英語(yǔ)播客 A Cup of English 32 Shapes and mosaics

Have you ever seen a diamond made up of circles? Or a mosaic(1) made up(2) of straight lines? Art that is based on geometric shapes can be fascinating. In Seatac airport near Seattle, I discovered a picture that uses only geometric shapes. It actually wasn't a painting; it was a panel of lights, each one having a color and shape in front. The main shape was a diamond or a rhombus, made up of multiple lines. Each line was a different color, and made up of many circles. The combination of colors was very striking. But what I liked more than that was its imperfection. The lines were not perfectly straight. The circles had tiny shapes inside of them, sometimes triangles, sometimes stars, but these were irregular. The art work reminded me of a picture I have at home by an artist called Paul Klee. It's called Cityscape, and is made up of squares, rectangles, triangles, parallelograms(3), trapezoids(4), and one large circle, representing the sun. I don't know why I find the combination of shapes to be so beautiful; but it is. And again, the artist makes each shape irregular in color and form. They are more like shapes that you find in nature, soft, not so sharp. Well, waiting for my mother's plane to arrive was not boring at all, because I had this fascinating panel to stare at, and was very happy to do so.
1. A mosaic is a picture or pattern made by putting together tiny pieces of colored material.
a. The mosaic in the public spa is from the Roman era.
b. The students were making mosaics out of glass squares in their art class.
2. 'To be made up of' is the same as saying 'consists of', but the former is better to use when talking about something that has been fashioned like a piece of art.
a. The floor mosaic is made up of tile and glass.
b. Our reading club is made up of people from all over the world.
3. A parallelogram has four sides, with two sets of completely parallel lines.
a. A square is a kind of parallelogram.
b. If you think about it, a diamond is a rhombus, and a rhombus is a parallelogram.
4. A trapezoid has four sides, but only one pair of parallel lines.
a. I love that modern table design; it's a trapezoid which is unusual for a table.