Painting, the execution of forms and shapes on a surface by means of pigment, has been continuously practiced by humans for some 20,000 years. (31) other activities that may have been ritualistic 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 (32) to express his own personality and his (33) understanding of an existence beyond the material world. (34) music and dance, however, examples of early forms of painting have (35) to the present day. The modem eye can derive aesthetic as well as antiquarian satisfaction (36) the 15,000-year-old cave murals of Lascaux—some examples (37) to the considerable powers of draftsmanship of these early artists. And painting, like other arts, exhibits universal qualities that make it (38) for viewers of all nations and civilizations to understand and appreciate.
The major (39) examples of early painting anywhere in the world are found in Western Europe and Russia. But some 5,000 years ago, the areas in which important paintings were executed (40) to the eastern Mediterranean Sea and neighboring regions. (41) , Western shared a European cultural tradition—the Middle East and Mediterranean Basin and, later, the countries of the New World.
Western painting is (42) distinguished by its concentration on the representation of the human (43) , whether in the heroic context of antiquity or the religious context of the early Christian and medieval world. The Renaissance (44) this tradition through a (45) examination of the natural world and an investigation of balance, harmony, and perspective in the visible world, linking painting (46) the developing sciences of anatomy and optics. The first real (47) from figurative painting came with the growth of landscape painting in the 17th and 18th centuries. The landscape and figurative traditions developed together in the 19th century in an atmosphere that was increasingly concerned with "painterly" qualities of the (48) of light and color and the expressive qualities of paint handling. In the 20th century these interests (49) to the development of a third major tradition in Western painting, abstract painting, which sought to (50) and express the true nature of paint and painting through action and form.
A.figure
B.shape
C.shadow
D.form