Vasari's Biographies Of Famous Artists托福听力原文翻译及问题答案

Vasari's Biographies Of Famous Artists托福听力原文翻译及问题答案

一、Vasari's Biographies Of Famous Artists托福听力原文：

NARRATOR:Listen to part of a lecture in an art history class.MALE PROFESSOR:I'm sure you've all heard of the Mona Lisa,the famous painting by Leonardo Da Vinci.The Mona Lisa is a portrait of a woman and it's thought to be the portrait of Lisa Gherardini but that's not certain.In fact,many things about the Mona Lisa remain a mystery.For example,we don't know exactly who commissioned the painting or how long Da Vinci worked on it and there are actually many scholars who think the mystery makes the painting more interesting.I think it places unfortunate limits on our analyses,makes it hard to make strong arguments about the painting.

Anyway—getting to the point—most people today might've never heard of the Mona Lisa—or of many other now-famous works of art for that matter—if it hadn't been for Giorgio Vasari.Giorgio Vasari was an Italian painter,architect and scholar.In the mid-1500s,he wrote a book called Lives of the Most Eminent Painters,Sculptors,and Architects,in which he describes—among many other things—the features of the Mona Lisa,including her famous smile. This book drew a lot of attention to Da Vinci and significantly increased the Mona Lisa's fame. 

As the title suggests,Lives of the Most Eminent Painters,Sculptors and Architects includes biographies not only of Da Vinci but also of many other now famous Italian renaissance artists.This was the first time that a European author had made the personal lives of the artists a central component of an art history book and many a later author followed the example....The more important the artist—in Vasari's view—the longer their biography in the book,

and by far the longest of the biographies is that of Michelangelo—the painter of the Sistine Chapel ceiling and sculptor of the famous statue of David—whose work Vasari adopted as,uh...his benchmark...his reference point for evaluating everyone else's artwork.

Many of the biographies are extremely detailed with all the basic facts about where the artists were born,where they'd worked,who their teachers were and so on.

...But I read Vasari's book cover-to-cover almost every summerI find it a great way to unwind during the summer break and what keeps me coming back to it are the anecdotes,fascinating anecdotes,that give you glimpses in the artist's private lives,their dreams,their fears,their virtues,their vices.

In his book,Vasari also tackled,quite successfully I might add,the enormous task of sorting out which works had been done by which artists,which works belong in the same stylistic categories,which works belong in similar categories in terms of quality and so on,stuff you take for granted today.But again,Vasari was the first European author to do that.A word of caution though:Vasari was not at all averse to,how should I put it,modifying the facts.For example,in his book,he has a touching description of Da Vinci's death,in which Da Vinci dies in the arms of his last patron:The king of France,Francis the First.

Now,Da Vinci did spend the last years of his life working in the court of Francis the First.Vasari seemed to have overlooked a minor detail,however,the well documented fact that the king was far away when Da Vinci breathed his last breath.But why let the fact stand in the way of a great story,right?Since Vasari's tales are,as I've said,so compelling and because they have been repeated by so many subsequent authors,they're still often taken at face value.Even today.No questions asked.

二、Vasari's Biographies Of Famous Artists托福听力中文翻译：

旁白：在艺术史课上听一节课的一部分。男教授：我相信大家都听说过达的名画《蒙娜丽莎》。蒙娜丽莎是一个女人的肖像，人们认为它是丽莎·格拉迪尼的肖像，但这并不确定。事实上，关于蒙娜丽莎的许多事情仍然是个谜。例如，我们不知道这幅画是谁委托创作的，也不知道达芬奇创作了多长时间。实际上，有很多学者认为这幅画之所以神秘，是因为它更有趣。我认为这给我们的分析带来了不幸的限制，使我们很难对这幅画进行有力的论证。

无论如何，如果不是乔治·瓦萨里的话，今天大多数人可能从来没有听说过《蒙娜丽莎》或其他许多著名的艺术作品。乔治·瓦萨里是意大利画家、建筑师和学者。16世纪中期，他写了一本名为《最杰出的画家、雕塑家和建筑师的生活》的书，在书中他描述了蒙娜丽莎的许多其他特征，包括她著名的微笑&nbsp；这本书吸引了很多人对达的注意，并大大提高了蒙娜丽莎的声誉&nbsp；

