Directions : Read the passage and answer the following questions based on it…
2022
Directions : Read the passage and answer the following questions based on it
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's 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.
Which of the following is /are the argument(s) given by Svetlana Alpers about Rembrandt?
- A.
(a) Alpers had a firm belief in the originality of each Rembrandt artwork.
- B.
(b) Alpers argued that Rembrandt submitted to the prevailing patronage system.
- C.
(c) Alpers argued that Rembrandt’s art was largely determined by his view of the art’s marketplace.
- D.
Only (a) and (b)
- E.
Only (b) and (c)
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: C
Concept
In a reading-comprehension "which argument does the author make" question, a statement counts as an argument only if the passage actually asserts it about the author's thesis. Test every candidate by locating its claim in the text: keep statements the passage affirms, reject statements the passage denies or never makes, and reject any combination option that bundles even one rejected statement.
Application
The passage's central thesis is that Alpers reads Rembrandt's work as saturated with economic motive — "virtually every aspect of his art pervaded by economic motives" and "so complete was Rembrandt's involvement with the market" that "he even presented himself as commodity." The statement that Rembrandt's art was largely determined by his view of the art's marketplace restates exactly this thesis, so it is the argument Alpers gives.
Contrast
The claim that Alpers believed in the originality of each Rembrandt artwork inverts the opening, where disputed attributions (works that may not be Rembrandt's at all) are the starting point, not a defense of each work's originality.
The claim that Rembrandt submitted to the prevailing patronage system is the direct opposite of the text, which says Alpers holds that Rembrandt "refused to submit to the prevailing patronage system" and preferred the open market.
The combination of the originality-belief statement and the patronage-submission statement bundles two statements the passage denies.
The combination of the patronage-submission statement and the marketplace-determined statement pairs a denied statement with the affirmed one, so it cannot be wholly correct.
Result
The marketplace-determined statement is the single argument the passage attributes to Alpers.