You are going to read the introduction to a book about the history of colour. For questions 31 – 36, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think fits best according to the text.
Mark your answers on the separate answer sheet.
Introduction to a book about the history of c
This book examines how the ever-changing role of color in society has been reflected in manuscripts, stained glass, clothing, painting, and popular culture. Colour is a natural phenomenon, of course, but it is also a complex cultural construct that resists generalization and, indeed, the analysis itself. No doubt this is why serious works devoted to color are rare, and rarer still are those that aim to study it in historical context. Many authors search for the universal or archetypal truths they imagine reside in color, but for the historian, such truths do not exist. Colour is first and foremost a social phenomenon. There is no transcultural truth to color perception, despite what many books based on poorly grasped neurobiology or – even worse – on pseudo esoteric pop psychology would have us believe. Such books, unfortunately, clutter the bibliography on the subject and even do it harm.
The silence of historians on the subject of color, or more particularly their difficulty in conceiving color as a subject separate from other historical phenomena, is the result of three different sets of problems. The first concerns documentation and preservation. We see the colors transmitted to us by the past as time has altered them and not as they were original. Moreover, we see them under light conditions that often are entirely different from those known by past societies. And finally, over the decades we have developed the habit of looking at objects from the past in black-and-white photographs and, despite the current diffusion of color photography, our ways of thinking about and reacting to these objects seem to have remained more or less black and white.
The second set of problems concerns methodology. As soon as the historian seeks to study color, he must grapple with a host of factors all at once: physics, chemistry, materials, and techniques of production, as well as iconography, ideology, and the symbolic meanings that colors convey. How to make sense of all of these elements? How can one establish an analytical model facilitating the study of images and colored objects? No researcher, no method, has yet been able to resolve these problems, because, among the numerous facts pertaining to color, a researcher tends to select those facts that support his study and to conveniently forget those that contradict it. This is clearly a poor way to conduct research. And it is made worse by the temptation to apply to the objects and images of given historical period information found in texts of that period. The
proper method – at least in the first phase of analysis – is to proceed as do palaeontologists (who must study cave paintings without the aid of texts): by extrapolating from the images and the objects themselves a logic and a system based on various concrete factors such as the rate of occurrence of particular objects and motifs, their distribution and disposition. In short, one undertakes the internal structural analysis with which any study of an image or colored object should begin.
The third set of problems is philosophical: it is wrong to project our own conceptions and definitions of color onto the images, objects, and monuments of past centuries. Our judgments and values are not those of previous societies (and no doubt they will change again in the future). For the writer-historian looking at the definitions and taxonomy of color, the danger of anachronism is very real. For example, the spectrum with its natural order of colors was unknown before the seventeenth century, while the notion of primary and secondary colors did not become common until the nineteenth century. These are not eternal notions but stages in the ever-changing history of knowledge.
I have reflected on such issues at greater length in my previous work, so while the present book does address certain of them, for the most part it is devoted to other topics. Nor is it concerned only with the history of color in images and artworks – in any case, that area still has many gaps to be filled. Rather, the aim of this book is to examine all kinds of objects in order to consider the different facets of the history of color and to show how far beyond the artistic sphere this history reaches. The history of painting is one thing; that of color is another, much larger, question. Most studies devoted to the history of color err in considering only the pictorial, artistic or scientific realms. But the lessons to be learned from colour and its real interest lie elsewhere.
Select one or more of the following:
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31. What problem regarding colour does the writer explain in the first paragraph?
A. Our view of colour is strongly affected by changing fashion.
B. Analysis is complicated by the bewildering number of natural colours.
C. Colours can have different associations in different parts of the world.
D. Certain popular books have dismissed colour as insignificant.
32. What is the first reason the writer gives for the lack of academic work on the history of colour?
A. There are problems of reliability associated with the artefacts available.
B.Historians have seen colour as being outside their field of expertise.
