Q13 - Art historian: More than any

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Inference (Most supported)

Stimulus Breakdown:
Still-life is more conducive to the artist's self expression, because the artist gets to choose the layout/content of the scene being painted, more than he would with a landscape or portrait painting.

Answer Anticipation:
Inference questions usually want us to combine ideas, using Conditional/Causal/Quantitative language. Here, we see the first sentence is connected to the 2nd via "this is because" causal bridge language. And the 2nd is connected to the 3rd via "thus" bridge language. Putting those together, it looks like they may be fishing for some idea like "the more control you have over your paining, the more conducive it is to self-expression".

Correct Answer:
D

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Extreme = "MOST naturally"?

(B) Extreme = "The ONLY way"?

(C) Fake Comparison. We can't say anything about nonrepresentational painting, since we were told nothing about it. This also offends common sense, since abstract (nonrepresentational) painting is probably more conducive to self-expression than representational stuff.

(D) Yes! Safe wording = "Does not always". Think about the flipside of this claim -- if other genres of representational painting ALWAYS involved the artist choosing/modifying/arranging the contents of the painting, then how would this be the special thing about stlll-life painting that lends it to self-expression "more than any other genre of representational painting"?

(E) Strong = "rarely". This answer would actually imply choice (D). If portrait artists often do not choose/modify/arrange, then (D) would be correct to say that "sometimes, in non-still-life representational painting, the artist does not choose/modify/arrange". (D) is the more limited claim. It does NOT imply (E). You can't have two correct answers, so (D) has to win by this account. You could also get rid of (E) by focusing on the fact that portrait artists may still be stuck with the person they're painting, so even if they OFTEN choose/modify/arrange the background, they still have less control than still-life painters, who get to choose/modify/arrange the background AND the foreground.

Takeaway/Pattern: Structurally, this Inference works like this: "If X is special among A's because X has trait Y, then we can infer that other A's do not have trait Y." Still life is special among representational painting because in still life, the artist gets to choose/modify/arrange everything. Thus, in genres that aren't still-life, the arists must not get to do this as much.

#officialexplanation

[peg_city]

Can one of the geeks explain this one to me?

Thanks

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

For this question, we are looking for the answer that is most provable based on the given information.

(A) is far from provable. For all we know, there could be another sort of painting, say, for example - "mouse painting" - that lends itself most to XYZ.

(B) is far from provable, and the word that tips us off is "only" -- we have been told that in still-life painting the artist controls the composition through certain means, but that's far from being enough to say that these means are the only ways to control composition (what about choosing what colors to use?).

(C) is far from provable, because non-representative painting is not discussed.

(D) seems pretty close to provable. Still-life painting "invariably" has characteristic XYZ, and because of this characteristic the artist has more control than for other types of representational painting. Not too much of a stretch to infer that these other types don't "always" have this particular characteristic.

(E) is far from provable. We don't know how "rarely" artists do this when painting portraits.

Hope that is helpful! Please chime in if you have any follow up questions.

[samuelfbaron]

Statement: more than any other genre of rep painting still life lends itself..

This is due to the fact that still life invariably allows the artist to choose, modify and arrange its objects.

Therefore- more control over composition.

(D) this is essentially what answer choice (D) says.

[lissethbayona]

I incorrectly chose (E) on this one. My thought process was that the stimulus said that in still-life painting the artist always chooses, modifies, and arranges the objects to be painted and so, the artist has more control here as opposed when painting to a portrait. To me that means that in a portrait the artist must not choose, modify, and arrange the objects to be painted. Kind of what (E) is stating.

Is (E) wrong just because of the word "rarely"? Is "rarely" is too strong given the information in the stimulus? Would the information in the stimulus support (E) if the word "rarely" was replaced by "do not always"?

Just want to make sure I thoroughly understand why (E) is wrong. Any input would be appreciated. Thanks!

[xueqing.shan]

I incorrectly chose (E) on this one. My thought process was that the stimulus said that in still-life painting the artist always chooses, modifies, and arranges the objects to be painted and so, the artist has more control here as opposed when painting to a portrait. To me that means that in a portrait the artist must not choose, modify, and arrange the objects to be painted. Kind of what (E) is stating.

Is (E) wrong just because of the word "rarely"? Is "rarely" is too strong given the information in the stimulus? Would the information in the stimulus support (E) if the word "rarely" was replaced by "do not always"?

Just want to make sure I thoroughly understand why (E) is wrong. Any input would be appreciated. Thanks!

I was deciding between (D) and (E) and eventually went with (D). Here's what I think:

Stimulus: "in still-life painting, the artist invariably chooses, modifies, and arranges... [which enables the article to have] considerably more control over C and S," unlike what he would do in a landscape painting and portrait.

Which means that, when painting a landscape painting or a portrait, the artist [b]does not invariably[/] chooses, modifies and arranges. (D) is correct because "does not always" is a perfect match for "does not invariably," whereas in (E), "rarely attempt" is not a good opposite of "not invariably." Maybe when the artist paints a portrait, he or she still chooses, modifies and arranges quite frequently, but he is not forced to do so as he is when working on a still-life painting.

Hope this helps!

[mswang7]

In still life painting is for self expression bc artist chooses objects to be painted, which means more control
Other genres reflect pre-existing reality

A. We don't know which non- sill life painting genres most reflect PE reality
B. Only is too strong. We just know this is one way
C. The argument only speaks to representational painting
D. Yes because if they did always do those things it would be impossible for still life painting to do it more often. There is no more often than always. It would be equally frequent at best
E. We don't know anything about painting a portrait