When we consider great painters of the past, the study of art and the

1998-11 SECTION A 17-24

When we consider great painters of the past, the study of art and the study of illusion cannot always be separated. By illusion I mean those contrivances of color, line, shape, and so forth that lead us to see marks on a flat surface as depicting three-dimensional objects in space. I must emphasize that I am not making a plea, disguised or otherwise, for the exercise of illusionist tricks in painting today, although I am, in fact, rather critical of certain theories of non-representational art. But to argue over these theories would be to miss the point. That the discoveries and effects of representation that were the pride of earlier artists have become trivial today I would not deny for a moment. Yet I believe that we are in real danger of losing contact with past masters if we accept the fashionable doctrine that such matters never had anything to do with art. The very reason why the representation of nature can now be considered something commonplace should be of the greatest interest to art historians. Never before has there been an age when the visual image was so cheap in every sense of the word. We are surrounded and assailed by posters and advertisements, comics and magazine illustrations. We see aspects of reality represented on television, postage stamps, and food packages. Painting is taught in school and practiced as a pastime, and many modest amateurs have mastered tricks that would have looked like sheer magic to the fourteenth-century painter Giotto. Even the crude colored renderings on a cereal box might have made Giotto’s contemporaries gasp. Perhaps there are people who conclude from this that the cereal box is superior to a Giotto; I do not. But I think that the victory and vulgarization of representational skills create a problem for both art historians and critics.

In this connection it is instructive to remember the Greek saying that to marvel is the beginning of knowledge and if we cease to marvel we may be in danger of ceasing to know. I believe we must restore our sense of wonder at the capacity to conjure up by forms, lines, shades, or colors those mysterious phantoms of visual reality we call “pictures.” Even comics and advertisements, rightly viewed, provide food for thought. Just as the study of poetry remains incomplete without an awareness of the language of prose, so, I believe, the study of art will be increasingly supplemented by inquiry into the “linguistics” of the visual image. The way the language of art refers to the visible world is both so obvious and so mysterious that it is still largely unknown except to artists, who use it as we use all language—without needing to know its grammar and semantics.

1.​​ The author of the passage explicitly disagrees with which of the following statements’

(A) In modern society even nonartists can master techniques that great artists of the fourteenth century did not employ.
(B) The ability to represent a three-dimensional object on a flat surface has nothing to do with art.
(C) In modern society the victory of representational skills has created a problem for art critics.
(D) The way that artists are able to represent the visible world is an area that needs a great deal more study before it can be fully understood.
(E) Modern painters do not frequently make use of illusionist tricks in their work.


​2. ​​The author suggests which of the following about art historians?

(A) They do not believe that illusionist tricks have become trivial.
(B) They generally spend little time studying contemporary artists.
(C) They have not given enough consideration to how the representation of nature has become commonplace.
(D) They generally tend to argue about theories rather than address substantive issues.
(E) They are less likely than art critics to study comics or advertisements.


3. ​​​​Which of the following best states the author’s attitude toward comics, as expressed in the passage?

(A) They constitute an innovative art form.
(B) They can be a worthwhile subject for study.
(C) They are critically important to an understanding of modem art.
(D) Their visual structure is more complex than that of medieval art.
(E) They can be understood best if they are examined in conjunction with advertisements.


4. ​​​​​​​​​​The author’s statement regarding how artists use the language of art (Highlighted) implies that

(A) artists are better equipped than are art historians to provide detailed evaluations of other artists’ work
(B) many artists have an unusually quick, intuitive understanding of language
(C) artists can produce works of art even if they cannot analyze their methods of doing so
(D) artists of the past, such as Giotto, were better educated about artistic issues than were artists of the author’s time
(E) most artists probably consider the processes involved in their work to be closely akin to those involved in writing poetry


5. ​​​​​​​​The passage asserts which of the following about commercial art?

(A) There are many examples of commercial art whose artistic merit is equal to that of great works of art of the past.
(B) Commercial art is heavily influenced by whatever doctrines are fashionable in the serious art world of the time.
(C) The line between commercial art and great art lies primarily in how an image is used, not in the motivation for its creation.
(D) The level of technical skill required to produce representational imagery in commercial art and in other kinds of art cannot be compared.
(E) The pervasiveness of contemporary commercial art has led art historians to undervalue representational skills.


6. ​​​​​​​​​​Which of the following can be inferred from the passage about the adherents of “certain theories of nonrepresentational art” (Highlighted)?

(A) They consider the use of illusion to be inappropriate in contemporary art.
(B) They do not agree that marks on a flat surface can ever satisfactorily convey the illusion of three-dimensional space.
(C) They do not discuss important works of art created in the past.
(D) They do not think that the representation of nature was ever the primary goal of past painters.
(E) They concern themselves more with types of art such as advertisements and magazine illustrations than with traditional art.


7. ​​​​​​​​​It can be inferred from the passage that someone who wanted to analyze the “grammar and semantics” (Highlighted) of the language of art would most appropriately comment on which of the following?

(A) The relationship between the drawings in a comic strip and the accompanying text
(B) The amount of detail that can be included in a tiny illustration on a postage stamp
(C) The sociological implications of the images chosen to advertise a particular product
(D) The degree to which various colors used in different versions of the same poster would attract the attention of passersby
(E) The particular juxtaposition of shapes in an illustration that makes one shape look as though it were behind another