Self-study
People may praise the talent of a painter capable of realistically portraying a scene and dismiss as artistically worthless the efforts of abstract expressionists, but obviously Conclusion an exact replica of the scene depicted is not the only thing people appreciate in a painting, for Support otherwise photography would have entirely displaced painting as an art form.
Summarize Argument: Counter-Position
The author concludes that exact replication is not the only quality viewers value in a painting. He supports this by contending that, if this wasn’t the case, photography would have replaced painting as an art form by now.
Describe Method of Reasoning
The author is supporting a conclusion about people’s preferences in visual art by citing a relevant fact. Note that this is an “is” conclusion, not an “ought” conclusion: the author is talking about what people do like, not what they should like.
26.
The argument proceeds by
a
using a claim █████ ████ ████ ██████ ██████████ ██ ███████ ██ █████████ █████████
The author’s claim about what people appreciate (i.e. paintings that aren’t exact replicas) is his conclusion; it doesn’t support anything else. Also, it’s not clear that his claims are necessarily about “most” people.
b
appealing to an █████████ █████████ ██ ██████ ███ ██████ ████ ██████ ████
The author doesn’t defend people’s tastes: he simply describes them.
c
explaining a historical ████ ██ █████ ██ ███ ████████ ███████████ ██ ██████
This gets it backwards: the historical fact (that photography didn’t displace painting) is used to make a conclusion about people’s artistic preferences (more than just replication).
d
appealing to a ██████████ ████ ██ ███████ █ █████ █████ ████████ ████████ ███████████
The author cites a historical fact (that photography didn’t displace painting) to justify his claim that people desire more than pure replication in paintings.
e
considering historical context ██ ██████ ███ ████████ ███████████ ██ ██████
The author doesn’t defend people’s tastes: he simply describes them. The historical context is used to show what the preferences are, not to defend them.