企源知识库

Read the following passage and choose the most likely answer to each of the following questions.

    Throughout history artists have filled many different roles, but their value and importance to society have stayed basically the same. To begin with, artists fulfill a practical function, designing virtually every structure and object in the environment. Today this practical role is carried out by artists with specialized, often technical training——industrial and graphic designers, architects, craft artists, and fashion designers, among others. But what about the painters and sculptors, the photographers and cinematographers (电影摄影师)? What needs do they meet in our computer age? We can identify at least four basic functions for the artist——all of them age-old, all expanding in complexity.
    First, artists record. They give us visual images that can be preserved for historical reference. This idea is so obvious that we take it for granted, forgetting how overwhelming our ignorance otherwise would be. Were it not for artists, we would have no idea what people from the past looked like. Nor could we form any visual image of historical places and events. Before the invention of the camera in the early 19th century, artists recorded images mainly through painting, drawing, and sculpture. Today we rely more heavily on photography, cinema, and television to keep our history, but of course the people behind these media are also artists. Even with the prevalence of mechanical recording, there remains interest in the painted impression, the artist's distinctive filtering of visual appearances.
    The second thing artists do is to give tangible form to the unknown. In other words, they attempt to record what cannot be seen with the eyes or what has not yet occurred. This role has been important throughout the history of art, and it is no less vital today. Ancient artists had a somewhat different list of unknowns to contend with. They puzzled over and feared such things as tornadoes, floods, eclipses and the wrath of spirits. Even in an age when satellites predict the weather and spirits have been tamed, there still are certain unknowns, and artists still are struggling to give them tangible form. What would a nuclear holocaust be like? We do not know and dare not find out. What exists at the edge of our universe? Scientists will know eventually, but not soon. What do our dreams and nightmares really mean? None of us can analyze them definitely. These unknowns are frightening to us, just as the Thunder God must have been to our ancestors.
    Third, artists give tangible form to feelings. These may be the artist's own feelings that are expressed in paint or marble or whatever the medium. But surely they are feelings shared by many people——love, hate, despair, fear, exhilaration, anger. When we pay attention to the emotions a work of art evokes, we are communicating with the artist and with others who have such feelings.
    Fourth, artists offer an innovative way of seeing, a unique visual "take" on the world. At a glance René Magritte's The Blank Cheque seems a straightforward picture of a woman riding a horse through the forest. A closer look reveals the sort of bizarre visual disruption in which Magritte delighted. Parts of the figures are hidden by trees, but other parts are hidden by the space between trees! The horse's left rear leg comes and goes, defying all natural laws. This is truly an innovative way of seeing forms in space.
    To sum up, then, artists perform at least four important functions: they record, they visualize the unknown, they portray feelings, and they stretch one's ability to see. All these functions have to do with communication. Artists are about to fill these roles because they create new visual images.

What can be learned from Paragraph 2?（ ）

Artists can't do much in recording modern history.

Mechanical recordings are more reliable for historical images.

We have no idea about the visual images of the places in the past.

Paintings are an important channel through which we learn about the past.

本题考查对文章第二段的理解。
A选项“艺术家在记录现代历史方面做不了什么”，段首第一句(主旨句)描述为“首先，艺术家记录(历史)。他们为我们提供了可以保存下来以供历史参考的视觉图像”，第四、五句描述为“如果不是艺术家，我们根本不知道过去的人是什么样的。我们也无法形成对任何历史地点和事件的视觉印象”，第七句描述为“今天，我们更加依赖摄影、电影和电视来保存我们的历史，但当然，这些媒体背后的人也是艺术家”。可以推断，在记录过去或者现代历史方面，艺术家作出了很大的贡献，A选项不正确。B选项“机械记录对于历史图像更可靠”，本段未体现这一点，B项不正确。C选项“我们不知道过去一些地点的视觉图像是什么样的”，结合第四、五句描述可知，因为艺术家的存在，我们能够形成对历史地点的视觉印象。C选项不正确。D选项“绘画是我们了解过去的重要渠道”，第六句描述为“在19世纪早期照相机发明之前，艺术家主要通过绘画、素描和雕塑来记录图像。”，D选项描述正确。