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ReadingArt: ArtforBookLovers is a celebration of an everyday object—the book, represented here in almost three hundred artworks from museums around the world. The image of the reader appears throughout history, in art made long before books as we now know them came into being. In artists' representations of books and reading, we see moments of shared humanity that go beyond culture and time.

In this “book of books£¬” artworks are selected and arranged in a way that emphasizes these connections between different eras and cultures. We see scenes of children learning to read at home or at school, with the book as a focus for relations between the generations. Adults are portrayed (Ãè»æ) alone in many settings and poses—absorbed in a volume, deep in thought or lost in a moment of leisure. These scenes may have been painted hundreds of years ago, but they record moments we can all relate__to£®

Books themselves may be used symbolically in paintings to demonstrate the intellect (²ÅÖÇ), wealth or faith of the subject. Before the wide use of the printing press, books were treasured objects and could be works of art in their own right. More recently, as books have become inexpensive or even throwaway, artists have used them as the raw material for artworks—transforming covers, pages or even complete volumes into paintings and sculptures.

Continued developments in communication technologies were once believed to make the printed page outdated. From a 21st­century point of view, the printed book is certainly ancient, but it remains as interactive as any battery­powered e­reader. To serve its function, a book must be activated by a user: the cover opened, the pages parted, the contents reviewed, perhaps notes written down or words underlined. And in contrast to our increasingly networked lives where the information we consume is monitored and tracked, a printed book still offers the chance of a wholly private, “off­line” activity.

1£®Where is the text most probably taken from?

A£®An introduction to a book.

B£®An essay on the art of writing.

C£®A guidebook to a museum.

D£®A review of modern paintings.

2£®What are the selected artworks about?

A£®Wealth and intellect.

B£®Home and school.

C£®Books and reading.

D£®Work and leisure.

3£®What do the underlined words “relate to” in Paragraph 2 mean?

A£®Understand.    B£®Paint.

C£®Seize.    D£®Transform.

4£®What does the author want to say by mentioning the e­reader?

A£®The printed book is not totally out of date.

B£®Technology has changed the way we read.

C£®Our lives in the 21st century are networked.

D£®People now rarely have the patience to read.