Галузь підготовки 02. 03 Гуманітарні науки напрям 020303 Українська мова і література

On 25 October 1881 a little boy was born in Malaga, Spain. It was a difficult birth and to help him breathe, cigar smoke was blown into his nose! But despite being the youngest ever smoker, this baby grew up to be one of the 20th century's greatest painters – Pablo Picasso.

Picasso showed his truly exceptional talent from a very young age. His first word was lapiz «Spanish for pensil» and he learned to draw before he could talk. He was the only son in the family and very good-looking, so he was thoroughly spoilt. He hated school and often refused to go unless his doting parents allowed him to take one of his father's pet pigeons with him!

Apart from pigeons, his great love was art, and when in 1891 his father, who was an amateur artist, got a job as a drawing teacher at a college, Pablo went with him to the college. He often watched his father paint and sometimes was allowed to help. One evening his father was painting a picture of their pigeons when he had to leave the room. He returned to find that Pablo had completed the picture, and it was so amazingly beautiful and lifelike that he gave his son his own palette and brushes and never painted again. Pablo was just 13.

From then onwards there was no stopping him. Many people realized that he was a genius but he disappointed those who wanted him to become a traditional painter. He was always breaking the rules of artistic tradition and shocked the public with his strange and powerful pictures. He is probably best known for his 'Cubist' pictures, which used only simple geometric shapes. His paintings of people were often made up of triangles and squares with their features in the wrong place. His work changes our ideas about art, and to millions of people modem art means the work of Picasso. "Guernica", which he painted in 1937, records the bombing of that little Basque town during the Spanish Civil War, and is undisputedly one of the masterpieces of modern painting.

Picasso created over 6,000 paintings, drawings and sculptures. Today a 'Picasso' costs several million pounds. Once, when the French Minister of Culture was visiting Picasso, the artist accidentally spilt some paint on the Minister's trousers. Picasso apologized and wanted to pay for them to be cleaned, but the Minister said, 'Non! Please, Monsieur Picasso, just sign my trousers!'

Picasso died of heart failure during an attack of influenza in 1973.

1. Read the text about the painter and answer the questions about him.

1. 
   Where was he born?
   
2. 
   When was he born?
   
3. 
   What do you learn about his childhood?
   
4. 
   Which people played a part in this career?
   
5. 
   What do you thinks were the most important events in this life?
   
6. 
   What do you learn of his works?
   
7. 
   When did he die?
   

1. Pablo Picasso like going to school unless he allowed to take one of his father's pigeons with him.

2. His father_____ paint again after Pablo _____completed the picture of the pigeons.

3. Some paint spilt on the French Minister's trousers when he visiting Picasso.

In 2006 Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery will be 150 years old. It will be an important event in the cultural life of the capital. This largest collection of Russian pictorial art bears the name of its founder, Pavel Michailovich Tretyakov.

The merchant Tretyakov was a man who devoted his life to the creation of a national art gallery. At first, Tretyakov collected only the paintings of contemporary Russian masters and maintained particularly close ties with the Peredvizhniki. The largest art society of Russia in the second half of the 19^th century, this group united nearly all progressive artists of that time. It received its name when, after its exhibitions in Moscow and Petersburg, it travelled from town to town and acquainted thousands with the works of the most advanced artists.

Tretyakov was personally connected with most of the Peredvizhniki, he attentively followed the progress of their work and bought the best of their paintings. Many pictures of the finest Russian painters, including Kramskoy, Repin, Surikov, Vereschagin, Victor Vasnetsov, Levitan, and Serov were bought by Tretyakov as soon as they were finished.

He also commissioned a series of portraits of outstanding men of Russian culture, a collection which has retained its value to the present day.

Ultimately, Tretyakov resolved to broaden the scope of his collection and began to acquire the paintings of masters of the 18^th and the early 19^th centuries. To these he added a collection of the finest works of the old Russian icon painters.