C. Color has been rather looked down upon as a fit subject for academic study.
D. Very little documentation exists for historians to use.
33. The writer suggests that the priority when conducting historical research on color is to
A. ignore the interpretations of other modern day historians.
B. focus one’s interest as far back as the prehistoric era.
C. find some way of organising the mass of available data.
D.relate pictures to information from other sources.
34.In the fourth paragraph, the writer says that the historian writing about colour should be careful
A. not to analyse in an old-fashioned way.
B.when making basic distinctions between key ideas.
C. not to make unwise predictions.
D.when using certain terms and concepts.
35.In the fifth paragraph, the writer says there needs to be further research done on
A. the history of colour in relation to objects in the world around us.
B. the concerns he has raised in an earlier publication.
C. the many ways in which artists have used colour over the years.
D. the relationship between artistic works and the history of colour.
36. An idea recurring in the text is that people who have studied colour have
A. failed to keep up with scientific developments.
B. not understood its global significance.
C.found it difficult to be fully objective.
D. been muddled about their basic aims.
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You are going to read four reviews of a book about how architecture can affect emotions. For questions 37 – 40, choose from the reviews A – D. The reviews may be chosen more than once.
The Architecture of Happiness
Four reviewers comment on philosopher Alain De Botton’s book
A
Alain de Botton is a brave and highly intelligent writer who writes about complex subjects, clarifying the arcane for the layman. Now, with typical self-assurance, he has turned to the subject of architecture. The essential theme of his book is how architecture influences mood and behavior. It is not about the specifically architectural characteristics of space and design, but much more about the emotions that architecture inspires in the users of buildings. Yet architects do not normally talk nowadays very much about emotion and beauty. They talk about design and function. De Botton's message, then, is fairly simple but worthwhile precisely because it is simple, readable and timely. His commendable aim is to encourage architects, and society more generally, to pay more attention to the psychological consequences of design in architecture: architecture should be treated as something that affects all our lives, our happiness, and well-being.
B
Alain de Botton raises important, previously unasked, questions concerning the quest for beauty in architecture, or its rejection or denial. Yet one is left with the feeling that he needed the help and support of earlier authors on the subject to walk him across the daunting threshold of architecture itself. And he is given to making extraordinary claims: ‘Architecture is perplexing ... in how inconsistent is its capacity to generate the happiness on which its claim to our attention is founded.’ If architecture's capacity to generate happiness is inconsistent, this might be because happiness has rarely been something architects think about. De Botton never once discusses the importance of such dull, yet determining, matters as finance or planning laws, much fewer inventions such as the lift or reinforced concrete. He appears to believe that architects are still masters of their art when increasingly they are cogs in a global machine for building in which beauty, and how de Botton feels about it, are increasingly beside the point.
C
In The Architecture of Happiness, Alain de Botton has a great time making bold and amusing judgments about architecture, with lavish and imaginative references, but anyone in search of privileged insights into the substance of building design should be warned that he is not looking at drain schedules or pipe runs. He worries away, as many architects do, at how inert material things can convey meaning and alter consciousness. Although he is a rigorous thinker, most of de Botton’s revelations, such as the contradictions in Le Corbusier's theory and practice, are not particularly new. However, this is an engaging and intelligent book on architecture and something everyone, professionals within the field, in particular, should read.
D
Do we want our buildings merely to shelter us, or do we also want them to speak to us? Can the right sort of architecture even improve our character? Music mirrors the dynamics of our emotional lives. Mightn’t architecture work the same way? De Botton thinks so, and in The Architecture of Happiness, he makes the most of this theme on his jolly trip through the world of architecture. De Botton certainly writes with conviction and, while focusing on happiness can be a lovely way to make sense of architectural beauty, it probably won’t be of much help in resolving conflicts of taste.
has a different opinion from the others on the confidence with which de Botton discusses architecture? _____________
shares reviewer A’s opinion of whether architects should take note of de Botton’s ideas _______________
expresses a similar view to reviewer B regarding the extent to which architects share de Botton’s concerns? ______________
has a different view to reviewer C on the originality of some of de Botton’s ideas? _______________________
