Questions 30-39
By 1776 the fine art of painting as it had developed in western Europe up to this
time had been introduced into the American colonies though books and prints,
European visitors and immigrants, and traveling colonists who brought back copies
(and a few original) of old master paintings and acquaintance with European art
(5) institutions.
By the outbreak of the Revolution against British rule in 1776, the status of the
artists had already undergone change. In the mid-eighteenth century, painters had been
willing to assume such artisan-related tasks as varnishing, gilding teaching, keeping
shops, and painting wheel carriages, houses, and signs. The terminology by which
(10) artists were described at the time suggests their status: "limner" was usually applied to
the anonymous portrait painter up to the 1760's: "painter" characterized anyone who
could paint a flat surface. By the second half of the century, colonial artists who were
trained in England or educated in the classics rejected the status of laborer and thought
of themselves as artists. Some colonial urban portraitists, such as John Singleton Copley,
(15) Benjamin West, and Charles Wilson Peale, consorted with affluent patrons. Although
subject to fluctuations in their economic status, all three enjoyed sufficient patronage to
allow them to maintain an image of themselves as professional artists, an image
indicated by their custom of signing their paintings. A few art collectors James
Bowdoin III of Boston, William Byrd of Virginian, and the Aliens and Hamiltons of
(20) Philadelphia introduced European art traditions to those colonists privileged to visit
their galleries, especially aspiring artists, and established in their respective
communities the idea of the value of art and the need for institutions devoted to its
encouragement.
Although the colonists tended to favor portraits, they also accepted landscapes,
(25) historical works, and political engravings as appropriate artistic subjects. With the
coming of independence from the British Crown, a sufficient number of artists and their
works were available to serve nationalistic purposes. The achievements of the colonial
artists, particularly those of Copley, West, and Peale, lent credence to the boast that the
new nation was capable of encouraging genius and that political liberty was congenial
to the development of taste-a necessary step before art could assume an important role
in the new republic.
【題組】34. It can be inferred from the passage that artists who were trained in England
(A) considered artists to be superior to painters
(B) barely painted portraitists
(C) were often very wealthy
(D) imitated English painters because it
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