TOEFLリスニング

🎧 リスニング原文

Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in an art history class. Professor: Today we're going to look at the influence of Japanese woodblock prints on European art in the late 19th century. These prints, known as ukiyo-e, began arriving in Europe as wrapping paper for porcelain. Artists like Monet and Degas were immediately captivated by their flat areas of color, unusual angles, and lack of traditional perspective. But perhaps the most dramatic impact was on Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh, who lived in Paris at the time, collected hundreds of these prints. He copied some of them in oil paint to understand their techniques. For example, he made a painting based on a print by Hiroshige, a famous Japanese artist. Van Gogh was particularly struck by the prints' bold outlines and the way they cropped objects at the edge of the frame. He started to apply these ideas to his own landscapes, using strong outlines and placing a tree trunk or a bridge partially off-center to create a more dynamic composition. So, while van Gogh is known as a post-impressionist, his work shows a deep debt to Japanese art.