ACTIVIDADES DE INGLES

PAST SIMPLE

ACTIVITY

1. CHOOSE THE MOST SUITABLE HEADING FROM THE LIST (A-E) FOR EACH PART (1-5) OF THE TEXT

PABLO PICASSO

A An extraordinary talent

B Breaking rules

C A young smoker

D A funny experience

E First Word

1 A young smoker

On 25 October 1881 a little boy was born in Malaga, Spain. I t was a difficult birth and to help him breathe, cigar smoke was blown into his nose. But despite being the youngest ever smoker, this baby grew up to be the one of the 20 th century’s greatest painters: Pablo Picasso.

2 First Word

Picasso showed his truly exceptional talent from a very young age. His first word was lápiz (Spanish for pencil) and he learned to draw before he could talk. He was the only son in the family and very good-looking, so he was spoilt. He hated school and often refused to go unless his doting parents allowed him to take one of his father’s pet pigeons with him.

3 A funny experience

Apart from pigeons, his great love was art, and when in 1891 his father, who was an amateur artist, got a job as drawing teacher at a college, Pablo went with him to the college. He often watched him paint and sometimes he was allowed help. One evening his father was painting a picture of their pigeons when he left the room. He returned to find that Pablo had completed the picture, and it was so amazingly beautiful and lifelike that he gave his son his won palette and brushes and never painted again. Pablo was just 13.

4 Breaking rules

From the onwards there was no stopping him. Many people realized that he was a genius but he disappointed those who wanted him to become a traditional painter. He was always breaking the rules of artistic tradition and shocked the public with his strange and powerful pictures. He is probably best known of his “cubist” pictures, which used only simple geometric shapes. His paintings of people were often made up of triangle and square with their features in the wrong place. His works changed our ideas about art, and to million people modern art means the work of Picasso. Guernica, which he painted in 1937, records the bombing that little Basque town during the Spanish civil war, and is undisputedly one of masterpieces of modern painting.

5 An extraordinary talent

Picasso created over 6.000 paintings, drawings and sculptures. Today a “Picasso” cost several million pounds. Minister of Culture was visiting Picasso; the artist accidentally split some paint on the minister trousers. Picasso apologized and wanted to pay for them to be cleaned, but the minister said, “Non! Please, Monsieur Picasso, just sign my trousers!” Picasso died of heart attack during influenza illness in 1973.

WRITTING ACTIVITY

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