VOA标准英语2010年-Rare Art by Renowned American Artist G

Sky Above Clouds III/Above the Clouds III, 1963 "I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for." Georgia O'Keeffe, American artist, 1887-1986

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The Phillips Collection
The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, New Mexico

Georgia O'Keeffe is one of the most distinguished¹ American artists of the 20th century. She is best known for her vibrant² paintings of flowers, leaves, landscapes and other images in nature.

Now, a new exhibit at The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., features more than 100 paintings, drawings and watercolors by O'Keeffe and 12 photographic portraits of her taken by her late husband, famed photographer Alfred Stieglitz.

But the highlight of the collection - which includes items dating from 1915 to the late 1970s - includes a rare selection of O'Keeffe's less familiar abstract art.

American artist Georgia O'Keeffe, seen here in a portrait from 1918, is best known for her paintings of flowers and landscapes, but she was also a gifted abstract artist.
Georgia O'Keeffe as abstract artist

Georgia O'Keeffe is best known for her sensuous³ paintings of flowers and desert landscapes of the American southwest. But many people may not know that she was also a gifted abstract artist.

The new exhibit features abstractions that O'Keeffe herself didn't exhibit in her own lifetime, says Elsa Smithgall, associate curator at The Phillips Collection.

According to Smithgall, O'Keeffe broke into abstraction with a set of charcoal⁴ drawings that she created in 1915.

This charcoal drawing from 1915 is part of a rare collection of abstractions featured in a Georgia O'Keeffe exhibit at The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC.

"They are exquisite⁵ gestural drawings, very organic in form, and no recognizable reference to a known subject," she says.

Water colors and oils

By the 1920s, O'Keeffe had moved on from pure abstract drawings to water colors and oil paintings of subjects that seem more familiar.

But according to Smithgall, O'Keeffe continued to use abstraction as the foundation in all her artwork.

"You're going to find in her work this constant back and forth⁶ between very purely⁷ abstract form and perhaps a flower or a leaf or a landscape," she says.

Sexual overtones

It was also during this period when critics described O'Keeffe's oil paintings as being sexually suggestive.

While Smithgall acknowledges that some of O'Keeffe's forms do evoke⁸ sexual connotations, she emphasizes that the exhibition "is not about that."

Image courtesy of the Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington
Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. IV, 1930 by Georgia O'Keeffe

She adds that O'Keeffe herself passionately⁹ resisted the notion that her art was sexually suggestive and, in fact, made a concerted effort "to shift her focus in her work towards more recognizable subject matter as a way to try to steer¹⁰ the critics towards another kind of reading of her work."

New Mexico - a new chapter

Beginning in 1929, O'Keeffe started spending time in New Mexico where she felt more at home than she had in New York where her career had taken root. Her experiences in the vast open spaces of the New Mexico desert inspired her to move there permanently¹¹ in 1949.

According to Smithgall, it was a new chapter in her career:

"She's very much responding to that ocean of space in New Mexico where they have this amazing clarity of light and very wonderful, breathtaking kind of exhilarating sensation that she feels there that is extremely inspiring to her, and it brings up a whole new body of subject matter," she says.

Grey Blue & Black—Pink Circle, 1929- Gift of The Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation

It was during these transformative years when her paintings took on a different feel as well, says Smithgall.

O'Keeffe started depicting¹³ flowers "increasingly large in format¹² and increasingly greater in magnification and so you start to see a major change in her scale, in her viewpoint taking these unusual birds and bees-eye perspectives," she says.

According to Smithgall, O'Keeffe created magnified images of her subject matter as a way of "inviting¹⁴ the viewer in." She wasn't copying an object so much as expressing how she felt about painting it, she says.

Coming full circle

By the late '50s and '60s, O'Keeffe's art turned once again to the pure abstractions of her earlier years.

"This is not a work that you probably would see on the wall and say, 'Oh, yes, an O'Keeffe,'" says Smithgall, "so there's that surprising aspect to them."

