Welcome to the Listening Time podcast. I’m Conner from polyglossa.com, and you’re listening to Episode 22 of the Listening Time podcast.

For those of you who are listening for the first time, welcome! This podcast is designed to help you improve your listening comprehension in English. So, if you already speak some English, and you can understand a lot of English, but you can’t understand native speakers when they’re speaking at normal speed, then this podcast should be perfect for you. In each episode of the podcast, I choose one or two topics to talk about, and then I speak about them in a normal, natural way, using natural words and expressions. But, I speak a little bit more slowly, and a little bit more clearly than the average native speaker speaks. In this way, you can train your ears and train your listening so that you can eventually reach the level where you can understand everything I’m saying, and you can move on to real podcasts made for English speakers.

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So today, we’re going to talk about the topic of art. So, some of you might like this topic. Some of you might not. I’m not an expert in art, but I’m happy to talk about this topic today. So, also, before we start, remember to sign up for our one dollar Listening Practice Seminars at polyglossa.comand, of course, just check us out on all our other social media accounts. Alright, Let’s get started.

Okay, so let’s talk about art. So, first of all, let’s try to define the word “art”. What does “art” mean? Well, one definition that I found and I modified a little bit to match my idea is the following: The expression of human creativity using some medium. So, when we say the word “medium”, we’re talking about one type of tool to express art. For example, painting, that’s one medium, sculpture, that’s another medium. So, these are different mediums of art. So, in my opinion, art is the expression of human creativity using some medium. And I think that some of you might agree with this definition.

So, one thing that people might not agree on when it comes to art is, what is classified as art. Some people might classify many, many things as art, and some people might have a stricter view of art, and would only classify certain things as art. I’m probably somewhere in the middle. I don’t think that anything is art if you just call it “art”, but I also agree that art can take many different forms. So, I think there is a lot of variety when it comes to art.

And one other thing that’s important to consider when defining art or describing art is beauty. This topic causes a lot of debate, right. “Debate” is what happens when people disagree, and they argue with each other. This causes a lot of debate because some people think that beauty is completely subjective, meaning that every single person defines beauty based on their particular… their particular tastes. Right. And other people might say that there are some universal standards when it comes to beauty, so they might think that beauty is more objective. When something is more objective, that means that it’s not subjective, meaning that each person can’t just change the definition or change this concept according to their view. Right. It’s objective, that means it’s kind of universal.

So, some people think that beauty is universal, and there are some standards to what is beautiful and what’s not, what art is beautiful, what art isn’t. This is a tricky topic. The word “tricky” just refers to something that is not easy. It’s difficult. It’s tricky. So for me, this is a tricky topic, and I’m not going to try to answer it because I’m sure some of you will definitely disagree with me, so I prefer to just leave it at that.

Let’s move on to talking about some art movements throughout history. So we use the term “movement” when talking about different periods of art and different styles of art that were created during different time periods. So, I’m just going to cover a few of these major art movements. When I say that I’m going to “cover” something, that means that I’m going to talk about something. For example, I can say “In today’s class, we’re going to cover the present perfect verb tense”. This just means we’re going learn this, we’re going to talk about this today.

So, I’m just going to cover a few different movements that have taken place over time. So, we have the ancient art of ancient civilizations of thousands of years ago. For example, the art of ancient Egypt. Egyptian art focused a lot on the afterlife. The phrase or the term “afterlife” refers to the life beyond this life or the life after this life. So, everyone has different beliefs about what happens when we die. So, the Egyptians definitely had their own particular beliefs about the afterlife. So, they expressed these beliefs in their artwork. So, if you look at their art, you can see a lot of elements dedicated to the afterlife. So, that’s one element of Egyptian art. I’m just going to go quickly through these. I’m not going to explain a lot about each type of art. I’m just giving one element or one example of each one.

So, the next one that I’ll talk about is Greek art. So in ancient Greece, of course, they had very rich art, and they focused a lot on balance, and they focused on having perfect proportions in their art. So, I think that a lot of the figures and people and things that you see in Greek art, a lot of these things are very nice, they’re very beautiful and balanced because of that focus. And then there was also a lot of art in the Roman Empire. So, Roman art focused a lot on realism. So, real things, and art about the real world around them. So, I’m going to fast forward here. When we say “fast forward”, we mean that we’re going to go forward in time to a different place.

So, I’m going to fast forward to the 15th and 16th centuries. These were very important centuries regarding art, because this is when the Renaissance took place. So, the Renaissance artists, they created very beautiful classical artwork, and a lot of these works are still very famous today. For example: the Mona Lisa. This is a famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci. This is maybe the most famous piece of art of all time. I don’t know. But it’s one of the most famous. And then, another really famous one is the statue of David. This was made by Michelangelo. And so it’s a very big statue of David, the character in the Bible. So, another classic piece of Renaissance art is the Sistine Chapel ceiling in Vatican City. And this was also done by Michelangelo. So, I’m sure you’ve heard of those different artworks. Those were some of the most famous ones from the Renaissance period.

