Notes:
Pay attention to the pronunciation and translation of the following words:
John Sloan; Maurice Prendergast; Macbeth Gallery; Robert Henri; George Bellows
1. The Ash Can School
2.nucleus ,
3.break
4. notoriety
5. derisively
6. shabby
7. slapdash handling ()
The text B Ash Can School
It was in New York that the first group of American artists to use the city as their subject came together. It is hard for us today, looking at the paintings of John Sloan, Maurice B. Prendergast, and other members of what has come to be known as the Ash Can School, to find anything revolutionary about them. In their days, though, these paintings represented a sharp break with the previous course of American art, and when the nucleus of the group the "Eight Independent Painters" (usually shortened to the "Eight") exhibited in New York's Macbeth Gallery in 1908, a great deal of notoriety was attached to the event. For they were the first group of American painters to show men and women with no pretensions of glamor going about their daily activities.
The term Ash Can School was a negative one, and was aimed derisively at these painters who dealt only with the life of the alleys and backyards, or at least of the shabby people who were at home there.
The spokesman of the group, Robert Henri (See his picture Snow in New York), urged the importance of the common man in the street. Among the many causes he exposed was that of the Russian revolutionaries. Henri argued that art, both in its subject matter and in the quick, slapdash handling of it ought to reflect "life".
John Sloan worked for many years as a newspaper illustrator, and because of this background many of his paintings have an anecdotal quality.
Prendergast was attracted to crowds; he had come to appreciate the crowd' as a spectacle.George Bellows, a pupil of Henri's, was closely associated with the Ash Can group. He represented personally what the group advocated through art.
Exercise 16. Find sentences with the following words and phrases in the text and translate them into Russian/Ukrainian:
to use the city as the subject of art, to represent a sharp break from, the nucleus of the group, to attach a great deal of notoriety, to show smb with no pretensions of glamor, the term, to deal with, to urge the importance of subject matter, handling, to reflect life, to have an anecdotal quality, to be closely associated with.
Exercise 17. Find answers to the following questions in the text:
1) What was the subject of the Ash Can School painters?
2) Where was the School founded?
3) Why did the exhibition of the "Eight" attract so much public attention?
4) What does the term Ash Can School mean?
5) Was the term Ash Can School a negative one?
6) Who was the central figure of the School? Why?
7 What representatives of the Ash Can School can you name?
8) Who represented personally what the group advocated through art?
VI Reading
