A
No artist has affected modern art more than Pablo Picasso.The thousands of masterpieces he created changed the way people thought about art.Picasso was perhaps the most talented and successful artist who ever lived.
Pablo Ruiz Picasso was born in 1881 in a small town on the southern coast of Spain.His father was a painter who taught art.Picasso showed exceptional talent at an early age and, by the time he was in his teens, painted better than his father or any of the local art teachers.At sixteen, Picasso was sent to the Royal Academy of Madrid, where students drew from plaster casts and copied works of the old masters.Picasso felt these assignments were pointless and began to work on his own.Picasso's father soon became angry with his son's rebellious behavior, long hair, and strange clothes.He believed that Picasso was wasting his talent and scolded him, “Why don't you cut your hair and paint sensibly？” In 1900, Picasso left for Paris — then the center of the art world.He lived in a cold, rundown building, painting constantly, sometimes surviving for days on only a piece of bread.During these years, his art reflected his dismal (凄凉的) surroundings.Homeless outcasts were the subject of many of his fairly realistic early paintings.After seeing African masks and sculptures, his works became more simplified and angular leading up to the revolutionary new style known as Cubism.
Picasso didn't sell much of his works during these early years.On 8 May 1995, Picasso's Angel Fernandez de Soto was sold at auction for D|S29 million.The next day Blue Period, one of his later works, sold for D|S5 million.But he worked continuously, always experimenting with different styles of painting.Though Picasso lived to be ninetytwo and became the most famous artist in the world, he spoke of his youthful days in Paris as “the happiest time in my life”．As a matter of fact, everyone knows that in his late years, Picasso was inordinately frustrated about his age, death and his loss of sexuality — that's in all his works.
1．Pablo Picasso showed unusual talent for painting ________.
A．in his early childhood
B．in his early teens
C．at the age of sixteen
D．when he painted better than the local art teachers
解析：选B 细节理解题。根据第二段第三句可知，毕加索早在十几岁时就展现出了他的绘画天赋，故选B。
2．Pablo Picasso started to reveal his rebellious spirit ________.
A．when he was a child
B．in his early teens
C．when he was studying in the Royal Academy
D．after he moved to Paris
解析：选C 推理判断题。根据第二段第四、五、六句可知，毕加索是在皇家学院学习时开始表现出叛逆的一面的，故选C。
3．What marks something of a turning point in his career as an artist?
A．Those miserable but fruitful youthful days in Paris.
B．Those realistic paintings reflecting dismal social surroundings.
C．The influences of masks and sculptures created by native African artists.
D．Experimenting with new different styles of painting.
解析：选C 推理判断题。根据第二段末句可知，毕加索在事业上的转折点是受到了非洲土著人创作的面具和雕塑的影响，故选C。
4．This passage mainly discusses ________.
A．Picasso's Cubism as a revolutionary style in art
B．Picasso as a rebel and his art
C．Picasso's life and painting in Paris
D．Picasso's influences on the development of modern art
解析：选B 主旨大意题。通读全文可知，本文主要讲述了有逆反心理的毕加索的生平和画作，故选B。
