Are you more of a Botticelli or a Van Gogh?
A new feature in the Google Arts & Culture app reveals how a picture of your face may resemble a historical painting.
The app went viral this weekend after users discovered the entertaining feature that analyzes selfies and matches them to historical artwork. It pulls from Google's digital collection of artworks from museums around the world.
The feature rolled out to the app on iOS and Android last month. But users—even some big names such as Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, musician Pete Wentz, and actors Felicia Day and Kumail Nanjiani—shared their results on news feeds.
The app became the top downloaded iPhone app over the weekend, and landed in the top 10 on Android, according to analytics firm App Annie.
To find your fine art doppelganger(与某人外貌相同的人), open the Google Arts & Culture app and scroll until you see the "Is your portrait in a museum?" feature. Tap "get started",and you'll be guided through the process.
It's currently only available in the U.S.
Google said the experimental feature uses computer vision technology to scan facial features and extract data to match with paintings. The company said it won't use data from photos for any other purpose but to match it with images in its catalog. It only stores selfies for the time it takes to find matches, Google said.
The selfie feature is similar to other apps that use matching technology to find lookalikes. Microsoft's What Dog app can identify and classify dogs based on photos uploaded to the app.
The Google Arts & Culture app is part of the Google Cultural Institute, which provides information about artists, scientists and historical figures from 1,000 institutions worldwide.
1.Why did the Google Arts & Culture app get so popular?
A.Because some famous people used it.
B.Because it can match selfies to some paintings.
C.Because it's more practical than entertaining.
D.Because it was the top download.
2.How can you find your fine art doppelganger?
A.By visiting Google's digital collection of artworks.
B.By analyzing your selfies.
C.By opening the app and following its guide.
D.By scrolling the screen of your smartphone.
3.What can you infer from the 8th paragraph?
A.The feature of the app has nothing to do with data.
B.Google stores selfies as commercial resources.
C.Selfies will be stored for a long time.
D.The users' selfies will not be abused.
4.Which of the following can be the best title for the text?
A.The Google Cultural Institute
B.Google app matches your face to a famous painting
C.What Dog app vs Google Arts & Culture app
D.How to find valuable historical paintings
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题
Are you more of a Botticelli or a Van Gogh?
A new feature in the Google Arts & Culture app reveals how a picture of your face may resemble a historical painting.
The app went viral this weekend after users discovered the entertaining feature that analyzes selfies and matches them to historical artwork. It pulls from Google's digital collection of artworks from museums around the world.
The feature rolled out to the app on iOS and Android last month. But users—even some big names such as Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, musician Pete Wentz, and actors Felicia Day and Kumail Nanjiani—shared their results on news feeds.
The app became the top downloaded iPhone app over the weekend, and landed in the top 10 on Android, according to analytics firm App Annie.
To find your fine art doppelganger(与某人外貌相同的人), open the Google Arts & Culture app and scroll until you see the "Is your portrait in a museum?" feature. Tap "get started",and you'll be guided through the process.
It's currently only available in the U.S.
Google said the experimental feature uses computer vision technology to scan facial features and extract data to match with paintings. The company said it won't use data from photos for any other purpose but to match it with images in its catalog. It only stores selfies for the time it takes to find matches, Google said.
The selfie feature is similar to other apps that use matching technology to find lookalikes. Microsoft's What Dog app can identify and classify dogs based on photos uploaded to the app.
The Google Arts & Culture app is part of the Google Cultural Institute, which provides information about artists, scientists and historical figures from 1,000 institutions worldwide.
1.Why did the Google Arts & Culture app get so popular?
A.Because some famous people used it.
B.Because it can match selfies to some paintings.
C.Because it's more practical than entertaining.
D.Because it was the top download.
2.How can you find your fine art doppelganger?
A.By visiting Google's digital collection of artworks.
B.By analyzing your selfies.
C.By opening the app and following its guide.
D.By scrolling the screen of your smartphone.
3.What can you infer from the 8th paragraph?
A.The feature of the app has nothing to do with data.
B.Google stores selfies as commercial resources.
C.Selfies will be stored for a long time.
D.The users' selfies will not be abused.
4.Which of the following can be the best title for the text?
A.The Google Cultural Institute
B.Google app matches your face to a famous painting
C.What Dog app vs Google Arts & Culture app
D.How to find valuable historical paintings
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has welcomed home two paintings by the Dutch master, more than 14 years after they were ripped (抢) off the museum’s wall in a nighttime theft. Museum director Axel Rueger called their return “one of the most special days in the history of the museum.”