The gallery grew, and soon Tretyakov's home in Lavrushinsky Street could no longer hold all the pictures. The construction of a special hall for his paintings was begun in about 1870.

The main building which houses the collection today was designed by the painter Victor Vasnetsov, an authority on Old Russian architecture, and it is in this style that the gallery was built.

The range of the gallery was considerably widened in Soviet times. It now included widely representative collections of Russian sculptures, drawings, engravings, lithographs and water-colours.

From time to time the gallery arranges one-man expositions of the works of outstanding Russian artists and other masters. Other expositions are devoted to definite themes or genres: paintings on historical subjects, caricature, water-colours, and so on.

A Soviet art section added to the Tretykov Gallery originally contained the best works of artists done in the first decades of the Socialist state. This collection is constantly renewed with the finest works of modem artists. All-Russian Art Exhibitions, held at regular intervals to enable artists to demonstrate their achievements before the entire country, are likewise arranged at the Tretyakov Gallery.

Whereas the pictures were once hung side by side in three rows, the gallery long ago adopted the principle of widely spaced expositions: no more than two rows with wide intervals between the pictures. This enables the spectator to give undivided attention to each exhibit, to capture its individual meaning and character. The arrangement is chronological, except when it is desired to display the complete works of a single master.

The staff of the gallery do their best to popularize the art treasures of their native land. The museum receives more than a million visitors every year including more than ten thousand organized groups of visitors. The groups who come to the gallery for the first time are conducted about on a general survey to acquaint them with the finest and most important works of art. Other groups are given a more detailed view of various phases of Russian art.

The gallery besides arranging lectures for the visiting groups has a special auditorium where research workers lecture on the works of classic Russian painters, sculptors and graphic artists. These lectures are given in the halls exhibiting the works of the artist in question.

Intensive scientific work is conducted in the library and archives of the gallery which has a large fund of books and manuscripts.

The national treasure house of Russian art has indeed become a school of culture.

1. 
   How old is Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery?
   

1. 
   Who was the founder of the largest collection of Russian
   pictorial art?
   

2. 
   What did Tretyakov collect at first?
   
3. 
   Whom was Tretyakov personally connected with?
   

2. 
   When was the construction of a special hail begun for Tretykov paintings?
   

4. 
   How many people visit the Gallery?
   

3. 
   Has the gallery got a special auditorium where research
   workers lecture on the works of classic Russian painters, sculptors and graphic artists?
   

5. 
   What is the Tretyakov Gallery now?
   

The first ever Turner exhibition in the former USSR (oils and water-colours from British art galleries) at Moscow's Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts was devoted to the 200^th anniversary of Turner's birth (1775-1851).

When one looks at his wonderful paintings, one cannot help thinking about another man – the great Russian naturalist Kliment Timiryazev. He first saw Turner's work in reproduction, and later he went to see his pictures every time he was in England. "Probably", Timiryazev said, "there is some sort of an inner connection between the logic of the explorer of nature and aesthetic feelings of those who love nature's beauty".

That is why, even though being very busy with his research, Timiryazev, already well advanced in years, decided to translate the book of an English art critic C.L. Hind, "Turner".

Having a deep understanding of the English painter he also wrote a long preface to the book "Natural Science and the Landscape" which is important from the scientific point of view and added his own comments to the book expressing his own opinion and disagreeing with the author.

The translation published in Russia in 1910 was a good present to Russian readers. It was reprinted in Timiryazev's collected works published in 1940.

Timiryazev, who spent his life solving the great mystery – the role of sunlight in the synthesis of living plant tissue, which means the mystery of life on earth in general, – was interested in Turner all his life. For light and colour were for Timiryazev in biology what they are for a painter in art. The study of these factors has led to new revelations both in botany and art.

Timiryazev was inspired in translating the book by his interest in Russian art in general and, above all, in landscape painting, because he agreed with Dmitry Mendeleyev, the outstanding Russian chemist, that "the study of outer nature helps in making correct assessments of even the inner nature of man".

