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  3. Frank Lloyd Wright is best known as a revolutionary American architect. A hallmark of his work is sensitivity to the natural env

Frank Lloyd Wright is best known as a revolutionary American architect. A hallmark of his work is sensitivity to the natural env

admin2017-04-20  30
问题     Frank Lloyd Wright is best known as a revolutionary American architect. A hallmark of his work is sensitivity to the natural environment—Fallingwater, the house he built over a waterfall, is a prime example. But Mr. Wright had a second career as a collector of and dealer in Japanese block prints, continuing this business until his death in 1959 at the age of 91. At times, he made more money selling prints than he did from architecture.
    A small but insightful exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, comprising prints, architectural drawings from Mr. Wright’s studio and archival objects, highlights the Japan’s deep influence on his work.
    Mr. Wright was first captivated by Japanese art in 1893, when he saw Japan’s pavilions at the sprawling world fair in Chicago. His interest in Japan’s art and culture blossomed during several trips there starting in 1905. He opened an office in Japan in 1915 and lived there for a few years while building the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. "At last I had found one country on earth where simplicity, as nature, is supreme," he wrote.
    He returned from his first trip to Japan with hundreds of ukiyoe prints, planning to sell them in America. Mr. Wright often sold his clients art to hang on the walls he had built, explaining that they complemented his streamlined interiors. Japanese prints, especially traditional bird and flower images, had easily understandable motifs.
    The prints were a commercial hit but Mr. Wright was also personally enthralled by them. "A Japanese artist grasps form always by reaching underneath for its geometry, never losing sight of its spiritual efficacy," he wrote in The Japanese Print, a slim, 35-page book published in 1912. "These simple coloured engravings are indeed a language whose purpose is absolute beauty."
    According to Janice Katz, associate curator of Japanese art at the Art Institute of Chicago, Mr. Wright favoured prints by Utagawa Hiroshige, a Japanese artist who emphasized environment over human structures. Prints such as Mr. Hiroshige’s Goyu: Women Stopping Travellers show buildings from a wide perspective. The flattened space and naturalistic detail of prints influenced architectural drawings in Mr. Wright’s studio.
    For instance, a vertical scroll-like drawing called Perspective of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Thomas P. Hardy House, Racine, Wisconsin leaves most of the brown page blank except the top right corner where a house perches precariously. A flowering branch, like those in bird and flower prints, pokes into the blank space. The draft was made by Marion Mahony Griffin, who worked for Mr. Wright. An architect in her own right, Ms Griffin later incorporated elements of Japonism in own work. Another drawing, Perspective View of Marion Mahony Griffin and Walter Burley Griffin’s Rock Crest/Rock Glen, Mason City, Iowa, shows clouds and buildings nestled among lush foliage. It is rendered in gouache on a horizontal slice of pale green satin with two side panels that echo Japanese hand scrolls.
    Mr. Wright was also influential in cultivating American interest in Japanese prints. In 1906 he exhibited his collection of Hiroshige prints at the Art institute. Two years later he loaned several pieces to the institute for what Ellen Roberts, associate curator of American art at the institute, reckons was the largest display of Japanese prints in America at the time. Mr. Wright designed the installation for that exhibition, including sleek furniture and special frames reminiscent of screens.
It is unfortunate then that the institute’s current show lacks pointed comparisons between Japanese design and actual Wright buildings. Still, it sheds new light on Mr. Wright’s signature works. The long horizontal lines of the Robie House in Chicago’s Hyde Park reflect the flat landscape of America’s mid-west—yet they also evoke Japan’s minimalist sensibility. Closeness to the earth is the stuff of expansive American prairies but also of traditional Japan. As Mr. Wright wrote in his autobiography: "Why are we so busy elaborately trying to get earth to heaven instead of seeing this simple Shinto wisdom of sensibly getting heaven decently to earth?"  
Which of the following contributions is NOT made by Frank Lloyd Wright?
选项 A、Showing an acute understanding of nature in architectural works.
B、Publishing some books on art and his life.
C、Helping introduce Japanese block prints to the American public.
D、Bridging the distance between heaven and earth in modern paintings.
答案D
解析 细节题。纵观全文可知，赖特先生向世人介绍了20世纪初的日本木版画，画家在这些画作中运用不同于当时西方绘画的创作手法和理念来体现对美的追求和对天堂与尘世关系的理解，而以上主要是日本版画家的艺术贡献，赖特先生深受其影响并将其介绍给美国大众，因此[D]“他(赖特先生)拉近了现代画作中天堂与尘世的距离”的表述不准确，且过于笼统，故选[D]。根据第一段可知，赖特作品的一个显著特征是对自然环境的敏锐感知，文章的主体部分则阐述注重以简约、抽象的方式呈现自然的日本版画作品对赖特艺术的深远影响，由此可知[A]的表述正确，故排除；根据第五段、第八段以及最后一段可知，[B]、[C]表述正确，故均排除。
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