The paintings were discovered last year by Italian police while they were searching suspected Italian criminals’ farmhouse near Naples for evidence of drug dealing. The two paintings were wrapped in cotton sheets. They were stuffed in a box and hidden behind a wall in a toilet when they were found.
The paintings were considered among the artworks most searched for in the world. After years in darkness, they can now shine again. They are back on display at the museum before being taken to the conservation studio for repair. Fortunately, they suffered remarkably little damage as thieves who had climbed up a ladder and broken a window to get into the museum in 2004 rip them out of their frames.
“It is not only a surprise that the works have been recovered but it’s even more surprising they are in relatively unharmed condition,” Rueger said.
The museum director was on vacation when the call came last year from Italian authorities who believed they had recovered the paintings. He didn’t celebrate right away. He’d had calls li this before.
“I was hopeful but also a little hesitant. Over these years, we had so many occasions when people phoned us, contacted us, claiming that they knew something about the whereabouts (下落) of the works and each time it was false, the trace went cold,” he said. “So...the way has been till of disappointment.” But museum experts sent to Italy to check the authenticity(真实性) of the works quickly turned Rueger’s doubts into delight.
Rueger said the paintings are now back permanently at the museum, which is home to dozens of works by Van Gogh. “I’m very confident that everything is safe in the museum from now on,” he said.
1.How were the stolen paintings found?
A. The police found them by accident.
B. The arrested thieves gave information.
C. Some drug dealers offered clues.
D. The police knew the hidden place.
2.What surprised Rueger most about the lost paintings?
A. They were stolen at night. B. They were found at last.
C. They suffered little damage. D. The search took 14 years.
3.When Rueger got the call from Italian authorities, he .
A. didn’t believe them B. felt quite relieved
C. planned to celebrate D. doubted the news
4.What does the underlined part in Paragraph 6 probably mean?
A. Reuger gradually lost interest in the search.
B. The number of false calls was greatly reduced.
C. Rueger felt cold because of too many false calls.
D. The chance to find the paintings became slim.
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
---I acquired ______ Van Gogh from a businessman from Paris the other day.
---Really? Are you sure it’s ______ real one?
A. /, a B. /, the C. a, a D. a, the
高三英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析
---I acquired ______ Van Gogh from a businessman from Paris the other day.
---Really? Are you sure it’s ______ real one?
A. /, a B. /, the
C. a, a D. a, the
高三英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析
"I am my paintings," says Vincent van Gogh, played by Willem Dafoe in a career-best performance, in Julian Schnabelˈs At Eternityˈs Gate, which follows the artist through his last turmoil (动荡骚乱) and astonishingly prolific years in the late 1880s in the south of France. Watching this film, you can believe it.
Schnabel is, of course, a famous artist as well as a powerful, if powerfully uneven, filmmaker, and what he captures here is what it must have been like to be Van Gogh. Itˈs an artistˈs imagining of what another artist might have felt. He never does break away from the romantic, madness-of-genius cliché(陈词滥调) that has been with so many movies and comments about Van Gogh. Instead, he accepts it because he believes it proves the turmoil that goes into creating great art. Of course, turmoil can also create bad art, but such is Schnabelˈs enthusiasm that I bought into the reality even though I think Van Gogh was a great artist despite rather than because of his mental pain.
I have a bit less sympathy for the ways in which the filmmakers got guess and frank mythmaking into the narrative. But the film comes to a great and sorrowing finish when we hear Vincentˈs words, "I thought an artist has to teach a way to look at the rest of the world. Not anymore. Now I just think of my relationship with eternity. " One of the great achievements of this movie is that, in the end, Van Gogh's words enter into our soul with the same force as the paintings.
1.Who starred in At Eternity's Gate?
A.Vincent van Gogh. B.Julian Schnabel.
C.Willem Dafoe. D.Robert Gulaczyk.
2.What do we know about Julian Schnabel?
A.He tries to break away from the traditional style.
B.He is as good an artist as a film maker.
C.His film is better than the previous ones.
D.He thinks turmoil creates bad art.
3.What can we know from the last paragraph?
A.The film ends happily.
B.Van Gogh figured out his relationship with eternity.
C.What Van Gogh said has a major influence on us.
D.The film teaches us a way to look at the rest of the world.
4.From which is the text probably taken?
A.An art textbook. B.An art magazine.
C.A movie advertisement. D.A research paper.
高三英语阅读理解简单题查看答案及解析
Many of van Gogh’s paintings were inspired by warm, yellow sunlight because he loved how it could light up the world in different ways. His painting Sunflowers, for example,1.(fill) with vivid yellows and browns. These colors give 2.painting a feeling of warmth and well-being. However, the sunflowers are actually dead and dying.
