托福听力背景知识之印象主义(impressionism)常见考点及出题套路

上次，我们一起学习了现实主义（realism）的艺术风格及特征。而托福考试中涉及到的艺术类型还有很多，需要同学们进一步了解。所以，我们就为大家再介绍一类听力考试中常见的艺术形式——印象主义impressionism。 同时，也一起来分析下，在这样的话题文章中，又有哪些常见的听力考点和套路。 结合之前介绍过的现实主义，不难发现：听力中的艺术形式话题，通常是围绕着介绍某位艺术家及他自身的创作风格展开；又或是介绍某种艺术形式或艺术风格。因此，大多数的艺术话题结构，可以分为以下几种情况：

1. 介绍某位艺术家：交代他生活的时代背景（往往能够决定艺术家的创作风格），重点突出艺术家的创作风格； 2. 介绍某种艺术形式：重点突出该类艺术形式的风格特征； 3. 比较两种艺术形式：各自的特征，两者之间的相同点、不同点；

而今天即将讨论的印象主义就属于第二种考察方式：介绍艺术形式。所以，同学们平时在听原文时，要注意捕捉该形式的各类特征，将笔记做好分层。

一、什么是印象主义？

Impressionism was an art movement in France at the end of the 19th century. The Impressionists were a group of artists renowned for their innovative painting techniques and approach to using color in art. 印象主义是19世纪末法国的一场艺术运动。印象派画家是一群以其创新的绘画技术和在艺术中使用色彩的方法而闻名的艺术家。 Impressionism was the first movement in the canon of modern art and had a massive effect on the development of art in the 20th century. Like most revolutionary styles Impressionism was gradually absorbed into the mainstream and its limitations became frustrating to the succeeding generation. Artists such as Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin and Georges Seurat, although steeped in the traditions of Impressionism, pushed the boundaries of the style in different creative directions and in doing so laid the foundations of art in the 20th century. For historical convenience, these artists have been labeled as Post Impressionists but, apart from their Impressionist influence, they don't have much in common. Van Gogh pushed art towards Expressionism, Cézanne towards Cubism, and Gauguin and Seurat towards Fauvism and Divisionism. 印象派是现代艺术的第一场运动，它对20世纪艺术的发展产生了巨大的影响。像大多数革命风格一样，印象主义逐渐被主流所吸收，而其局限性也使后世感到沮丧。 文森特·梵高、保罗·塞尚、保罗·高更和乔治·修拉等艺术家虽然深受印象主义传统的影响，但在不同的创作方向上突破了印象主义风格的界限，从而奠定了20世纪艺术的基础。为了方便历史区分，这些艺术家被贴上了后印象派的标签。但是，除了他们的印象派影响之外，他们没有太多的共同点。梵高推动艺术走向表现主义，塞尚走向立体主义，高更和修拉走向野兽主义和分裂主义。 [caption id="attachment_50808" align="aligncenter" width="600"]

印象主义作品[/caption]

二、印象主义绘画手法

The Impressionists were excited by contemporary developments in color theory which helped their search for a more exact analysis of the effects of color and light in nature. They abandoned the conventional idea that the shadow of an object was made up from its color with some brown or black added. Instead, they enriched their colors with the idea that the shadow of an object is broken up with dashes of its complementary color For example, in an Impressionist painting the shadow on an orange may have some strokes of blue painted into it to increase its vitality. 印象派画家热衷于色彩理论的当代发展，这有助于他们更准确地分析色彩和光线在自然界中的作用。他们放弃了传统的想法，即物体的阴影是由颜色加上一些棕色或黑色组成的。取而代之的是，他们丰富了他们的色彩，认为物体的阴影被其互补色的虚线分割。例如，在一幅印象派绘画中，橙色上的阴影可能有一些蓝色的笔触，以增加其活力。

三、印象主义与摄影的关系

The Impressionists further upset the Académie with their composition techniques. Traditionally, artists had created images where the lines, shapes, tones and colors were arranged in a way that led the eye to the focal point of the painting. This was the most important area of the picture and was usually situated in a central position. It was considered poor composition if the background or edges of the painting detracted from the focal point. True to form, the Impressionists broke this rule. 印象派画家用他们的作画技巧进一步打乱了学术界。传统上，艺术家们创造的图像中，线条、形状、色调和颜色的排列方式将眼睛引向绘画的焦点。这是图片中最重要的区域，通常位于中心位置。伊特德加·德加（1834-1917）“四个舞者”，1899年（画布上的油画），如果绘画的背景或边缘偏离了焦点，则被认为构图不佳。印象派画家不折不扣地打破了这一规则。 [caption id="attachment_50810" align="aligncenter" width="368"]

