Read the text. Match choices (A-G) to (1-6). There is one extra choice.
BRITISH PAINTING
During the 18th and 19th centuries, young members of the British upper classes extended their education with the Grand Tour of continen¬tal Europe. There they were introduced to a sophisticated level of artistic achievement (1) ___. To ensure such high standards in the visual arts, the Royal Academy opened in London in 1769; until the 1800s virtually every major artist in Britain was elected a member or, at least, submitted work for its annual exhibitions.
The history of British painting is intimately linked with the broader traditions of European painting. Kings and queens commissioned portraits from German, Dutch, and Flemish artists. Holbein, Van Dyck, and other eminent foreign portraitists imparted an aura of perfection even to the most insipid of their sitters. British painters found inspiration and guid¬ance from their journeys abroad, in Italy especially.
Beginning in the early eighteenth century, English artists began to de¬velop their own styles in marine and allegorical painting. In William Hoga¬rth’s satirical and moralizing scenes of contemporary life one senses the evolution of a new and inherently British idiom. Emphatically propound¬ing the Englishness of his art, Hogarth promoted an academy for the arts, the predecessor of the Royal Academy of Arts. The latter was founded by Sir Joshua Reynolds, (2) ____. Ironically, perhaps the key figure in the de¬velopment of English history painting was the American-born Benjamin West, (3) ____ after Reynolds’ death. Other American painters, such as John Singleton Copley, followed West’s example and relocated to London. Cop¬ley became one of the most celebrated artists of the day and painter to the king.
The late eighteenth century saw a growing interest in landscape paint¬ing. Some artists, such as Richard Wilson, (4) _____ while others, such as Joseph Wright of Derby, pursued more individual and personal visions of the natural world. Thomas Gainsborough, although known best for his fashionable portraits, painted highly imaginative landscapes and seascapes that relate to no specific time or place.
The great flowering of English landscape painting came during the first half of the nineteenth century, primarily in the works of two masters, John Constable and J. M. W. Turner. Constable’s true-to-life views of the English countryside (5) ____ of nature. Turner, on the other hand, was a ro¬mantic who sought to project the way in which sun, fire, smoke, wind, and water affected and transformed the physical world. With their fresh vision and powerfully original styles, Constable and Turner profoundly (6) ____, but of countless American and European artists as well.