It has recently been discovered that many attributions of paintings

It has recently been discovered that many attributions of paintings to the seventeenth-century Dutch artist Rembrandt may be false. The contested paintings are not minor works, whose removal from the Rembrandt corpus would leave it relatively unaffected: they are at its very center. In her recent book, Svetlana Alpers uses these cases of disputed attribution as a point of departure for her provocative discussion of the radical distinctiveness of Rembrandt's approach to painting.

Alpers argues that Rembrandt exercised an unprecedentedly firm control over his art, his students, and the distribution of his works. Despite Gary Schwartz's brilliant documentation of Rembrandt's complicated relations with a wide circle of patrons, Alpers takes the view that Rembrandt refused to submit to the prevailing patronage system. He preferred, she claims, to sell his works on the open market and to play the entrepreneur. At a time when Dutch artists were organizing into professional brotherhoods and academies, Rembrandt stood apart. In fact, Alpers portrait of Rembrandt shows virtually every aspect of his art pervaded by economic motives. Indeed, so complete was Rembrandt's involvement with the market, she argues, that he even presented himself as commodity, viewing his studio's products as extensions of himself, sent out into the world to earn money. Alpers asserts that Rembrandt's enterprise is found not just in his paintings, but in his refusal to limit his enterprise to those paintings he actually painted. He marketed Rembrandt.

Although there may be some truth in the view that Rembrandt was an entrepreneur who made some aesthetic decisions on the basis of what he knew the market wanted, Alpers' emphasis on economic factors sacrifices discussions of the aesthetic qualities that make Rembrandt's work unique. For example, Alpers asserts that Rembrandt deliberately left his works unfinished so as to get more money for their revision and completion. She implies that Rembrandt actually wished the Council of Amsterdam to refuse the great Claudius Civilis, which they had commissioned for their new town hall, and she argues that he must have calculated that he would be able to get more money by retouching the painting. Certainly the picture is painted with very broad strokes but there is no evidence that it was deliberately left unfinished. The fact is that the look of a work like Claudius Civilis must also be understood as the consequence of Rembrandt's powerful and profound meditations on painting itself. Alpers makes no mention of the pictorial dialectic that can be discerned between, say, the lessons Rembrandt absorbed from the Haarlem school of paintings and the styles of his native Leiden. The trouble is that while Rembrandt's artistic enterprise may indeed not be reducible to the works he himself painted, it is not reducible to marketing practices either.

1. Which one of the following best summarizes the main conclusion of the author of the passage?

(A) Rembrandt differed from other artists of his time both in his aesthetic techniques and in his desire to meet the demands of the marketplace.
(B) The aesthetic qualities of Rembrandt's work cannot be understood without consideration of how economic motives pervaded decisions he made about his art.
(C) Rembrandt was one of the first artists to develop the notion of a work of art as a commodity that could be sold in an open marketplace.
(D) Rembrandt's artistic achievement cannot be understood solely in terms of decisions he made on the basis of what would sell in the marketplace.
(E) Rembrandt was an entrepreneur whose artistic enterprise was not limited to the paintings he actually painted himself.



2. According to the passage, Alpers and Schwartz disagree about which one of the following?

(A) the degree of control Rembrandt exercised over the production of his art
(B) the role that Rembrandt played in organizing professional brotherhoods and academies
(C) the kinds of relationships Rembrandt had with his students
(D) the degree of Rembrandt's involvement in the patronage system
(E) the role of the patronage system in seventeenth-century Holland



3. In the third paragraph, the author of the passage discusses aesthetic influences on Rembrandt's work most probably in order to

(A) suggest that many critics have neglected to study the influence of the Haarlem school painters on Rembrandt's work
(B) suggest that Claudius Civilis is similar in style to many paintings from the seventeen century
(C) suggest that Rembrandt's style was not affected by the aesthetic influences that Alpers points out
(D) argue that Rembrandt's style can best be understood as a result of the influences of his native Leiden
(E) indicate that Alpers has not taken into account some important aspects of Rembrandt's work



4. Which one of the following, if true, would provide the most support for Alpers' argument about Claudius Civilis?

(A) Rembrandt was constantly revising his prints and paintings because he was never fully satisfied with stylistic aspects of his earlier drafts.
(B) The works of many seventeenth-century Dutch artists were painted with broad strokes and had an unfinished look.
(C) Many of Rembrandt's contemporaries eschewed the patronage system and sold their works on the open market.
(D) Artists were frequently able to raise the price of a painting if the buyer wanted the work revised in some way.
(E) Rembrandt did not allow his students to work on paintings that were commissioned by public officials.



5. It can be inferred that the author of the passage and Alpers would be most likely to agree on which one of the following?

(A) Rembrandt made certain aesthetic decision on the basis of what he understood about the demands of the marketplace.
(B) The Rembrandt corpus will not be affected if attributions of paintings to Rembrandt are found to be false.
(C) Stylistic aspects of Rembrandt's painting can be better explained in economic terms than in historical or aesthetic terms.
(D) Certain aesthetic aspects of Rembrandt's art are the result of his experimentation with different painting techniques.
(E) Most of Rembrandt's best-known works were painted by his students, but were sold under Rembrandt's name.