上一篇：托福备考第24天——TPO听力材料分析（四阶段）（三）
读写并高亮后的结果：
Listen to a conversation between a student and his art history professor.
How was the museum?
Great. I hadn't been there for a few years.
Did you enjoy the Van Gogh painting?
That's the thing. Looks like I have to change my topic.
Hmm... we are getting close to the deadline. You were writing about the theme of night in the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh. It's a wonderful topic.
I know. People don't usually think of Van Gogh as an artist of nocturnal themes. They think of brightness, sunshine, all that yellow and orange.
You're right of course about the intense light associated with his daytime paintings. But his night paintings don't exactly lack brightness.
That's the paradox that I really like, the paradox of painting a nighttime secene using so much color and light. So I was planning to focus mostly on his painting Starry Night.
But?
When I went to the museum to look at the actual painting, like you told me to, it wasn't there.
Really? Isn't it part of the permanent collection?
Yes. But it's on loan right now to a museum in Europe.
Ah, I see. Well, I am strict about having students write about paintings they can observe firsthand.
Well, I found another painting I could study instead.
OK.
I read that there are two paintings called Starry Night. The first one was done by the French realist painter Millet. It may have been the inspiration for Van Gogh's painting. Millet's painting is located near my family's house in Connecticut. And I am going there this weekend and could study it then. I made sure it's not out on loan.
That definitely would work then. Van Gogh copied many of Millet's compositions. We know that he really admired Millet's work. And a lot of us think Van Gogh saw this particular painting by Millet in Paris in the late 1700s.
Yeah. Although Millet was realist painter, and Van Gogh a post-impressionist, the two paintings still share lots of features, not just the name. The most striking shared feature has got to be the amazing light effects. I am excited to go see it. But one other thing...
Uh-huh.
I was thinking about getting a head start on my next assignment while I am at the gallery in Connecticut, the assignment on miniatures. They have a lot of miniature portraits of children as part of their permanent collection.
American miniatures?
Yeah. So I figure I could also get started on that essay, study a few while I am there. I'd focus on the meaning of the objects that some of the children are holding, some are holding flowers, one child has rattle, another a toy violin...
That would be fine. Uh, those objects... we call them attributes. The attributes chosen to be included in a particular miniature was often meant to communicate parents' hopes and dreams for their child. So I think you'll learn a lot about how people viewed children at the time the miniature paintings were done.
美术历史教授问学生参观museum怎么样了？
学生说没有看到第一手的梵高的话，但是有一副同名的米勒的《星空》可以看到。而且学生还注意到在Connecticut的Museum，还有miniatures，有各种各样的微型作品，包括微型雕塑、画什么的。
老师建议去了解一下这些关于孩子的miniatures，因为这些东西饱含的那个时期的家长们对孩子的梦想和希望。
不熟悉的单词：
- Van Gogh 梵高
- Vincent Van Gogh 文森特 - 梵高
- nocturnal 夜
- intense 激烈的
- paradox 悖论
- Starry Night 星夜
- permanent 永恒的；永久
- loan 借出
- Millet 米勒 让-弗朗索瓦·米勒 (Jean-François Millet)
- Connecticut 康乃狄克州
- inspiration 灵感
- post-impressionist 后印象派
- striking 引人注目
- miniatures 缩小模型; 缩影;
- miniature portraits 微型肖像
- essay 论文
- miniature paintings 微型画
- depict 描绘 （这是Art lecture部分最重要的单词，但凡提到Art，肯定少不了depict这个单词出现）
值得注意的表达方式：
- That's the thing.
- it's on loan right now to
- made sure it's not out on loan.
- ... getting a head start on
- It is not available for the student to study in person. (亲自学习）（这个“亲自学习”应该是指看到firsthand的作品）
- constellation 星座 (这是属于对话中未提及的部分，对话中并没有说他们画的是同一个星座）（纯属无稽之谈）