Australian artist Margaret Preston
Margaret Preston's vibrant paintings and prints of Australian flowers, animals and landscapes
have delighted the Australian public since the early 1920s.
Margaret Preston was born Margaret Rose McPherson in Port Adelaide, South Australia in 1875,
the daughter of David McPherson, a Scottish marine engineer and his wife Prudence Lyle. She
and her sister were sent at first to a private school, but when family circumstances changed, her
mother took the girls to Sydney where Margaret attended a public high school. She decided early
in life to become an artist and took private art lessons. In 1888, she trained for several months
with Sydney landscape painter William Lister, and in 1893 enrolled at the National Gallery of
Victoria Art School, where she studied for just over four years.
In 1898, after her father died, Margaret returned to Adelaide to study and then teach at the
Adelaide School of Design. Her early artwork was influenced by the German aesthetic tradition,
in which subjects of the natural world were depicted in a true to life manner.
Margaret's first visit to Europe in 1904, and her studies in Paris, France had little impact on this
naturalism that dominated her work from this early period. However some eight years later, after
returning to Paris, she began to recognise the decorative possibilities of art.
With the outbreak of the First World War, Margaret travelled to England, where she had
exhibitions and continued her studies of art. She was a student of pottery, but at some time
developed her interest in various techniques of printmaking and design. In England's West
Country, she taught basket weaving at a rehabilitation unit for servicemen. It was on board a boat
returning to Australia that she met wealthy businessman William Preston, whom she married in
1919. Together Margaret and William settled in the Sydney harbourside suburb of Mosman. The
most characteristic prints from her early years in Sydney are views of boats floating on Sydney
Harbour and of houses clustered on foreshore hills. Although Sydney was their home, the couple
travelled regularly, both overseas and within Australia.
Her first major showing in Australia was with her friend Thea Proctor, in exhibitions in
Melbourne and Sydney in 1925. Many of Preston's prints were hand-coloured in rich scarlet reds,
blues and greens, and all of them were set in Chinese red lacquer frames. Harbour views were
again prominent, but in comparison with earlier artworks, they were compact and busy. using
striking contrasts of black and white combined with elaborate patterns and repetitions. Other
prints from this period featured native flora. It was with these still-life subjects that she convinced
the public that Australian native flowers were equal in beauty to any exotic species.
From 1932 to 1939, Preston moved away from Sydney and lived with her husband at Berowra, on
the upper reaches of the Hawkesbury River. The area was one of rugged natural beauty, and for
the first time Preston found herself living in a home surrounded bush. Prior to this, the native
flowers that featured in her paintings and prints had been purchased from local florists; they now
grew in abundance around her home. Preston's prints became larger, less complex and less reliant
on the use of bright colours. Flowers were no longer arranged in vases, and Preston began to
concentrate instead on flowers that were growing wild.
While living at Berowra, and undoubtedly prompted by the Aboriginal' rock engravings found
near her property, Preston also developed what was to he a lifelong interest in Aboriginal art. On
returning to Sydney in 1939, she became a member of the Anthropological Society of New South
Wales, and later visited many important Aboriginal sites throughout Australia. Preston believed
that Aboriginal art provided the key to establishing a national body of art that reflected the vast
and ancient continent of Australia.
During the 1940s, symbols used by Aboriginal people, together with dried, burnt colours found in
traditional Aboriginal paintings, became increasingly prominent in her prints. The artist's titles
from this period frequently acknowledge her sources, and reveal the extent to which she drew
inspiration from traditional Aboriginal art to create her own art.
It was in 1953, at the age of 78, that Preston produced her most significant prints. The exhibition
at Macquarie Galleries in Sydney included 29 prints made using the ancient technique known as
stenciling. Many of the artworks in the exhibition incorporated her fusion of Aboriginal and
Chinese concepts. Preston had admired Chinese art since 1915, when she acquired the first of her
many books on the subject, and she had visited China on two occasions. Chinese elements may be
found in several of her earlier paintings.
