空氣污染影響畫家創作

山東 陳 燁

空氣污染對畫家的創作會有影響嗎？如果有的話，主要體現在哪里？讀完本文，或許你能找到答案。

主題語境：藝術與自然 篇幅：323詞 建議用時：6分鐘

1The 19th century landscape paintings hanging in London's Tate Britain museum looked familiar to climate physicist Anna Lea Albright.Artist Joseph Mallord William Turner's ways of presenting his painting in fog and smoke reminded Albright of her own research tracking air pollution.

2“I wondered if there was a connection,”says Albright.After all, Turner—a forerunner of the Impressionist movement—was painting as Britain's Industrial Revolution boomed.To prove how much Realism there is in Impressionism, Albright studied nearly 130 paintings of Paris-based Impressionist Claude Monet.

3Low contrast and whiter colors are features of the Impressionist style.They're also signs of air pollution, which can affect how a distant scene looks to the naked eye.Tiny dust can absorb or scatter light.That makes the bright parts of objects appear less bright while also shifting the entire scene's color toward neutral white.

4Albright distinguished art from an aerosol by first using a mathematical model to analyze the contrast and color of 60 paintings that Turner made between 1796 and 1850 and 38 Monet works from 1864 to 1901.She then compared the findings to SO2emissions over the century,estimated from the trend in the annual amount of coal sold and burned in London and Paris.

5As SO2emissions increased, the amount of contrast in both Turner's and Monet's paintings decreased.However, paintings of Paris that Monet made from 1864 to 1872 have much higher contrast than Turner's last paintings of London made two decades earlier.The difference, Albright says, can be caused by the slower start of the Industrial Revolution in France.It confirms that the similar progression in their painting styles can't be regarded as coincidence,but is guided by air pollution.

6To strengthen the argument, Albright also analyzed 18 paintings from four other London-and-Paris-based Impressionists.Again, as outdoor air pollution increased over time, the contrast and visibility in the paintings decreased.Overall, air pollution can explain about 61%of contrast differences between the paintings.

Reading Check

Detail 1.What inspired Albright to track air pollution of the 19th century?

A.Her dream to become an Impressionist.

B.Her responsibility as a climate physicist and artist.

C.Her duty to find London's Industrial Revolution.

D.Her puzzle about the link between art and air quality.

Detail 2.How did Albright come to her conclusion?

A.By comparing paintings of different time stages.

B.By interviewing the keepers of art museums.

C.By surveying the techniques of painters.

D.By giving examples of artists in the world.

Inference 3.Why did Monet's paintings have more obvious differences in color?

A.More SO2emissions led to air pollution at his time.

B.The Industrial Revolution started late in France.

C.He had higher painting techniques.

D.He gave up Impressionism.

Gist 4.What's the main idea of paragraph 6?

A.Most differences in the 18 paintings are related to air pollution.

B.Impressionists are mainly from London and Paris.

C.Air pollution really affects painting creation.

D.Impressionists differed a lot in the same stage.

Language Study

Ⅰ.日積月累

landscapen.風景；風景畫

remindv.提醒

boomv.&n.繁榮；轟鳴；激增

contrastv.對照；形成對比；顯出明顯的差異

featuren.特征；容貌；特色

v.以……為特色；起重要作用

distinguishv.區別；辨別

estimatev.估算；估價

decreasev.減少；減小；降低

confirmv.證實；證明；確認

coincidencen.巧合；（意見等的）相同

Ⅱ.語法填空

Climate physicist Albright felt one painting of London-based artist Turner looked familiar and decided to make out whether there 1.________（be）a connection between the artists' painting methods 2.________air pollution at that time.Turner was 3.________Impressionist and he lived in a time when Britain's Industrial Revolution developed 4.________（rapid）.Albright also analyzed paintings of Paris-based Impressionist Monet.It 5.________（know）that low contrast and whiter hues are features of the Impressionist style and also signs of air pollution.Albright 6.________（use）a mathematical model to analyze the contrast and color of works 7.________（create）by Turner and Monet.She compared the 8.________（find）to SO2emissions over the century and found that the amount of contrast in both the two artists' decreased 9.________SO2emissions increasing.It shows that the painting styles of the artists 10.________（guide）by air pollution.