1. 
   Having a deep understanding of the English painter he also wrote a long preface to the book "Turner".
   
2. 
   The translation published in Russia in 1912 was a good
   present to Russian readers.
   
3. 
   The first ever Turner exhibition in the country at St.
   Petersburg's Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts was devoted to the 200^th anniversary of Turner's birth.
   
4. 
   Timiryazev first saw Turner's work in reproduction, and later he went to see his pictures every time he was in England.
   

1. 
   Who was the exhibition devoted to?
   
2. 
   What is the bond between Timiryazev and Turner?
   
3. 
   What did Timiryazev decide to translate?
   
4. 
   Which book is important from the scientific point of view?
   
5. 
   When was the translation published in Russia?
   
6. 
   When and where was the translation reprinted?
   
7. 
   What did Timiryazev try to solve?
   
8. 
   What did Timiryazev do all his life?
   
9. 
   What was important for Timiryazev in biology what they are for a painter in art?
   

Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich (1840-1893), Russian composer, the foremost of the 19th century.Tchaikovsky was born in Votkinsk, in the western Ural area of the country. He studied law in Saint Petersburg and took music classes at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. There his teachers included Russian composer and pianist Anton Rubinstein, from whom Tchaikovsky subsequently took advanced instruction in orchestration. In 1866 composer-pianist Nicholas Rubinstein, Anton's brother, obtained for Tchaikovsky the post of teacher of harmony at the Moscow Conservatory. There the young composer met dramatist Aleksandr Nikolayevich Ostrovsky, who wrote the libretto for Tchaikovsky's first opera, The Voyevoda (1868). From this period also date Tchaikovsky’s operas Undine (1869) and The Oprichnik (1872); the Piano Concerto no. 1 in B-flat Minor (1875); the symphonies no. 1 (called “Winter Daydreams,”1868); and the overture Romeo and Juliet (1869; revised in 1870 and 1880).

1812 As a composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky was greatly influenced by the prevailing sentiment of nationalism among top Russian composers. From 1876 to 1890 Tchaikovsky was supported by a wealthy patron, which allowed him the opportunity to produce a great deal of work, especially operas. He was a supreme master of orchestral colour and used traditional Russian material, although it is shrouded in Western art music tradition. His 1812 overture, composed in 1880, is a graphic musical description of the forced retreat of Napoleon’s armies from Moscow.

In 1876 Tchaikovsky became acquainted with Madam Nadezhda von Meck, a wealthy widow, whose enthusiasm for the composer's music led her to give him an annual allowance. Fourteen years later, however, Madame von Meck, believing herself financially ruined, abruptly terminated the subsidy. Although Tchaikovsky's other sources of income were by then adequate to sustain him, he was wounded by the sudden defection of his patron without apparent cause, and he never forgave her. The period of his connection with Madame von Meck was one of rich productivity for Tchaikovsky. To this time belong the operas Eugene Onegin (1879), Mazeppa (1883), and The Sorceress (1887); the ballets Swan Lake (1876) and The Sleeping Beauty (1889); the orchestral works Marche Slave (1876), Capriccio Italien (1880), Serenade (1880), Manfred symphony (1885), the fantasy overture Hamlet (1888); and numerous songs. Meanwhile, in 1877,Tchaikovsky had married Antonina Milyukova, a music student at the Moscow Conservatory who had written to the composer declaring her love for him. The marriage was unhappy from the outset, and the couple soon separated.

From 1887 to 1891 Tchaikovsky made several highly successful concert tours,conducting his own works before large, enthusiastic audiences in the major cities of Europe and the United States.

His most popular works are characterized by richly melodic passages in which sections suggestive of profound melancholy frequently alternate with dancelike movements derived from folk music. Like his contemporary, Russian composer Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky was an exceptionally gifted orchestrator; his ballet scores in particular contain many striking effects of orchestral coloration. His symphonic works, popular for their melodic content, are also strong (and often unappreciated) in their abstract thematic development. In his best operas, such as Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades, he used highly suggestive melodic passages to depict a dramatic situation concisely and with poignant effect. His ballets, notably Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty, have never been surpassed for their melodic intensity and instrumental brilliance. Tchaikovsky also extended the range of the symphonic poem, and his works in this genre, including Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, are notable for their richly melodic evocation of the moods of the literary works on which they are based.

