Unit 1
[00:41.90]Art
[00:43.05]Reading
[00:45.40]A SHORT HISTORY OF WESTERN PAINTING
[00:48.64]The style of Western art has changed many times,
[00:53.92]while Chinese art has changed less often.
[00:57.08]Art is influenced by the way of life and beliefs of the people ,
[01:01.83]and China, unlike Europe,
[01:04.39]has followed a similar way of life for a very long time.
[01:08.36]There are so many different styles of Western art
[01:09.01]that it would be impossible to describe all of them in a short text.
[01:11.49]Consequently,
[01:13.66]this text will describe only a few of the main styles,
[01:17.92]starting from the 5th century AD.
[01:20.66]The middle ages (5th to 15th century AD)
[01:27.32]During the Middle Ages,
[01:30.09]the main aim of painters was to represent religious themes.
[01:34.53]Artists were not interested in showing nature and people as they really were.
[01:40.49]Instead, they were interested in creating respect and love for God,
[01:46.66]and paintings from this period are full of religious symbols.
[01:50.63]Things had begun to change by the 13th century
[01:54.99]when painters like Giotto di Bondone
[01:58.23]began to paint religious scenes in a more realistic style.
[02:02.80]The Renaissance (15th to 16th century)
[02:08.70]In the Renaissance,
[02:10.74]new ideas and values took the place of those that were held in the Middle Ages.
[02:16.49]People became focused more on humans and less on religion.
[02:21.84]Painters returned to classical Roman and Greek ideas about art.
[02:28.11]They tried to paint people and nature as they really were.
[02:32.76]Rich people wanted collect art for their palaces and great houses.
[02:39.03]They paid famous artists to paint pictures of themselves,
[02:43.99]their houses and other possessions,
[02:46.84]as well as their activities and achievements.
[02:50.19]One of the most important discoveries during this period
[02:54.94]was how to draw things in perspective.
[02:58.18]The first person to use perspective in his paintings
[02:58.36]was Masaccio in 1428 .
[03:01.83]when people first saw his paintings
[03:01.90]they were convinced they were looking through a hole in the wall at a real scene.
[03:07.68]If the rules of perspective had not been discovered,
[03:11.94]people would not have been able to paint such realistic pictures.
[03:16.90]During the Renaissance oil paints were also developed,
[03:21.58]which make colours look richer and deeper.
[03:24.74]Impressionism (late 19th to early 20th century)
[03:31.89]In the late 19th century, Europe changed a great deal,
[03:37.82]from a mostly agricultural society to a mostly industrial one .
[03:43.99]Many people moved from the country to the new cities.
[03:48.85]There were many new inventions and many social changes.
[03:54.49]Naturally, these changes also led to changes in painting styles.
[04:00.94]Among the painters who broke away from the traditional style of painting
[04:06.58]were the impressionists who lived and worked in Paris.
[04:11.26]The impressionists were the first artists to paint outdoors.
[04:16.82]They wanted to show how light and shadow
[04:20.06]fell on objects at different times of the day.
[04:23.90]Because natural light changes so quickly ,
[04:27.56]the impressionists had to paint quickly .
[04:31.11]their paintings were not as detailed as those of earlier painters.
[04:36.44]At first,
[04:37.80]most people hated his new style of painting
[04:41.14]and became very angry about it.
[04:44.80]They said the painters were careless and their paintings were ridiculous.
[04:51.18]Modern art (20th century to today)
[04:56.48]At the time they were created,
[04:59.51]the impressionists' paintings were controversial
[05:02.96]but today they are accepted as the beginning of what we now call " modern art".
[05:09.33]Nowadays, there are cores of modern art styles,
[05:14.19]but without the impressionists many of these painting styles would not exist.
[05:19.73]The impressionists helped artists to look at their environment and art is abstract; that is ,
[05:30.88]the painter does not attempt to paint objects
1