeed. If they were not, the distinction between original and knock-off would always be obvious. As Ms Rosales’s customers have found, no doubt to their chagrin, it isn’t. If the purchasers of great art were buying paintings only for their beauty, they would be content to display fine fakes on their walls. The fury and embarrassment caused by the exposure of a forger suggests this is not so.
Expensive pictures are primarily what economists call positional goods—things that are valuable largely because other people can’t have them. The painting on the wall, or the sculpture in the garden, is intended to say as much about its owner’s bank balance as about his taste. With most kit a higher price reduces demand. But art, sports cars and fine wine invert the laws of economics. When the good that is really being purchased is evidence that the buyer has forked out a bundle, price spikes cause demand to boom.
All this makes the scarcity and authenticity that underpin lofty valuations vital. Artists forget this at their peril: Damien Hirst’s spot pictures, for instance, plummeted in value when it became clear that they had been produced in quantities so vast nobody knew quite how many were out there, and when the market lost faith in a mass-production process whose connection with the original artist was, to say the least, tenuous. Ms Rosales’s career is thus a searing social commentary on a business which purports to celebrate humanity’ s highest culture but in which names are more important than aesthetics and experts cannot tell the difference between an original and a fake. Unusual, authentic, full of meaning—her life itself is surely art, even if the paintings were not.
The author introduced the Dutchman Han van Meegeren______.
选项
A、to tell us how he treated Hitler’s deputy Hermann Goring
B、to show that art forgers themselves can be most successful artists
C、to reveal how he defended himself before those inquisitors
D、to provide a contrast to Rosales in their career of forgery
答案
D
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/SxSO777K
本试题收录于:
NAETI高级口译笔试题库外语翻译证书(NAETI)分类
0
NAETI高级口译笔试
外语翻译证书(NAETI)
相关试题推荐
Thewholecountrywasin________overtheresultoftheelections.
Thehumanbeingshavepollutedtheenvironmentseriously.ItistimetheUnitedNationsmusttakesomemeasures.
Givingthechildproblemshecannotsolvewillonlyfrustratehim.
Expressionismisanartisticstyleinwhichtheartistseekstodepictnotobjectiverealitybutratherthesubjectiveemotions
Mostpeoplewouldagreethat,althoughouragefarsurpassesallpreviousagesinknowledge,therehasbeennocorrelativeincre
Foreveryone’ssake,whichmattersthatEuropeansgaugetheirwelcometoChinawisely.
旅游是一项集观光、娱乐、健身为一体的愉快而美好的活动。旅游业随着时代进步而不断进步。从20世纪中期起,现代旅游业在全世界迅速发展。游客人数不断增长,旅游业规模持续扩大,旅游经济地位显著提升,旅游活动愈益成为各国人民交流文化、增进友谊、扩大交往的重
A、Thelargefueltankswerebroken.B、Itwasanobviousterroristattack.C、Nobodywasinjuredorkilled.D、Theattackerstried
StevenAveryfaceslifeimprisonforarapeofayoungwoman18yearsago.
A、MakingawillwiththehusbandB、Registeringyourhome.C、Gettinglegaladvicefromalawyer.D、Donatingtheproperty.D
随机试题
某物流公司于2005年1月1日购入面值为1000元的债券,该债券的票面利率为10%,以发行价格1100元买入,到期日为2007年1月1日。计算该债券的实际收益率。
破伤风最早发生强直性痉挛的肌群是()。
中国甲公司与美国乙公司签订了向美国出口陶瓷的合同,付款方式是D/P。提单由“凌云”航运公司签发,签发后提单交发货人。按D/P付款方式,发货人把提单交到中国银行上海分行(托收行),上海分行委托美国某商业银行(代收行)代收,由该商业银行通知收货人,收货人到银行
一人犯数罪的,如果数罪中有判处附加刑的,附加刑仍须执行;其中附加刑种类相同的,按最重刑执行;附加刑种类不同的,分别执行。()
下列哪一项体现了博客辅助教师来发布信息的功能?()
实行党政领导干部职务任期制、辞职制和用人失察失误责任追究制是党的十六届四中全会提出来的。()
构建一个哈夫曼树,如果给定权值的个数为n,那么哈夫曼树的结点总数为()。
常用的摘要算法是MD4、MD5、SHA和SHA-1。OSPF的安全协议使用
A.electromagneticenergyB.electromagneticenergytravelsthroughspaceC.camefromthesunD.whenachangeinthenucleuso
Ihaveread_____youlentme.
最新回复
(
0
)