Contemporary art.

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Contemporary art.

by sankruth » Tue Jan 15, 2008 8:49 am
We commonly speak of aesthetic judgments as subjective, and in the short term they are, since critics often disagree about the value of a particular contemporary work of art. But over time, the subjective element disappears. When works of art have continued to delight audiences for centuries, as have the paintings of Michelangelo, the music of Bach, and the plays of Shakespeare, we can objectively call them great.

The statements above best support which of the following conclusions?
(A) When Michelangelo, Bach, and Shakespeare were alive, critics disagreed about the value of their work.
(B) The value of a contemporary work of art cannot be objectively measured.
(C) The reputation of a work of art often fluctuates greatly from one generation to the next.
(D) The mere fact that a work of art has endured for centuries does not establish its greatness.
(E) If critics agree about the value of a particular cotemporary work of art, then the work can objectively be called great.

The OA is B but I feel that B goes beyond the scope of the argument and A is a better fit. can someone please explain why B is a better choice?
Source: — Critical Reasoning |

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Re: Contemporary art.

by rajmirra » Tue Jan 15, 2008 11:32 am
sankruth wrote:We commonly speak of aesthetic judgments as subjective, and in the short term they are, since critics often disagree about the value of a particular contemporary work of art. But over time, the subjective element disappears. When works of art have continued to delight audiences for centuries, as have the paintings of Michelangelo, the music of Bach, and the plays of Shakespeare, we can objectively call them great.

The statements above best support which of the following conclusions?
(A) When Michelangelo, Bach, and Shakespeare were alive, critics disagreed about the value of their work.
(B) The value of a contemporary work of art cannot be objectively measured.
(C) The reputation of a work of art often fluctuates greatly from one generation to the next.
(D) The mere fact that a work of art has endured for centuries does not establish its greatness.
(E) If critics agree about the value of a particular cotemporary work of art, then the work can objectively be called great.

The OA is B but I feel that B goes beyond the scope of the argument and A is a better fit. can someone please explain why B is a better choice?
I would choose "B". A says that the Critics disagreed the work of those artists which is not true. You cannot see any evidence for that. Similarly if you start looking for other choices C,D and E you will not find any evidence. The question is which of these statements has support in the above passage. Obviously statement B is the only one which is supported by the passage.

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by sankruth » Tue Jan 15, 2008 12:49 pm
B goes to say that contemporary art cannot be measured objectively when the evidence only says contemporary art is measured subjectively. It does not state or imply art is measured subjectively because it cannot be measured objectively.

If critics often disagree about value of contemporary art, then it goes to say that when those artists were contemporary (alive) there is a strong chance that the critics would have disagreed. Hence A.

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by khanshainur » Tue May 10, 2016 3:02 am
i think answer B is better