People and Places - Taking art to the streets of London | Текст песни

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• People and Places
• Taking art to the streets of London

Группа Learning English. Продолжение текста:
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/people_and_places/pdfs/people_paintings_070802.pdf

Amber: Hello, I’m Amber and you’re listening to bbclearningenglish.com
In People and Places today, we meet the director of the National Gallery in
London. The gallery is home to one of the greatest collections of Western
European painting in the world. But, instead of a tour of the gallery, we walk
with Charles Saumarez-Smith around the streets of Soho and Covent Garden –
two lively parts of London famous for adult shops, Italian cafes and the Royal
Opera House.
Why the walk? Well, over the summer, the National Gallery is putting 44 lifesize,
framed paintings on the walls of alleyways, shops and cafes in Soho and
Covent Garden. These aren’t the real paintings, of course, but copies,
‘reproductions’, or ‘versions’ of the real things.
Here’s Charles now. Notice he uses the expression ‘i.e.’ – an abbreviation of
‘that is to say’ or ‘in other words’, which you are more likely to see written
than hear spoken. And he explains the purpose of displaying these copies of
valuable paintings. He says many, many people feel shy about going into the
National Gallery, they feel ‘inhibited’, and they shouldn’t!
As you listen, try to catch the adverb Charles uses to describe the ‘high-quality
reproductions’.
Charles Saumarez-Smith
What we’re doing is putting up pretty high-quality reproductions. To be honest, I’ve only just
seen this for the first time, but it’s a way of bringing works of art, or versions of them – i.e. reproductions – from the walls of the National Gallery out into the streets. And what I’ve
discovered during the five years I’ve been director is that there are many, many people who
are inhibited about coming in to the National Gallery and shouldn’t be. It’s free to go in,
anybody can go in, but people don’t necessarily know that, and so bringing them out onto the
streets is a way of indicating it.
Amber: Did you catch it? Charles says the reproductions are ‘pretty high-quality’ –
‘pretty’ here means ‘fairly’. Fairly high-quality.
Listen again and notice the expression ‘to be honest’ – this is a useful way of
indicating that what are about to say is what you really feel.
Charles Saumarez-Smith
What we’re doing is putting up pretty high-quality reproductions. To be honest, I’ve only just
seen this for the first time, but it’s a way of bringing works of art, or versions of them – i.e.
reproductions – from the walls of the National Gallery out into the streets. And what I’ve
discovered during the five years I’ve been director is that there are many, many people who
are inhibited about coming in to the National Gallery and shouldn’t be. It’s free to go in,
anybody can go in, but people don’t necessarily know that, and so bringing them out onto the
streets is a way of indicating it.
Amber: So the reproductions on the streets are like a wonderful advertisement for the
gallery. And Charles hopes that when people see the reproductions, they might
want to go to the gallery. After all, the pictures in the National Gallery belong
to the public and you don’t have to pay to go in and see them.
Next, Charles explains how they chose which paintings to reproduce for
display on the streets. Try to catch one or two of the ways they put together this
special ‘list’.
Charles Saumarez-Smith
Essentially, we’ve selected the main works from the collection and the best-known. I mean,
one of the things we’ve done is look at the things we, ourselves, regard as – in inverted
commas – ‘the best’, but there’re also works which we know are very popular because they’re
bought as postcards and reproductions, and as I understand it, the list is an amalgamation of
the best of the best.
Amber: So, they chose, they ‘selected’, ‘the main works’ from the gallery’s ‘collection’
– the principal works, the greatest in importance.
...

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