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34
of the god in the background. But while the poses are free in the Western tradition, the contours
have been restored, as continuous and unbroken as in Egyptian or Archaic Greek Art.
Before his death Gauguin said, "I wanted to establish the right to dare everything... The public
owes me nothing, since my pictorial oeuvre is but relatively good; but the painters who today profit
from this liberty owe me something." So indeed they did, especially Matisse, but no more than
Cubism and abstract movements owe to the pioneer researches of Cezanne.
Make sure you know how to pronounce the following words:
Paul Gauguin [
]; Duamier [
]; Degas [
]; Breton
[
]; Brittany [
]; Oceania [
]; van Gogh [
]; Egypt
[
]; Archaic [
]; Marquesas [
]; Tahiti [
]; Peru [
];
Jacob [
]; Martinique [
];bourgeois ['
]; Rimbault [
].
NOTES
Vision After the Sermon - "Видение после проповеди"
The Day of the God - "День Бога"
TASKS
I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.
1. Paul Gauguin began painting as a professional.
2. In 1880 Gauguin devoted his life to business career.
3. Gauguin was convinced that European urban civilisation was incurably ill.
4. Gauguin painted the Vision After the Sermon in 1879.
5. The poses in Gauguin's paintings are as continuous and unbroken as in Egyptian or Archaic
Greek Art.
6. Gauguin recommended a return to the Old Masters.
II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?
1. What did Paul Gauguin do early in life? How old was Gauguin when he began painting?
What style did Gauguin absorb? Where did he exhibit his works from 1879 to 1886?
2. Why was Gauguin's life nomadic?
3. What did Gauguin renounce and what did he recommend? What did Gauguin seek? What is
depicted in the Vision After the Sermon? How did Gauguin outline the figures? What is the subject
of this painting? What did Gauguin depict in the background? What did Gauguin show in the
foreground at the right? What did it presuppose?
4. What did Gauguin take to the South Seas with him?
5. What is represented in The Day of the God?
6. What did Gauguin say before his death?
III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:
to begin painting as a amateur; to identify painting with; bourgeois existence; European urban
civilisation; nomadic life; the departure from Western artistic tradition; the rebellious attitude to; to
break from middle-class life; to renounce the formlessness of Impressionist vision; to presuppose
Western perspective; the art of the natives; flattened style; to outline figures with clarity; to restore
the contours.
ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:
ассоциировать живопись с; бегство от европейской городской цивилизации; бунтарское
отношение к; воссоздать контуры; четко обозначить фигуры; искусство туземцев; разрыв со
средним классом; критиковать отсутствие формы в картинах импрессионистов; буржуазный
образ жизни; кочевая жизнь; плоскостной стиль.
iii. Make up sentences of your own with the given phrases.
iv. Arrange the following in the pairs of synonyms:
a) civilisation; amateur; existence; rebellious; emphasis;
b) defiant; accent; non-professional; being; culture.
IV. Here are descriptions of some of Gauguin's works of art. Match them up to the titles given
below.
1. In the background Jacob is depicted wrestling with the angel.