Pre-World War I Painters

A free, expert breakdown of this official LSAT Reading Comprehension question.

TopicsNon-Author OpinionHumanities

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Passage

For some years before the outbreak of World War I, a number of painters in different European countries developed works of art that some have described as prophetic: paintings that by challenging viewers’ habitual ways of perceiving the world of the present are thus said to anticipate a future world that would important break with traditions of representational art that stretched back to the Renaissance.

So fundamental is this break with tradition that it is not surprising to discover that these artists—among them Picasso and Braque in France, Kandinsky in Germany, and Malevich in Russia—are often credited with having anticipated not just subsequent developments in the arts, but also the political and social disruptions and upheavals of and not their break with traditional artistic techniques, that constitutes their chief interest and value.

No one will deny that an artist may, just as much as a writer or a politician, speculate about the future and then try to express a vision of that future through making use of a particular style or choice of imagery; speculation about the possibility of war in Europe was certainly only to the eye. The reformation of society was of no interest to them as artists.

It is also important to remember that not all decisive changes in art are quickly followed by dramatic events in the world outside art. The case of Delacroix, the nineteenth-century French painter, is revealing. His stylistic innovations startled his contemporaries—and still retain that power over modern viewers—but most art historians have decided 1830, as opposed to other artists who supposedly told of changes still to come.

What this question is testing

Non-Author Opinion

Your task

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.

Common trap

Answers that restate a true detail from the passage but don't answer the specific question being asked.

Winning move

Anticipate the answer in your own words from the passage, then find the choice that matches that prediction.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question

The art critic mentioned in the second paragraph would be most likely to agree with which one of

Answer choices

Out of Scope: backstory of "innovations"1% picked this
The supposed innovations of Picasso, Braque, Kandinsky, and Malevich were based on stylistic discoveries that had been made in the Renaissance
This critic isn't quoted as saying that these artists didn't innovate. She may well believe that the artists innovated. She's just saying that's not the main reason we care about them or value them. We care about / value them because they predicted the political / social future of the modern world.
1%
Opposite11% picked this
The work of Picasso, Braque, Kandinsky, and Malevich possessed prophetic power because these artists employed the traditional techniques of
Since he's saying, "We care about the prophetic power, not the break with traditional techniques", he's acknowledging that there was a break with traditional techniques. He wouldn't say "they were prophetic because they employed traditional techniques". Our critic is saying that the prophetic power was their ability to anticipate political and social disruptions and upheavals in the modern world during / after WWI.
11%
Opposite10% picked this
The importance of the work of Picasso, Braque, Kandinsky, and Malevich is due largely to the fact that the work was
He's saying the opposite, "We care largely about the prophetic power, not about the break with traditional techniques (stylistically ahead of its time)."
10%
Correct71% picked this
The prophecies embodied in the work of Picasso, Braque, Kandinsky, and Malevich were shrewd predictions based on insights
Why this is right
This is definitely putting a lot of words into the critic's mouth, but since he's saying, "We care about the prophetic power, not the break with traditional techniques", he's saying, "I'm not impressed with their art. I'm impressed with their ability to anticipate political and social disruptions and upheavals of the modern world during and after WWI." If he's impressed by their ability to predict what was coming, then he must not think that these predictions were obvious. Thus, he would probably say these predictions were shrewd. This unlikable answer is mainly just what we have to pick when everything else is straying from the sentiment of, "Forget about their art --- what we should care about are their prophecies!"
Skill tested: Non-Author Opinion · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.
71%
Out of Scope8% picked this
The artistic styles brought into being by Picasso, Braque, Kandinsky, and Malevich, while stylistically innovative, were of little significance to the history
Out of Scope: significance on art world It's hard to say what this critic believes about the influence of these artists on post WWI art. He says their chief interest and value is their prophetic power, but it's possible that he would still acknowledge that they are secondarily interesting / valuable because these innovations influenced post WWI art.
8%

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