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s work combined Russian and European influences. His music was the first by a Russian to be included regularly in concert programs in Europe. Tchaikovsky’s music for the ballets The Nutcracker (1891-1892) and Swan Lake (1876) is some of the best-known classical music of all time.

1. Answer the following questions:

1. Where was Tchaikovsky born?

2. What did Tchaikovsky study in Saint Petersburg?

3. What was his first opera?

4. From 1876 to 1890 who supported Tchaikovsky in producing a great deal of work?

5. What role did Madam Nadezhda von Meck play in Tchaikovky’s life?

6. Which period of life was one of rich productivity for Tchaikovsky?

7. Did he make the concert tours abroad?

8. What features are his most popular works characterized by?

9. Have you ever listened to Tchaikovsky’s works? What is your favourite one?

Armstrong, Louis (1901-1971), American jazz, cornet, and trumpet player, singer, bandleader, and popular entertainer. Armstrong overcame poverty, a lack of formal education, and racism to become one of the most innovative and influential musicians of the 20th century, and one of the most beloved entertainers in the world.

Armstrong influenced not only trumpeters but, directly or indirectly, nearly all subsequent instrumental and vocal jazz music, as well as a wide range of popular music. He is perhaps best known for helping to pioneer a style known as swing, which later formed the basis for most jazz and rhythm-and-blues (R&B) music. In addition to his technical virtuosity and creative melodic ideas, Armstrong was renowned for playing and singing with passionate, joyful feeling and an exuberant tone. He established the expressive possibilities of the young art form of jazz and set fundamental standards for improvisation.

Born Louis Daniel Armstrong in New Orleans, Louisiana, he grew up in dire poverty and did not attend school beyond the fifth grade. As a youth, Armstrong joined a vocal quartet and sharpened his musical ear for harmony by singing with the group on the streets. From about 1912 to 1914 he was incarcerated for delinquency at the Colored Waifs' home in New Orleans, where he was given a cornet to play in the home's brass band. While there, he learned the cornet and other musical instruments and dedicated himself to becoming a professional musician.

About 1917 Armstrong attracted the attention of cornetist King Oliver, who played a style of jazz known as New Orleans, and began a fruitful apprenticeship with the respected musician. In 1922 Armstrong made his first recordings with Oliver the following year. Armstrong moved to New York City in 1924, where he joined the band of American pianist Fletcher Henderson and expanded his reputation as a leading soloist in the style of music known as hot jazz.

After 1925 Armstrong began leading his own band and also recorded with some of the most renowned blues singers of the time, including American singer Bessie Smith. From 1925 to 1928 he led a recording group called the Hot Fives.Their recordings include the songs “Cornet Chop Suey” and “Big Butter and Egg Man” in 1926; “Potato Head Blues” and “Struttin' with Some Barbecue” in 1927; and, in 1928, “West End Blues,” and “Weather Bird,” a duet with American pianist Earl Hines. In these recordings, which are considered some of the most seminal and enduring pieces in the history of jazz, Armstrong abandoned the traditional collective improvisation of New Orleans-style jazz and almost singlehandedly transformed the music from a group art into an art form for the individual soloist.

In 1947, prompted by the commercial decline of big-band music, Armstrong formed a septet called the All Stars. This band, which Armstrong led until 1968, became largely a vehicle for his own playing and singing Armstrong accumulated affectionate nicknames over the course of his career, including Dippermouth, Satchelmouth, Ambassador Satchmo, Satch, and Pops. He became an unofficial musical ambassador from the United States, performing all over the world.

