托福閱讀真題Official 44 Passage 2（一）

托福閱讀真題Official 44 Passage 2（一）

The Use of the Camera Obscura

The precursor of the modern camera,the camera obscura is a darkened enclosure into which light is admitted through a lens in a small hole.The image of the illuminated area outside the enclosure is thrown upside down as if by magic onto a surface in the darkened enclosure.This technique was known as long ago as the fifth century B.C.in China.Aristotle also experimented with it in the fourth century B.C.,and Leonardo da Vinci described it in his notebooks in 1490.In 1558 Giovanni Battista Della Porta wrote in his twenty-volume work Magia naturalis(meaning“natural magic”)instructions for adding a convex lens to improve the quality of the image thrown against a canvas or panel in the darkened area where its outlines could be traced.Later,portable camera obscuras were developed,with interior mirrors and drawing tables on which the artist could trace the image.For the artist,this technique allows forms and linear perspective to be drawn precisely as they would be seen from a single viewpoint.Mirrors were also used to reverse the projected images to their original positions.

Did some of the great masters of painting,then,trace their images using a camera obscura.Some art historians are now looking for clues of artists’use of such devices.One of the artists whose paintings are being analyzed from this point of view is the great Dutch master,Jan Vermeer,who lived from 1632 to 1675 during the flowering of art and science in the Netherlands,including the science of optics.Vermeer produced only about 30 known paintings,including his famous The Art of Painting.The room shown in it closely resembles the room in other Vermeer paintings,with lighting coming from a window on the left,the same roof beams,and similar floor tiles,suggesting that the room was fitted with a camera obscura on the side in the foreground.The map hung on the opposite wall was a real map in Vermeer’s possession,reproduced in such faithful detail that some kind of tracery is suspected.When one of Vermeer’s paintings was X-rayed,it did not have any preliminary sketches on the canvas beneath the paint,but rather the complete image drawn in black and white without any trial sketches.Vermeer did not have any students,did not keep any records,and did not encourage anyone to visit his studio,facts that can be interpreted as protecting his secret use of a camera obscura.

In recent times the British artist David Hockney has published his investigations into the secret use of the camera obscura,claiming that for up to 400 years,many of Western art’s great masters probably used the device to produce almost photographically realistic details in their paintings.He includes in this group Caravaggio,Hans Holbein,Leonardo da Vinci,Diego Velázquez,Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres,Agnolo Bronzino,and Jan van Eyck.From an artist’s point of view,Hockney observed that a camera obscura compresses the complicated forms of a three-dimensional scene into two-dimensional shapes that can easily be traced and also increases the contrast between light and dark,leading to the chiaroscuroartistic term for a contrast between light and dark effect seen in many of these paintings.In Jan van Eyck’s The Marriage of Giovanni Arnolfini and Giovanna Cenami,the complicated foreshortening(a technique for representing an image in art that makes it appear to recede in space)in the chandelier and the intricate detail in the bride’s garments are among the clues that Hockney thinks point to the use of the camera obscura.

So what are we to conclude.If these artists did use a camera obscura,does that diminish their stature.Hockney argues that the camera obscura does not replace artistic skill in drawing and painting.In experimenting with it,he found that it is actually quite difficult to use for drawing,and he speculates that the artists probably combined their observations from life with tracing of shapes.

Question 1 of 14

What can be inferred from paragraph 1 about Giovanni Battista Della Porta’s contribution to the camera obscura?

A.He translated a Chinese description of the use of the camera obscura and made the technique available to artists.

B.His convex lens made the projected image easier to trace.

C.His version of the camera obscura allowed for the later addition of a mirror.

D.His improvements relied heavily on design changes proposed earlier by Leonardo da Vinci.

正確答案：B

題目詳解

題型分類：推論題

原文定位：根據題干中的題型標識詞infer可以判斷此題為推論題。定位詞：Giovanni Battista Della Porta。用定位詞定位到文章第一段第五句。該句概括了此人的貢獻：在他的一部作品中介紹了增加一個凸透鏡來改善投射在暗箱的帆布或畫板上的圖像質量，這樣就能獲得圖像的輪廓。

選項分析：

B選項中convex lens對應第五句的adding a convex lens to...，選項中made the projected image easier to trace對應第五句的to improve the quality of the image thrown against...where its outlines could be traced。

A選項說此人翻譯了一篇描述暗箱使用的中文文章，文中沒有該信息，無中生有。

C選項中的mirror是第六句的內容，不是此人的貢獻。與原文表述不符。

D選項中提到了Leonardo da Vinci，但文中這兩個人之間并無關聯，無中生有

Question 2 of 14

The word“portable”in the passage is closest in meaning to

A.valuable

B.practical

C.moveable

D.popular

正確答案：C

題目詳解

題型分類：詞匯題

題干分析：詞匯所在句子Later,portable camera obscuras were developed,with interior mirrors and drawing tables on which the artist could trace the image譯為“后來，便攜式暗箱得以發(fā)展，里面安置了鏡子和制圖板，藝術家可以通過它們捕捉到圖像”，portable意思為“便攜的，可攜帶的”。

選項分析：

C選項movable可移動的。

A選項valuable有價值的。

B選項practical實用的。

D選項popular流行的。

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