Answer the following questions about the text in English: 1. When did the art of watercolour 'reach its peak? 2. What habits did the new class begin to adopt? 3. What two traditions existed in watercolour painting? 4. Who was the leading master of the

The art of watercolour reached its peak in England in the years between 1775 and 1840. It was the period of the Industrial Revolution.

The new class was brought to a position of wealth and prominence by the financial and trade expansion. In these deca des this new class began rapidly and increasingly to adopt the habits of the landed gentry: they travelled, they acquired pro-

perty, they read poetry, they formed art collections.

Watercolour artists were in each of these cases in favour able position. Their works were less costly and more easily portable than oil-painting. Their works were suited to acquisi- tion in large quantities. They could provide a permanent record of travels in different regions of the Continent and of visits to particular localities. By poetic allusion to the romantic beauties of landscape they could provide a direct relief from the pressure of urban civilization. Lastly, they could supply a pictorial momento of country estates, houses and parks, gardens and meadows

All this accounts for the expansion in England of two tra- ditions in watercolour painting side by side: the topographical and the elegiac.

Francis Towne', only discovered as an artistic personality some forty years ago, is now universally accepted as one of the leading masters of the second tradition. Most of his best pic- tures belong to a period of two years when the artist went travelling in Italy and Switzerland. Mark Roskill. English Painting. Glimpses of British Art, Leningrad, 1978, p. 71



1) ответьте письменно на следующие вопросы к тексту на английском языке

1. When did the art of watercolour 'reach its peak?

2. What habits did the new class begin to adopt?

3. What two traditions existed in watercolour painting?

4. Who was the leading master of the second tradition?

5. What period do most of his best pictures belong to?