#18 - Concept Reference, Must Be True, Author's Perspective

[reop6780]

#18)

Where is it found in the stimuli that the 19th century admirers thought Watteau's works reflected social reality?

Is it the lines of 21 with "the personification of the witty and amiable eighteenth century." ?
-> it is not said by admirers nor 19th century...

The reason I could not pick the answer C is due to the lines of 36, "Most of Watteau's nineteenth-century admirers simply ignored the grim background of the works.."

I thought they did not necessarily regard Watteau's works as reflection of the society.

[David Boyle]

#18)

Where is it found in the stimuli that the 19th century admirers thought Watteau's works reflected social reality?

Is it the lines of 21 with "the personification of the witty and amiable eighteenth century." ?
-> it is not said by admirers nor 19th century...

The reason I could not pick the answer C is due to the lines of 36, "Most of Watteau's nineteenth-century admirers simply ignored the grim background of the works.."

I thought they did not necessarily regard Watteau's works as reflection of the society.

Hello,

"[T]he personification of the witty and amiable eighteenth century" is said by late 19th-century biographers, apparently, who thus seem to be admirers of Watteau.

If the admirers simply ignored the background of the works, maybe they did think the "foreground", the rest of Watteau's works, reflected the society of Watteau's time. Sometimes people sort of turn a blind eye to things they would rather not admit or discuss.

David

[reop6780]

Oh Yes ! I missed "By 1884" !

Thank you

[Khodi7531]

I was deciding between C and D and chose D.


Under time I didn't get what I was looking for - which was taken from line 34, "most 19 century admirers ignored the grim background of the work..." but couldn't find an answer that illustrated that.


Is the way to approach 18 (and all inference questions) to look at the passage more holistically? Under time I would not be able to arrive at C. But my justification for C over D right now is this: Most of his admirers ignored facts about Watteau ... while our author considers the fact that he wasn't necessarily born in France, was in war, and all these other factors, and from that, believes that Watteau was illustrating more of what he believes, or thinks, French society will be one day. So while admirers look at the work as if its depicting an accurate view of France, the author sees it to be more of what he thinks France would be, ONE DAY.

Thoughts? I would never think of this on test day...but right now, approaching it slowly and reading some other forums about this passage I thought this was how to justify C.

[Alex Bodaken]

Khodi7531,

Thanks for the question! The difference between answer choices (C) and (D) can be summarized thusly: (C) implies that there is a disconnect between Watteau's works and social reality, while (D) implies that the correct interpretation of Watteau's works is that they were based in his social reality. The passage supports (C) but not (D); most of the passage talks about how Paris and France were experiencing grim times while Watteau's works painted (no pun intended) a rosy picture - this is the disconnect that (C) addresses.

To answer your more general question about inference questions - what is fair to say is that inference questions are less likely than most other question stems ("According to the author...," "In line 56...", etc.) to reference specific lines in the text, and will instead (as you note) reflect the general tone and attitude of the author or characters in the text. So I agree that you should be looking towards the entire passage when answering these questions.

Hope this helps!
Alex

[heartofsunshine]

Hi can you please explain how answer choice A is wrong? Thank you!

[KelseyWoods]

Hi Sunshine!

Answer choice (A) is incorrect because Watteau's late-nineteenth century admirers did appreciate the importance of Watteau's artistic accomplishment. They just had a different outlook as to what made his artistic accomplishment important (they thought his works did personify and represent a particular historical period).

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[flowskiferda]

I narrowed it down to C and D and chose D. To me, the passage offered little evidence that late 19th century Watteau admirers saw his work as reflecting reality. The closest I find is that "Most of Watteau's 19th century admirers simply ignored the grim background of the works they found lyrical and charming." Ignoring the reality doesn't necessarily mean they rejected that reality, it just means that they just chose to enjoy the charm of his paintings and didn't really mind whether or not they were grounded in reality.

It is, however, explicitly stated that "such determinism was unthinkable for Watteau admirers." While the author doesn't necessarily endorse such determinism, he also never outright rejects it, and is thus far more willing to entertain such an explanation. D only states that the author is willing to "entertain," not necessarily endorse such an explanation, so I thought this less absolute wording was a good match.

Where did I go wrong?

[Adam Tyson]

I think the best support for answer C here is this line from the first paragraph: "Watteau provided his age with an influential image of itself, and nineteenth-century writers accepted this image as genuine. " This sets the tone for the rest of the passage, in which the author keeps pointing out how the 19th Century writers basically deluded themselves into thinking that Watteau's work was somehow an accurate and true representation of what 18th Century France was like, despite the fact that Watteau died at the beginning of that century and that those first two decades represented a reality very different from what he painted.

Be careful about assuming too much about an author's position, flowskiferda! While the author does indicate that some 19th Century writers gave a little consideration to the realities of Watteau's life in order to refute that deterministic theory, at no point does the author suggest that he is open to that theory, even a little bit. Nor is there any indication what most of those writers thought about determinism. It would be hard to say that the author had anything good to say about that theory, since his description of Watteau's work is very much at odds with his description of his life experiences!

Looked at another way, perhaps most of the 19th Century admirers of Watteau DID believe in the deterministic theory, but they "simply ignored" Watteau's actual heredity and environment in favor of their preferred view. They had a "blind spot" when it came to Watteau.