PICTURE DICTATION

Exercise 1.

Read the following text with special attention to the new vocabulary.

You have to draw and design the image it suggests.

Do not look at the picture itself till you have made your own composition.

PICTURE DICTATION

THE BEDROOM

Vincent Van Gogh, 1889

Oil on canvas

  This painting that I am describing to you is a room painting.

We can see the perspective of a bedroom, so that we can divide the paper in three walls and the floor.

  The most important piece of furniture in the bedroom is, as you can imagine, the bed. It is in the right hand side of the image above the floor.

       The horizon line is in the middle of the page. From there down in the page is a warm brown floor and in the upper side is the back wall where we can appreciate a big green window that is not still opened. 

     On both sides of the window there are two objects. On its right side there is a picture while on the left side there is a small rectangular mirror. Perhaps it is the mirror where the owner shaves himself as we can see down it a bedside with some instruments.

   On the right wall there are four other pictures placed over the bed, in perspective as well.

   On the left wall, there are a hanging towel and an old-fashioned chair which is almost in the forefront. Furniture in the back is smaller than in the front as perspective laws describes.

   The whole room is framed on both sides with two big doors we are not allowed to see entirely.

     Just beside the bed there is another similar yellow chair and behind it hidden for the big bed, some coats hangs from a rack.

   Although there is not any character in the picture, this painting is considered a self- portrait because it represents the state of mind of the author. He wanted to convey the sensation of calmness and the simplicity of a room through the use of vivid colors:

    Walls are light violet, the floor is in fade brown, the bed is made in wood, its color is brown and pillows and sheets over there are light yellow while the blanket is in strong red.

The title of the painting is “The bedroom”. It was painted by

An impressionist painter named Vincent Van Gogh. We can find this painting in the Orsay Museum in Paris.

VOCABULARY you have to explain first

In the right hand side/ horizon line/ bedside/old-fashioned/ framed/ beside / hidden/ self-portrait/ state of mind/ convey/ pillows and sheets.