Q16 - Most commentators on Baroque painting consider Caravag

[mshinners]

Question Type:
Sufficient Assumption

Stimulus Breakdown:
Most critics say C used realism and light/shadow, influencing Baroque. Therefore, either:
1) These critics are wrong, or
2) Mather (who said Baroque art is opulent, heroic, and extravagant) is wrong.

Answer Anticipation:
The overlap between the two viewpoints is in discussing Baroque art. However, they differ in that the critics talk about C, whereas Mather talks about the characteristics of Baroque art. In order to set these two as mutually exclusive (which the conclusion does), the argument would need to establish that C's art doesn't have the features Mather attributes to Baroque art.

Let's find an answer saying C's art isn't opulent, heroic, and extravagant.

Correct answer:
(E)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) Out of scope. The fight isn't about C's similarities or differences to other artists of his time (the critics believe he stood out, whereas Mather doesn't weigh in), so this answer doesn't get us to the conclusion.

(B) Wrong connection. The argument relies on C's art not displaying the characteristics called out by Mather. This answer connects the characteristics of C's work with realism. If anything, this answer is an inference from the commentators' view.

(C) Out of scope. The argument states that C broke from the style of his time with realism, but this answer extends that timeframe back indefinitely. That's neither required nor sufficient for the argument since the argument is about characteristics and not time periods.

(D) Degree. Tempting, but too weak! If this answer stated a realistic painting never depicts these things, then it'd be a much better answer. But since the answer states "usually", C might be in the minority of realistic painters who did depict these things, and thus Mather's view and the commentators' view isn't yet mutually exclusive with respect to C.

(E) Bingo. If C's painting aren't opulent, heroic, and extravagant, they don't qualify as Baroque according to Mather. The commentators state that C was an early Baroque artist. One of the two must be wrong, and that's what our conclusion states.

Takeaway/Pattern:
The LSAT frequently establishes mutually exclusive pairs, so be aware of how to deal with them. Also, Sufficient Assumption questions will frequently have trap answers that just a little too weak to prove the conclusion - watch out for them! In general, the correct answer will be at least as strong as the conclusion. Here, the 100% certainty of the conclusion is not met by the "usually" of answer choice (D), so it must be wrong.

#officialexplanation

[asafezrati]

Here's my process for this one:

1. I note to myself that we need something that justifies the argument.
2. The stimulus brings these ideas:
Premise 1 - some people believe CARA is an early and influential baroque painter who used realism, interplay of light/shadow.
Premise 2 - according to Mather the following conditional is true: Baroque -> Displays (opulence, heroic sweep and extravagance). (all of these say almost nothing to me, and I don't expect the LSAT to test me on their meaning. I really don't know my art and by the way I'm not a native English speaker, so to get what each of them means I need to consciously translate them in my head, which is a waste of time.)
Conclusion - Either one of these two must be false.

We need to create some sort of disagreement between the two ideas, and they both mention baroque, so I got this gut feeling and went to Mather's conditional creating it's contrapositive:
~Displays -> ~Baroque

As in any other sufficient assumption question, I'm looking for the elements which lack some connection/mentioned only once in the stimulus. I chose to look for Mather's "Display" (the properties he mentioned).

A,B,C went pretty quickly because I didn't see the above element.

A. "typically" isn't as strong as I would like my answer choice to be, and "share many of the same stylistic features" didn't give me any clear idea how this can help bridging the gap in the stimulus.
B. ".. need not.." - very weak. Leads us to nowhere. Is it a necessary condition? I don't care, not looking further into this one.
C. "Realism wasn't widely used.. prior to 17th cent." - very weak, and the other words also don't move us forward to the conclusion.

D, E showed the details mentioned by Mather (Display bla bla), so I was pretty confident one of the is the right one.

D. Contrasts the right ideas against one another, but has the word "usually", which means "most". This leaves the door open for CARA to be a member of the minority group of realistic painters who DID paint realistic paintings with Mather's stuff. So this one is too weak to be the one.
E. Says that CARA lacked Mather's stuff (=~Display), so according to Mather's conditional's contrapositive (~Display -> ~Baroque), CARA's pictures are NOT baroque paintings. This runs contrary to the first position/premise which says that CARA was an "early practitioner of that style" (baroque). This is therefore the credited answer choice.

[andreperez7]

TLDR Version.

Premise 1: Position 1: Cara --> Baroque

Premise 2: Position 2: Baroque --> Opulent

Conclusion: Both these positions cannot be correct; they're mutually exclusive.

Assumption: Cara --> ~Opulent

Why?: It forces the second position to be ~Baroque. This gives us position 1 as Baroque and position 2 as ~Baroque. In other words, they're mutually exclusive, as the conclusion claims.

For the reasons the posters above also state, the correct answer is E.