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Re: The very concept of forgery is a tricky one. Fine art [#permalink]
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Today, no one would attribute Bastianini’s work to the great 14 th and 15 th century masters. He sculpted an idealized interpretation of Renaissance Art, rather than a true imitation, a difference that became more obvious with the passage of time and the dissipation of contemporaneous opinions about what Renaissance Art should reflect. The question becomes how to classify Bastianini’s work in the history of sculpture.

In truth, there are few reasonable excuses, notwithstanding critical elitism and the nebulous cult of the artist, to reject good forgeries as good art;

From the portions above we understand the following


A) Some of Bastianini’s forgeries are of such good quality that they continue to cause confusion as to their true origins and era today.

probably is the contrary: they did know to NOT attribute to the master of the 14th and 15th century a Bastiani's work

B) As a result of superior education, critics today would not mistakenly attribute Bastianini’s work to the Renaissance-era masters.

No education and no attribution

C) Bastianini was aware that his sculptures were being passed off as the work of Renaissance-era masters.

No attribution wrongly

D) Bastianini’s work reveals prejudices regarding what he and his peers believed art from the Renaissance era should demonstrate.

Correct, basically is the blue portion of the excerpt above

E) Bastianini should be classified as an artist rather than a forger.

No we do know he was a forger but of best class with his uniqueness


Hope now is more clear
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Re: The very concept of forgery is a tricky one. Fine art [#permalink]
Hello!
Can someone explain answers to all 4 questions?
I got all wrong.
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Re: The very concept of forgery is a tricky one. Fine art [#permalink]
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Quote:
1. Which of the following best reflects the author’s purpose in writing the passage?


Let's make a 'map' of the passage to help us answer this big-picture question.

¶1: Different kinds of 'fakes' defined by an auction house. Question: How to credit?
¶2: Bastianni: Example of 'master forger' who never intended to actually fake/steal anything
¶3: (Generalizing from the example of Bastianni) Good forgeries are legitimately good art.

Now let's look at the choices to see how they stack up against this passage map. Remember—The main idea doesn't need to capture everything that's in the passage, but every word of it has to be supported by the text.


Quote:
A) It can be difficult to determine who should receive credit for a piece of artwork.


This point is raised in the first paragraph, but it's clearly not the main point because the second and third paragraphs are entirely about forgeries (or artworks deemed forgeries, whether or not they were intended as such) like those of Bastianni, who was not copying the work of any one artist and therefore who inarguably deserves the credit.

(The repetition of almost an entire sentence, verbatim, should also bias you against this answer choice.)


Quote:
B) A forgery can also be considered a good work of art in its own right.


This idea ties together the entirety of the second and third paragraphs, and also answers the question raised in the first paragraph. Therefore, it's a good candidate for main idea.

Correct Answer


Quote:
C) Bastianini should be classified as an artist, not a forger.


This isn't primarily meant to be a passage about Bastianni. Bastianni is chosen as an example to explore in detail, but the passage makes it quite clear that Bastianni is just that—an example. (The second paragraph opens up with a general topic sentence, and only then leads into the example of Bastianni. And the third paragraph goes back to speaking in more general terms.)


Quote:
D) It is worse to forge a piece of art than it is to fake one.


This is entirely unsupported. Moreover, it contravenes the basic valence of the author's judgments, which are largely sympathetic towards (skilled) fakes or forgeries.


Quote:
E) It can be difficult to distinguish between forgeries and originals.


This idea is not supported by anything in the text.
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Re: The very concept of forgery is a tricky one. Fine art [#permalink]
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Quote:
2. Which of the following does the claim that some forgers “earned their mendacious appellation unwittingly” imply?


This statement is the generality for which Bastianni is used as an example. Since the author just makes the one general statement and then launches into an analysis of Bastianni (which takes up the rest of the second paragraph), it's clear that we're supposed to generalize the author's observations about Bastianni into broader ideas about artists who have been named as forgers.

Accordingly, the key to answering this question is to figure out how Bastianni earned his reputation (as a forger) "unwittingly". Once we have this specifically nailed down, the answer to the problem should just be a generalized version of it.

According to the details in the paragraph, Bastianni "sculpted an idealized interpretation of Renaissance Art, rather than a true imitation". In other words, he never intended to steal or fake any previous artist's work; rather, he sought to recreate an earlier style. In other words, Bastianni never INTENDED to 'fake', 'forge', or 'copy' anything—so 'forger' is fundamentally a misnomer for him.

More generally, the cited statement is about forgers who never intended to actually forge anything, but who were labeled as 'forgers' later on.
Let's look for this in the choices:


Quote:
A)Forgers are wise to avoid asking questions about the sales of their works so that they can plead ignorance if accused of forgery.


Unsupported. In fact, the passage says nothing at all about sales.


Quote:
B) Many forgers pretend not to be aware of the fact that they are producing forgeries.


Wrong-way answer in 2 different ways:
• The 'forgers' discussed here, such as Bastianni, genuinely WEREN'T producing actual forgeries. They produced legitimately original artwork.
• Bastianni was not 'pretending' anything. He just make original art in his own conception of a previous period's style—without any thought given to how he might be labeled by thoughtless critics.


Quote:
C) Some forgers were oblivious to the fact that the art they created would be considered forgery.


This is an accurate reflection of the above. Bastianni had no idea that later critics would label him a 'forger'; his example is meant to be generalized here.