However, in her prints of the 1950s, Preston combined Chinese ideas with her understanding of
the Dreamtime' creation stories of Aboriginal Australians. Preston did not let age alter her habit of
working hard. As she got older, her love of painting, printmaking and travel continued. By the
time of her death in 1963, when she was 88, she had produced over 400 paintings and prints. In a
career spanning almost 60 years, she created a body of work that demonstrates her extraordinary
originality and the intensity of her commitment to Australian art.
Questions 1 - 7
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage?
In boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
1. Artists in the German aesthetic tradition portrayed nature realistically.
2. Margaret attended a famous art college in Paris.
3. Margaret met her husband William while teaching a craft at a rehabilitation unit.
4. Margaret Preston and Thea Proctor explored similar themes in their art.
5. Margaret's 1925 artworks of Sydney Harbour were simpler than her previous ones.
6. The colours in Margaret's Berowra prints were very bright.
7. When living in Berowra, Margaret painted flowers in their natural location.
Questions 8 - 13
Complete the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet.
Margaret Preston's later life
Aboriginal influence
● interest in Aboriginal art was inspired by seeing rock engravings close to her Berowra
home
● incorporated 8 _______________________ and colours from Aboriginal art in her own
work often referred to Aboriginal sources in the 9 ___________________ she gave her artworks
1953 exhibition
● very old method of 10 _______________________ was used for some prints
● was inspired by 11 _______________________ about Chinese art that she had started
collecting in 1915
● combination of Chinese and Aboriginal elements
Old age
● still interested in 12 _______________________ and art
● worked for nearly six decades making more than 13 _______________________ artworks
● dedicated n to Australian art and the originality of her work is seen in Preston's long career
The importance of Law
A The law influences all of us virtually all the time, it governs almost all aspects of our
behaviour, and even what happens to us when we are no longer alive. It affects us from the
embryo onwards. It governs the air we breathe, the food and drink we consume, our travel, family
relationships, and our property. It applies at the bottom of the ocean and in space. Each time we
examine a label on a food product, engage in work as an employee or employer, travel on the
roads, go to school to learn or to teach, stay in a hotel, borrow a library book, create or dissolve a
commercial company, play sports, or engage the services of someone for anything from plumbing
a sink to planning a city, we are in the world of law.
B Law has also become much more widely recognised as the standard by which behaviour needs
to be judged. A very telling development in recent history is the way in which the idea of law has
permeated all parts of social life. The universal standard of whether something is socially
tolerated is progressively becoming whether it is legal, rather than something that has always
been considered acceptable. In earlier times, most people were illiterate. Today, by contrast, a vast
number of people can read, and it is becoming easier for people to take an interest in law, and for
the general population to help actually shape the law in many countries. However, law is a
versatile instrument that can be used equally well for the improvement or the degradation of
humanity.
C This, of course, puts law in a very significant position. In our rapidly developing world, all
sorts of skills and knowledge are valuable. Those people, for example, with knowledge of
computers, the internet, and communications technology are relied upon by the rest of us. There
is now someone with IT skills or an IT help desk in every UK school, every company, every
hospital, every local and central government office. Without their knowledge, many parts of
commercial and social life today would seize up in minutes. But legal understanding is just as
vital and as universally needed. The American comedian Jerry Seinfeld put it like this, 'We are all
throwing the dice, playing the game, moving our pieces around the board, but if there is a
problem, the lawyer is the only person who has read the inside of the top of the box.' In other
words, the lawyer is the only person who has read and made sense of the rules.
D The number of laws has never been greater. In the UK alone, about 35 new Acts of Parliament
are produced every year, thereby delivering thousands of new rules. The legislative output of the
British Parliament has more than doubled in recent times from 1,100 pages a year in the early
1970s,to over 2,500 pages a year today. Between 1997 and 2006,the legislature passed 365 Acts
of Parliament and more than 32,000 legally binding statutory instruments. In a system with so
much law, lawyers do a great deal not just to vindicate the rights of citizens and organisations but
also to help develop the law through legal arguments, some of which are adapted by judges to
become laws. Law courts can and do produce new law and revise old law, but they do so having
heard the arguments of lawyers.
E However, despite their important role in developing the rules, lawyers are not universally
admired. Anti-lawyer jokes have a long history going back to the ancient Greeks. More recently
the son of a famous Hollywood actor was asked at his junior school what his father did for a
living, to which he replied,'My daddy is a movie actor, and sometimes he plays the good guy, and
sometimes he plays the lawyer. For balance, though, it Is worth remembering that there are and
have been many heroic and revered lawyers such as the Roman philosopher and politician Cicero
and Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian campaigner for independence.
