The figures in portraits by the Spanish painter El Greco (15411614) a

Hi expert,

Could you please help me understand what does option C actually mean? My understanding for rejecting it is as follows:

If El Greco had visual impairment (astigmatism) then people would have appeared to him in a distorted way and then he painted portraits of those same people exactly (i.e. distorted) as he perceived them. Therefore, to El Greco, his paintings would not have appeared distorted.

I selected option A for the following reason:

If several 20th century artists consciously adopted the technique of systematic elongation of human form from El Greco's paintings, then it shows that the technique could have been developed or practiced consciously by EG and that it was not a result of some visual impairment.

Had it been a result of some visual impairment then how could several other artists who (most likely) didn't have the same impairment could have adopted his style?

Hi GMATNinja, VeritasKarishma, egmat

Could you please help me understand what does option C actually mean? My reasoning for rejecting option C is as follows:

If El Greco had visual impairment (astigmatism) then people would have appeared to him in a distorted way and he would have painted portraits of those same people exactly (i.e. distorted) as he perceived them. Therefore, to El Greco, his paintings would not have appeared distorted.

I selected option A for the following reason:

If several 20th century artists consciously adopted the technique of systematic elongation of human form from El Greco's paintings, then it shows that the technique could have been developed or practiced consciously by EG (as it was replicable --other artists adopted it) and that his style was not a result of some visual impairment.

Had it been a result of some visual impairment then how could several other artists who didn't have (most likely) any visual impairment could have adopted his style?

Check this out: https://gmatclub.com/forum/in-persons-w ... l#p2513048

Same question in a different format.

(A) doesn't help here because it does nothing to tell us the reason why El Greco started painting in this way. Other artists started copying him and making longer faces is irrelevant. He started a trend an others followed. Point is what made him start the trend.

Hi VeritasKarishma

I checked your explanation on the similar question,which is linked in the above explanation. I understood your explanation but I'm still confused.

So you mean to say that he sees a person with a round shape head but instead he draws a ellipse shape head of that person in his painting. Which means that Greco has a perception problem rather than a visual problem?

Case 1
Person has round shape head.
Greco sees round, draws round.

Greco is normal.

Case 2
Person has round shape head.
Greco sees round, draws ellipse.

Greco has perception problem.

Case 3
Person has round shape head.
Greco sees ellipse, draws ellipse.

Greco has visual problem called A.

Case 4
Person has round shape head.
Greco sees ellipse, draws round.

Greco has both visual and perception problem.

So where does C fit into all these..?

I really liked your explanation and I thought I understood but when I came back to this question I was confused.

It'll be great if you could solve my doubt.

Thank you

Posted from my mobile device

I don't know how you are distinguishing visual/perception problems. Greco has a problem in his eye so EVERYTHING he sees is distorted.

Think about it this way: You have perfect vision. You see a person with a round face. You see the perfect painting of that person which will again have a round face.

Now Greco has distorted vision. He sees a person with a round face but sees an ellipse. He sees a painting of a person with a round face. He will see the face as an ellipse there on the painting too because his own vision is distorted. So EVERY circle will look like an ellipse to him, whether in real life or in a painting.

So this is what happens:
A person has a round face. Greco sees an ellipse (distorted vision of the person).
Greco starts drawing. He moves his pencil around as per what he sees on the paper (again distorted vision on paper).
He draws a round face. He sees it as an ellipse (because of distorted vision). He thinks he has captured the reality perfectly on paper (which is correct). Just that in his mind, the face is an ellipse but the way a normal person sees it is a circle.

Does this help?

Hi VeritasKarishma

Okay, this is perfectly clear but then how does Option C fit as the correct answer, if this is the correct meaning..?

I'll break it down.

"Consequently, some critics have suggested that El Greco had an astigmatism, a type of visual impairment, that resulted in people appearing to him in the distorted way that is characteristic of his paintings."

This part says that some critics suggest that Greco had a distorted vision (which is nothing but astigmatism) thus he saw people in distorted way and the same was reflected in his paintings. Right?

"However, this suggestion cannot be the explanation, because______________."

Now this part starts with "However", which indicates that an alternative explanation has to be there. Because however is used to introduce a counter view isn't it?

But option C tells us that "If he had astigmatism, then just like the people the paintings would've appeared to him as distorted as well" which is nothing but the same information we get from the critics' suggestion.

This is my understanding of the whole scenario. If I'm missing anything, please help me understand it.


Thank you

Some people say: El Greco had an astigmatism, a type of visual impairment, that resulted in people appearing to him in the distorted way that is characteristic of his paintings.

However, this suggestion cannot be the explanation, because______________.

His astigmatism cannot be the reason he made distorted faces because _______

We already understand that astigmatism cannot be the reason for distorted faces because as we have discussed, even with astigmatism, he would have reproduced reality perfectly. He would not have produced distorted images.

Option (C) says the same thing.

(C) if El Greco had an astigmatism, then, relative to how people looked to him, the elongated figures in his paintings would have appeared to him to be distorted

If he had astigmatism, when he would look at this own paintings with astigmatic eyes, the elongated figures he drew would look even more distorted to him and he would see that they do not represent reality.

