托福阅读真题Official 44 Passage 2（二）

托福阅读真题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

正确答案：D

题目详解

题型分类：词汇题

题干分析：词汇所在句子Mirrors were also used to reverse the projected images to their original positions译为“镜子也被用来将投影的图像倒转到它们最初的位置”，projected意思为“投影的，投射的”。动词形式：动词project意思为“投射；呈现”，英文解释为If you project someone or something in a particular way,you try to make people see them in that way。

选项分析：

D选项shown展现的。

A选项whole整个的。

B选项corrected改正的。

C选项enlarged扩大的。

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?

正确答案：A

题目详解

题型分类：事实信息题

原文定位：定位词：paintings by Vermeer。用定位词定位到文章第二段第三句，通过本句中的from this point of view可以判断该句与前一句构成关联。第二句说“一些艺术历史学家们正在寻找艺术家使用暗箱这一工具的线索”，而第三句则提出Vermeer这位艺术家的画作可以从此观点上进行分析。两句结合起来可以得到答案：Vermeer在画作中有使用暗箱。故可知该答案对应的问题应该是怎样的。

选项分析：

A选项正是第二段的第二句和第三句所回答的问题。

B选项说回答的问题是为什么Vermeer只创作了30幅画作，该问题与本段的信息毫无关系。无中生有。

C选项说回答的问题是Vermeer在没有使用暗箱的情况下无法作画。文中提到此人可能使用暗箱来创作，但并没有极端表达他离了暗箱无法创作的意思。该选项的表达过于极端。

D选项说回答的问题是如果Vermeer使用暗箱的话，他为什么需要在帆布上画。这个问题偏离此段的主题。与段意不符。

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