_______ I DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO DO THE JOB. BUT NOW I AM MAKING PROGRE...

39.

_______ I didn't know how to do the job. But now I am making progress.

A.

First of all

B.

First

C.

At first

D.

At the first.

VI. Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D to indicate the correct answer to

each of the questions.

Before photography was invented in 1839, painted portraits, and engravings based on them, were one

of the few ways to record likenesses. From the Colonial era through the 1820s, portraiture was the most

widely practiced genre of American art, and it continued to be a significant form through the 19th century.

The demand for likenesses was incessant, and portraiture was often the primary source of income for

artists. Artists frequently made portraits of famous people to attract interest and potential patrons. For

example, in 1834 Chester Harding painted frontiersman Davy Crockett, then a member of the U.S. House

of Representatives, for display in his Boston gallery.

A consistent belief through most of the 18th and 19th centuries was that character could be read from

a person's face, or the bumps on his or her head, or from facial expressions, and that portraits should

convey these indicators of character. These theories of physiognomy and phrenology have since been

debunked, but they were important considerations in depicting the nation's leaders, since such portraits

were often made for posterity. Most people had only one portrait painted in their lifetime, if at all, so

artists were selected with great care, and expectations were high.

Before the 1840s, American portraiture was influenced primarily by English techniques,

poses,

compositions and gestures, and many artists received at least part of their training in England. Even

canvas sizes followed the British example. Portraits made on commission were priced according to

canvas size and the materials and labor involved.

In the late 19th century as European portraitists began traveling to the United States to

acquire

commissions from the growing upper class, American artists increasingly felt they needed to train abroad

in order to succeed at home. Paris continued to be the main lure as painters such as Eakins, Whistler,

Beaux and Sargent went to study there. Some of America's best-known portraitists, in fact, became

expatriates.