PrepTest 115, Section 4, Question 16
Cézanne's art inspired the next generation of artists,(48 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(9 more words not shown)
- ACézanne's work is(2 more words not shown)
- BCézanne was an(5 more words not shown)
- CCézanne's work helped(3 more words not shown)
- DModern art owes(7 more words not shown)
- ECézanne's work tends(5 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Does inspiring modernists make Cézanne a modernist himself? Not necessarily. An artist can influence the people who come next without fitting the same category as their work. That's the distinction I want to keep clear here.
The passage gives us a fact about influence: Cézanne inspired the next generation of modernist artists. It then reports disagreement about a label. Most experts call him an early modernist, but a few, including Françoise Cachin, object to viewing his work that way. The author reports that dispute without choosing which classification is correct.
What we’re looking for
For the most-supported question, stay with what the passage establishes. We can connect his influence to the development of the art that followed. We don't have to settle the expert disagreement or assume that Cachin's criticism is the author's verdict.
Working the answers
- A
A disagreement over classification doesn't establish that the work is highly controversial. The experts might all admire it while disagreeing about whether modernist is the best label. We know about a specific dispute among a small minority and the majority, not widespread controversy over the work itself.
- B
The artists Cézanne inspired are described as creators of abstract art. That description doesn't automatically apply to Cézanne. Nor are we told when abstract art first began. Being an influence on those later artists doesn't establish that he was an early creator of their kind of art.
- CCorrect
His work inspired the modernist artists who followed him, so it helped the development of modernism. That rests on the opening fact about his influence. It doesn't require us to label Cézanne himself a modernist, which is the classification the experts dispute.
- D
Cachin questions how Cézanne's work is classified and viewed. That isn't a demonstrated claim that later modern art owes him less than experts believe. Someone could reject the modernist label for Cézanne while still giving him great credit for influencing modernists.
- E
Calling the classification a misinterpretation would take a side in the dispute. The passage tells us that some experts object to the label, not that they are right and the majority is wrong. The supported conclusion concerns his influence, which doesn't depend on resolving that disagreement.
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