IELTS Speaking for Success - 🖼️ Art (S08E31) + Transcript

Episode Date: April 11, 2023

Do you like modern or traditional art? Why do some people dislike art? What’s art? Would it be interesting for you to be an artist? What artwork would you like to have in your house? Tune in and have a great day! - Book a class with Rory here: https://calendly.com/rory-duncan89/successwithrory Get exclusive episodes on IELTS Speaking parts 1, 2, and 3: https://linktr.ee/sfspremium Our course on Phrasal Verbs: https://successwithielts.com/podcourses Transcript: https://successwithielts.com/s08e31 Our IELTS Writing podcast: https://linktr.ee/wfspremium Find an IELTS Speaking Partner: https://links.successwithielts.com/ieltspartner Our social media: https://linktr.ee/successwithielts © 2023 Success with IELTS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, lovely, I'm Maria. And my name is Rory. We're the host of the AILD Speaking for Success podcast, the podcast that aims to help you improve your speaking skills, as well as your listening skills along the way. We've started this podcast to give you joy, happiness, and gorgeous grammar with fabulous vocabulary for your high IELS school. Bad night school.

Maria, you look beautiful, like a work of art. Oh, thank you. Shall we talk about art? Yes, let's talk about art Or me And you, we're talking about both Do you like modern or traditional art? I'm not sure where you're drawing the distinction

But I suppose I prefer both for different reasons Modern art's more relatable to my life Because I'm a modern person But traditional art appeals to higher More universal concepts At least in my opinion Why do some people dislike art? I doubt they dislike it in

general, I suppose they probably just like a specific form that isn't to their taste. For example, like biologically, we're supposed to be attracted to symmetry and symmetrical faces, so artwork that's not like that might be a bit off-putting. What's art? Well, that's not a difficult question at all, is it? I suppose if I'm pushed, then I would say that art is the attempt to capture or represent something that the artist finds engaging or beautiful. So, for example, the Mona Lisa is Da Vinci's attempt to capture the moment with this woman and the mystery that surrounds it, in my opinion. Would it be interesting for you to be an artist?

If we mean someone who makes paintings and does drawings for a living, then, well, I would certainly be impressed. Although, I'm awful at both, and I doubt my doodles would be worth much, to be honest with you. I doubt most people would benefit from it though. I'm much better off as a teacher. What art work would you like to have in your house? Well, at this stage, anything would be good for my bare walls, to be honest. I've collected a lot of indigenous and abstract art over the years, in addition to more traditional landscapes that would look good,

so I just haven't got around to hanging them up yet, I suppose. But I think they would complement the decor nicely. It's just a shame I'm not going to be living where I am for much longer. Thank you, Rory, for your answers. Barry Arty. It's the Nissan Black Friday event where you can...

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Dear listener, we have our premium episodes for you. We discuss Speaking Part 2 and 3 topics. We use only fresh I-old speaking topics. The links are in the description. So if you do want effective super quality preparation for your exam, do check out our Premium episodes. This week on Premium in Speaking Part 2, Rory describes an adverse. he doesn't like.

And in speaking part three, we talk about advertisements, commercials in general. So what's modern art? What is modern art? Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period from the 1860s to the 1970s. So for example, Van Gogh, you know, one golf, the sunflowers, is considered to be modern. art. But what do you call art that is produced these days? Oh, is it going to be something like postmodern art then? Because it's after the modern period. Yes, postmodern art or contemporary art?

Well, I don't understand. Is modern and postmodern art, is it just about a time period? It's nothing to do with the style then? No, no, no, it's about the time period. So art today, we can call it contemporary art, postmodern art, but modern art, it's not. It's not, you know, the arts that is produced right now is just like Van Gogh the 1860s 1970s I learned something new then

I thought modern art was just modern art about now and traditional art was about things in the bath or things that are more universal and actually I think the question is a bit strange because traditional art what's traditional art

it's theatre, poetry, sculpture drawing, painting architecture cinema, so that's traditional art. Yes. But again, I just think of modern now, traditional in the past, or at least strongly connected to the past, whereas modern is strongly connected to now. So there you go, I was wrong, but I still used high-level vocabulary. Can we please talk about the high-level vocabulary? You said that modern art is relatable to my life. Yeah, it's got a connection to my life, or at least I thought it did. Now I'm thinking that

Maybe contemporary art has this connection. Sorry, I didn't do well at art in school. And then Rory said that traditional art makes connections. So to make connections, makes connections to something more universal. For example, traditional art makes connections to universal concepts. Like love, beauty, the meaning of life. Yeah, that's how I would define it. And I suppose, even though I, like,

got it wrong and I was factually incorrect. The fact that the grammar and vocabulary is high level means that you'll still get a high score. So, take that. Also, how many art teachers are IELD examiners? Probably not many. And if you are, then, you're in the wrong line of work, I suppose. Can we talk about the pun?

