1 / 9 2019-2020年高考英语一轮复习Unit1Art分层演练直击高考新人教版选修 阅读理解 A (xx·成都市高中毕业班诊断性检测) Johannes Vermeer is such a quiet and introspective(内省的)artist that it took hundreds of years for anyone to notice he was a genius. A major Vermeer exhibition opens this month at the Louvre in Paris, whose permanent collection includes his great painting of a woman absorbed in close, visually demanding work, The Lacemaker (about 1669－1670). Like other paintings by Vermeer, this image represents modern culture. So attracted are today’s art lovers by Vermeer that it was thought shocking when a recent survey found that 82% of Americans can’t name who painted Girl with a Pearl Earring. Well, maybe they don’t go to the movies much. It is not true to say he was forgotten—that would suggest he was famous in his lifetime. He was not. Vermeer was one more painter among the many who worked for money in the Dutch Republic in the 17th century. He was not a star like Rembrandt. He obviously took himself and his art seriously. His selfreferential painting The Art of Painting proves that. Even though he worked all his life in Delft, he painted only 35 known works and left his family poor when he died in 1675 at the age of 43. It is fitting that Paris is celebrating Vermeer, because it was the French avantgarde(先锋派)in the 19th century who saved him from being pletely forgotten. pare his painting Woman in Bl