And then, in the 17th, and 18th centuries, you have the Baroque period. So, Baroque art was very dynamic and very dramatic, you could say. So, maybe one of the most famous artists of this period was Rembrandt. This was a Dutch artist. And also, another aspect of Baroque art was the architecture. Right, so we have many examples of this in Italy for example, where you have columns and really amazing theatrical structures. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. This really beautiful style of architecture is referred to as baroque architecture.

And then, in the 19th century, there was a movement called Impressionism. Some of you might know this movement. A lot of people really like impressionist artwork. So, this type of artwork is characterized by small, thin brushstrokes. So, let me define a couple of those words for you. So, the word “thin” is like another way of saying skinny. So I can say “she’s skinny” or “she’s thin”. It means that she’s not fat. Right. So, they used small, thin brushstrokes. The word “brushstrokes” refers to the movement that you make with a paintbrush. So, when you paint on a piece of paper or something, you have to make a brushstroke. You have to move the brush on the paper to paint. This is called a brushstroke. So, they used small thin brushstrokes, and they focused a lot on light, and specifically the different qualities of light, and the different changes in light.

And they used a lot of ordinary subject matter. When I say “matter, here. I’m just referring to topics or material. So, they painted a lot of ordinary scenarios or ordinary things. So one of the most famous impressionist painters was Claude Monet. You might have heard of him before. And you might have seen some of his water lilies paintings. He loved painting water lilies, I think. So, water lilies are these floating green things that you see on the surface of lakes or ponds. The word “pond” refers to a very small lake. So, a very small lake would be a pond, and if it’s bigger, we would call it a lake.

So, lastly, I’ll talk just a little bit about the art of today, present day art. This is sometimes referred to as post-modernism or deconstructivism. And I think this started in the early 1970s and continues until today. And this movement of art is very different because there are no central rules. In the other movements, there were certain defining characteristics, but in this movement, there aren’t any central rules, and the artists mix a lot of styles from the past and maybe invent some new techniques that we haven’t seen before. And I think there’s a ton of variety when it comes to modern art… or I should say contemporary art.

So, let me just talk a little bit about my preferences when it comes to art. I’m not a big art person. I’m definitely not an artist, but I really like going to museums and seeing the different artwork when I have the chance. It’s not a hobby of mine. I don’t go to many museums. But if there’s a famous museum, and I have the chance to go, yeah, I definitely have fun walking through the museum and looking at the artwork. My favorite type of art is landscapes. A landscape just refers to some big picture of land. This is a landscape. So, I like paintings that involve landscapes because I like to imagine myself in that world of the painting. Because of this, I really like landscape art. I like beautiful art in general. I don’t only like landscape art. I like other subject matter as well. But one thing that I don’t really like is art that I don’t understand.

So, this is one of my problems with contemporary art, is that I oftentimes don’t understand what I’m looking at. And if that’s the case, for me, it’s not that pleasurable. The word “pleasurable” just means that it gives you happiness, it gives you pleasure, it gives you positive feelings. So, it’s not that pleasurable for me to look at artwork that I don’t understand. I prefer to look at artwork that I can appreciate immediately because it’s very beautiful, and it’s very obvious why it’s beautiful. I like that type of art.

So a couple famous museums that I’ve been to… I’ve been to the Prado Museum in Madrid, and this museum is famous for having a lot of famous Spanish artwork from Diego Velázquez and Francisco Goya, in particular. And the most famous work of art in this museum is a painting called Las Meninas. So, this was a very big painting by Diego Velazquez. It’s a very important work of art.

And one other famous museum I’ve been to is the Gallery of the Academy of Florence. And this museum is famous because this is where the statue of David is. So, I was able to see the statue of David when I visited Florence a couple years ago. And it was really unique because when we went inside that museum, we were practically the only ones in the room with the statue of David because we got to the museum very early, and all of the other people that were in the museum were taking a tour, and the tour started on the other side of the museum.

So, we just entered and went directly to the statue of David. And so we were there with just one or two other people in this big room with this really famous work of art. So, that’s why I say it was a really unique experience because we were just able to get really close and walk around it without any trouble, without having to fight through the crowd. The word “crowd” just refers to a big group of people. So that was a very interesting experience.

And lastly, about me as an artist, as I mentioned, I’m not an artist at all. But when I was younger, I liked drawing war scenes. I liked drawing little soldiers battling each other. And I also liked drawing some comics as well. But when I got older, I stopped this completely. So now, I don’t do any type of art. I’m not very good with visuals and images or photography or things like that. I prefer words, so I like writing. And so, I guess you could consider that an art as well. So, in that case, I might say that my favorite type of art is writing.

Okay, let’s stop there for today. Remember that you can access the transcript in the Details part of the episode. And of course, remember to share this podcast with anyone else who might find it useful. And if you can, please give it a rating, a like, a comment, and, of course, make sure to sign up for our one dollar Listening Practice Seminars at polyglossa.com. And thank you very much for listening to this episode and I hope you’ll come back for Episode 23 of the Listening Time podcast.