I made a pun. Oh, you made a pun. Did you notice it? I did. I made a pun. Did you notice the pun? You are drawing the distinction. We're talking about art,

and drawing is one of the art forms. So draw the distinction. Tell the difference. And if you want, you don't just need to use that for talking about art. It won't be a pun, but it will still be useful. If the examiner asks like, do you prefer blah or blah? And if they're very close concepts, then you can say, I don't know where you're drawing the distinction,

but I would say and then say what you would prefer. For example, Maria, can you ask me a question with two possible answers? Do you prefer art galleries or museums? I'm not sure where you're drawing the distinction. because you can get art museums as well but I suppose I prefer museums because I'm into history. Do you prefer bananas or raisins?

That is not, no, no, no. I know, no. We're not answering that question. They should both be confined to wherever terrible things go. Yeah, Rory doesn't like bananas. No. Does anyone like bananas?

Seriously? I love bananas. They're yellow, they're yum, yum, yum, yum, nice and banana bread, banana desserts. But on the other hand, they're evil. So, dear listener, fine arts, if you want some examples of fine arts, so drawing, painting, sculpture, architecture, cinema, music, theatre.

Also, you can talk about literature, visual arts, like painting, drawing, sculpture, graphic arts, like painting, drawing, design. And also digital art. Digital art is also art. So digital produced by artificial, intelligence. And, um, Roy, did you know that this year, 2023, is the year of artistic risks, is the year of computer generated art. So, dear listener, you can talk about computer generated art.

Or AI created art. You said that a specific form of art isn't to their taste. So if something is not to my taste, I dislike it. It's not to my taste. Yeah. It's not to my taste. It just doesn't appeal to you. For example, I'm trying to think of like an art form. Most postmodern art does not appeal to my tastes or not to my taste. Because it's just random stuff. Or it looks like random stuff. Oh, modern sculpture.

What? You don't like sculptures? Oh, no, they're cool. I don't know where I would put them in my home, but they're cool. No, I'm just an example. Modern sculpture isn't to my taste. So I dislike it. I don't like it.

Or if you really dislike it, you can say, I can't stand modern art. Again, modern art from the 1860s to 1970s. Contemporary art is the art of today. And Roy said that, people are drawn to symmetrical faces. It's another pun! Yeah. I swear, I didn't plan that. Of course you didn't.

I did. Rory, did you know that there aren't any symmetrical faces. our faces are not symmetrical so like one side is kind of organized in one way and another side is different so we don't have symmetrical faces, no, it's a myth

not completely symmetrical faces, no, but most of the time your features line up like your eyes are roughly on the same level and your nose is in line with the eyes. Yes, of course your face is not completely symmetrical. I mean look at mine, my hair is parted to one side

for example. And also So I have a lazy eye. I probably shouldn't draw people's attention to this right now. But yes, I do have one eye that's slightly more closed than the other. Really? That's not what a lazy eye is, actually. But I have a problem with one of my eyelids. Wow, interesting.

And now I've mentioned it. Everybody's going to know. And asymmetrical features might be off-puting. So if something is off-putting, it's like, I don't like it. It's not attractive. It's not appealing for me. It's off-puting. Yeah. An example of asymmetry would be like,

If we split my face in half and one side was slightly lower than the other, Vanya's going to have a great time drawing or editing the video to show this. That would be asymmetrical. And then Rory defined art. What's art? Could you give a definition of art? I love this question. Like, what is art?

All right. Uh, hmm, what is, what is beauty? What is, what is light? And here we use a strategy. We react to the question. Oh, wow, that's a difficult one. That's a difficult question. And then our favorite strategy, if I'm pushed.

If you push me to answer this question, I'd say that blah, blah, blah. So if I'm pushed, I would say that art is la, la, la. And Roy's answer is actually quite cool. Art is the attempt to capture, to capture the moment, to kind of capture, to Take the moment, capture the moment, and the artist finds something engaging. So a person who makes art is an artist, engaging, exciting, interesting, attractive, to capture something beautiful. Yeah.

Rory used an example of Mona Lisa da Vinci. Yes. It's like, what, the most famous painting in the world, probably? Or one of them. We make paintings and we can. say we make drawings or Rory told us do drawings so that's also possible so drawings so we make paintings do drawings another one is masterpieces so we create masterpieces oh that's a good word yeah so I can make paintings for a living artists make paintings for a living to do something for a

living, like you do something and you earn your living, you earn your money. So we do this podcast for a living and also we have premium episodes. So we sell our premium episodes and this is how we live. So this is our living. So the premium episodes do check them out. The links are in the description. And also on the subject of how we make a living, you can get access to our writing episodes archive using the link in the description below. I don't know. off the top of my head, but the link I do know, which everybody else should know by now, is the link to our Brazil Verbs course. SuccesswithIOTS.com forward slash podcourses.