The result is a painting that combines the warmth of life that van Gogh loved 3.the feelings of sadness that were all around him. It is a painting that is warm, beautiful and sad, all at the same time.
Van Gogh’s most famous painting. The Starry Night, takes this 4.(mix) of joy and sadness one step further. It is a landscape full of deep blues and shadows 5.represent the sadness van Gogh was feeling as he 6.(paint), rather than what he was actually seeing.
This is why van Gogh’s 7.(image) in his painting look more imagined than real. The stars and moon in The Starry Night are 8.(unusual) bright, 9.(they) light swirling(旋动) above the darkening hills. A tree that looks like black fire cuts through the view of the night, 10.(interrupt) its beauty.
高三英语短文填空中等难度题查看答案及解析
Starry Night
Have you ever seen a real night sky that looks like Van Gogh’s Starry Night? I hope not! So, why would an artist paint the sky this way? Perhaps I can answer that with another question. When you’re happy, why do you sing instead of speaking? Or when you’re in love, why do you speak of roses and honey? When we do these things, we, too are artists. We’re using something that goes beyond a mere scientific description in order to communicate our feelings more powerfully than straightforward words can. So consider for a moment that Van Gogh might not have been hallucinating (产生幻觉的) on the night he painted this. Maybe he felt something so powerful that he had to go beyond the familiar to express it.
I hope I’m reminding you of something you already know as I describe the experience of being outside at night under a crystal clear sky that makes everything seem clean and refreshing. So you look up. And suddenly you see the sky that you’ve seldom seen before. It’s not just the same old dark night sky tonight. Instead, the blackness is a deep, rich blue that is more bottomless than any ocean. The stars are not spots of light but brilliant, magical diamonds that dance like tiny angels. In just this special moment, the sky is somehow alive, and it seems to speak to you silently about the meaning of infinity (无限).
Now look at the painting again. Can you see something of what makes this such a famous and well-loved image? But there’s more here than that. Van Gogh painted this while he was quite struck down by a mental disease. It is natural to imagine that he frequently battled the fear that he would never escape his prison to true freedom. It is natural for us to imagine this because each of us has faced our own personal prison, whether it be disease, the loss of a loved one, serious financial problems … In such moments it is tempting to give up to despair (绝望) and collapse in hopelessness.
Looking at this painting, I imagine Van Gogh in just such a moment of despair, when he is struck by the memory of one of those amazing night skies. He recalls the sense that he is not alone, that there is a living, infinite world with rich colorful creatures and scenes all around.
And so the sky flows across the canvas (画布) full of vitality (活力) and power. The stars don’t just sparkle; they explode. Looking closer, we notice that the earth itself seems to respond to the movement in the sky, forming its own living waves in the mountain and rolling trees. In the sleepy village, the windows of the houses glow (发光) with the same light that brightens the universe. The giant trees at the left seem to capture the joy by stretching upwards toward the sky.
What a tremendous message of hope there is in this masterpiece! Even if our troubles persist, the world around us assures us that life is worth living. That’s what the angels sing about. Doesn’t it make you want to sing, too?
1.Looking at the painting Starry Night, we can see all the following except________.
A. The singing angels B. the giant trees
C. the sleepy village D. the sparkling stars
2.Van Gogh does NOT describe a feeling of ______ through the Starry Night.
A. happiness B. vitality C. power D. despair
3.The underlined word “prison” in the 3rd paragraph probably means ______.
A. trouble in one’s life B. mental illness
C. control from the authority D. a place where criminals are kept
4.What is the main purpose of this passage?
A. To explain how Van Gogh painted the Starry Night.
B. To tell us how to appreciate the Starry Night.
C. To prove Van Gogh was in a hallucinating state of mind while painting the picture.
D. To show us the beauty of the sky on a starry night.
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
Perhaps Van Gogh(1853-1890)isn’t the most famous artist in the world, but his personal story is probably the most well known. The paintings he created didn’t become famous until after he died. Last year marked the 125th anniversary of his death. An art exhibition was in Beijing till Dec. 6, in which more than 3,000 photos of the artist’s masterpieces were shown. However, the paintings that made him famous after his death did little for him when he was alive.
Van Gogh was born into a rich family in the Netherlands. He started his career working for an art dealer. But then he tried other things like teaching in England. He also tried to become a priest, but failed the exams.
Finally, he found something else to believe in while he was living in a small mining town in Belgium—art. He returned to his childhood love of painting and drawing.
He was an important and great artist in a generation that challenged the Impressionist style. Post-Impressionists, like Van Gogh, wanted to show the world as it felt to them, not always as it looked.
