问答题What we today call American folk art was, indeed, art of, by, and for ordinary, everyday "folks" who, with increasing prosperity and leisure, created a market for art of all kinds, and especially for portraits. Citizens of prosperous, essentially middle-class republic—whether ancient Romans, seventeenth-century Dutch burghers, or nineteenth-century American—have always shown a marked taste for portraiture. Starting in the late eighteenth century, the United States contained increasing numbers of such people, and of the artists who could meet their demands.【】The earliest American folk art portraits come, not surprisingly, from New England—especially Connecticut and Massachusetts—for this was a wealthy and populous region and the center of a strong craft tradition. Within a few decades after the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the population was pushing westward, and portrait painters could be found at work in western New York, Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri. Midway through its first century as a nation, the United States’ population had increased roughly five times, and eleven new states had been added to original thirteen. During these years the demand for portraits grew and grew, eventually to be satisfied by the camera. In 1839 the daguerreotype was introduced to America, ushering in the age of photography, and within a generation the new invention put an end to the popularity portraits. Once again an original portrait became a luxury, commissioned by the wealthy and executed by the professional.【】But in the heyday of portrait painting—from the late eighteenth century until the 1850’ s—anyone with a modicum of artistic ability could become a limner, as such a portraitist was called. Local craftspeople—sign, coach, and house painter—began to paint portraits as a profitable sideline; sometimes a talented man or woman who began by sketching family members gained a local reputation and was besieged with requests for portraits; artists found it worth their while to pack their paints, canvases, and brushes and to travel the countryside, often combining house decorating with portrait painting.

问答题我在查经班（Bible Class）里曾经闹过一个笑话，这个笑话对于我以后学英语应注意的地方，是十分有用的。那天我们上课时，天忽然乌云四合，不久便下了瓢泼大雨。我当时正在学副词，只记了个副词可以形容动词。于是我说：It’s raining hardly。这时候埃德加小姐（Miss Edgar）便说：It’s raining hardly。可是第一次我还没有听明白，再说一句It’s raining hardly。埃德加小姐严肃地看了我一眼，又说一句It’s raining hardly。我猛然感觉到自己一定把hardly这个字用错了，但还不知道错在哪里。下课后埃德加温和地对我说，读书时要勤查字典，明白各个字的不同变化。这个故事给我的教训颇为深刻，导致我以后勤查字典的习惯。事情已经过去半个多世纪，但这个教训还深深埋在我的记忆里。

问答题自然遗产

问答题WHO

问答题a bull market

问答题石油输出国组织

问答题民用工业

问答题保税区

问答题金融自由化

问答题鸟巢

问答题PPI

问答题自动取款机

问答题CBD

问答题Vancouver’ s prosperity owes to the intelligence and diligence of the people there, as well as to the contributions made by a variety of other ethnic groups. Canada is vast country with a sparse population, having a territory larger than that of China but a population of less than 30 million. That is why Canada has long adopted a national policy of absorbing immigrants from other countries. We may say that, with the exception of the (aboriginal) Indian people, Canadians are made up immigrants, different from each other only in how long they have settled down there. Vancouver is most typical of this which is among the few cities in the world featuring multi-nationalities. Of the 1. 8 million people living in Vancouver nowadays, half were not born in Vancouver and 1/4 is from Asia. Out of the 250 thousand Chinese Canadians who have played a decisive role in Vancouver’ s economic growth, half have immigrated to the region only 5 years before. All these Chinese-Canadians have made Vancouver the region with the largest Chinese communities outside China.

问答题GDP

问答题联合国大会

问答题生态补偿机制

问答题Scottish Independence Referendum

问答题科技创新

问答题Keynesian economics