F People sometimes make comments that characterise lawyers as professionals whose concerns
put personal reward above truth, or who gain financially from misfortune. There are undoubtedly
lawyers that would fit that bill, Just as there are some scientists, Journalists and others In that
category, But, In general, it is no more Just to say that lawyers are bad because they make a living
from people's problems than it is to make the same accusation In respect of nurses or IT
consultants, A great many lawyers are involved in public law work, such as that Involving civil
liberties, housing and other Issues. Such work Is not lavishly remunerated and the quality of the
service provided by these lawyers relies on considerable professional dedication, Moreover, much
legal work has nothing to do with conflict or misfortune, but is primarily concerned with drafting
documents, Another source of social disaffection for lawyers, and disaffection for the law, is a
limited public understanding of how law works and how It could be changed. Greater clarity
about these issues, maybe as a result of better public relations, would reduce many aspects of
public dissatisfaction with the law.
Questions 1-6
The reading Passage has six paragraphs A-F
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number, i-viii, in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings 1 Paragraph A
i Different areas of professional expertise 2 Paragraph B
ii Reasons why it is unfair to criticise lawyers 3 Paragraph C
iii The disadvantages of the legal system 4 Paragraph D
iv The law applies throughout our lives 5 Paragraph E
v The law has affected historical events 6 Paragraph F
vi A negative regard for lawyers
vii public's increasing ability to influence the law
viii growth in laws
Questions 7-8
Choose TWO letters, A-E.
Write the correct letters in boxes 7-8 on your answer sheet.
Which TWO of the following statements does the writer make about legal skills in today's world?
A. There should be a person with legal training in every hospital.
B. Lawyers with experience in commercial law are the most in demand.
C. Knowledge of the law is as important as having computer skills.
D. Society could not function effectively without legal experts.
E. Schools should teach students about the law.
Questions 9-13
Complete the summary below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 9-13 on your answer sheet.
Lawyers as professionals People sometimes say that 9 ___________________ is of little interest
to lawyers, who are more concerned with making money. This may well be the case with some
individuals, in the same way that some 10 ___________________. or scientific experts may also
be driven purely by financial greed. However, criticising lawyers because their work is concerned
with people's problems would be similar to attacking IT staff or 11 __________________ for the
same reason. In fact, many lawyers focus on questions relating, for example, to housing or civil
liberties, which requires them to have 12 ______________________ to their work. What's more,
a lot of lawyers' time is spent writing 13 ______________________ rather than dealing with
people's misfortunes.
William Gilbert and Magnetism
A
The 16th and 17th centuries saw two great pioneers of modern science: Galileo and Gilbert. The
impact of their findings is eminent. Gilbert was the first modern scientist, also the accredited
father of the science of electricity and magnetism, an Englishman of learning and a physician at
the court of Elizabeth. Prior to him, all that was known of electricity and magnetism was what the
ancients knew, nothing more than that the lodestone possessed magnetic properties and that
amber and jet, when rubbed, would attract bits of paper or other substances of small specific
gravity. However, he is less well known than he deserves.
B
Gilbert’s birth pre-dated Galileo. Born in an eminent local family in Colchester County in the
UK, on May 24, 1544, he went to grammar school, and then studied medicine at St John’s
College, Cambridge, graduating in 1573. Later he travelled in the continent and eventually settled
down in London.
C
He was a very successful and eminent doctor. All this culminated in his election to the president
of the Royal Science Society. He was also appointed personal physician to the Queen (Elizabeth
I), and later knighted by the Queen. He faithfully served her until her death. However, he didn’t
outlive the Queen for long and died on November 30, 1603, only a few months after his
appointment as personal physician to King James.