Van Gogh used different forms and colors to make his art more abstract. The way he used colors was especially impressive. In Wheatfield with Crows (1890), the colors are very intense. Corn is yellow, grass is green, and crows are black. But the colors are used in such a way that it looks better than a photograph.
Unfortunately, Van Gogh’s art wasn’t very popular while he was alive. He was poor and was thought to have mental problems, which led him to cut off his ear and eventually die by shooting himself. Arguably, it wasn’t the art that gave him mental problems. What made him so sad may have been the difficulty of working as an artist in a practical world.
1.What can we know about Van Gogh from the passage?
A. He was born into a rich family in the Netherlands 125 years ago.
B. He was a teacher, a priest and a miner before he became an artist.
C. He did not get much wealth or fame from his works before he died.
D. He decided to be an artist when he worked as an art dealer.
2.According to the passage, Van Gogh impressed people deeply by ________.
A. how he used colors in his paintings
B. how he became famous for his paintings
C. how he showed the world exactly as it looked
D. how he began to love art while living in Belgium
3.What might have caused Van Gogh’s mental problems?
A. The art of painting. B. The loss of one of his ears.
C. Pressure from his family. D. Not being accepted or recognized.
4.What can be the best title of this passage?
A. Wheatfield with Crows B. An Artist’s Sad Story
C. Childhood of Van Gogh D. An Art Exhibition of Van Gogh
高三英语阅读理解简单题查看答案及解析
阅读下面短文,在空白处填入 1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。
Many of Van Gogh's paintings were inspired by warm, yellow sunlight because he loved how it could light up the world in different 1.(way). His painting Sun-flowers, for example, 2.(fill) with vivid yellows and browns. These colors give 3.painting a feeling of warmth and well-being. However, the sunflowers are actually dead and dying. The result is a painting that 4.(combine) the warmth of life with the feelings of sadness.It is a painting that is warm, beautiful and sad at the same time.
Van Gogh's 5.(famous) painting, The Starry Night, takes this mixture of joy and sadness one step further.This is a picture known by the world. It is full 6. deep blues and shadows, 7.represents the sadness that Van Gogh felt as he painted. 8., the stars and moon in The Starry Night are 9.(unusual) bright and the light is swirling (旋动)above the darkening hills.It is a landscape that shows 10.(warm)in the painting.
高三英语语法填空中等难度题查看答案及解析
Vincent Van Gogh was not always an artist. In fact, he wanted to be a church minister and was even sent to the Belgian mining community of Borinage in 1879. He discovered that the miners there endured terrible working conditions and poverty-level wages. Their families were skin-and-bone and struggled simply to survive. He felt concerned that the small pay he received from the church allowed him a reasonable lifestyle, which, in contrast, seemed to him unfair.
One cold February evening, while he watched the miners trudging home, he spotted an old man staggering toward him across the fields, wrapped in a burlap(粗麻布) bag for warmth. Van Gogh laid his own clothing out on the bed, set aside enough for one change, and decided to give the rest away. He gave the old man a suit of clothes and he gave his overcoat to a pregnant woman whose husband had been killed in a cave-in.
He lived on starvation food and spent his salary on food for the miners. When children in one family caught typhoid fever, though feverish himself, he packed up his bed and took it to them.
A wealthy family in the community offered him free room and board, Van Gogh declined the offer, stating that it was the final temptation (诱惑) he must reject if he was to faithfully serve his community of poor miners. He believed that if he wanted them to trust him, he must become one of them. And if they were to learn of the love of God through him, he must love them enough to share with them.
He was acutely aware of the big difference between words and actions. He knew that our lives always speak louder and clearer than our words. Maybe that is why Francis of Assisi often said to his monks, “Wherever you go, preach(讲道). Use words if necessary.”
Others are “listening” carefully to your actions. What are you saying to them?
1. We can infer form the passage ____________.
A. our lives always speak louder and clearer than our words
B. the miners there worked under excellent working conditions
C. the ministers lived a much better and easier life than the miners at the time
D. Van Gogh himself offered to work in the Belgian mining community of Borinage in 1879.
2. What does the underlined word “trudging” in the second paragraph mean?
A. Moving very quickly B. Moving with quick light steps
C. Walking slowly for pleasure. D. Walking with slow heavy steps.
3. According to the passage, which of the following words can best describe Van Gogh?
A. Ambitious and aggressive. B. Considerate and sympathetic
C. Greedy and selfish. D. Determined and grateful
4. What does the last paragraph want to tell us?
A. Use words if necessary B. Actions speak louder than words
C. Rome was not built in a day. D. Where there is a will there is a way.
高三英语阅读理解简单题查看答案及解析