It has been argued that art does not reproduce the visible-it makes things visible-but this does not go far enough. In fa

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问题             It has been argued that art does not reproduce the visible-it makes things
       visible-but this does not go far enough. In fact, visual art explores and reveals
       the brain’s perceptual capabilities and the laws governing it, among which two
Line    stand supreme: law of constancy and law of abstraction. According to the law of
(5)      constancy, the visual brain’s function is to seek knowledge of the constant
       properties of objects and surfaces: the distance, the viewing point, and the
       illumination conditions change continually, yet the brain is able to discard these
       changes in categorizing an object. It was an unacknowledged attempt to mimic
       the perceptual abilities of the brain that led the founders of Cubism, Picasso and
(10)     Braque, to alter the point of view, the distance and the lighting conditions in
       their early, analytic period.
           The second law is that of abstraction, the process in which the particular is
       subordinated to the general, so that the representation is applicable to many
       particulars. This second law has strong affinities with the first, because without
(15)     it, the brain would be enslaved to the particular; the capacity to abstract is also
       probably imposed on the brain by the limitations of its memory system, because
       it eliminates the need to recall every detail. Art, too, abstracts and thus
       externalizes the inner workings of the brain, so that its primordial function is a
       reflection of the function of the brain.
(20)         Through a process that has yet to be physiologically charted, cells in the
       brain seem to be able to recognize objects in a view-invariant manner after brief
       exposure to several distinct views synthesized by them. The artist, too, forms
       abstractions, through a process that may share similarities with the
       physiological processes now being unraveled but certainly goes beyond them, in
(25)     that the abstract idea itself mutates with the artist’s development. But
       abstraction, a key feature of an efficient knowledge-acquiring system, also
       exacts a heavy price on the individual, for which art may be a refuge and the
       abstract "ideal" can lead to a deep discontent, because the daily experience is
       that of particulars. Michelangelo left three-fifths of his sculptures unfinished,
(30)     but he had not abandoned them in haste: he often worked on them for years,
       because time and again the sublimity of his ideas lay beyond the reach of his
       hands, impressing on him the hopelessness of translating into a single work or a
       series of sculptures the synthetic ideals formed in his brain. Critics have written
       in emotional and lyrical terms about these unfinished works, perhaps because,
(35)     being unfinished, the spectator can finish them and thus satisfy the ideals of his
       or her brain. This is only qualitatively different from finished works with the
       inestimable quality of ambiguity-a characteristic of all great art-that allows
       the brain of the viewer to interpret the work in a number of ways, all of them
       equally valid.
According to the passage, which of the following is true concerning the ability to create abstractions?

选项 A、The ability stems from the anatomical center of human’s visual brain, whose location has yet to be identified.
B、The ability steadily develops in humans with the gradual acquisition of knowledge.
C、The ability is best categorized as an innate, and therefore unlearned, ability that is rarely improved on over time.
D、The ability to create abstractions is predicated on an enslavement to the particulars of those abstractions.
E、The ability most likely has developed as a response to the limitations of the human memory.

答案E

解析
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