填空题. A. emerging B. testify C. sought D. merging E. in general F. transformed G. pigment H. painstaking I. in total J. close K. ratify L. ritualistic M. figure N. extant O. shifted Painting, the execution of forms and shapes on a surface by means of 1 , has been continuously practiced by humans for some 20 000 years. Together with other activities that may have been 2 in origin but have come to be designated as artistic such as music or dance, painting was one of the earliest ways in which man 3 to express his own personality and his 4 understanding of an existence beyond the material world. Unlike music and dance, how-ever, examples of early forms of painting have survived to the present day. The modern eye can derive aesthetic as well as antiquarian satisfaction from the 15000-year-old cave murals of Lascaux—some examples 5 to the considerable powers of draftsmanship of these early artists. And painting, like other arts, exhibits universal qualities that make it easy for viewers of all nations and civilizations to understand and appreciate. The major 6 examples of early painting anywhere in the world are found in Western Europe and Russia. But some 5000 years ago, the areas in which important paintings were executed 7 to the eastern Mediterranean Sea and neighboring regions. Therefore, Western shared a European cultural tradition—the Middle East and Mediterranean Basin and, later, the countries of the New World. Western painting is 8 distinguished by its concentration on the representation of the human 9 , whether in the heroic context of antiquity or the religious context of the early Christian and medieval world. The Renaissance extended this tradition through a 10 examination of the natural world and an investigation of balance, harmony, and perspective in the visible world, linking painting to the developing sciences of anatomy and optics.