Correct Answer


Quote:
D) A work of art is only a forgery if the maker intended to produce a forgery.


For this to be the idea of the cited statement, the paragraph would have to explore both sides of the issue—intentional forgeries as well as unintentional non-forgeries. The second paragraph does no such thing, so this answer choice is unsupported.


Quote:
E) Many forgers were not adequately warned about the legal definition of forgery
.

There's nothing remotely like this in the text of the second paragraph.
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The very concept of forgery is a tricky one. Fine art [#permalink]
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Quote:
3. The passage suggests which of the following with respect to the term “mutually exclusive” in the third paragraph?


The wording of this problem doesn't seem much like the real deal from ETS. In particular, this prompt plays fast and loose with the word "suggests"—using it to ask for the more general idea of the sentence in which the phrase "mutually exclusive" appears.
Generally, ETS would stick to "suggestions" of the actual cited words. Here, that would mean exploring the literal significance of the phrase "mutually exclusive", which these answers do not do.

Is this passage from a third-party source? (The other questions don't really seem to be tightly controlled in the manner of ETS test items, either. #4, in fact, explicitly violates those conventions; see below.)


In any case...

In the sentence
The classifications need not be mutually exclusive,
"the classifications" are good forgery and good art.

The purpose of the sentence is to point out that an artwork can, in fact, be both of these things. In other words, forgeries can be legitimately good artworks in their own right.

The answer choices:

Quote:
A) Good forgeries are also good works of art.


Much too ambitious. This choice declares that good forgeries IN GENERAL—i.e., all of them—are good artworks. The passage makes nowhere near so bold a claim; the author hedges considerably, saying only that good forgeries CAN be good art ("needn't be mutually exclusive" is logically equivalent to "CAN be both").


Quote:
B) Works of art that are declared good make up an exclusive category of art.


Completely unsupported.

(This answer choice flows from confusing "mutually exclusive"—which can only apply to statements that are true or false—with the altogether distinct description "exclusive", applied to things such as artworks.)


Quote:
C) It can be appropriate to classify a work simultaneously as good art and a forgery.


Pretty much exactly what's said above.

Correct Answer


Quote:
D) Classifications of art are more typically based upon exclusiveness rather than inclusiveness.


Completely unsupported.

(Like B, this answer choice flows from confusing "mutually exclusive"—which can only apply to statements that are true or false—with the altogether distinct description "exclusive", applied to things such as artworks.)


Quote:
E) Works of art can be judged of greater or lesser merit.


Unsupported. The passage deals with the idea of 'good' artwork, but does not discriminate among various levels of 'good'.

Originally posted by RonTargetTestPrep on 02 Nov 2022, 06:44.
Last edited by RonTargetTestPrep on 02 Nov 2022, 06:59, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The very concept of forgery is a tricky one. Fine art [#permalink]
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CAVEAT: Once again, this problem fails to obey ETS conventions. I don't see a citation of the source, but, if the source is named, please regard further material from the same source with appropriate suspicion.



Quote:
4. According to the passage, which of the following is true about Bastianini?


When ETS uses the phrase "According to the passage", the correct answer restates an idea that's EXPLICITLY IN the text, typically rephrasing the idea into different words but preserving the original idea.
This convention is not obeyed here. This problem turns out to be about the negative space of a statement (see discussion of answers below)—which aligns more with ETS prompts that contain "imply", "infer", or "suggest"—but still takes some liberties even if we allow that.


In any case... We want something that's in the text of the second paragraph somewhere, as that's the paragraph that discusses Bastianni.



Quote:
A) Some of Bastianini’s forgeries are of such good quality that they continue to cause confusion as to their true origins and era today.


This is not supported. The second paragraph is quite precise in summarizing exactly what Bastianni's original intent and source material were; there is nothing to suggest that there might still be any uncertainty about anything that underlay Bastianni's work.


Quote:
B) As a result of superior education, critics today would not mistakenly attribute Bastianini’s work to the Renaissance-era masters.


Misrepresentation of info from the passage.

According to the text, our awareness of the circumstances and intent of Bastianni's work has improved not as a result of "superior education", but, rather, as a result of "the passage of time and the dissipation of contemporaneous opinions about what Renaissance Art should reflect".


Quote:
C) Bastianini was aware that his sculptures were being passed off as the work of Renaissance-era masters.


Wrong-way answer.

The whole purpose of using Bastianni as an example is that he acquired his reputation as a forger "unwittingly"—i.e., exactly the opposite of being consciously aware of any such insinuation.


D) Bastianini’s work reveals prejudices regarding what he and his peers believed art from the Renaissance era should demonstrate.

The author says that the true nature and circumstances of Bastianni's work are easier to ascertain correctly on the heels of "the dissipation of contemporaneous opinions about what Renaissance Art should reflect".

This vaguely implies that "contemporaneous opinions about what Renaissance Art should reflect" guided Bastianni's work and also created confusion as to whether Bastianni had the intent to forge or fake.

This must be the correct answer here, by elimination—because the other four choices are distinctly WRONG—but the logic here is not nearly rigorous enough for the official test.


Quote:
E) Bastianini should be classified as an artist rather than a forger.


"Rather than" misrepresents the text. The author clearly makes the point that Bastianni and others like him can, and should, be classified as BOTH 'forgers' AND legitimate artists. (See question 3.)
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Re: The very concept of forgery is a tricky one. Fine art [#permalink]
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