Vasari's Biographies Of Famous Artists托福聽力原文翻譯及問題答案

Vasari's Biographies Of Famous Artists托福聽力原文翻譯及問題答案

一、Vasari's Biographies Of Famous Artists托福聽力原文：

NARRATOR:Listen to part of a lecture in an art history class.MALE PROFESSOR:I'm sure you've all heard of the Mona Lisa,the famous painting by Leonardo Da Vinci.The Mona Lisa is a portrait of a woman and it's thought to be the portrait of Lisa Gherardini but that's not certain.In fact,many things about the Mona Lisa remain a mystery.For example,we don't know exactly who commissioned the painting or how long Da Vinci worked on it and there are actually many scholars who think the mystery makes the painting more interesting.I think it places unfortunate limits on our analyses,makes it hard to make strong arguments about the painting.

Anyway—getting to the point—most people today might've never heard of the Mona Lisa—or of many other now-famous works of art for that matter—if it hadn't been for Giorgio Vasari.Giorgio Vasari was an Italian painter,architect and scholar.In the mid-1500s,he wrote a book called Lives of the Most Eminent Painters,Sculptors,and Architects,in which he describes—among many other things—the features of the Mona Lisa,including her famous smile. This book drew a lot of attention to Da Vinci and significantly increased the Mona Lisa's fame. 

As the title suggests,Lives of the Most Eminent Painters,Sculptors and Architects includes biographies not only of Da Vinci but also of many other now famous Italian renaissance artists.This was the first time that a European author had made the personal lives of the artists a central component of an art history book and many a later author followed the example....The more important the artist—in Vasari's view—the longer their biography in the book,

and by far the longest of the biographies is that of Michelangelo—the painter of the Sistine Chapel ceiling and sculptor of the famous statue of David—whose work Vasari adopted as,uh...his benchmark...his reference point for evaluating everyone else's artwork.

Many of the biographies are extremely detailed with all the basic facts about where the artists were born,where they'd worked,who their teachers were and so on.

...But I read Vasari's book cover-to-cover almost every summerI find it a great way to unwind during the summer break and what keeps me coming back to it are the anecdotes,fascinating anecdotes,that give you glimpses in the artist's private lives,their dreams,their fears,their virtues,their vices.

In his book,Vasari also tackled,quite successfully I might add,the enormous task of sorting out which works had been done by which artists,which works belong in the same stylistic categories,which works belong in similar categories in terms of quality and so on,stuff you take for granted today.But again,Vasari was the first European author to do that.A word of caution though:Vasari was not at all averse to,how should I put it,modifying the facts.For example,in his book,he has a touching description of Da Vinci's death,in which Da Vinci dies in the arms of his last patron:The king of France,Francis the First.

Now,Da Vinci did spend the last years of his life working in the court of Francis the First.Vasari seemed to have overlooked a minor detail,however,the well documented fact that the king was far away when Da Vinci breathed his last breath.But why let the fact stand in the way of a great story,right?Since Vasari's tales are,as I've said,so compelling and because they have been repeated by so many subsequent authors,they're still often taken at face value.Even today.No questions asked.

二、Vasari's Biographies Of Famous Artists托福聽力中文翻譯：

旁白：在藝術史課上聽一節(jié)課的一部分。男教授：我相信大家都聽說過達的名畫《蒙娜麗莎》。蒙娜麗莎是一個女人的肖像，人們認為它是麗莎·格拉迪尼的肖像，但這并不確定。事實上，關于蒙娜麗莎的許多事情仍然是個謎。例如，我們不知道這幅畫是誰委托創(chuàng)作的，也不知道達芬奇創(chuàng)作了多長時間。實際上，有很多學者認為這幅畫之所以神秘，是因為它更有趣。我認為這給我們的分析帶來了不幸的限制，使我們很難對這幅畫進行有力的論證。

無論如何，如果不是喬治·瓦薩里的話，今天大多數人可能從來沒有聽說過《蒙娜麗莎》或其他許多著名的藝術作品。喬治·瓦薩里是意大利畫家、建筑師和學者。16世紀中期，他寫了一本名為《最杰出的畫家、雕塑家和建筑師的生活》的書，在書中他描述了蒙娜麗莎的許多其他特征，包括她著名的微笑&nbsp；這本書吸引了很多人對達的注意，并大大提高了蒙娜麗莎的聲譽&nbsp；

