A fake can be defined as an artwork intended to deceive. The motives of its creator are decisive, and the merit of the object itself is a separate issue. The question mark in the title of Mark Jones’s Fake? The Art of Deception reveals the study’s broader concerns. Indeed, it might equally of the master, deliberate archaism, copying for pedagogical purposes, and the production of commercial facsimiles.
The greater part of Fake? is devoted to a chronological survey suggesting that faking feeds on the many different motives people have for collecting art, and that, on the whole, the faking of art flourishes whenever art collecting flourishes. In imperial Rome there was a widespread interest in collecting earlier Greek art, before, resulting in a wholly original work. Soon his genius made him the object of imitators.
Fake? also reminds us that in certain cultures authenticity is a foreign concept. This is true of much African art, where the authenticity of an object is considered by collectors to depend on its function. As an illustration, the study compares two versions of a chi wara mask made by the Bambara least, is the consensus of the so-called experts. One wonders whether the Bambaran artists would agree.
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Pin down exactly what the question asks about the passage — a detail, the author's view, the structure, or the main point — before looking at the choices.
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Answers that restate a true detail from the passage but don't answer the specific question being asked.
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Anticipate the answer in your own words from the passage, then find the choice that matches that prediction.
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