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BEST IELTS Academic Reading Test 511
IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST 511 – PASSAGE – 3
IELTS ACADEMIC READING TEST – 511
READING PASSAGE – 3
Nighthawks
A One of the most distinctive works of modern American art is Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks. Completed in 1942 – the last touches were added on 21st January according to an annotation in Hopper’s journal – the painting was immediately recognised as a masterpiece by the director of the Art Institute of Chicago, who called it “as fine as anything by Homer”, in a reference to the renowned American landscape painter. The Art Institute purchased Nighthawks for $3000, an impressive sum at the time, and it has remained in the Institute’s holdings to this day.
B The painting itself depicts a scene in a small urban diner, with three patrons sitting around a circular bar and a young barman reaching down, possibly preparing to mix a drink. One of the customers, in a suit jacket and bowler hat, sits alone with his back hunched and facing away from the viewer. Another man and a woman sit together, facing the viewer. They are seemingly a couple, yet each is unresponsive to the other’s presence – they appear lost in their own thoughts.
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The male partner is possibly making eye contact with the waiter, yet here too their faces remain blank, with little sign of verbal engagement. Indeed, one of the contradictory effects of Nighthawks is how this motley gathering appears somehow intimate, enveloped by the dark streets outside, yet alone as individuals. As if to accentuate the sense of disconnection, Hopper does not paint any entrance to the diner – we see the inhabitants of this urban world only through surrounding plate glass windows and so we are as removed from their lives as they are from each other’s.
C Perhaps the most impressive stylistic feature of Nighthawks is Hopper’s depiction of the diner’s fluorescent illumination, which cascades with eerie shades of paleness across both interior and exterior elements of the scene. At the time of painting, fluorescent lamps were a recent development, so Hopper ran into difficulty recreating its effects on canvas. An initial attempt to use zinc based paint proved unsuccessful, as it later cracked and peeled, so the artist was forced to amend the painting using traditional lead-based paint. Nonetheless, the effect is striking and marks a truly modern turn in Western artwork.
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D Thematically, Nighthawks seems to represent a shift in social relations that the USA was undergoing in the early decades of the 20th century. As cities boomed, along with their white-collar industries, inhabitants of rural areas began heading to metropolitan areas in search of better opportunities for employment. As the modern city took shape, these economic forces drew populations together while at the same time wedging them apart.
Old family and community ties were broken, and new divisions, such as those of social class, became starker. Does Nighthawks represent a peek into this fractured landscape – the physical togetherness of the city alongside its alienating social forces? Although he typically resisted the urge to self-analyse his work, Hopper eventually conceded that, perhaps unconsciously, he was painting “the loneliness of a large city”.
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E Just like the lives of the customers it depicts, much still remains a mystery about Hopper’s painting. Although fans and critics have scoured historical photographs and street maps to ascertain the precise location of the restaurant (the painter revealed only that Nighthawks was based on “a restaurant on Greenwich Avenue where two streets meet”), the combination of structural elements such as the circular bar, the expansive plate-glass windows, and the bar’s relatively small size, suggests that Hopper drew inspiration from several New York buildings.
F Another mystery – whether Hopper was inspired by any particular work of art – remains the subject of pure conjecture. His biographer, Gail Levin, suggests that Vincent Van Gogh’s Café at Night was conceivably a source of inspiration, as it would have been on display at a gallery in New York in the months prior to the completion of Nighthawks. Another possibility is that Hopper was attempting to recreate visually the narrative style of Ernest Hemingway’s short story The Killers. Hopper was a great fan of the story, applauding Hemingway’s sparse and unsentimental style, and many art critics have noted a similar aesthetic in Nighthawks.
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G Nighthawks stands today as possibly the last work of American representational art to achieve almost universal recognition across all strands of society. Because of this, Hopper’s work has been subject to numerous homages and parodies in the mainstream of Western media, with references turning up in The Simpsons, the Peanuts comic strip, and even Sesame Street colouring books.
In the decades following the release of Nighthawks, American art took an increasingly abstract turn through movements such as abstract expressionism and pop art. Although these subsequent traditions produced their own share of memorable imagery, ranging from Jackson Pollock’s No. 1 (1950) to Andy Warhol’s infamous Campbell’s Soup Cans (1962), Nighthawks remains a lasting symbol of its time and the acme of realism in the American visual arts.
IELTS Academic Reading Test
Questions 27–33
Reading Passage 3 has seven paragraphs, A–G. Choose the correct heading for paragraphs A–G from the list of headings below. Write the correct number, i–x, in boxes 27–33 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i. A reflection of recent social developments
ii. A high price to pay
iii. A stunning success
iv. Hopper’s art no longer popular
v. The end of an era in American art
vi. Working with a new kind of paint
vii. A grouping together yet detached
viii. Speculation about origins of creative influence
ix. First – time portrayal of new type of lighting
x. Exact site of restaurant unknown
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27. Paragraph A
28. Paragraph B
29. Paragraph C
30. Paragraph D
31. Paragraph E
32. Paragraph F
33. Paragraph G
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Questions 34–40
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3?
In boxes 34–40 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
34. Hopper recorded in his diary the exact date when he finished the painting.
35. The Art Institute of Chicago paid a lot of money for the painting because it was instantly thought to be a great work of art.
36. Nighthawks got its name because of the distinctive facial features of one of its characters.
37. Nighthawks was inspired by a single real-life diner incorporating a range of architectural features.
38. A painting by Van Gogh was exhibited shortly before Nighthawks was released.
39. Hopper enjoyed the short story The Killers because it showed strong emotion.
40. Works of popular culture have often made reference to Nighthawks.
IELTS Academic Reading Test
IELTS Academic Reading Test
ANSWERS
27. III
28. VII
29. IX
30. I
31. X
32. VIII
33. V
34. TRUE
35. TRUE
36. NOT GIVEN
37. FALSE
38. TRUE
39. FALSE
40. TRUE
IELTS Academic Reading Test