Day 14

英文重现

I am(I must make this clean)an honest craftsman;not a cheat,not a forger.I am no Tom Keating,* aging a picture with a spoonful of instant coffee,spraying on fly specks with a mixture of asphalt and turpentine,pretending to have come upon an unknown Old Master in a junk shop or attic.

*Tom Keating(1918—1984)was an art restorer and famous art forger who claimed to have forged over 2,000 paintings by over 100 different artists.

——SAT 2009年1月题，Section 7

解析

1.“aging”在这里是动词“age”的现在分词，表示“使……变老、变旧”。

2.“aging…”、“spraying…”和“pretending…”处于并列位置，都是现在分词短语作后置定语，修饰“Tom Keating”，这三个动作都是“Tom Keating”发出的，相当于省略式的非限制性定语从句，例如“aging a picture with a spoonful of instant coffee”相当于“who ages a picture with a spoonful of instant coffee”。

词意辨析

参考翻译

我是一个诚实的手工艺人（我必须澄清这一点），（我）不是骗子，不是伪造者。我可不是Tom Keating*，用一勺速溶咖啡来将画做旧，用柏油和松脂混合物在画上喷上点点污斑，假装在某个旧货商店或阁楼中偶然发现了一位早期绘画大师的一幅不为人知的画作。

*Tom Keating（1918-1984）是一个艺术品修复者，也是有名的艺术品伪造者，他声称自己伪造了超过100位艺术家的2000多幅画作。

实战演练

I am(I must make this clean)an honest craftsman;not a cheat,not a forger.I am no Tom Keating,* aging a picture with a spoonful of instant coffee,spraying on fly specks with a mixture of asphalt and turpentine,pretending to have come upon an unknown Old Master in a junk shop or attic.I paint copies of famous paintings,sometimes for private persons or institutions,but mostly for the directors of companies who want an impressive decoration to hang in their boardrooms.Deception of an innocent kind is their intention;asked if the picture is genuine,few of them,I imagine,would lie.Nor would they be wise to.Whether they know it or not(and in some cases I am sure that they do know,collaborating with me in a further,minor deception out of pleasure and a shared sense of humor),my copies are never exact.

*Tom Keating(1918—1984)was an art restorer and famous art forger who claimed to have forged over 2,000 paintings by over 100 different artists.

1.The narrator's attitude toward Tom Keating is primarily one of____.

(A)sympathy

(B)fascination

(C)regret

(D)disdain

(E)exasperation

答案：D

答案解析

题目问叙述者对Tom Keating的态度，这点可以从作者对自己的评价以及对Tom Keating行为的评价之间的对比推出来。叙述者一开始就澄清自己是一个诚实的手艺人，不是骗子，也不是伪造者，不像Tom Keating那样，通过各种手段来造假，叙述者将自己与Tom Keating划清界限，态度已经很明显了，所以应该是D选项“鄙弃、蔑视”，不屑于Tom Keating的做法。其他选项的意思为：A“同情”；B“着迷”；C“后悔，遗憾”；E“恼怒”。

2.The narrator uses the phrase“an unknown Old Master”to refer to____.

(A)a forgotten teacher who once wielded great influence

(B)a formerly prominent artist who has now become obscure

(C)any painting found in an out-of-the-way place

(D)an artwork so damaged that it has lost its aesthetic appeal

(E)a painting by a famous artist that had previously been unrecognized

答案：E

答案解析

首先要明确的一点是：“Old Master”并不是指某个人，因为“aging…”、“spraying…”和“pretending…”几个动作是并列的，前两个动作的承接者明显都是“picture”，所以最后一个动作“pretending to come upon”的承接者也应该是画作。由此，首先排除选项A“一个曾经影响力很大的被遗忘的教师”和选项B“一个曾经很有名但现在名声消退的艺术家”。其次，“Old Master”虽然指的是一幅画，但是既然用“Old Master”来指代画，说明这幅画肯定与“Old Master”有一定联系（大家可以了解一下“指代”这种修辞手法，指代的其中一种用法就是用与A事物相关联的B事物来指代A事物），有什么联系呢？联系就是这幅画是由一个“Old Master”（大师）所创作的，由此可知原句中的“Old Master”就是指“出自一位大师之手的画作”；在此基础上再来理解“unknown”的意思，就应该是“这个画作之前并不为人所知”，即选项E所表达的意思。选项C“在一个偏僻的地方找到的画作”不正确，“unknown”不代表是在偏僻的地方；选项D“一件遭到破坏而丧失了美感的艺术作品”，文中并没有提到作品遭到破坏。