Unit3. The Italian masters. Frescoes

Ex.1. Remember the words:

Verbs	Adjectives	Nouns
to turn over	звертатися	alive	живий	descendant	попередник
to excel	затьмарювати	genuine	справжній, достотний	session	сеанс
to forestall	випереджувати	wet	мокрий	contemporary	сучасний, сучасник
to accept	визнавати			vividness	яскравість
to convey	передавати			flesh	плоть
to shrivel	висихати			surrounding	оточення
to husk	лущитися			blood	кров
				panel	панно
				plaster	штукатурка
				primer	грунт
				layer	шар

Ex.2. Mind the pronunciation of the proper nouns:

Cimabue

Ducco

Giotto di Bondone

Tokyo

Xenophon

Plato

Aristotle

Ex.3. Guess the meaning of the international words:

tendency; architectural; dramatic; subject; colleague; technique; emotion; master; colossal; original; factor; pigments; stable; to manage; fresco.

Ex.4. Read the text and translate it with a dictionary:

Many of tendencies had been born in Italy earlier than they did in other countries. Two masters of 13^th century Cimabue and Ducco are known to be the founders of visual realism in painting which had dominated in the European Art by the end of 20^th century. Both turned over to the descendants’ famous altar images with Madonna being the main subject of them. They were excelled by their younger contemporary Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337). He was the first among Italian masters who gained the glory not after the death. But he forestalled his time so that many of his innovations were accepted by the colleagues a century later. His characters from flesh and blood are quite realistic but able to move and exist in their natural or architectural surrounding and space pretending for some depth. But they are alive with feelings and emotions. The artist’s skill to convey all the shades of human emotional experience has made Giotto a great dramatic artist (Fig.3).

Frescoes. Making his panels Giotto used a fresco painting technique invented by Italians. Today we call frescoes both all the pictures made according to this technique and any mural. But a genuine fresco is painting over the wet plaster as a primer for a paint layer. The word „fresco” itself means „fresh”. During one session a master worked only with that piece of the wall which he managed to paint being still wet. The factor of time was critical as pigments reacted with the wet layer of plaster giving stable compounds. Shriveled fresco did not husk presenting the original beauty and vividness. Due to this colossal technical progress the greatest masterpieces of fresco painting have been created.

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