PrepTest 146 - Section 4 - Passage 2 - Question 7

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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. …

Other People's View · Art is the product of a governing class imposing its ideals

Okay... so like movies are the product of the Hollywood elites imposing their views of, say, beauty on the masses. I mean if you're going to argue that looking at Ryan Gosling is an imposition, I say please impose harder.

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." …

Example: Taruskin · "high art" is "produced by and for political and social elites"

Oh we're talking about snobbish art.

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."

Author's Critique · But there are two ways for art to be produced by and for elites

Taruskin fails to distinguish between the two ways.

The first way was for a member of the elite to engage a well-known artist to produce something for display. For instance, if one commissions a famous architect to design one's house, that may reflect great credit on one's taste, even if one finds the house impossible to live in. …

Way 1 · Art produced for display

Elites engage famous artists to produce something for display, to show off.

The second way was to create, or to have created, a work that expressed and mirrored one's ideals and way of life, like Raphael's frescoes in the Vatican apartments commissioned by Pope Julius II.

Way 2 · Art produced to express ideals

Elites engage famous artists to produce something to communicate ideals, for example, religious ideals.

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. …

Critique · Taruskin overlooks way 1; only sees way 2

Because it enables analysis of the ideology of the elite.

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.

Critique · Taruskin makes three assumptions

1. Elites had a recognizable identity; 2. elites had consensus about ideals; 3. that artists did not subvert the ideals of the elites.

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.

Critique · Challenge assumptions 1 and 2

Who were the "elites?" The aristocrats and the bourgeoisie. But they were very different from each other. They had different tastes and different ways of life. They cared about different things. Artists often had to work for patrons that didn't represent "elite" taste.

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.

Critique · Challenge assumption 3

Artists did often subvert the ideals of their patrons. Taruskin has to perform mental acrobatics to claim that these were not subversions, that the elites actually embraced these ideals that they explicitly disapproved of.

Passage Style

Critique or debate

Which one of the following most accurately expresses the main point of the passage?

Question Type

Main point

In a Critique or Debate passage, if the author criticizes a view, the main point should capture the author’s criticism. Here, the author criticizes the view that art produced by and for elites embodied the ideology of the elite. In P3 and P4, the author undermines the assumptions required for that view to work. The author’s implicit conclusion is that the view doesn’t work.

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.

This doesn’t capture the author’s criticism of the view that art made for elites embodied elites’ ideology.

Sociohistorical interpretations of art that claim that art merely reflects the ideals and values of the elite classes are overly simplistic.

This best captures the author’s criticism of the view that art made for elites embodied elites’ ideology.

73%

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.

This doesn’t capture the author’s criticism of the view that art made for elites embodied elites’ ideology.

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.

This doesn’t capture the author’s criticism of the view that art made for elites embodied elites’ ideology. The point isn’t about what the socio-historical critics must do. The point is that the socio-historical critics are wrong.

14%

There have historically been two distinct ways in which members of the elite classes have had art produced for them.

This doesn’t capture the author’s criticism of the view that art made for elites embodied elites’ ideology.

PrepTest 146 - Section 4 - Passage 2 - Question 7

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