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The figures in portraits by the Spanish painter GMAT CR

Expert replies
by sahilchaudhary » Sun Oct 20, 2013 10:05 am
Which of the following most logically completes the passage?

The figures in portraits by the Spanish painter El Greco (1541-1614) are systematically elongated. In El Greco's time, the intentional distortion of human fi gures 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 fi gures 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 fi gures that were intentionally distorted

Can anyone explain this question with proper reasoning.
Expert help is appreciated.

OA will be posted later.
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Source: — Critical Reasoning |

by theCodeToGMAT » Sun Oct 20, 2013 6:15 pm
{A} - INCORRECT; Adoption doesn't symbolizes that paints made by El Greco were distroted because of visual impairment
{B} - INCORRECT; Even though several people had elongated bodies.. that doesn't means El Greco painted them
{C} - CORRECT; States that if El Greco has astigmatism then he himself could have judged that his paintings are not accurate.. In the Premises it is given that Intentional distortion of human figure was unprecedented.
{D} - INCORRECT; Out of scope
{E} - INCORRECT; doesn't take us anywhere since it's talking about Non-European with "intentional" distortion
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by [email protected] » Sun Oct 20, 2013 8:28 pm
Hi sahilchaudhary,

This is an example of a "fill in the blank" inference question. It's a relative rarity on the GMAT (although there are several examples in the OG13). The answer will be the one that logically "flows" from the information in the paragraph.

Here, we're told about El Greco's unique painting style and a possible explanation for it is offered. The last sentence uses the word "however", which is a "contrast" word, and the word "because", which is an explanation word. The correct answer will discuss how the given explanation for El Greco's painting style can't be correct.

The only answer that does that is C

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by sahilchaudhary » Sun Oct 20, 2013 9:04 pm
Thanks for the explanations.
The OA is C
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by gmatgirl001 » Sat Feb 15, 2014 2:22 pm
While answering the question, I didn't understand C, so I went with B. But thinking more about answer C, here is my understanding

Lets say El Greco sees a 6 feet guy and due to astigmatism, he perceives him to be 12 feet (he sees things twice as long).
Now when he draws it, if he draws it to be 6 feet, then when he looks at his painting, it will look 12 feet to him, the same as how he perceives a real human.
If he draws it at 12 feet, when he looks back at his painting, he'll see it as 24 feet, which will not match the 12 feet person he visually perceives. The painting would look distorted to him.
Hence the size of a person in his paintings should match the size of the real person, so that with his astigmatism, he sees both of the same size.
Hence C makes sense. But it's really hard to get this level of understanding in 2 minutes (including time of reading question and all answers).
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