Rembrandt is the most famous of the seventeenth-century Dutch painters. However,
there are doubts whether some paintings attributed to Rembrandt were actually painted
by him. One such painting is known as Portrait of an Elderly Woman in a White Bonnet.
The painting was attributed to Rembrandt because of its style, and indeed the representation of the woman’s face is very much like that of portraits known to be by Rembrandt. But there are problems with the painting that suggest it could not be a work by
Rembrandt.
First, there is something inconsistent about the way the woman in the portrait is
dressed. She is wearing a white linen cap of a kind that only servants would wear—yet
the coat she is wearing has a luxurious fur collar that no servant could afford. Rembrandt,
who was known for his attention to the details of his subjects’ clothing, would not have
been guilty of such an inconsistency.
Second, Rembrandt was a master of painting light and shadow, but in this painting
these elements do not fit together. The face appears to be illuminated by light reflected
onto it from below. But below the face is the dark fur collar, which would absorb light
rather than reflect it. So the face should appear partially in shadow—which is not how it
appears. Rembrandt would never have made such an error.
Finally, examination of the back of the painting reveals that it was painted on a panel
made of several pieces of wood glued together. Although Rembrandt often painted on
wood panels, no painting known to be by Rembrandt uses a panel glued together in this
way from several pieces of wood.
For these reasons the painting was removed from the official catalog of Rembrandt’s
paintings in the 1930s.
The article introduces the debate of whether a painting was done by artist Rembrandt or not. The author claims that although the painting is similar to Rembrandt's other paintings, there are some significant differences which cast doubt on the issue. On the contrary, the lecturer in the listening passage disagrees with the claims made by the author.
First and foremost, the author states that there are some inconsistencies in the dress of the lady in the painting. The dress of the lady appeared to be ordinary but the collar was luxurious. The author says that such inconsistency is not shown in Rembrandt's work. The lecturer, however, disapproves of this claim by contending that, the fur collar was not a part of the original painting. The collar matched with the dress in the original painting, but someone changed the collar to increase the price of the painting.
Furthermore, the author claims that there are some problems of light and shadow in the painting. She says that the face should appear partially in shadows. Again, the lecturer clarifies the claim by stating that, in the original painting, the collar reflected light. As a result, the face of the lady appears illuminated in light.
Last but not least, the author asserts that the painting is not of Rembrandt because he never used a panel where several pieces of wood were glued together. Not surprisingly, the professor argues the statement is inaccurate. She points out that, when collar was changed in the original painting, some extra pieces of wood were attached to the panel. Moreover, the wood of the panel was from the same tree that Rembrandt used for his other paintings.
To conclude, the writer and the professor hold conflicting views about whether the painting is originally of Rembrandt or not.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 266, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...stency is not shown in Rembrandts work. The lecturer, however, disapproves of this ...
^^^
Line 3, column 391, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_BEGINNING_RULE
Message: Three successive sentences begin with the same word. Reword the sentence or use a thesaurus to find a synonym.
...as not a part of the original painting. The collar matched with the dress in the or...
^^^
Line 7, column 136, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...sed a panel where several pieces of wood were glued together. Not surprisingly, t...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, furthermore, however, if, moreover, so, as a result, on the contrary
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 10.4613686534 153% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 1.0 5.04856512141 20% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 7.30242825607 110% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 12.0772626932 108% => OK
Pronoun: 15.0 22.412803532 67% => OK
Preposition: 40.0 30.3222958057 132% => OK
Nominalization: 1.0 5.01324503311 20% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1499.0 1373.03311258 109% => OK
No of words: 298.0 270.72406181 110% => OK
Chars per words: 5.03020134228 5.08290768461 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.15483772266 4.04702891845 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.68148523149 2.5805825403 104% => OK
Unique words: 139.0 145.348785872 96% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.46644295302 0.540411800872 86% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 446.4 419.366225166 106% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 2.0 3.25607064018 61% => OK
Article: 17.0 8.23620309051 206% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 2.0 1.25165562914 160% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.51434878587 66% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 2.5761589404 116% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 13.0662251656 130% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 21.2450331126 80% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 29.5630228214 49.2860985944 60% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 88.1764705882 110.228320801 80% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.5294117647 21.698381199 81% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.70588235294 7.06452816374 67% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.09492273731 122% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 4.19205298013 72% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 4.33554083885 92% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 4.45695364238 112% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.27373068433 187% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.156280938921 0.272083759551 57% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0548509183999 0.0996497079465 55% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0695080743769 0.0662205650399 105% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.106637081929 0.162205337803 66% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0733312541085 0.0443174109184 165% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.0 13.3589403974 82% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 62.68 53.8541721854 116% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 8.7 11.0289183223 79% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.6 12.2367328918 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.76 8.42419426049 92% => OK
difficult_words: 62.0 63.6247240618 97% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 10.7273730684 79% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.8 10.498013245 84% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.2008830022 80% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 73.3333333333 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 22.0 Out of 30
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.