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TOEFL
Reading Comprehension
Passage 3 |
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Directions:
In this section you will read a passage which is followed by several questions about it.
For the questions you are to choose the one best answer, (А), (В), (C), or (D),
to each question.
Jacob Epstein's sculptures were the focus of much controversy during the
sculptor's lifetime. Epstein was born in the United States of Russian-Jewish
immigrants in 1880.
He moved to Paris in his youth and later to England, where he eventually settled
and took out British citizenship in 1907. His first major public commission, on
a building in London, offended public taste because of the expressive distortion
and nudity of the figures. In 1937, the Rhodesian government, which at that time
owned the building, actually mutilated the sculptures to make them conform to
public notions of decency.
Many other of Epstein's monumental carvings received equally adverse criticism.
While the general public denounced his work, many artists and critics praised
it. They admired in particular the diversity of his work and noted the influence
on it of primitive and ancient sculptural motifs from Africa and the Pacific.
Today, Epstein's work has received the recognition it deserves, and Epstein is
considered one of the major sculptors of the twentieth century. |
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