Hi VeritasKarishma

I'm sorry for such a late reply.

I wanted to not ask you to explain it in more detail for then I would've not developed the ability to think holistically.

Finally, I understood this. Damn..this was something. I will always remember this.

I have been reading this question and your explanation multiple times over the past few days but every time I failed to understand the reasoning. Today, I sat down with a clear mind and re-read it and really made an effort to understand. This was a really good question.

Thank you so much for explanation it to me in such detail.

Reading that you faced such problems understanding it, I thought of an easier way to explain this - Think of someone wearing pink tinted sunglasses permanently.
He sees a white flower and it looks pink to him.
He looks at his palette and white color looks pink to him. He picks up the color and paints a flower with it. His painting looks like a painting of a pink flower to him.
Note that he has depicted the reality the way it is because his perspective is the same everywhere.
That is what the question wants you to realise. And yes, it is a good question.

I don't understand choice C what does it mean ?

GMATNinja

Could you provide an elaborate explanation of this question please?
Thanks

I have not seen checked the answer. Here is my analysis

Dear Experts,

I read all comments.
However, I don't understand (C). What does (C) actually mean? and How (C) help?

I eliminated (A), (D), and (E).

To understand (C), let's first consider a similar situation to El Greco's paintings:

Imagine an artist who loved painting glasses of milk, but for some reason this artist painted the milk as green rather than white. Then imagine someone tried to explain this weird situation by suggesting the artist wore green-tinted glasses all the time. Would this explain why the artist painted green milk?

Not really. Because if the artist wore green-tinted glasses all the time, then white paint would also look green. In other words, the green-tinted glasses would distort not only the color of actual milk, but the color of the artist's paintings as well. So if the artist painted milk using white paint, it would still look green to the artist. As a result, the green-tinted lenses would not explain why the artist used green paint instead of white paint.

Let's now examine (C):

Just as an artist with green-tinted lenses would see white paint as green, so would a person with astigmatism see normal figures in a painting as elongated. In other words, if El Greco had astigmatism, not only would he have seen living people as elongated, he would have seen paintings of normally-shaped people as elongated.

Put another way: astigmatism would explain why El Greco saw people as elongated. But it would not explain why he painted people as elongated. Because if he had astigmatism, paintings of normally-shaped people would have appeared to him as elongated. So he'd have no reason to actually paint them as elongated.

I hope that helps!

­

Premises:
Astigmatism distorts vision.
El Greco's paintings have elongated figures. 
Critics say that this is because he had astigmatism so he saw figures elongated.

Conclusion:
Critics' suggestion cannot be the explanation, because______________.

We need to provide support to the author's conclusion that astigmatism was not the reason behind the elongated figures. We have to explain why astigmatism cannot be the reason for elongated figures. Mind you, we are not looking for an alternative reason. The sentence needs to provide why astigmatism cannot be the reason.

(A) several twentieth-century artists have consciously adopted from El Greco’s paintings the systematic elongation of the human form

 It does nothing to tell us the reason why El Greco started painting in this way. Other artists started copying him and making longer faces is irrelevant. He started a trend and others followed. Point is what made him start the trend? Why are we certain that it was not astigmatism?

(B) some people do have elongated bodies somewhat like those depicted in El Greco’s portraits

It doesn't explain why astigmatism cannot be the reason for elongated figures. Even if some people had those, we are not looking for some other reason that could explain the elongated figures in his paintings. We need to talk about why astigmatism cannot be the reason. Note the last line: this suggestion cannot be the explanation, because______________.

(C) if El Greco had an astigmatism, then, relative to how people looked to him, the elongated figures in his paintings would have appeared to him to be distorted

If he had astigmatism, when he would look at this own paintings with astigmatic eyes, the elongated figures he drew would look even more distorted to him and he would see that they do not represent reality.

Take a parallel example: Think of someone wearing pink tinted sunglasses permanently. 
He sees a white flower and it looks pink to him.
He looks at his palette and white color looks pink to him (it matches the colour of the flower he is seeing). He picks up the white color and paints a flower with it. His painting looks like a painting of a pink flower to him. The actual pink in his palette perhaps looks like a deep pink to him and doesn't match the real flower he is looking at. So he will not pick that.
Note that he has depicted the reality the way it is because his perspective is the same everywhere. He is looking at the flower, at his palette and at his painting with the same eyes. But to someone else, the painting will show a white flower only. 

That is what the question wants you to realise. If he had astigmatism in his eyes, he would have still reflected the reality accurately because he is looking at his painting with the same eyes. But we would have seen normal faces only in the painting. 

Hence this reasoning shows us why astigmatism does not explain the elongated figures that we see in his painting. Correct.  

(D) even if El Greco had an astigmatism, there would have been no correction for it available in the period in which he lived

Irrelevant. The critics are anyway implying that he had astigmatism and this condition was not corrected. We have to show why astigmatism was not the reason at all. 

(E) there were non-European artists, even in El Greco’s time, who included in their works human figures that were intentionally distorted

Again, we need to talk about why astigmatism cannot be the reason.

Answer (C)