Speaking of links to things, you can also put classes with me online using another link in the description below. Dear listener, you can say that I wouldn't like to be an artist and I wouldn't like to create art for a living. So art is not up my street. Would you like to create art for a living? You'd be quite good at that. Yeah, I can do, you know, art painting with my body.

I would just pour all different paints on my body, and I would just, you know, like I would paint with my body. I think that would be really cool. That's quite a mental image. You've, you, yes, very visual. Can you imagine? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm doing my level best not to imagine, to be honest with you.

Yes, do you listen. Can you imagine? Now I've gone bright red. Next question. Yes, doodles. Tell us what doodles mean. I don't need to tell you what doodles mean because if you go to my Instagram, you will see all of the doodles that I've created in boring teams meetings where I wasn't paying attention to what people are saying.

But if in the event you don't want to go to my Instagram, then doodles are, they're like small pictures that you draw and they're not created for the purpose of making art. They're created for the purpose of relieving boredom or aiding a thought process. they're not classically beautiful. They're usually very small. They don't have a lot of effort put into them. Joodles.

Rory, you also said that I'm better off as a teacher. Yeah. So I earn more money as a teacher. Well, it could be to do with making money, but it's also just to do with how your quality of life is. If you're better of doing something, then it's just a better idea or a better solution. Artwork.

So we have arts in our... our house, we have artwork, we have different art forms in our house. You told us that you've collected a lot of indigenous and abstract art. So what's indigenous art? Well, indigenous art is just created by the people that have lived in a place for an extremely long time and like they have this strong connection to the place. Yeah, so indigenous. If, for example, we talk about Mexico, we can say like indigenous language of Mexico. So indigenous, indigenous, language of Mexico. So indigenous relating to people or language or place. For a really long time.

Like, deciding what is indigenous is really difficult. But it's like, it's to do with living or being considered from a place or having a strong connection to it and live there for a long time. It's difficult to say with any exactitude because, of course, everybody, human beings move around. And there's various histories of deportations and ethnic violence, which we will not get into on this language podcast about art. And if I have a bear,

I haven't got around to hanging any drawings or pictures here. So to get around to doing something. Right. So a bare wall, I just have some paintings, but I haven't got around to hanging them up. And so your painting or drawing could complement the decor. How do you pronounce this word? The decor. Well, decor or decor, you can say both and it's okay.

But the decor or the decor is just how the house is decorated. And if we talk about... What was the other thing? Oh, compliment. A compliment just means matches up or enhances something. So, for example, you and I compliment each other, not because we say nice things, but because we work well together. Or blue and white colors usually work well together.

And Rory, I have a joke for you about art. Oh, of course you do. What is the joke? We should start calling new joke. as modern art. Why? Like modern art, if no one is getting it, it's a hit. Did you get it?

Kind of like, we call new jokes, new jokes that we crack, modern art. Because usually people don't understand modern art, and if nobody understands it, it's a hit. So if no one understands a joke, it's a hit. Okay. I think it's time we hit the exit button on this episode. Bye! Do you like modern or traditional art?

I'm not sure where you're drawing the distinction, but I suppose I prefer both for different reasons. Modern art's more relatable to my life because I'm a modern person. But traditional art appeals to higher more universal concepts, at least in my opinion. Why do some people dislike art? I doubt they dislike it in general. I suppose they probably just like a specific form that isn't to their taste. For example, like biologically, we're supposed to be attracted to symmetry and symmetrical faces, so artwork that's not like that might be a bit off-putting.

What's art? Well, that's not a difficult question at all, is it? I suppose if I'm pushed, then I would say that art is the attempt to capture or represent something that the artist finds engaging or beautiful. So, for example, the Mona Lisa is Da Vinci's attempt to capture the moment with this woman and the mystery that surrounds it, in my opinion. Would it be interesting for you to be an artist? If we mean someone who makes paintings and does drawings for a living, then, well, I would certainly be impressed. Although, I'm awful at both, and I doubt my doodles would be worth much, to be honest with you. I doubt most people would benefit from it though. I'm much better off as a teacher.

What art work would you like to have in your house? Well, at this stage, anything would be good for my bare walls, to be honest. I've collected a lot of indigenous and abstract art over the years, in addition to more traditional landscapes that would look good, so I just haven't got around to hanging them up yet, I suppose. But I think they would complement the decor nicely. It's just a shame I'm not going to be living where I am, longer.

Thank you, Rory, for your answers. Bariarty.