Abstraction White Rose

"What's so exquisite about them is that she has - with very spare compositions - created these exquisite forms that are extremely expressive¹⁵ and that do recall those earliest charcoal drawings in that respect," she says.

From those early charcoal drawings to the huge, bold canvases of her later years, few would argue that the work of Georgia O'Keeffe has had a far-reaching influence on American art and culture, and continues to impress and inspire art lovers throughout the world.

 

1 distinguished   

adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的

参考例句：

• Elephants are distinguished from other animals by their long noses.大象以其长长的鼻子显示出与其他动物的不同。
• A banquet was given in honor of the distinguished guests.宴会是为了向贵宾们致敬而举行的。

2 vibrant   

adj.震颤的，响亮的，充满活力的，精力充沛的，(色彩)鲜明的

参考例句：

• He always uses vibrant colours in his paintings. 他在画中总是使用鲜明的色彩。
• She gave a vibrant performance in the leading role in the school play.她在学校表演中生气盎然地扮演了主角。

3 sensuous   

adj.激发美感的；感官的，感觉上的

参考例句：

• Don't get the idea that value of music is commensurate with its sensuous appeal.不要以为音乐的价值与其美的感染力相等。
• The flowers that wreathed his parlor stifled him with their sensuous perfume.包围著客厅的花以其刺激人的香味使他窒息。

4 charcoal   

n.炭，木炭，生物炭

参考例句：

• We need to get some more charcoal for the barbecue.我们烧烤需要更多的碳。
• Charcoal is used to filter water.木炭是用来过滤水的。

5 exquisite   

adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的

参考例句：

• I was admiring the exquisite workmanship in the mosaic.我当时正在欣赏镶嵌画的精致做工。
• I still remember the exquisite pleasure I experienced in Bali.我依然记得在巴厘岛所经历的那种剧烈的快感。

6 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

7 purely   

adv.纯粹地，完全地

参考例句：

• I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
• This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。

8 evoke   

vt.唤起，引起，使人想起

参考例句：

• These images are likely to evoke a strong response in the viewer.这些图像可能会在观众中产生强烈反响。
• Her only resource was the sympathy she could evoke.她以凭借的唯一力量就是她能从人们心底里激起的同情。

9 passionately   

ad.热烈地，激烈地

参考例句：

• She could hate as passionately as she could love. 她能恨得咬牙切齿，也能爱得一往情深。
• He was passionately addicted to pop music. 他酷爱流行音乐。

10 steer   

vt.驾驶，为…操舵；引导；vi.驾驶

参考例句：

• If you push the car, I'll steer it.如果你来推车，我就来驾车。
• It's no use trying to steer the boy into a course of action that suits you.想说服这孩子按你的方式行事是徒劳的。

11 permanently   

adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地

参考例句：

• The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
• The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。

12 format   

n.设计，版式；[计算机]格式，DOS命令:格式化(磁盘)，用于空盘或使用过的磁盘建立新空盘来存储数据；v.使格式化，设计，安排

参考例句：

• Please format this floppy disc.请将这张软盘格式化。
• The format of the figure is very tasteful.该图表的格式很雅致。

13 depicting   

描绘，描画( depict的现在分词 )； 描述

参考例句：

• a painting depicting the Virgin and Child 一幅描绘童贞马利亚和圣子耶稣的画
• The movie depicting the battles and bloodshed is bound to strike home. 这部描写战斗和流血牺牲的影片一定会取得预期效果。

14 inviting   

adj.诱人的，引人注目的

参考例句：

• An inviting smell of coffee wafted into the room.一股诱人的咖啡香味飘进了房间。
• The kitchen smelled warm and inviting and blessedly familiar.这间厨房的味道温暖诱人，使人感到亲切温馨。

15 expressive   

adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的

参考例句：

• Black English can be more expressive than standard English.黑人所使用的英语可能比正式英语更有表现力。
• He had a mobile,expressive,animated face.他有一张多变的，富于表情的，生动活泼的脸。