Q13

[andrewbenlevine]

This question absolutely throws me. Would you please provide an explanation? Thanks for everything!

[ohthatpatrick]

Usually, questions that ask WHY the author mentioned a detail (in order to / serves to / primarily to / for what reason) are testing us on a bigger idea that is immediately before or after that detail.

IMMEDIATELY BEFORE:
In this case, we know that the author brought up R's frescoes as an example of "the second way" that art was produced by and for elites: R's frescoes were a work that expressed and mirrored the elite's ideals and way of life.

IMMEDIATELY AFTER:
Taruskin (and people like him) prefer to deal with THIS WAY of thinking about the relationship between art and elites.

We should expect an answer choice to reinforce one of those two ideas.
(A) This reinforces the line right after! "Elitism in art" sounds a bit stretched from what we were talking about, but I guess if we're talking about art that was "produced by and for political elites", then it's fair to refer to that as elitism in art.

(B) This is the obvious trap for this type of question of playing off the DETAIL rather than the PURPOSE of the detail. It's just trying to get people who see Vatican and therefore pick "religion" in an answer choice.

(C) "most" common type is loaded language we can't find support for.

(D) This is the opposite. R's frescoes are an example of the artist EMBODYING the ideals of the patron.

(E) This is the opposite. This is an example of the pattern preferred by sociohistorical critcs like Taruskin.