ЗападноеврЗападноевропейское искусство от Джотто до Рембрандта

5. To this day a «Jan Steen household» is the Dutch expression for the harmony of the perfect bourgeois household.

6. One of the greatest Dutch landscapes is the Avenue at Middelbarnis by Meyndert Hobbema.

II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?

1. What system produced the «little masters»? In what did they specialize? Were all the «little masters» of high quality?

2. What was Jan van Goyen famous for? What did he like to paint? What is Van Goyen's masterpiece? What is depicted in this picture?

3. What did Jacob van Ruisdael paint in 1670? What is this landscape noted for? How is the immensity of the space increased?

4. What did Albert Cuyp paint in 1650? How did he intensify the space?

5. What is represented in the Linen Cupboard ? How did De Hooch render the religious order of the bourgeois life? What did the painter show by means of pictures on the wall?

6. What kind of picture is the World Upside Down ? What does it demonstrate?

7. What do Dutch still lifes depict? Who was one of the chief practitioners of Dutch still lifes? What did he demonstrate in his paintings? What did he establish?

III. I. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:

genre scenes; a sense of composition and colour; translucent browns; still life; polished silver; the harmony of the bourgeois household; to establish the relationships between transparent and mat surfaces; vantage point; to be of extremely high quality; the realm of space and light; to appeal to the eye and the palate; to determine the mood of the scene; the celestial architecture of shifting clouds; dashing brushwork; windmills and spires; breakfast pieces; to make pictures lively; housemaid; a monochromatic vision; moralizing picture; carved and inlaid cabinet; according to the compositional principles; sketchy touches of the brush; to handle figures with conviction and power; burlesque; religious scenes; riverscapes; seascapes; travelscapes; hunting scenes.

II. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:

оживить картину; стремительные мазки; царство пространства и света; система открытого рынка; «завтраки»; начищенное серебро; жанровая живопись; дорожный пейзаж; переместить сцену на кухню; моралистическая картина; морские битвы; эскизные мазки; специализироваться по отдельным видам тематики; шумные сцены в таверне; небесная архитектура движущихся облаков; чувство композиции и цвета; одноцветная картина; прославлять гармонию буржуазного быта; натюрморт; возродить поздне-готический бурлеск; резной инкрустированный комод; великолепная панорама; место, дающее хороший обзор.

III. Make up sentences of your own with the given phrases.

IV. Arrange the following in the pairs of synonyms:

a) remote; to fluctuate; shimmering; burlesque; transparent; celestial;

b) to wave; distant; glowing; parody; translucent; heavenly.

IV. Here are names of the «Little Masters». Match them up to the titles of the paintings. Describe these works of art.

1. Pieter De riooch

2. W i I lem С laesz Heda

3. Jan van Goyen

4. Jan Steen

5. Aelbert Cuyp

6. Meyndert Hobbema

7. Jacob van Ruisdael

a. Landscape with Cattle

b. Still Life

c. Avenue at Middelbarnis

d. A View of Haarlem

e. The World Upside Down

f. Linen Cupboard

g. River Scene

V. Translate the text into English and Figures.

Станковая живопись – основное достижение голландского искусства XVII в. Бытовая живопись стала одним из ведущих жанров. В истории искусства создатели этого жанра называются «малыми голландцами». Голландцы хотели видеть в картинах весь мир. Каждый состоятельный (well-to-do) голландец считал картину лучшим украшением своего жилища. Большой спрос и связанная с этим конкуренция вызвали специализацию художников по отдельным видам тематики: одни писали портреты, другие – жанровые сцены, натюрморты, пейзажи: городские, сельские, дорожные. Расцвет пейзажной живописи в голландской школе относится к середине XVII в. Крупнейшим мастером реалистического пейзажа был Якоб ван Рейсдал.

Наивысшего расцвета достиг натюрморт. Виллем Хеда чаще всего изображает «завтраки»: блюда с окороком или пирогом на скромно сервированном столе. С течением времени «завтраки» Хеды сменяются роскошными «десертами» Калфа. На смену простой утвари приходят мраморные столы, ковровые скатерти, серебряные кубки, хрустальные бокалы.

VI. Summarize the text.

VII. Topics for discussion.

1. Dutch landscape.

2. Dutch genre painting.

3. Dutch still-life.

Recognized today as one of the most brilliant of all portraitists, Frans Hals was probably born in Antwerp and was brought to Haarlem as a child. Interested in human face and figure, Hals was blessed with a gift for catching the individual in a moment of action, feeling, perception, or expression and recording that moment with unerring strokes. Among his early commissions were group portraits of the militia companies that had been largely responsible for defending the new Dutch republic in the hostile world; these paintings radiate its self-confidence and optimism. Hals usually shows the citizen-soldiers in the midst of the banquets. The compositions, picturing a dozen or more males, mostly corpulent and middle-aged, each of whom had paid equally and expected to be recognizable, were not conductive to imaginative painting. The predecessors of Hals had composed these group portraits in alignments hardly superior compositionally to a modern class photograph. It was the genius of Rembrandt to raise them to a level of high drama. But Hals in his Banquet of the Officers of the Saint George Guard Company , of 1616 has a superb job within the limitations of the traditional type. The moment is relaxed, the gentlemen turn toward each other or toward the painter as if he had been painting the whole group at once, which was not certainly the case. Massive Baroque diagonals – the curtain pulled aside, the flag, the poses, the ruffs – tie the picture together into a rich pattern of white and flashing colours against the black costumes. Broad brushstrokes indicate the passage of light on colour with a flash and sparkle unknown even to Rubens.

The warmth of Hals's early style is seen in The Laughing Cavalier . The date 1624 and the subject's age 26 are inscribed in the background, and since the Cavalier's diagonal shadow also falls on it, it is clearly a wall. The Caravaggesque nowhere is thus converted into a definite here. The wall is irradiated with light and seems insubstantial. The armours proclivities of the young man are indicated by the arrows, torches and bees of Cupid and the winged staff and hat of Mercury embroidered in red, silver and gold on the dark brown of his slashed sleeve, with his glowing complexion, dangerous moustaches, snowy ruff and dashing hat, the subject is the symbol of Baroque gallantry. The climax of the painting is the taunting smile on which every compositional force converges.