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 Administrator
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#34739
Complete Question Explanation
(See the complete passage discussion here: lsat/viewtopic.php?t=12785)

The correct answer choice is (D)

In lines 34-36, the author states that “[w]hen we look at a narrative painting we can suspend our disbelief, when we look at a narrative photograph we cannot.” This distinction between narrative paintings and narrative photographs may be surprising, because it would seem that they are largely similar. Both present narrative images. This question asks us to select the answer choice that describes what makes narrative paintings different from narrative photographs in a way that permits us to suspend our disbelief when we look at narrative paintings.

Answer choice (A): While this answer choice describes a difference between narrative paintings and photographs, it actually makes the situation even more surprising. In the passage, the author pointed to the “ordeal” of sitting for photographs as something that contributes to the doubleness of the photographs. It would seem that sitting an even longer time for a painting would make paintings even more characterized by doubleness than photographs, making it more difficult for us to suspend our disbelief when we look at narrative paintings.

Answer choice (B): The author tells us that we can better suspend our disbelief when viewing a narrative painting. This answer choice deals with the depiction of obviously impossible situations, for which we are less likely to suspend our disbelief.

Answer choice (C): While this answer choice spreads out the ordeal of a sitting, with only one person suffering through the ordeal at a time, this information does not explain why narrative paintings can avoid the realism of photographs and so permit the viewer to suspend disbelief.

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice because it provides a difference between paintings and photographs that enables people viewing paintings to suspend their disbelief. Since the painter can alter the sitter’s image to conform to the imaginary persona, the narrative painting is not bound to the realism of the photograph and can therefore avoid the doubleness that characterizes Cameron’s pictures.

Answer choice (E): This answer choice is incorrect because it does not explain how the stylistic imprint of the artist, school or period enables viewers to suspend their disbelief.
 T.B.Justin
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#61236
• What is a relative example of “suspension in disbelief.” I think the author was contrasting Cameron’s “fancy-subject” pictures with that of narrative paintings (Raphael and Giotto), so is it that we can view Cameron’s photographs in disbelief or not-disbelief. I think that we cannot suspend our disbelief with Cameron’s “fancy-subject” pictures as we see them through the realistic lens of a camera rather than the stroke of a brush or pencil.
 T.B.Justin
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#61535
This question asks us to select the answer choice that describes what makes narrative paintings different from narrative photographs in a way that permits us to suspend our disbelief when we look at narrative paintings.
Does "to suspend our disbelief" mean "to not imagine"?
 Charlie Melman
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#62513
Justin,

To suspend disbelief means to put aside the fact that you know something isn't truly real. When you watch a movie, for example, you suspend your disbelief in order to get into the story. Deep down, you obviously know you're watching a movie, but if you thought actively about that then you wouldn't care about what's happening on the screen—because it's all fake!

Same here. The author is saying that when we look at a narrative painting, we can forget for a moment that we're looking at colors on a canvas. We can forget, for a moment, that we're looking at paint on canvas. But when we look at a narrative photograph, we're always very much aware that we're looking at a photograph, and that reduces our level of emotional engagement with it.

Hope this helps!

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