Self-study
A popular complaint about abstract expressionist paintings—that "a child could paint that"—holds that their stylistic similarities to young children's paintings show that they are no more aesthetically pleasing than those inexpert works. ███ ████ ████████████ ██ █ █████████████ ██████ ████ █████ █████ ██ █████████ ██████████ ██ ██ ████████ █████████████ ████████ ███ █ █████████████ █████████ ████████████ █████ ███ ████████ █████████████ ████████ ██ █████████████ ███████ ████████ ████ █████████ ███ ███████ ████████████ ████ ████████ █████████████ █████████ ███ █████████████ █████████
Summary
The author concludes that abstract expressionist paintings are aesthetically pleasing.
What makes the author believe this?
Because a study was conducted involving participants being shown pairs of paintings consisting of an abstract expressionist painting and a preschooler’s painting. Most participants consistently rated the abstract expressionist painting as aesthetically better than the preschooler’s painting.
Notable Assumptions
Does being aesthetically “better” than a preschooler’s painting imply that a painting is aesthetically pleasing? Not necessarily, because a painting could be better, but still bad. So the author must be assuming that the the preschoolers’ paintings were generally NOT aesthetically displeasing. If they WERE displeasing, then merely being better than them would not establish that abstact expressionist paintings are pleasing.
16.
The argument depends on assuming █████ ███ ██ ███ ██████████
a
People are better ██ ███████ ███ █████████ █████ ██ █ ████████ ████ ████ ███████ ██ ████ ███████ █████████
Not necessary, because as long as people can accurately judge the aesthetics of a painting when comparing it with another painting, it doesn’t matter whether their ability to judge the aesthetics is better or worse in some other situation. The study happened to involve presenting pairs of paintings; maybe presenting only 1 painting at a time could be a better way of judging aesthetics? That doesn’t affect the reasoning, because it can still be possible to judge aesthetics of paintings when they are presented together.
b
Most of the █████████████ █████████ ████ ██ ███ █████ ████ ███ █████████████ ████████████
Necessary, becaues if this were not true — if half or more of the preschoolers’ paintings used in the study WERE aesthetically displeasing — then the fact that most participants in the study judged the abstract expressionist painting as “better” would not justify the conclusion that abstract expressionist paintings are in the category of “aesthetically pleasing.” The negation of (B) leaves open the possibility that the abstract expressionist paintings could have been better, but still displeasing.
c
Each painting shown ██ ███ ████████████ ███ █ █████ ████ ██████████ █████████ ███████ ██ ███ ██ ████████ █████████████ ████████ ██ █ █████████████ █████████
If anything, (C) would hurt the argument, because if the paintings were labeled, that could present an alternate interpretation of the study. Maybe people were just rating the abstract expressionist painting as better because they were biased against preschoolers’ paintings?
d
Participants who did ███ ████████████ ████ ███ ████████ █████████████ █████████ ██ █████████████ ██████ ███████████ █████ ████ ██████ ████ █████ ████ ████
Not necessary, because the argument is based on the people who DID consistently rate the abstract expressionist paintings as better. Whatever is true about the group that did NOT rate abstract expressionist paintings as better doesn’t affect our interpretation of the results of the people who DID consistently rate the paintings as better.
e
There were few █████████ ████████████ ███████ ███ ████████ █████████████ █████████ ████ ████████████ ████ █████ ███ ███ █████████████ █████████ ████ █████ ████ ████ ███████
Not necessary, because even if (E) were not true — if there were a large number of stylistic similarities — we still know that most participants rated the abstract expressionist painting as better. A painting can still be aesthetically better than another, even if there are many similarities between the two.