GMATPREP-- SPANISH PAINTERS

[schauhan2109]

basically, the deal is that, if el greco indeed had an astigmatism, the astigmatism would affect his perception of paintings and images in exactly the same way that it would affect his perception of actual people.
so, even if el greco did indeed see artificially elongated bodies when he looked at normal people, he would draw them so that they looked elongated TO HIM -- but, if this were the case, then the drawings would look exactly normal to others!

Great explanation. Thanks!

[RonPurewal]

you're welcome.

[Gaurav@GMAT]

Hi Ron,
Sorry for reopening this thread, but I have somewhat different interpretation of answer choice C, please correct me if I am wrong.
I made certain assumptions while solving this CR.
1) Painting can not be made in one watch,or in one go; painter should look at his object at least twice to complete painting.
2) Systematically elongated and distorted are two different things. Example for systematically elongated could be, if object has two hands with 10 cm, then Systematically elongated object will have both hands with 20 cm. While in distorted image everything will be out of proportion.

Now scenario which I considered(suppose painter required two watches to complete image),
1) object has its body parts with following measurements,
Head :- 10 cm
Chest :- 40 cm
Hands :- 20 cm
Legs :- 40
2) Painter looked at objects head perceived it 20 cm and draw accordingly.
3) Now he looked at object again and perceived chest 80 cm. But when he looked at painting he perceived head 40 cm, so commonsense tells how could he draw painting with 40 cm head and 80 cm chest?. and same thing would have happened with hands and with legs, in that one hand would be 60 cm and other would be 120 cm, and this is what I considered distorted.

I am so concerned about distortion and elongation only because of word systematically

I know example I have used may be convoluted, so please tell me if you don't get scenario or need more clarification.

[RonPurewal]

nope.

if something is 10cm in the real world, then it would look like 20cm TO THE ARTIST—and not to anyone else. this is the key.

thus the artist would draw what looked like 20cm TO HIM. to everyone else in the real world it would just look like 10cm because it would be the same size as the original.

[RonPurewal]

just think about this:
• you have a magnifying glass.
• you look at something through the magnifying glass.
• you draw a copy of that thing next to it, in the same size, while still looking through the magnifying glass.

it should be obvious what happens:
• as long as you're still looking through the glass, BOTH things—the item and your copy—will appear bigger (since that is what magnifying glasses do).
• when the magnifying glass is removed, BOTH things will 'shrink', but they will still be the same size!

[RonPurewal]

also, don't 'plug in numbers' on CR problems.
really, don't. there's no possible value, but there's a substantial risk of misinterpreting the problem and/or missing the point altogether.

https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/foru ... ml#p117773

there's a whole other part of the test on which you DO have to use numbers. that's the quant section!

[Gaurav@GMAT]

Thanks a lot Ron for your nice explanation and efforts.

also, don't 'plug in numbers' on CR problems.
really, don't. there's no possible value, but there's a substantial risk of misinterpreting the problem and/or missing the point altogether.

About above poster, generally I don't plug in numbers for CR problems unless they are mentioned explicitly. Here I used numbers only to articulate my thinking.

Anyway thanks again, you saves most of our prep time with your explanations .

[Gaurav@GMAT]

just think about this:
• you have a magnifying glass.
• you look at something through the magnifying glass.
• you draw a copy of that thing next to it, in the same size, while still looking through the magnifying glass.

it should be obvious what happens:
• as long as you're still looking through the glass, BOTH things—the item and your copy—will appear bigger (since that is what magnifying glasses do).
• when the magnifying glass is removed, BOTH things will 'shrink', but they will still be the same size!

Ron, your explanations are gold standard Thnx . Though it took little time to imagine but it feels good now .

[RonPurewal]

you're welcome.

[750plus]

* second -- and much, much more importantly -- you aren't reading the question correctly. you have to read the question prompt literally:
However, this suggestion cannot be the explanation, because _______________________
--> so, we need a reason that rules out this explanation with certainty.
i.e., it doesn't just say "less likely to be the explanation"; it says "CANNOT be the explanation".
read carefully!

Wow! Thanks Mr. Purewal for that bold statement. That just hits the nail perfectly. Now, I see why I went wrong on this. Cannot thank you enough!

[RonPurewal]

you're welcome.

[ManojP384]

A tricky one indeed but to me the answer is clearly C.

If I take option C at face value (which is what one should always do) it clearly tells me that if El Greco actually had astigmatism he would have found the images to be distorted. So we have 2 possibilities:

Possibility 1 - El Greco actually had astigmatism in which case the images should appear distorted to him; but why would he want to paint distorted images when there was no precedent to that effect at that time?

Possibility 2 - El Greco purposely drew elongated figures in which case astigmatism didn't have anything to do with it.

So both these possibilities discount the fact that astigmatism had anything to with El Greco making elongated portraits.

Why not B?

'Some' is a very tricky word on CR. While it's true that some people could have elongated bodies some does not mean 'All' or even 'Most' for that matter.

Hence, for this explanation to make sense you would have to assume that all the portraits that El Greco painted were of people with elongated bodies which is a very long shot and anyways you are not supposed to make assumptions on CR, so B is incorrect.

Am curious to know the OA though.

Cheers!

you're on the right track, but you didn't capture the exact essence of the argument.

basically, the deal is that, if el greco indeed had an astigmatism, the astigmatism would affect his perception of paintings and images in exactly the same way that it would affect his perception of actual people.
so, even if el greco did indeed see artificially elongated bodies when he looked at normal people, he would draw them so that they looked elongated TO HIM -- but, if this were the case, then the drawings would look exactly normal to others!

Dear Ron,

Wish you happy new year. Coming to this question , I still can not understand option C although i know there no other better option. Option C says "If El Greco had astigmatism, then, relative to how people looked to him, the elongated figures in his paintings would have appeared to him to be distorted." Why is it necessary that if he had astigmatism the relative to how people appeared to him, the elongated figures in his painting would appear distorted? Is it always the case? dont think so.. As you explained due to his visual impairment , "the astigmatism would affect his perception of paintings and images in exactly the same way that it would affect his perception of actual people."
so if it affect same way then why there is difference between paintings and people when he perceives them?

Thanks
Manoj Parashar

[RonPurewal]

here's the simplest explanation i can give:

the pantings LOOK "WRONG".
^^ this is the thing we're trying to explain in the first place.

if EG had an eye problem, then, things (and people) might have looked different TO HIM -- but there would be no way to detect this from his drawings.
...if he drew people the way they looked TO HIM -- regardless of how "distorted" that was to his own eyes -- then the drawings would have turned out "normal".

for the same reason, any DRAWING that looks "wrong" TO US ... also would have looked wrong TO HIM, too. in both cases, the drawing would look different from the way normal people look.