Leonardo da Vinci ______ a scientist, if he h...

Leonardo da Vinci ______ a scientist, if he had not been so skilled in other areas.

A. would be　　　 　　　　 B. must be

C. might have been　 　 D. should have been

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Leonardo da Vinci was an artist, scientist, and 1.　 (invent) during the Renaissance in Italy. The word “ renaissance” 2.　 (come) from Latin and means “to be born again”. The renaissance was a time 3.Europe started to develop its arts and sciences again. It 4. (last) from about the 1300s to the 1600s. 5. (bear) in 1452, da Vinci was one of　 the most famous men of this time. He is considered by many to be one of6.( talent) and intelligent people of all time. Have you heard of the term “renaissance man”? It means someone7.does many things very well. Originally, it8.(use) to describe Leonardo da Vinci’s many talents. Da Vinci is 9. (probable) most well known as a painter. Two of his paintings, and perhaps two of the most famous in the world, are the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. The Mona Lisa is a picture of a woman10.a meaningful smile. The Last Supper is about the famous Christian story.

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I have been reading about Leonardo da Vinci for decades, and in 1994 I bought one of the notebooks, in which Leonardo recorded his thoughts and outlined ideas.

What does a Renaissance(文艺复兴) artist have to do with optimism? For me, the connection is innovation. I feel optimistic about the future because I know that advances in human knowledge have improved life for billions of people, and I am confident they will keep doing so. Although I am no art expert, everything I have learned about Leonardo leads me to believe he was one of the most innovative thinkers ever.

Today of course Leonardo is most famous for paintings like the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. But in his mind, Leonardo was not primarily a painter. He thought of himself as an engineer first. In a letter to the ruler of Milan listing his strengths, sent in the early 1480s, Leonardo mentioned ten different skills — designing bridges, tunnels, for example — before adding at the end that he could also paint.

Leonardo was a never-ending learner. He studied everything he could see: the flow of water, the way smoke rises through the air, how a bird uses its tongue. And he had insights that were ahead of his time. He was the first person to correctly explain why you can see light between the two points of a crescent moon, the phenomenon we now call earthshine.

Scientific inquiries like these were essential to Leonardo’s art. He was able to give the Mona Lisa that mysterious look on her face because he had studied all the muscles involved in smiling. In The Last Supper, he could make the perspective lines (透视线) work perfectly because he had spent countless hours understanding how our eyes see objects at a distance. By examining his surroundings so closely, Leonardo was able to develop new techniques that advanced his field and described the world in a way no one had ever seen before. In other words, he was an innovator.

1.In what way does Leonardo da Vinci make the author feel optimistic about future?

A.The creativity he represents. B.His famous paintings.

C.The outline of his notebook. D.His engineering achievements.

2.What can we learn about Leonardo da Vinci according to the text?

A.He desires to know more at all times.

B.He is able to raise difficult questions.

C.He has a strong desire for achievement.

D.He is able to learn and understand things fast.

3.What does the last paragraph focus on?

A.Which fields Leonardo was expert in.

B.Why Leonardo is regarded as an innovator.

C.What made the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper stand out.

D.How Leonardo applied scientific theories to his paintings.

4.Which of the following can best summarize Leonardo da Vinci according to the text?

A.Curious about arts. B.Talented in many fields.

C.Determined in science. D.Skilled in paintings.

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ROME: The legend of Leonardo da Vinci is covered in mystery: How did he die?Are the remains buried in a French castle really those of the master? Was the "Mona Lisa" a self-portrait in disguise (伪装)?

A group of Italian scientists believe the key to solving those puzzles lies with the remains, and they say they are seeking permission to dig up the body to conduct carbon and DNA testing.

If the skull is undamaged, the scientists can go to the heart of a question that has fascinated scholars and the public for centuries: the identity of the "Mona Lisa." Recreating a virtual and then physical reconstruction of Leonardo's face, they can compare it with the smiling face in the painting.

"We don't know what we'll find if the tomb is opened. We could even just find grains and dust," says Giorgio Gruppioni, an anthropologist who is participating in the project. "But if the remains are well kept, they are a biological record of events in a person's life, and sometimes in their death." Silvano Vinceti, the leader of the group, said that he plans to press his case with the French officials in charge of the said burial site at Amboise Castle early next week.

Leonardo moved to France at the invitation of King Francis I, who named him "first painter to the king." He spent the last three years of his life there, and died in 1519 at age 67. The artist's original burial place, the palace church of Saint Florentine, was destroyed during the French Revolution and remains that are believed to be his were eventually reburied in the Saint-Hubert Chapel near the castle.

"The Amboise tomb is a symbolic tomb; it's a big question mark," said Alessandro Vezzosi, the director of a museum dedicated to Leonardo in his hometown of Vinci. Vezzosi said that investigating the tomb could help identify the artist's bones with certainty and solve other questions, such as the cause of his death. He said he asked to open the tomb in 2004 to study the remains, but the Amboise Castle turned him down.

