The figure in portraits by the Spanish painter El Greco (1541-1614) are systematically elongated. In El Greco's tie, the intentional distortion of 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 characteristic 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-European artists, even in El Greco's time, who included in their works human figures that were intentionally distorted
The logic is the following:
Some critics suggest that the painter had a weird disease which caused people appearing to the painter in a distorted way as shown in the paintings. The author disagrees on the ground that if the painter had that disease and the figures he drew in his painting is what the painter SAW in his diseased state, then these figures would appear abnormal to the painter.
To put it another way, the critics says that an object A (normal) will appear as B (distorted) in the painter's eyes. That's perfectly fine. However, when the painter draw that B (distorted) in his eyes onto the canvas as figures C in his painting, C should look more like A than like B because in the painter's eyes, the images of both A and C are the same! So figures in his painting would still appear normal (to normal people) even if the painter had that terrible disease. The normal figures in thess paintings would also appear "normal" to the painter's eyes, although these figures might be "distorted" in the normal sense!
That said, the distorted figures in his painting must be distorted in the painter's eyes and in a normal persone's eyes if we assume the painter drew whatever he observed.作者: littlebluesks 时间: 2011-9-9 06:20
good job, thanks.作者: pengyayun 时间: 2011-9-9 21:30
“C should look more like A than like B because in the painter's eyes, the images of both A and C are the same! So figures in his painting would still appear normal (to normal people) even if the painter had that terrible disease. ” can't understand this part...
OG says in reasoning: if astigmatism were the explanation, then the elongated images in his pic should have appeared to EG to be too long: he would have perceived the images as longer than they actually are - and therefore as inaccurate representations of what he perceived.
OG says in choice C: EG would have perceived the images of people in his paintings as too long, relative to his perception of the people themselves. This means that even if EG did have astigmatism, that factor would not provide an answer to the Q: why did EG paint images that he knew were distorted?
我对og解释的理解是（如同#1说的）：假设有一真人=1米，EG看到这个真人时觉得是1.2米（由于A病）。然后EG作画。但当EG再看他的画时，又由于A病，EG会觉得他画里的人是1.4米，这个1.4米明显就和EG看到的1.2米矛盾，所以就形成了why did EG paint images that he knew were distorted?的质疑。
但NN说“C should look more like A than like B because in the painter's eyes, the images of both A and C are the same! ”，理解不能。。。need help. thanks a lot！作者: chipmunk 时间: 2011-9-10 08:15
What #1 said and what I said are simply two different angles of the same argument.
The opposing opinion is: the elongated figures in the painting were results of the disease state EG, meaning the painter draw an elongated figure because that is what appears in his eyes due to the disease.
What I was saying was that if the painter had EG, when he draw a pict ureof a model through his diseased eyes, the picture of the model should still look normal to a normal person's eyes because "through the painter's eyes" both the model and the picture thereof are elongated to the same degree. To put it another way, the model was elongated to the same degree as the picture of the model in the painter's eyes.
The bottom line is: the elongated figure is ABNORMAL in the painter's eyes as well.
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