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passage 2
Most sociohistorical interpretations of art view a body of work as the production of a class, generally a dominant or governing class, imposing its ideals. For example, Richard Taruskin writes in his Oxford History of Western Music that one of the defining characteristics of "high art" is that "it is produced by and for political and social elites." What Taruskin and others fail to clarify, however, is that there are two different ways that art, historically, was "produced by and for political and social elites."
The first way was for a member of the elite to engage a well-known artist to produce
Sociohistorical critics like Taruskin prefer to deal with art produced the second way, because it enables them to construct a subtle analysis of the way such art embodied the ideology of the elite, whatever the identity of the artist. For this kind of analysis to work, however, it must be the case that the elite had a recognizable identity and displayed some kind of consensus about the world and the way life was to be lived, and it must also be the case that we can eliminate the possibility that artists subverted the ideals of the patron for their own reasons.
Historically, the two social classes able to commission art were the aristocratic, or governing class, and the well-to-do middle class, what used to be called the bourgeoisie. The taste of the aristocracy and the upper middle class has not always been apt to produce an art that endures. In his characterization of nineteenth-century English culture, cultural critic Matthew Arnold identified the aristocracy as Barbarians, interested largely in fox hunting and gaming, and the middle class as Philistines, obsessed with respectability. As a result, the more talented artists sometimes had to find a place in the margins of the establishment—engaged by a rich patron with eccentric tastes, for example.
Moreover, a great deal of art that went against the grain of elite values was paid for by the establishment unwillingly and with misgivings. Because some of this art endured, the sociohistorical critic, like Taruskin, must engage in an analogue of Freudian analysis, and claim that in hidden ways such art embodied the ideals of the elite, who were unaware that those ideals are revealed by work of which they overtly disapproved.
7.
Which one of the following most accurately expresses the main point of the passage?
a
Historically, art was primarily commissioned by the governing classes and the well-to-do middle classes, despite the fact that this arrangement was not apt to produce art that endures.
b
Sociohistorical interpretations of art that claim that art merely reflects the ideals and values of the elite classes are overly simplistic.
c
Historically, patrons of the arts have generally been more interested in what being a patron would do for their reputation than in influencing the development of the arts.
d
Sociohistorical critics must engage in a form of Freudian analysis to justify, in light of apparently conflicting evidence, the claim that works of art embody the ideals of the elite.
e
There have historically been two distinct ways in which members of the elite classes have had art produced for them.