English readings — Art
300 original readings written by the FitForm team, graded B1 → C2 and sorted by topic. Reading is free and needs no account; exercises, vocabulary review and essay marking need a FitForm login.
Reading a painting
Standing in front of a painting for the first time can feel like being asked a question you did not prepare…
Why museums argue about labels
The small card beside an object in a museum looks like the least controversial thing in the building. It is…
The colour that had no name
In ancient Greek texts the sea is described as wine-dark and honey is described as green. Readers have found…
The film that shows its working
Most films hide how they were made. The cut is invisible, the camera is unnoticed, and the audience is…
The glass that rings
Rub a wet finger around the rim of a wine glass and it sings. Add water and the note drops. This is a…
The painting that was cleaned
When a gallery cleaned a seventeenth-century portrait, the sky turned from brown to blue and the public…
The sculpture that faced the wrong way
A bronze figure stood in a square for ninety years facing the town hall. When the square was redesigned, the…
The song that was two songs
A melody written for a funeral in 1860 became a stadium chant in the 1970s. The notes are the same. Almost…
The museum with one object
A small museum tried an experiment. For one month it displayed a single object in an otherwise empty room: a…
The colour that was not measured
Two prints of the same photograph, made from the same file by two laboratories, differ visibly. Both are…
The building that aged well
Two buildings on the same street were completed in the same year. One looks cared for and one looks…
The rehearsal that changed the text
A play printed in 1623 contains a line that makes no sense, and three centuries of editors have proposed…