托福閱讀真題Official 44 Passage 2（二）

托福閱讀真題Official 44 Passage 2（二）

The Use of the Camera Obscura

The precursor of the modern camera,the camera obscura is a darkened enclosure into which light is admitted through a lens in a small hole.The image of the illuminated area outside the enclosure is thrown upside down as if by magic onto a surface in the darkened enclosure.This technique was known as long ago as the fifth century B.C.in China.Aristotle also experimented with it in the fourth century B.C.,and Leonardo da Vinci described it in his notebooks in 1490.In 1558 Giovanni Battista Della Porta wrote in his twenty-volume work Magia naturalis(meaning“natural magic”)instructions for adding a convex lens to improve the quality of the image thrown against a canvas or panel in the darkened area where its outlines could be traced.Later,portable camera obscuras were developed,with interior mirrors and drawing tables on which the artist could trace the image.For the artist,this technique allows forms and linear perspective to be drawn precisely as they would be seen from a single viewpoint.Mirrors were also used to reverse the projected images to their original positions.

Did some of the great masters of painting,then,trace their images using a camera obscura.Some art historians are now looking for clues of artists’use of such devices.One of the artists whose paintings are being analyzed from this point of view is the great Dutch master,Jan Vermeer,who lived from 1632 to 1675 during the flowering of art and science in the Netherlands,including the science of optics.Vermeer produced only about 30 known paintings,including his famous The Art of Painting.The room shown in it closely resembles the room in other Vermeer paintings,with lighting coming from a window on the left,the same roof beams,and similar floor tiles,suggesting that the room was fitted with a camera obscura on the side in the foreground.The map hung on the opposite wall was a real map in Vermeer’s possession,reproduced in such faithful detail that some kind of tracery is suspected.When one of Vermeer’s paintings was X-rayed,it did not have any preliminary sketches on the canvas beneath the paint,but rather the complete image drawn in black and white without any trial sketches.Vermeer did not have any students,did not keep any records,and did not encourage anyone to visit his studio,facts that can be interpreted as protecting his secret use of a camera obscura.

In recent times the British artist David Hockney has published his investigations into the secret use of the camera obscura,claiming that for up to 400 years,many of Western art’s great masters probably used the device to produce almost photographically realistic details in their paintings.He includes in this group Caravaggio,Hans Holbein,Leonardo da Vinci,Diego Velázquez,Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres,Agnolo Bronzino,and Jan van Eyck.From an artist’s point of view,Hockney observed that a camera obscura compresses the complicated forms of a three-dimensional scene into two-dimensional shapes that can easily be traced and also increases the contrast between light and dark,leading to the chiaroscuroartistic term for a contrast between light and dark effect seen in many of these paintings.In Jan van Eyck’s The Marriage of Giovanni Arnolfini and Giovanna Cenami,the complicated foreshortening(a technique for representing an image in art that makes it appear to recede in space)in the chandelier and the intricate detail in the bride’s garments are among the clues that Hockney thinks point to the use of the camera obscura.

So what are we to conclude.If these artists did use a camera obscura,does that diminish their stature.Hockney argues that the camera obscura does not replace artistic skill in drawing and painting.In experimenting with it,he found that it is actually quite difficult to use for drawing,and he speculates that the artists probably combined their observations from life with tracing of shapes.

Question 3 of 14

The word“projected”in the passage is closest in meaning to

A.whole

B.corrected

C.enlarged

D.shown

正確答案：D

題目詳解

題型分類：詞匯題

題干分析：詞匯所在句子Mirrors were also used to reverse the projected images to their original positions譯為“鏡子也被用來將投影的圖像倒轉(zhuǎn)到它們最初的位置”，projected意思為“投影的，投射的”。動詞形式：動詞project意思為“投射；呈現(xiàn)”，英文解釋為If you project someone or something in a particular way,you try to make people see them in that way。

選項(xiàng)分析：

D選項(xiàng)shown展現(xiàn)的。

A選項(xiàng)whole整個的。

B選項(xiàng)corrected改正的。

C選項(xiàng)enlarged擴(kuò)大的。

Question 4 of 14

Paragraph 2 answers which of the following questions about paintings by Vermeer?

A.What characteristics of Vermeer’s paintings suggest that he may have used a camera obscura?

B.Why did Vermeer produce only about 30 paintings?

C.Do Vermeer’s paintings in general suggest that he was unable to paint accurately without using a camera obscura?

D.Why did Vermeer need to draw an image on the canvas of the painting that was X-rayed if he was using a camera obscura?

正確答案：A

題目詳解

題型分類：事實(shí)信息題

原文定位：定位詞：paintings by Vermeer。用定位詞定位到文章第二段第三句，通過本句中的from this point of view可以判斷該句與前一句構(gòu)成關(guān)聯(lián)。第二句說“一些藝術(shù)歷史學(xué)家們正在尋找藝術(shù)家使用暗箱這一工具的線索”，而第三句則提出Vermeer這位藝術(shù)家的畫作可以從此觀點(diǎn)上進(jìn)行分析。兩句結(jié)合起來可以得到答案：Vermeer在畫作中有使用暗箱。故可知該答案對應(yīng)的問題應(yīng)該是怎樣的。

選項(xiàng)分析：

A選項(xiàng)正是第二段的第二句和第三句所回答的問題。

B選項(xiàng)說回答的問題是為什么Vermeer只創(chuàng)作了30幅畫作，該問題與本段的信息毫無關(guān)系。無中生有。

C選項(xiàng)說回答的問題是Vermeer在沒有使用暗箱的情況下無法作畫。文中提到此人可能使用暗箱來創(chuàng)作，但并沒有極端表達(dá)他離了暗箱無法創(chuàng)作的意思。該選項(xiàng)的表達(dá)過于極端。

D選項(xiàng)說回答的問題是如果Vermeer使用暗箱的話，他為什么需要在帆布上畫。這個問題偏離此段的主題。與段意不符。

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