The group of 100 experts involved in the project, called the National Committee for Historical and Artistic Heritage, was created in 2003 with the aim of "solving the great mysteries of the past," said Vinceti, who has written books on art and literature.

Arguably the world's most famous painting, the "Mona Lisa" hangs in the Louvre in Paris, where it drew some 8.5 million visitors last year. Mystery has surrounded the identity of the painting's subject for centuries, with opinions ranging from the wife of a Florentine merchant to Leonardo's own mother.

That Leonardo intended the "Mona Lisa" as a self-portrait in disguise is a possibility that has interested and divided scholars. Theories have existed: Some think that Leonardo's taste for tricks and riddles might have led him to hide his own identity behind that puzzling smile; others have guessed that the painting hid an androgynous lover.

If granted access to the grave site, the Italian experts plan to use a tiny camera and radar to confirm the presence of bones. The scientists would then exhume (挖掘) the remains and attempt to date the bones with carbon testing.

At the heart of the proposed study is the effort to discover whether the remains are actually Leonardo's, including with DNA testing.

Vezzosi questions the DNA comparison, saying he is unaware of any direct descendants (后代) of Leonardo or of tombs that could be attributed with certainty to the artist's close relatives.

Gruppioni said that DNA from the bones could also eventually be compared to DNA found elsewhere. For example, Leonardo is thought to have rubbed colors on the canvas with his thumb, possibly using saliva (唾液), meaning DNA might be found on his paintings.

Even in the absence of DNA testing, other tests could provide useful information, including whether the bones belonged to a man or a woman, and whether the person died young or old.

Even within the committee, experts are divided over the identity of the "Mona Lisa."

Vinceti believes that a tradition of considering the self-portrait to be not just a faithful imitation of one's features but a representation of one's spiritual identity may have resonated (共鸣) with Leonardo.

Vezzosi, the museum director, dismissed as "baseless and senseless" the idea that the "Mona Lisa" could be a self-portrait of Leonardo. He said most researchers believe the woman may have been either a wife of the artist's sponsor, the Florentine nobleman Giuliano de Medici, or Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a rich silk merchant, Francesco del Giocondo. The traditional view is that the name "Mona Lisa" comes from the silk merchant's wife, as well as its Italian name: "La Gioconda."

1.   Where is this passage most probably taken from?

2.   Why does the author ask a couple of questions in the beginning?

3.   The best title of this story might be “_____”.

4.The sentence “he plans to press his case with the French officials” (underlined in Paragraph 4) suggests that Vinceti intends to _____.

5.   Which of the following statements is true according to the passage?

6.   We can infer from the last two paragraphs that _____?

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Leonardo da Vinci and Nature

In the modern world, art and science are two very separate activities, but in Leonardo’s time they were closely connected. Science meant mathematics and medical studies. 1. Mathematics included practical work like surveying land for making maps as well as measuring the movements of the stars in the sky. An artist might need to measure the different parts of the body. He could also use mathematics to place things in relationship to each other in a drawing or painting so the scene looked correct. 2.

Mathematics was also connected to music because musical sounds have a fixed relationship with each other that can be described in numbers. 3. More than this, though, Leonardo believed that numbers were a part of all things in the world, including music, and he said that “without them nothing can be done.”

“Nature has kindly given us things everywhere to copy,” wrote Leonardo. In all his activities, Leonardo was trying to discover the rules that control nature. In his search for those rules, he looked very carefully at a lot of examples and details. Actual experience was more important to him than opinion, and he worked from facts to ideas. 4. His purpose was to examine the world so he could copy it in beautiful paintings and sculptures. He also wanted to learn from the clever solutions of nature.

5. His quick little sketches (素描), often done while wandering outside, helped him to catch a movement or a shape. More careful drawings would be done at a desk with a pen and ruler. In July 2001, a small drawing by Leonardo was sold for $12 million. It was the most　 expensive drawing in the world.

A.Leonardo was always drawing.

B.How could these be connected with art?

C.Leonardo’s ideas were vastly ahead of his time.

D.Mathematicians and doctors worked to discover the unknown.

E.Above all, Leonardo wanted to understand how and why things worked.

F.You will see a good example of such positioning in the painting of The Last Supper.

G.Leonardo himself was a very good musician and liked to play an instrument and sing.

高三英语七选五中等难度题查看答案及解析

Leonardo da Vinci and Nature

In the modern world, art and science are two very separate activities, but in Leonardo’s time they were closely connected. Science meant mathematics and medical studies.1.Mathematics included practical work like surveying land for making maps as well as measuring the movements of the stars in the sky. An artist might need to measure the different parts of the body. He could also use mathematics to place things in relationship to each other in a drawing or painting so the scene looked correct.2.

Mathematics was also connected to music because musical sounds have a fixed relationship with each other that can be described in numbers.3.More than this, though, Leonardo believed that numbers were a part of all things in the world, including music, and he said that “without them nothing can be done.”

