UNIT 3

LET’S READ AND TALK ABOUT PAINTING

Pre-reading task: If you can answer these questions without reading the text, then proceed to the development tasks. If not, please, refer to the following texts for information about the main tendencies of European painting in the 17th-18th centuries including the specific features of Mannerism, Academism, Caravaggism, the Baroque and the formation of the English school of painting, and also about the composition – an essential element of painting.

- Do you know when the Italian Renaissance painting declined?

- Have you ever heard of Mannerism? If so, what in particular?

- What does the Baroque style imply?

- What do you happen to know about the most prominent exponents of European art? The country they represented? Their personal style? Most famous works?

- What most famous British painters do you know?

- What genres developed in the British painting in the 17th-18th centuries? Which of them were predominant?

- Can you name masterpieces belonging to the brush of a British master?