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  3. The conditions of art should be simple. A great deal more depends upon the heart than upon the head. Appreciation of art is not

The conditions of art should be simple. A great deal more depends upon the heart than upon the head. Appreciation of art is not

admin2010-05-14  47
问题    The conditions of art should be simple. A great deal more depends upon the heart than upon the head. Appreciation of art is not secured by any elaborate scheme of learning. Art requires a good healthy atmosphere. The motives for art are still around about us as they were round about the ancients. And the subjects are also easily found by the earnest sculptor and the: painter. Nothing is more picturesque and graceful than a man at work. The artist who goes to the children’s playground, watches them at their sport and sees the boy stoop to tie his shoe, will find the same themes that engaged the attention of the ancient Greeks, and such observation and the illustrations which follow will do much to correct that foolish impression that mental and physical beauty are always divorced.
   To you, more than perhaps to any other country, has Nature been generous in furnishing material for art workers to work in. You have marble quarries where the stone is more beautiful in color than any Greeks ever had for their beautiful work, and yet day after day I am confronted with the great building of some stupid man who has used the beautiful material as if it were not precious almost beyond speech. Marble should not be used save by noble workmen. There is nothing which gave me a greater sense of barrenness in traveling through the country than the entire absence of wood carving on your houses. Wood carving is the simplest of the decorative arts. In Switzerland the little barefooted boy beautifies the porch of his father’s house with examples of skill in this direction. Why should not American boys do a great deal more and better than Swiss boys?
   There is nothing to my mind more coarse in conception and more vulgar in execution than modern jewellery. This is something that can easily be corrected. Something better should be made out of the beautiful gold which is stored up in your mountain hollows and strewn along your river beds. When I was at Leadville and reflected that all the shining silver that I saw coming from the mines would be made into ugly dollars, it made me sad. It should be made into something more permanent. The golden gates at Florence are as beautiful today as when Michelangelo saw them.
   We should see more of the workman than we do. We should not be content to have the salesman stand between us--the salesman who knows nothing of what he is selling save that he is charging a great deal too much for it. And watching the workman will teach that most important lesson--the nobility of all rational workmanship.
   Art would create a new brotherhood among men by furnishing a universal language. Under its beneficent influences war might pass away. Thinking this, what place can I ascribe to art in our education? If children grow up among all fair and lovely things, they will grow to love beauty and detest ugliness before they know the reason why. If you go into a house where everything is coarse, you find things chipped and broken and unsightly. Nobody exercises any care. If everything is dainty and delicate, gentleness and refinement of manner are unconsciously acquired. When I was in San Francisco I used to visit the Chinese Quarter frequently. There I used to watch a great hulking Chinese workman at his task of digging, and used to see him every day drink his tea from a little cup as delicate in texture as the petal of a flower, whereas in all the grand hotels of the land, where thousands of dollars have been lavished on great gilt mirrors and gaudy columns, I have been given my coffee or my chocolate in cups an inch and a quarter thick. I think I have deserved something nicer.
According to the passage, which of the following is NOT the author’s opinion?
选项 A、For an artist, the ability to feel is more important than the ability to think.
B、It is prudent to think that mental and physical beauty are always separated.
C、Americans should have some wood carving in their house decorations.
D、Modern jewellery lacks delicacy or refinement and is deficient in taste.
答案B
解析 注意第一段最后一句话。
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