Q12

[zainrizvi]

Very confused about this Q. Do not understand why D is correct.

[LSAT-Chang]

I chose (D) because of the following evidence:

lines 27-30 = the author is characterizing Lichtenstein's work as a rebellion against fading emotional power of abstract expressionalism, so basically the author believes that Lichtenstein is against this idea of emotional power fading in works, so we can infer that the author believes Lichtenstein to have positive attitudes toward works that uphold emotional power.

So (D) would challenge this idea since it wouldn't make sense for Lichtenstein to criticize a pop artist for producing emotional paintings, when he in fact is producing such emotional paintings himself! We get more evidence of this all over the next paragraph: "his work displayed an impulse toward realism, an urge to say what was missing from contemporary painting was the depiction of contemporary life...the stilted romances and war stories..." -- these are all emotional aspects of his art work (at least that is how I interpreted it).

Hope this helped!

[zainrizvi]

Wow came back to this question later and I'm still quite stumped.

Thanks for your explanation changsoyeon, it makes sense.. I guess I got this question wrong because I looked at what standard art history believes (that it was an impersonal alternative) and thought it was equivalent to what the author believes.

That said, is there any other support for how Lichtenstein was emotional? I thought Lichtenstein rebelling against the fading emotional power of abstract expressionism entailed that he rejected all emotions and made something impersonal (see above)... I just don't see how that list of things he includes in his paints is emotional whatsoever.. with the exception of perhaps the war/romance stories..

[agersh144]

I don't get why B and C are wrong. Could a moderator chime in please?

[ohthatpatrick]

Before we look at answer choices here, we need to ask ourselves, "What was the author's characterization of Lichtenstein?"

Hopefully, we have a few big ideas we retained from the first read (some of them will have been reinforced in answers we've done from #8-11).

One previous poster equated the author's characterization with "standard art history's". If you've read much LSAT reading comp, you know that author's almost ALWAYS bring up the mainstream/standard/typical/common belief ONLY in order to disagree with it.

In line 19, the author begins his rebuttal against standard art history by saying, "The truth is ...".

That's where we get the inference that changsoyeon was pointing out: pop artists, such as Licht, didn't mind the emotionally powerful EARLY expressionists, just the FADING emotional power of the late expressionists.

There's no reason we would infer that Licht wanted to get away from emotion altogether, because why would he like the highly emotional early expressionists if that were true?

For further proof, look to the last sentence, which describes how Lichtenstein was able to reconcile "parody and true feeling".

I would remind myself of some key moments in the passage about Lichtenstein:

- poked fun at pretensions of art world
- conveyed a seriousness of theme that transcended parody
- liked powerful emotions of early expressionists but disliked fading power of later expressionists.
- urge toward realism
- painting should depict contemporary life
- deliberate naivete
- inner sweetness

(A) seems to go against psg - L did not like the late expressionists ... however, you could still attend their exhibitions and make negative snide remarks to your friends
(B) fits passage - L liked the early emotional expressionists (note: given that (B) is pro-emotion and (D) is anti-emotion, there's a good chance that one of them is the answer ... you can't be both FOR and AGAINST emotion)
(C) fits passage - L liked the early emotional expressionists
(D) the correct answer - L wouldn't go against emotional paintings
(E) fits passage - (note: given that (B) and (E) are the same idea ... i.e. pro-emotion ... these two answers say the same thing and thus cancel each other out)

Hope this helps.

[agersh144]

So just to clarify -- he was not against emotion per se but rather just against the fading emotion of 1960s abstract expressionism and thus D is the correct answer because pop artists are not abstract expressionist artists and because he was not against emotion per se but rather just the fading emotion of a previous mode of artistic expression from the 1940s (abstract expressionism) so the author would not agree, is that right?

[doug.feng]

So just to clarify -- he was not against emotion per se but rather just against the fading emotion of 1960s abstract expressionism and thus D is the correct answer because pop artists are not abstract expressionist artists and because he was not against emotion per se but rather just the fading emotion of a previous mode of artistic expression from the 1940s (abstract expressionism) so the author would not agree, is that right?

I think for this question, it depends on the person stated that Lichtenstein is addressing. For (D): Lichtenstein makes a variant form of pop art that evokes emotions in the painting. If he were to criticize somebody for doing something that he ultimately does himself, wouldn't that challenge the author's characterization of Lichtenstein? Therefore, (D) seems right to me for that reason.