“Nature has kindly given us things everywhere to copy,” wrote Leonardo. In all his activities, Leonardo was trying to discover the rules that control nature. In his search for those rules, he looked very carefully at a lot of examples and details. Actual experience was more important to him than opinion, and he worked from facts to ideas.4. His purpose was to examine the world so he could copy it in beautiful paintings and sculptures. He also wanted to learn from the clever solutions of nature.

5. His quick little sketches, often done while wandering outside, helped him to catch a movement or a shape. More careful drawings would be done at a desk with a pen and ruler. In July 2001, a small drawing by Leonardo was sold for $12 million. It was the most expensive drawing in the world.

A.Leonardo was always drawing.

B.How could these be connected with art?

C.Leonardo was also an influential philosopher.

D.Mathematicians and doctors worked to discover the unknown.

E.Above all, Leonardo wanted to understand how and why things worked.

F.Leonardo himself was a very good musician and liked to play an instrument and sing.

G.You will see a good example of such positioning in the painting of The Last Supper.

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Learning from Leonardo

Yes, Leonardo Da Vinci was a genius. 1. However, we can learn from him and try to be more like him.

Be constantly curious.

Leonardo actually did have special talents, but his distinguishing and most inspiring quality was his strong curiosity. He wanted to know what causes people to yawn and how light is processed in the eye. 2.Being constantly and randomly curious about everything around us is something that each of us can push ourselves to do, every waking hour, just as he did.

Seek knowledge itself.

Not all knowledge needs to be useful. 3. By allowing himself to be driven by pure curiosity, he got to explore more horizons and see more connections than anyone else of his times.

4.

When Leonardo came up with an idea, he designed an experiment to test it. When his experiment showed that a theory was flawed (瑕疵的), he abandoned his theory and sought a new one. If we want to be more like Leonardo, we have to be fearless about changing our minds based on new and real information.

Take notes on paper.

Five hundred years later, Leonardo's notebooks are around to astonish and inspire us.5. This way, fifty years from now, our own notebooks, will also be around to astonish and inspire our grandchildren, unlike our tweets and Facebook posts.

A.Show respect to facts.

B.You'd better show interest in writing.

C.We may never be able to match his talents.

D.Work up the enthusiasm to start writing them.

E.Sometimes it should be learned for pure pleasure.

F.Merely a small part of knowledge can be applied to practice.

G.Also, he instructed himself to learn about the light of the moon.

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Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) ____ birds kept in cages in order to have the pleasure of setting them free.

A. is said to be buying　　　　　　　 　　　　　　　　　 B. is said to have bought

C. had said to buy　　　　　　　　　　 　　　　　　　　　 D. has sad to have bought

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______ the works of Leonardo da Vinci, the Louvre Museum has more than 6,000 other European paintings, ranging from the13th century to the 19th century.

A. Except for      B. Except         C. In addition        D. Apart from

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It's common knowledge that the woman in Leonardo da Vinci's most famous painting seems to look back at observers, following them with her eyes no matter where they stand in the room. But this common knowledge turns out wrong.

A new study finds that the woman in the painting is actually looking out at an angle that's 15.4 degrees off to the observer's right—well outside of the range that people normally believe when they think someone is looking right at them. In other words, said the study author, Horstmann, ''She's not looking at you. '' This is somewhat ironic, because the entire phenomenon of a person's gaze (凝视) in a photograph or painting seeming to follow the viewer is called the ''Mona Lisa effect''. That effect is absolutely real, Horstmann said. If a person is illustrated or photographed looking straight ahead, even people viewing the portrait from an angle will feel they are being looked at. As long as the angle of the person’s gaze is no more than about 5 degrees off to either side, the Mona Lisa effect occurs.

Horstmann and his co-author were studying this effect for its application in the creation of artificial-intelligence avatars(虚拟头像) when Horstmann took a long look at the ''Mona Lisa'' and realized she wasn't looking at him. To make sure it wasn't just him, the researchers asked 24 people to view images of the ''Mona Lisa'' on a computer screen.

So why do people repeat the belief that her eyes seem to follow the viewer? Horstmann isn't sure. It's possible, he said, that people have the desire to be looked at, so they think the woman is looking straight at them. Or maybe the people who first coined the term ''Mona Lisa effect'' just thought it was a cool name.

1.What is generally believed about the woman in the painting ''Mona Lisa''?

A.She attracts the viewers to look back.

B.She seems mysterious because of her eyes.

C.She fixes her eyes on the back of the viewers.

D.She looks at the viewers wherever they stand.

2.What gaze range in a painting will cause the Mona Lisa effect?

A. B.

C. D.

3.Why was the experiment involving 24 people conducted?

A.To confirm Horstmann's belief.

B.To create artificial-intelligence avatars.

C.To calculate the angle of Mona Lisa's gaze.

D.To explain how the Mona Lisa effect can be applied.

4.What can we learn from the text?

A.Horstmann thinks it's cool to coin the term “Mona Lisa effect”.

B.The Mona Lisa effect contributes to the creation of artificial intelligence.

C.Feeling being gazed at by Mona Lisa may be caused by the desire for attention.

D.The position of the ruler in the experiment will influence the viewers' judgment.

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