伊特德加·德加（1834-1917）《四个舞者》[/caption] At this time, photography was in its early stages of development. As there was often a difference between what the photographer saw in the viewfinder of his camera and what actually appeared on the negative, photographers would crop their pictures to improve their composition. This resulted in some unusual arrangements which emphasized shapes and forms at the edge of the image. Some of Impressionists, like Degas' in his 'Four Dancers', embraced the asymmetrical effects of cropping and made it a prominent feature of their compositions. 当时，摄影处于发展的早期阶段。由于摄影师在相机取景器中看到的东西与底片上实际出现的东西之间经常存在差异，摄影师会裁剪照片以改善构图。这导致了一些不寻常的安排，强调形状和形式的边缘图像。一些印象派画家，如德加在他的《四个舞者》中所说的，接受了裁剪的不对称效果，并使其成为他们作品的一个显著特征。 摄影的诞生从某种程度上既威胁到了印象主义画家的创作，也在一定程度上推动了画家们的改革。从而使得印象派的创作风格能够和摄影风格形成鲜明的区分。而在艺术类lecture当中，这也是一种常见的出题套路，题目中可能会问到why does the professor mention photography? 或者会直接问摄影对绘画的影响。（同学们也可以参考上次这篇文章 ?托福听力背景知识-Realism现实主义特点及各领域代表人物这其中也涉及到了摄影对肖像画艺术的影响。）所以，关于绘画和摄影之间的关系，同学们也需要作为一部分重要的知识背景，作为补充。

四、印象派代表人物

1. Vincent van Gogh 文森特·梵高

Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch post-impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. He was not commercially successful, and his suicide at thirty-seven came after years of depression and poverty. 文森特·威廉·梵高是荷兰后印象派画家，死后成为西方艺术史上最著名、最有影响力的人物之一。在十年中，他创作了大约2100件艺术品，其中包括860幅油画，其中大部分是油画，其中包括风景画、静物画、肖像画和自画像，色彩大胆，富有戏剧性。 其冲动而富有表现力的笔触为现代艺术奠定了基础。但他在事业上并不成功，由于多年的抑郁和贫困，于37岁那年自杀。 [caption id="attachment_50812" align="aligncenter" width="335"]

Vincent van Gogh[/caption]

2. Paul Cézanne 保罗·塞尚

Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavor to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. He was born in Provence and spent most of his life there. He never tired of painting its sun-baked landscape. Cézanne moved to Paris in the early 1860s and associated with advanced artists such as Edouard Manet and the young impressionists. His own early works, however, were very different from theirs. His pigments were dark and heavy, applied with emphatic brushstrokes or palette knife; his subjects were "difficult", sometimes violent and erotic, deeply personal. 保罗·塞尚是法国艺术家和后印象派画家，他的作品奠定了从19世纪的艺术努力概念过渡到20世纪截然不同的艺术世界的基础。他出生于普罗旺斯，一生大部分时间都在那里度过。塞尚热衷于描绘烈日下的风景。他于19世纪60年代初移居巴黎，与爱德华·马内和年轻的印象派画家等先进艺术家交往密切。然而，他自己的早期作品与这些艺术家的作品大不相同。 塞尚绘画时使用的的颜料又黑又重，并用强调的笔触或调色刀涂抹；他的主题是“困难的”，有时暴力和色情，非常个人化。 In the early 1870s his style changed. Working alongside Camille Pissarro in the open air, Cézanne turned to landscapes and adopted the impressionists' broken brushwork and brighter colors. He exhibited with them in 1874 and 1877. Beginning in the late 1870s and increasingly through the next decade, Cézanne's handling of paint became more ordered and systematic. Back in Provence, rejected by critics and working in isolation, his style developed independently. His "constructive stroke," as it is often described, results from penetrating analysis. It represents rather than imitates visual effects. Color relationships render the fundamental nature and connectedness of what Cézanne saw and felt. In his late paintings, those made after about 1895, these color harmonies become more sonorous, autumnal, and the paintings more meditative and melancholy. 19世纪70年代早期，塞尚的风格发生了变化。他与卡米尔·毕沙罗一起在露天工作，他转向风景画，采用了印象派画家破碎的笔触和明亮的色彩。他在1874年和1877年与他们一起展出。从19世纪70年代末开始，在接下来的十年中，塞尚对绘画的处理变得更加有序和系统。回到普罗旺斯后，他被评论家拒绝，独自工作，他的风格独立发展。正如人们常说的那样，他的“建设性的笔触”来自于深入的分析。它代表而不是模仿视觉效果。颜色关系呈现出塞尚所见和所感的基本性质和联系。在他晚期的画作中，那些在1895年以后创作的画作，这些色彩的和声变得更加洪亮、秋意盎然，而画作则更加沉思和忧郁。 [caption id="attachment_50813" align="aligncenter" width="250"]

Paul Cézanne[/caption]

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TD福利 & 领取方式

在了解听力考试中的常见背景话题之外，我们仍需要足够的练习来加强做题能力、加深印象。想要了解更多关于【印象主义艺术】考点和出题套路的同学，可以参考《印象主义的创作风格及特征》这份资料。 [caption id="attachment_50816" align="aligncenter" width="498"]