Reading Comprehension Passage 40 MCQ Test With Answers - READ ON ART

1. READ ON ART

I would say that the function of art is not to

transmit feeling so that others may experience the
same feeling. That is only the function of the crudest
forms of art - "program music," melodrama,
sentimental fiction and the like. The real function of
art is to express feeling and transmit 
understanding.

That is what the Greeks had so perfectly realized

and that is what, I think, Aristotle meant when he
said that the purpose of drama was to purge our
emotions. We come to the work of art already
charged with emotional complexes; we find in the
genuine work of art, not an exaltation of these
emotions, but peace, repose, equanimity. Nothing is
more absurd than the spectacle of an ardent young
snob trying to cultivate an emotion before a great
work of art, in which all the artist's emotion has been
transmuted to perfect intellectual freedom.

... If this were clearly recognized, there would be no

question of the status of art in society. Here again,
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the Greeks were wiser than we, and their belief,

which always seems so paradoxical to us, that beauty
is moral goodness, is really a simple truth. The only
sin is ugliness, and if we believed this with all our
being, all other activities of the human spirit could be
left to take care of themselves. That is why I believe
that art is so much more significant than either
economics or philosophy. It is the direct measure of
man's spiritual vision. When that vision is communal,
it becomes a religion, and the vitality of art
throughout the greater part of history is closely
bound up with some form of religion. But gradually,
as I have already pointed out, for the last two or
three centuries that bond has been getting looser,
and there does not seem to be any immediate
promise of new contact being established.

... No one will deny the profound inter-relation of

artist and community. The artist depends on the
community -- takes his tone, his tempo, his intensity
from the society of which he is a member. But the
individual character of the artist's work depends on
more than these: it depends on a definite will-to-
form which is a reflection of the artist's personality,
and there is no significant art without this act of
creative will.

Herbert READ, The Meaning Of Art.

According to Read, the function of art

A) is best exemplified by the crudest forms of art.

B) is to make others experience the same feelings as
the artist.
C) has never been understood as well as it is
understood today.
D) was very well understood by the Greeks.
E) is to express understanding and transmit feeling.

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 Reading Comprehension Passage 40 MCQ Test With Answers - READ ON ART

2. Aristotle 4. Read believes that there exists/exist

A) is a good representative of the Greek position in A) an immutable truth in artistic individualism.

this matter. B) certain inevitable ties between art and society.
B) purged our emotions through his plays. C) financial problems associated with communal art.
C) exalted the dramatic emotions of his fellow D) no room for individualism in art.
countrymen. E) still some people who confuse art with religion.
D) spent all his life trying to popularize great drama. 5. Great art makes us
E) taught his fellow countrymen the theatrical
realities behind great drama. A) more individualistic than we commonly are.
B) strongly sentimental and ardently melodramatic.
3. "Beauty is moral goodness." According to Read,
this proposition could really provide a working C) more patriotic.
basis for D) critical of the society in which we live.
E) see and understand the human condition.
A) economics and philosophy.
B) spiritualism.
C) our communal life.
D) our sins.
E) our past history.
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 Reading Comprehension Passage 40 MCQ Test With Answers - READ ON ART

Answer Key:

1: D 4: B
2: A 5: E
3: C

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