TEM-4 Exercise 5
ClozeDecide which of the choices given below would correctly complete the passage if inserted in the corresponding blanks. Select the correct choice for each blank.
Painting, the execution of forms and shapes on a surface by means of pigment, has been continuously practiced by humans for some 20,000 years. Together with other activities (1)_____ ritualistic in origin but have come to be designated as artistic (such as music or dance), painting was one of the earliest ways in which man (2)_____ to express his own personality and his (3)_____ understanding of an existence beyond the material world. (4)_____ music and dance, however, examples of early forms of painting have survived to the present day. The modern eye can derive aesthetic as well as antiquarian satisfaction (5)_____ the 15,000-year-old cave murals of Lascaux -- some examples (6)_____ to the considerable powers of draftsmanship of these early artists. And painting, like other arts, exhibits universal qualities that (7)_____ for viewers of all nations and civilizations to understand and appreciate.
The major (8)_____ examples of early painting anywhere in the world are found in Western Europe and the Soviet Union. But some 5,000 years ago, the areas in which important paintings were executed (9)_____ to the eastern Mediterranean Sea and neighboring regions. (10)_____, Western shared a European cultural tradition -- the Middle East and Mediterranean Basin and, later, the countries of the New World.
Western painting is in general distinguished by its concentration (11)_____ the representation of the human (12)_____, whether in the heroic context of antiquity or the religious context of the early Christian and medieval world. The Renaissance (13)_____ this tradition through a (14)_____ examination of the natural world and an investigation of balance, ha