正如標題所示，最杰出的畫家、雕塑家和建筑師的生平不僅包括達的傳記，還包括許多其他現在著名的意大利文藝復興藝術家的傳記。這是歐洲作家第一次將藝術家的個人生活作為藝術史書的核心組成部分，后來許多作家也效仿了這一做法。。。。在瓦薩里看來，藝術家越重要，他們在書中的傳記就越長，

到目前為止，傳記中最長的是米開朗基羅的傳記，他是西斯廷教堂天花板的畫家和著名的大衛(wèi)雕像的雕塑家，他的作品被瓦薩里采納為，呃。。。他的基準。。。他評估其他人藝術品的參考點。

許多傳記都極其詳細地介紹了藝術家的出生地、工作地點、老師等基本情況。

...但我?guī)缀趺磕晗奶於紩喿x瓦薩里的書封面。我發(fā)現這是一種在暑假放松的好方法，而讓我回到這本書的是那些軼事，引人入勝的軼事，它們讓你瞥見了這位藝術家的私生活，他們的夢想，他們的恐懼，他們的美德，他們的惡習。

在他的書中，瓦薩里還非常成功地解決了一個巨大的任務，那就是整理哪些藝術家完成了哪些作品，哪些作品屬于相同的風格類別，哪些作品在質量上屬于相似的類別，等等，這些你今天認為理所當然的事情。但同樣，瓦薩里是第一個這樣做的歐洲作家。不過需要注意的是：瓦薩里根本不反對修改事實，我該怎么說呢。例如，在他的書中，他對達的死有一個感人的描述，達死在他的最后一位贊助人的懷抱中：法國國王弗朗西斯一世。

現在，達確實在弗朗西斯一世的宮廷里度過了他生命的最后幾年。然而，瓦薩里似乎忽略了一個小細節(jié)，這是一個有充分證據證明的事實，即達·芬奇最后一口氣時，國王在很遠的地方。但是為什么要讓事實阻礙一個偉大的故事，對嗎？正如我所說，由于瓦薩里的故事如此引人入勝，而且后來的許多作者都在重復這些故事，所以它們仍然經常被視為表面價值。即使是今天。沒有問題。

三、Vasari's Biographies Of Famous Artists托福聽力問題：

Q1:1.What is the lecture mainly about?

A.Vasari's efforts to prove a theory about the Mona Lisa.

B.Vasari's friendships with da Vinci and Michelangelo.

C.Experiences that shaped Vasari's approach to art history.

D.The influence of Vasari's book in the field of art history.

Q2:2.What is the professor's attitude toward the mystery associated with the Mona Lisa?

A.He is confident that most of the important questions about the painting will eventually be answered.

B.He is displeased that so little is known about the painting.

C.He thinks that certain theories about the painting are probably accurate.

D.He thinks the mystery has made the painting more famous than it deserves to be.

Q3:3.According to the professor,what was Vasari the first European writer to do?[Click on 2 answers.]

A.Take a biographical approach to art history.

B.Express negative opinions about popular artists.

C.Classify works of art in a systematic way.

D.Ask famous artists to comment on their own work.

Q4:4.How did Vasari treat Michelangelo's work in Lives of the most Eminent Painters,Sculptors,and Architects?

A.He considered Michelangelo's work second only to that of da Vinci.

B.He questioned whether Michelangelo had in fact painted all the paintings attributed to him.

C.He intentionally excluded any mention of Michelangelo's earliest works.

D.He used Michelangelo's work as a standard for judging the work of other artists.

Q5:5.What feature of Vasari's discussions of artists does the professor find most interesting?

A.The descriptions of towns where artists were born

B.The information about artists'work experience

C.The details about artists'personal lives

D.The grouping of artists into specific movements

Q6:6.Why does the professor mention da Vinci's death?

A.To point out an emotional difficulty that Vasari experienced when writing his book.

B.To explain why many scholars today find Vasari's book outdated.

C.To provide an example of an inaccurate story in Vasari's book.

D.To provide an example of a relationship between a famous artist and a wealthy patron.

四、Vasari's Biographies Of Famous Artists托福聽力答案：

A1:正確答案：D

A2:正確答案：B

A3:正確答案：AC

A4:正確答案：D

A5:正確答案：C

A6:正確答案：C

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