Armstrong was one of the first artists to record scat singing (the singing of improvised wordless sounds rather than formal lyrics), in the song “Heebie Jeebies” (1926), and eventually his voice became one of the most recognizable of the 20th century. In part because of his vocals, a number of his records became hits, including “Blueberry Hill" (1956), “Mack the Knife” (1956), “Hello Dolly” (1964), and “What a Wonderful World” (1967). In 1976 a statue dedicated to Armstrong was erected in New Orleans and a park was named in his honor.

1. 
   Who was Louis Armstrong?
   
2. 
   What was he renowned for?
   
3. 
   How did he sharpen his musical ear for harmony?
   
4. 
   Where did he learn the cornet?
   
5. 
   What respected musicians did Armstrong play with?
   
6. 
   What recordings of the Hot Fives are considered some of the most seminal pieces in the history of jazz? Prove it.
   
7. 
   Did Armstrong have any nickname over the course of his career?
   
8. 
   Where was a statue dedicated to Armstrong erected?
   
9. 
   How do you understand the following expression “scat singing”?
   
10. 
    What songs of Louis Armstrong did you listen to?
    

Boxing, athletic contest between two persons, each of whom uses the fists to try to knock the other unconscious or to inflict enough punishment to cause the opponent either to quit or to be judged beaten. A boxing match is conducted under established rules and procedures and has a referee, judges, and timekeeper. The primary aim of each participant is to strike blows to the head and torso of the opponent that will knock down and render the boxer incapable of rising to a standing position and defending himself within 10 seconds. Originally the term prize-fighting was used when money was at stake, but the term professional boxing now bears the same meaning.

In ancient Greece, boxing was a popular amateur competitive sport and was included in the first Olympic Games. In ancient Rome, boxers often wore the cestus, a metal-studded leather hand covering with which they maimed and even killed their opponents, sometimes as part of gladiatorial spectacles. The sport declined in popularity after the fall of the Roman Empire. In the 18th century, boxing was revived in London in the form of bare-knuckle prizefights in which the contestants fought for money and the spectators made wagers on the outcome.

The first boxer to be recognized as a heavyweight champion was James Figg, in 1719. In 1743 a later champion, John Broughton, formulated a set of rules standardizing some practices and eliminating others, such as hitting opponents when they are down or seizing opponents by the hair. Broughton's rules governed boxing until 1838, when the Original London Prize Ring rules, based on those of Broughton, were devised. Modifications known as the Revised London Prize Ring rules were drawn up in 1853, and they controlled the sport until the end of the 19th century, when the Queensberry rules came into use. These rules were drafted in 1857 by a boxer, John Graham Chambers, under the auspices of John Sholto Douglas, 8th marquis of Queensberry.

Emphasizing boxing skill rather than wrestling and agility over strength, the Queensberry rules helped to undo the popular image of boxing as a savage, brutal brawl. The new rules prohibited bare-fisted fighting, wrestling, hugging, hitting opponents while they are helpless, and fighting to the finish. Under the Broughton rules, a downed man was allowed 30 seconds to square off at a distance of 1 yd (90 cm) from the opponent, aided by handlers if necessary. If the boxer failed to square off, that fighter was considered beaten. Under the London Prize Ring rules, the boxer had to reach scratch (a mark located in the middle of the ring) unaided within 8 seconds after the 30-second time lapse; and a round ended when a boxer went down. Under the Queensberry rules, matches were divided into 3-minute rounds with 1-minute intervals of rest between them. A contestant who remained down, either recumbent or on one knee, after 10 seconds lost the match. The rules also stipulated that matches be conducted in a roped-in square, called a ring, measuring 7.3 m on a side.

The last bare-knuckle heavyweight champion was the American John L. Sullivan, who fought and won the last sanctioned bare-knuckle fight in 1889, against Jake Kilrain. Fighting with gloves under the Queensberry rules, the popular Sullivan lost the world heavyweight boxing championship to James J. Corbett in New Orleans, Louisiana, on September 7, 1892. The Queensberry rules have remained the code governing the conduct of professional boxing.