20100304 The Art of Appeciating Art (2)

The Art of Appeciating Art

The Mona Lisa
Take, for example, the most famous painting in the world - the Mona Lisa in the Louvre in Paris. People from all over the world throng to see her, take her picture and move on. Knowing more about her can help people appreciate her more. Painted over four years by Leonardo da Vinci beginning in 1502, she is thought to be Lisa Gherardini, a businessman's wife. To paint her, da Vinci used the sfumato technique, a time-consuming method that requires the artist to layer tiny dots of associated colors.

The finished work gives the appearance of having no lines. And then there is her smile. In the 1500s, women in Portraits were not to smile widely nor look too serious, The mysterious smile of the Mona Lisa suits the culture perfectly. And it makes people wonder what she is smiling about. Eugene Delacroix, a 19th century French painter declared. "A picture is nothing but a bridge between the soul of the artist and that of the spectator." We should take time to cross that bridge.


throng v. 蜂擁而至/群集
=> move in a large group, come with excitement to see something
throng to do something 蜂擁而至去做某事
eg: Thousands of fans thronged to watch Michael Jackson's film.
=> 成千的歌迷蜂擁著要去看Michael Jackson的電影。

throng v. 擠滿
eg: The small town was thronged with tourists during the weekends.
在週末期間，小鎮擠滿了觀光客。

consume v. 消耗
time-consuming adj. 耗時的/費時的
eg: Coaching a football team (訓練足球隊) is a time-consuming task.
eg: Collecting all the required data for the research is incredibly time-consuming.

declare v. 宣告/宣佈/表示
eg: The congressman declared his support for the proposal.
eg: He declared his innocence throughout his trial.
eg: The country had no other choice but to declare war(宣戰) on their enemy.

Mona Lisa 蒙娜麗莎
Louvre n. 羅浮宮(法國藝術博物館)

mysterious adj. 神祕的/不可思議的

//== Chat room ==//

portrait n. 肖像/肖像畫
=> 蒙娜麗莎就是一幅肖像畫，廣義來講portrait也可以指一個人或是一群人的相片
=> portrait也可以指人物的描寫，可以用電影或是書來呈現
eg: family portrait 全家福的照片

self portait

biography n. 傳記
=> 一本關於某個人物的書也可以叫做biography