2012年12月1日雅思阅读机经[A类]

Reading Passage 3

Title:

Art

Question types:

判断

配对

文章内容回顾

关于托尔斯泰的艺术观，即关于艺术的本质问题。讲他对艺术是什么观点。他最大的贡献不在于给出了艺术的定义，而是在于提出了一系列问题如何去判断一个作品是否属于art。他认为艺术家应该是业余的，不应该是职业化的，还批判了传统的主流观点关于构成艺术作品的要素，例如beauty, entertainment什么的；然后继续批判很多传统的艺术品都是counterfeit的，这些作品都有“imitation", "striking"等特点。

英文原文阅读

According to Tolstoy, art must create a specific emotional link between artist and audience, one that "affects" the viewer. Thus, real art requires the capacity to unite people via communication (clearness and genuineness are therefore crucial values). This aesthetic conception led Tolstoy to widen the criteria of what exactly a work of art is. He believed that the concept of art embraces any human activity in which one emitter, by means of external signs, transmits previously experienced feelings. Tolstoy offers an example of this: a boy that has experienced fear after an encounter with a wolf later relates that experience, infecting the hearers and compelling them to feel the same fear that he had experienced—that is a perfect example of a work of art. As communication, this is good art, because it is clear, it is sincere, and it is singular (focused on one emotion).

However, genuine "infection" is not the only criterion for good art. The good art vs. bad art issue unfolds into two directions. One is the conception that the stronger the infection, the better is the art. The other concerns the subject matter that accompanies this infection, which leads Tolstoy to examine whether the emotional link is a feeling that is worth creating. Good art, he claims, fosters feelings of universal brotherhood. Bad art inhibits such feelings. All good art has a Christian message, because only Christianity teaches an absolute brotherhood of all men. However, this is "Christian" only in a limited meaning of the word. Art produced by artistic elites is almost never good, because the upper class has entirely lost the true core of Christianity.

Furthermore, Tolstoy also believed that art that appeals to the upper class will feature emotions that are peculiar to the concerns of that class. Another problem with a great deal of art is that it reproduces past models, and so it is not properly rooted in a contemporary and sincere expression of the most enlightened cultural ideals of the artist's time and place. To cite one example, ancient Greek art extolled virtues of strength, masculinity, and heroism according to the values derived from its mythology. However, since Christianity does not embrace these values (and in some sense values the opposite, the meek and humble), Tolstoy believes that it is unfitting for people in his society to continue to embrace the Greek tradition of art.

Among other artists, he specifically condemns Wagner and Beethoven as examples of overly cerebral artists, who lack real emotion. Furthermore, Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 cannot claim to be able to "infect" its audience, as it pretends at the feeling of unity and therefore cannot be considered good art.

题型难度分析

判断和配对题是经典的搭配，前者相比之下，稍微容易，是应该把握分数之处。

题型技巧分析

段落细节配对难度较大，建议考生放在本篇文章所有题型的最后去做。做时注意切不可逐题去原文整篇文章搜寻答案，这样会导致文章来来回回看很多遍，耗时太长。

1. 划出所有题目的keywords, 同时考虑到有可能出现近义替换的词，有针对性的去原文寻找答案。比如：看到be conscious of立刻想到雅思高频近义替换是be aware of…, 看到reproduce想到copy。

2. 某些题目可以对题目进行细致的分析。平时通过精读多多熟悉文章结构安排，了解行文模式。

3. 做题时以文章为基准，每看一段，浏览题目中的keywords是否与其相关。

剑桥雅思推荐原文练习

剑4 The Aim and Nature of Archaeology

考试趋势分析和备考指导：

1. heading题卷土重来，预测继11月份后，依然是12月考试的主题。

2. 配对继续延续本年度最热题型，尤其是细节配对，是考生们复习的重点也是难点。

3. 判断题的题量持续稳定，三篇中有两篇都有，所以考生们应在判断题中多拿分数。

4. 文章话题中，讲述某门专业的（如此次的art）向来有一定难度，学会把握文章结构和背景知识很重要。

5. 有旧话题和文章的出现，考生应多关注机经和剑桥系列真题文章。