IELTS LISTENING
Art Gallery
Lecturer:
Q31 Good evening everybody on Welcome to the first in this year’s Siri’s of Public lectures offered by the Art Gallery. As chief curator of the gallery, I was given the honor of presenting the first lecture, and let me tell you I had a difficult time deciding what to talk about tonight. Q32 Being the curator, I naturally know just about everything that’s in this gallery.
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But I wanted to choose an artist to have a wide appeal. That seems only fair, Yes but I didn’t want to talk about someone so well-known that anything I said would be familiar.
I wanted from one modern. My personal preference is for modern art. But again, I wanted to choose someone who had the potential to appeal toe all art lovers, whether they’re attracted to traditional forms, Impressionism, surrealism or what have you. So having spent the last five years as a visiting professor in Barcelona, it’s not surprising that I finally choose to talk about one of the greatest Catalan artists, one whose work is likely to be familiar to many of you Miro.
Look at this and this. This ring any bells. Miro most famous and most widely reproduced works tend to be like this Q33 bright primary colors, with lots of asymmetrical forms. Q34 He painted on large canvases larger than himself, Q35 quite often and his paintings depicted birds, trees, flowers, and other features of the natural world. But Miro produced a great variety of work, and it’s about some of his lesser-known paintings that I would like to speak this evening.
Miro was born in Barcelona in 1893. The son of a Goldsmith, he began to show talent very early and in 1926 went to Paris, where he was drawn to the Surrealists of Montanus. He did not define himself as a surrealist, however. He preferred to stay free to experiment with other artistic styles as he wished.
Miro had an intense dislike of much of the painting on many of the painters who knew. He wished to do something totally different to express his contempt for bourgeois art. And yet, ironically, Miro’s success has made his work much in demand among art collectors of the world. But we can’t really talk about the artist without looking at his art. And that’s what I’d like to do now to take a look at just a few of mirrors works on, think about what it is that makes him special. Special to me and a great number of people who flock every day to the Miro Foundation in Barcelona.
Let’s start with this. One of Miro’s best-known and brightest works Q36 Woman and Bird, a sculpture created in 1982. Q37 It is on display in a park in Barcelona, often known as the Honmiro Park, a huge sculpture towering up into the sky. It reflects Miro’s eternal interest in these themes as well as his more technical interest in materials. Q38 This sculpture is covered in mosaic, which gives it a naive and cheerful appearance. It is interesting that this sculpture was completed in 1982 just a year before mirrors death. I think it shows that towards the end he was feeling as playful as a young man. I think he wanted to share this playful nurse in the park on such a big, very public scale.
I know another representation of a woman. This time just called woman. Q39 This was painted in 1976 a late work for Miro and is the work we often see reproduced or on sailors postcards or posters in gallery shops around the world. So why is it so popular? I think the use of color has something to do with it. People respond to these rounded shapes filled with primary colors, especially on a large canvas like this. Also, the fact that while it is rather surreal, it is still possible to recognize the form of a woman and to see it of the sympathetic representation. It’s a bold, bright painting, and I think that it awakens the reaction in many of us.
And finally, something quite different. There’s still a woman, harsh, even violent work that was completed in 1939 Q40 at a time when Miro was greatly influenced by events of the civil war in Spain. Its title seated woman, too. But it can be hard to find the woman here as she’s been transformed into a rather horrendous creature. So is that how Miro viewed women as grotesque, not a tool. This picture could also be seen a strong with a huge base and solid shoulders to support those who depend on her. In this painting, her arms and neck seem to grow his vegetation out of her shoulders, representing woman as a fertile ground perhaps. We also see here the fish and birds, the moon and stars so typical of Miro work making her a creature of nature and of the heavens as well.
And That’s all we have time for this evening, I’m afraid. I hope that you’ve enjoyed this brief look at Miro’s work and that you will enjoy the other lectures that follow this fun. Thank you and good night.