正如标题所示，最杰出的画家、雕塑家和建筑师的生平不仅包括达的传记，还包括许多其他现在著名的意大利文艺复兴艺术家的传记。这是欧洲作家第一次将艺术家的个人生活作为艺术史书的核心组成部分，后来许多作家也效仿了这一做法。。。。在瓦萨里看来，艺术家越重要，他们在书中的传记就越长，

到目前为止，传记中最长的是米开朗基罗的传记，他是西斯廷教堂天花板的画家和著名的大卫雕像的雕塑家，他的作品被瓦萨里采纳为，呃。。。他的基准。。。他评估其他人艺术品的参考点。

许多传记都极其详细地介绍了艺术家的出生地、工作地点、老师等基本情况。

...但我几乎每年夏天都会阅读瓦萨里的书封面。我发现这是一种在暑假放松的好方法，而让我回到这本书的是那些轶事，引人入胜的轶事，它们让你瞥见了这位艺术家的私生活，他们的梦想，他们的恐惧，他们的美德，他们的恶习。

在他的书中，瓦萨里还非常成功地解决了一个巨大的任务，那就是整理哪些艺术家完成了哪些作品，哪些作品属于相同的风格类别，哪些作品在质量上属于相似的类别，等等，这些你今天认为理所当然的事情。但同样，瓦萨里是第一个这样做的欧洲作家。不过需要注意的是：瓦萨里根本不反对修改事实，我该怎么说呢。例如，在他的书中，他对达的死有一个感人的描述，达死在他的最后一位赞助人的怀抱中：法国国王弗朗西斯一世。

现在，达确实在弗朗西斯一世的宫廷里度过了他生命的最后几年。然而，瓦萨里似乎忽略了一个小细节，这是一个有充分证据证明的事实，即达·芬奇最后一口气时，国王在很远的地方。但是为什么要让事实阻碍一个伟大的故事，对吗？正如我所说，由于瓦萨里的故事如此引人入胜，而且后来的许多作者都在重复这些故事，所以它们仍然经常被视为表面价值。即使是今天。没有问题。

三、Vasari's Biographies Of Famous Artists托福听力问题：

Q1:1.What is the lecture mainly about?

A.Vasari's efforts to prove a theory about the Mona Lisa.

B.Vasari's friendships with da Vinci and Michelangelo.

C.Experiences that shaped Vasari's approach to art history.

D.The influence of Vasari's book in the field of art history.

Q2:2.What is the professor's attitude toward the mystery associated with the Mona Lisa?

A.He is confident that most of the important questions about the painting will eventually be answered.

B.He is displeased that so little is known about the painting.

C.He thinks that certain theories about the painting are probably accurate.

D.He thinks the mystery has made the painting more famous than it deserves to be.

Q3:3.According to the professor,what was Vasari the first European writer to do?[Click on 2 answers.]

A.Take a biographical approach to art history.

B.Express negative opinions about popular artists.

C.Classify works of art in a systematic way.

D.Ask famous artists to comment on their own work.

Q4:4.How did Vasari treat Michelangelo's work in Lives of the most Eminent Painters,Sculptors,and Architects?

A.He considered Michelangelo's work second only to that of da Vinci.

B.He questioned whether Michelangelo had in fact painted all the paintings attributed to him.

C.He intentionally excluded any mention of Michelangelo's earliest works.

D.He used Michelangelo's work as a standard for judging the work of other artists.

Q5:5.What feature of Vasari's discussions of artists does the professor find most interesting?

A.The descriptions of towns where artists were born

B.The information about artists'work experience

C.The details about artists'personal lives

D.The grouping of artists into specific movements

Q6:6.Why does the professor mention da Vinci's death?

A.To point out an emotional difficulty that Vasari experienced when writing his book.

B.To explain why many scholars today find Vasari's book outdated.

C.To provide an example of an inaccurate story in Vasari's book.

D.To provide an example of a relationship between a famous artist and a wealthy patron.

四、Vasari's Biographies Of Famous Artists托福听力答案：

A1:正确答案：D

A2:正确答案：B

A3:正确答案：AC

A4:正确答案：D

A5:正确答案：C

A6:正确答案：C