In 1889 Van Gogh painted The Starry Night using his unusual way. At that time he stayed at home for his mental 【小题1】(ill) which some experts thought affected his sense of sight. The drug that he took made people see yellow spots. 【小题2】(fortunately), Van Gogh only sold one painting in his lifetime. Though he thought The Starry Night was a failure, it is now one of the world’s best 【小题3】(painting).

In 1893, Edvard Munch was suffering a lot of pain because of his mental health problems. He painted The Scream, 【小题4】 shows a thin figure with an expression of fear—the figure’s mouth is wide open and letting 【小题5】 a powerful scream. In his diary, Munch talked about what inspired him 【小题6】(paint) the picture.

René Magritte painted a series of paintings, 【小题7】(include) The Empire of Light. It shows a beautiful house 【小题8】(light) by lights from inside, surrounded by the darkness of night. What is strange is 【小题9】 above the house and the tree, we see a daytime sky full of brightness and soft white clouds. It seems like quite a mysterious scene. Magritte was inspired by his thoughts and ideas. The viewers have different reactions to The Empire of Light. As for Magritte himself, he thought that the change between day 【小题10】 night in the paintings was surprising.

Dough figurine(捏面人), also known as dough modelling, is a kind of Chinese folk art. It is 【小题1】(simple) made but of high artistic value. It 【小题2】(record) as early as the Han Dynasty. Dough craftsman draws materials based on the required. After a repetition of rubbing, twisting and lifting 【小题3】hand, and poking, cutting, and carving by bamboo knife, the craftsman 【小题4】(shape) the body and the face of the figurine gradually. Dressed up with hair accessories and clothes, all of a sudden, a vivid artistic figurine comes to life.

The Yuan Dynasty witnessed the maturity of Chinese landscape painting. The techniques of ink and wash 【小题1】 (employ) in this period, which brought Chinese landscape painting 【小题2】 the peak of prosperity and splendor. The ink-and-wash landscape painters developed the idea 【小题3】 a stretch of landscape represents a stretch of one’s spiritual world.

Ni Yunlin, Wu Zhen, Huang Gongwang and Wang Meng were known as the “Four Masters of the Yuan”, 【小题4】 enjoyed the free clouds and green mountains of nature. Of them all Ni Yunlin is considered to be 【小题5】 typical.

In Ni’s The Rongxi Studio, colours are completely abandoned and “the level and distant” method is applied to the 【小题6】 (compose) of the painting, so as to achieve the effect of peace and detachment (超脱). The world 【小题7】(create) here is the world in the artist’s mind: cold mountains and insignificant waters reveal the 【小题8】(painter) desire to leave the earthly world. Withered (枯萎的) trees convey the artist’s pursuit of freedom, though it sometimes means 【小题9】 (pain) loneliness. The small pavilion under the trees is “Rongxi Studio,” the name meaning a studio big enough only 【小题10】 (hold) a knee-a reflection of a human being’s inferior position in the universe.