PrepTest 117, Section 4, Question 15
Artists have different ways of producing contours and(49 more words not shown)
If the statements above are(11 more words not shown)
- AContours and hatching(12 more words not shown)
- BMany of the(8 more words not shown)
- CNo forgery can(11 more words not shown)
- DThe contour and(20 more words not shown)
- EThere is an(12 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A recognizable style could work like a signature. But how distinctive is it? Suppose there were only five ways to draw these features. Finding style A might rule out artists who use style B without identifying just one artist among everyone using A. So the general claim that style can help distinguish drawings isn't a promise that every drawing has a unique, unmistakable signature.
The passage then gives us a particular success: analyzing contours and hatching showed that drawings once attributed to Michelangelo were actually by Giulio Clovio. We should accept that result for this question. It gives us more than the general possibility I was questioning.
What we’re looking for
What must be true? My initial predictions are that some drawings were previously attributed to the wrong artist, and that the analysis can distinguish these two artists' styles. Look for something required by that specific finding, without turning one successful analysis into a universal claim about every artwork.
Working the answers
- A
These features can help distinguish styles, but that doesn't make them the main features used to do so. Other characteristics could be equally important or more important. The passage establishes usefulness, not a ranking among all the available methods.
- B
A mistaken attribution isn't necessarily a forgery. Clovio could have made genuine drawings of his own that later observers mistakenly credited to Michelangelo. Nothing says he made them to deceive anyone. The opening explicitly distinguishes forgeries from genuine works by other artists, so we shouldn't collapse those possibilities.
- C
Successful detection in some cases doesn't establish that perfect imitation is impossible in every case. A forgery might duplicate these features extremely well, even though stylistic analysis helps distinguish many other works. 'Can help' leaves room for limits that C rules out.
- D
A recognizable feature needn't appear in everything an artist makes. Suppose a particular detective is distinctive to one novelist's work. Recognizing that character in a book wouldn't mean the novelist includes the detective in every book. Likewise, features that identify these Clovio drawings needn't appear in every Clovio work.
- ECorrect
If the analysis distinguishes Clovio's drawings from Michelangelo's through contour and hatching styles, there must be an analyzable difference between those styles. If they were indistinguishable in the relevant features, those features couldn't do the work described. E states that necessary difference without making the analysis universal or infallible.
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