GMATPREP-- SPANISH PAINTERS

[philanderer.lover]

The figures in portraits by the Spanish painter El Greco (1541-1614) are systematically elongated. In El Greco's time, the intentional distortion of the human figures was unprecedented in European Painting. Consequently, some critics have suggested that El greco had an astigmatism, a type of visual impairment, that resulted in people appearing to him in the distorted way that is charateristic of his paintings. However, this suggestion cannot be the explanation, because _______________________

a. Several twentieth century artists have consciously adopted from El greco's paintings the systematic elongation of the human form

b.some people do have elongated bodies somewhat like those depicted in El greco's portraits

c.If El greco had an astigmatism, then, relative to how people looked to him, the elongated figures in his paintings would have appeared to him to be distorted

d.even if El greco had an astigmatism, there would have been no correction for it available in the period in which he lived.

e.there were non-europen artists even in El greco's time who included in their works human figures that were intentionally distorted.

My analysis

a-->irrelavant
b-->i chose this one-->contender
c-->could not understand this option
d-->treatment-->not relevant
e-->talking about some non european artists-->out of scope

Hi Ron/Stacey,

Please share your perspective on this question.

Guys I will post the OA as the explanations come in.

SOURCE: GMATPREP

Regards,
Phil

[sarfrazyusuf]

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!

[philanderer.lover]

OA is C thankyou for the great explanation I got this one now

Regards,
Phil

[RonPurewal]

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!

[hi]

Hi,
Allow me to reopen this thread. I went for B.

This is how I took it :
Someone else, say Ron, and not El Greco (EG), is looking at the paintings. Why would the painting appear elongated to Ron or even to EG?

EG saw x, which appeared to him as X and painted X; but to Ron this X is x which actually is x. EG can only see it as X and hence his paintings would have not appeared distorted to him => Hence in eyes of EG there is no distortion as in eyes of Ron. Therefore, EG's painting should not appear distorted to EG. This, however, contradicts what is said in C. "his paintings would have appeared to him to be distorted".

Can the experts please explain where am I going wrong ?

I understand the challenge with 'some' in choice B. but if you eliminate C, B is the best choice.

[RonPurewal]

EG saw x, which appeared to him as X and painted X[/color]; but to Ron this X is x which actually is x. EG can only see it as X and hence his paintings would have not appeared distorted to him => Hence in eyes of EG there is no distortion as in eyes of Ron. Therefore, EG's painting should not appear distorted to EG. This, however, contradicts what is said in C. "his paintings would have appeared to him to be distorted".

Can the experts please explain where am I going wrong ?

next time, please use two different letters, such as x and y -- it's rather difficult to understand this lowercase x / capital x stuff without multiple re-readings.

in the situation you're describing, the painting would look normal to everyone. i.e., you're describe a situation in which el greco paints bodies as they appear in real life -- meaning that he will see the painting as elongated, in exactly the same way as he sees bodies in real life, but that observers with normal eyes will see the painting as having normal proportions. (you admitted this yourself, in the purple highlighted part -- what you are saying there is tantamount to "ron will see the painting as having normal proportions".)

the problem is that this example is irrelevant to the problem at hand; the problem at hand describes a situation in which el greco is painting images that differ from what is actually seen by the eye.
i.e., if the dimensions of the painting are different from the dimensions of a real-life human, than that DIFFERENCE will be apparent -- both to el greco and to normal people. it's impossible to have a situation where the two look different to ron, but look the same to el greco.

[s.ashwin.rao]

Your are truly are Genius Ron. The best part is simplicity with which you answer. If I had even 50% of your thinking power may be I reach my Goal.

[RonPurewal]

Your are truly are Genius Ron. The best part is simplicity with which you answer. If I had even 50% of your thinking power may be I reach my Goal.

thx, good luck

[rishisbook]

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!

Ron i am little confused on this one:
Firstly, for this question since A,B,D & E are all irrelevant the answer does boil down to C. But i did not fully understand the answer choice. Lets say mathematically, the normal person's height is 2cm. But for greco he would perceive that person as 4cm due to his astigmatism issue and he paints a 4 cm portrait. But as per the answer choice the image would also look distorted to him. How does this weaken the case that he would not have had astigmatism? Also as you said above that the drawing would appear normal to others. How is that possible also since the image is already distorted in a way to 4cm?

I dont know... Probably i am not in the same frame as you. Can you elaborate on this?

Thanks
Rishi

[RonPurewal]

Ron i am little confused on this one:
Firstly, for this question since A,B,D & E are all irrelevant the answer does boil down to C. But i did not fully understand the answer choice. Lets say mathematically, the normal person's height is 2cm. But for greco he would perceive that person as 4cm due to his astigmatism issue and he paints a 4 cm portrait.

no -- he would paint a portrait that looked like 4cm TO HIM, and that would hence look like 2cm (= normal height) to everyone else.

if you still don't understand, then look through a magnifying glass at a letter, make a copy of the letter (while still looking through the glass), and then take the magnifying glass away. the letters will be the same size.

[gmatwork]

Why is E wrong? I chose E thinking that conclusion is causal (eye impairment does not lead to elongation). If we can find an alternate factor that causes elongation wouldn't that strengthen the conclusion?

E says that non-European artists distorted human figures.....this in effect means that El Greco was not the only one who was painting distorted figures there were other guys too painting such figures.....which might mean that El Gerco was doing it on purpose because it was just a form of painting style prevalent in El's time and not visual impairment leading to such distortion ( which is what the conclusion suggests).

Please explain what's wrong with this line of thought?

C was hard for me to understand. Can you please explain C in simpler words?

[agarwalmanoj2000]

Hi Priyanka,

I was stuck between C and E, but I selected C because -

1) Option C is more related to the discussion i.e. astigmatism, and

2) In option E, we need to make an assumption that El Greco was acquainted with the work of non-european artist.

Option C says that, if El Greco had astigmatism then both people and picture of people would have appeared longer to him than they were actually, so El Greco’s painting should have been normal and not distorted.

You may refer to below Ron’s post for better understanding of option C -
post39050.html#p39050

[RonPurewal]

Why is E wrong? I chose E thinking that conclusion is causal (eye impairment does not lead to elongation). If we can find an alternate factor that causes elongation wouldn't that strengthen the conclusion?

E says that non-European artists distorted human figures.....this in effect means that El Greco was not the only one who was painting distorted figures there were other guys too painting such figures.....which might mean that El Gerco was doing it on purpose because it was just a form of painting style prevalent in El's time and not visual impairment leading to such distortion ( which is what the conclusion suggests).

Please explain what's wrong with this line of thought?

a couple of things.

* first, you have to assume that el greco was familiar with the non-european artists, as another poster has already pointed out.

* 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!

[gmatwork]

makes sense, thanks to Manoj and Ron.

[RonPurewal]

makes sense, thanks to Manoj and Ron.

sure thing