北大基础英语教程B4U9.ppt

Unit nine  One Picture Is Worth Ten Thousand Words Preview Preview 本页播放 全文播放 fascinating mystery code acquaintance margin 本页播放 全文播放 mention certain merchant smiling described catalogue identity Oral Practice Oral Practice Text A Text A Maybe shes smiling because she found the secret to immortality. The painting Mona Lisa which Leonardo da Vinci began work on in 1503 currently hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris. It is set behind a wall of bulletproof glass and watched over by armed guards. The sitters enigmatic smirk is just one of the mysteries that historians have been debating since the artist touched his last brushstroke to the canvas. A brief absence from the Louvre made her even more famous. The theft in 1911 was a decisive moment in her history, Frank Fehrenbach, Renaissance expert and professor of art history at Harvord University explained. After she was recovered and returned triumphantly to the museum in 1913, she became its temple icon. Since then, the public has held an unwavering fascination with the Mona Lisa, and her mystique has only snowballed with the emergence of various popular theories over the years. The Da Vinci Code (2003), Dan Browns wildly successful novel, has helped out in no small part, with the painting figuring prominently in its riveting opening chapters. Text A 全文播放 本页播放 Mona lisa Was 83 Percent Happy The mysterious half-smile that has intrigued viewers of the Mona Lisa for centuries isnt really that difficult to interpret, Dutch researchers believed. She was smiling because she was happy -- 83 percent happy, to be exact, according to scientists from the University of Amsterdam. In what they viewed as a fun demonstration of technology rather than a serious experiment, the researchers scanned a reproduction of Leonardo da Vincis masterpiece and subjected it to cutting-edge emotion recognition software, developed in collaboration with the University of Illinois.