D
Gilbert was first interested in chemistry but later changed his focus due to the large portion of
mysticism of alchemy involved (such as the transmutation of metal). He gradually developed his
interest in physics after the great minds of the ancient, particularly about the knowledge the
ancient Greeks had about lodestones, strange minerals with the power to attract iron. In the
meantime, Britain became a major seafaring nation in 1588 when the Spanish Armada was
defeated, opening the way to British settlement of America. British ships depended on the
magnetic compass, yet no one understood why it worked. Did the Pole Star attract it, as
Columbus once speculated; or was there a magnetic mountain at the pole, as described in
Odyssey, which ships would never approach, because the sailors thought its pull would yank out
all their iron nails and fittings? For nearly 20 years, William Gilbert conducted ingenious
experiments to understand magnetism. His works include On the Magnet, Magnetic Bodies, and
the Great Magnet of the Earth.
E
Gilbert’s discovery was so important to modern physics. He investigated the nature of magnetism
and electricity. He even coined the word “electric”. Though the early beliefs of magnetism were
also largely entangled with superstitions such as that rubbing garlic on lodestone can neutralise its
magnetism, one example being that sailors even believed the smell of garlic would even interfere
with the action of compass, which is why helmsman were forbidden to eat it near a ship’s
compass. Gilbert also found that metals can be magnetised by rubbing materials such as fur,
plastic or the like on them. He named the ends of a magnet “north pole” and “south pole”. The
magnetic poles can attract or repel, depending on polarity. In addition, however, ordinary iron is
always attracted to a magnet. Though he started to study the relationship between magnetism and
electricity, sadly he didn’t complete it. His research of static electricity using amber and jet only
demonstrated that objects with electrical charges can work like magnets attracting small pieces of
paper and stuff. It is a French guy named du Fay that discovered that there are actually two
electrical charges, positive and negative.
F
He also questioned the traditional astronomical beliefs. Though a Copernican, he didn’t express in
his quintessential beliefs whether the earth is at the centre of the universe or in orbit around the
sun. However, he believed that stars are not equidistant from the earth but have their own
earth-like planets orbiting around them. The earth itself is like a giant magnet, which is also why
compasses always point north. They spin on an axis that is aligned with the earth’s polarity. He
even likened the polarity of the magnet to the polarity of the earth and built an entire magnetic
philosophy on this analogy. In his explanation, magnetism is the soul of the earth. Thus a
perfectly spherical lodestone, when aligned with the earth’s poles, would wobble all by itself in
24 hours. Further, he also believed that the sun and other stars wobble just like the earth does
around a crystal core, and speculated that the moon might also be a magnet caused to orbit by its
magnetic attraction to the earth. This was perhaps the first proposal that a force might cause a
heavenly orbit.
G
His research method was revolutionary in that he used experiments rather than pure logic and
reasoning like the ancient Greek philosophers did. It was a new attitude towards scientific
investigation. Until then, scientific experiments were not in fashion. It was because of this
scientific attitude, together with his contribution to our knowledge of magnetism, that a unit of
magnetomotive force, also known as magnetic potential, was named Gilbert in his honour. His
approach of careful observation and experimentation rather than the authoritative opinion or
deductive philosophy of others had laid the very foundation for modern science.
Questions 1-7
Reading Passage 1 has seven paragraphs A-G.
Choose the correct heading for each paragraph from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number i-x in boxes 1-7 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i. Early years of Gilbert 1. Paragraph A
2. Paragraph B
ii. What was new about his scientific research method 3. Paragraph C
iii. The development of chemistry 4. Paragraph D
5. Paragraph E
iv. Questioning traditional astronomy 6. Paragraph F
7. Paragraph G
v. Pioneers of the early science
vi. Professional and social recognition
vii. Becoming the president of the Royal Science Society
viii. The great works of Gilbert
ix. His discovery about magnetism
x. His change of focus
Questions 8 - 10
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 8-10 on your answer sheet, write
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this
1. He is less famous than he should be.
2. He was famous as a doctor before he was employed by the Queen.
3. He lost faith in the medical theories of his time.
Questions 11 - 13
Choose THREE letters A-F.
Write your answers in boxes 11-13 on your answer sheet.
Which THREE of the following are parts of Gilbert’s discovery?
A. Metal can be transformed into another.
B. Garlic can remove magnetism.
C. Metals can be magnetised.
D. Stars are at different distances from the earth.
E. The earth wobbles on its axis.
F. There are two charges of electricity.
