#15 - Artists have different ways of producing contours and

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Must Be True. The correct answer choice is (E)

This stimulus consists primarily of information, with no strong argument or conclusion:

• 1. Artists’ different ways of producing contours and hatching can help distinguish one artists’
  forgery or work from those of another artist.
  
  2. Such analysis has shown that many originally attributed to Michelangelo were in fact painted
  by Giulio Clovio.

Before moving on to the question, we should pause and consider the facts. If contour and hatching
analysis has allowed Michelangelo’s work to be distinguished from Giulio Clovio’s, what does this tell
us? It seems clear that the two artists must have had differing methods with respect to contour and
hatching, which would allow distinction between the two artists based on such analysis. This inference
will likely be helpful as we move on to the question, which, not surprisingly, is a Must Be True, the
question type that will often follow a factual stimulus with no real argumentation.

Answer choice (A): Contours and hatching are the discussed features, but that does not mean that they
are the main distinguishing features among artists’ works, so this choice is unwarranted and incorrect.

Answer choice (B): Although we know from the stimulus that many of the works formerly attributed to
Michelangelo had been misattributed, but we cannot conclude based on this premise that Giulio was a
forger, because the works could simply have been confused, or Giulio’s passed off as Michelangelo’s by
some third party.

Answer choice (C): The argument merely stated that analysis of contours and hatching can help, and
that artists use different methods, so we can not justifiably conclude that no forgery can be a perfect
duplicate.

Answer choice (D): We cannot be sure that every single work by Clovio contains the same hatching and
contour as his drawings. The argument concerns what can be helpful, not what is certain. Furthermore, it
is quite possible that an artist’s methods can differ from one medium to another (such as drawing versus
painting) while still being unique in comparison to those of other artists.

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice, as it ties together the factual statements in the
stimulus. There must be such an analyzable difference between the two artists’ contour and hatching
styles if such analysis allows one to distinguish between Michelangelo’s work and Giulio’s.

[holy115]

I have a question regarding AC D.
I thought that this AC was wrong because, based on the premises alone, Clovio's technique cannot "BE SHOWN to be features of all Clovio's works." Without the clause "BE SHOWN," this AC must be true. That said, it is true that Clovio's technique "can be features of all Clovio's works."

Am I wrong? Please shed some light on my thoughts. Thank you.

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Holy,

It's critical when analyzing each answer choice to be very precise with the exact wording. On the LSAT, every word matters.

Answer D states, "The contour and hatching styles used to identify the drawings of Clovio cited can be shown to be features of all Clovio's works."

This answer choice is specifically talking about "the contour and hatching styles." All we know about these styles based on the information in the stimulus is that artists have different ways of producing them and that "analysis of these stylistic features can help to distinguish works by a famous artist both from forgeries and from works genuinely by other artist." Notice that "help to distinguish" is not implying a guarantee that one can identify a work of art as being created by a specific artist with absolute certainty.

We don't know that each artist has the same contour and hatching styles throughout his or her career or across different types of art. In other words, perhaps an artist such as Clovio changed his style at different points in his career or perhaps his style was different for his drawings than his paintings, etc.. Either of these is possible based on the information that we have in the stimulus. In other words, these do not directly contradict that statements in the stimulus.

This answer is an example of an exaggerated wrong answer, one of the common traps on Must Be True questions. Be suspicious of absolute words like "all, no/none, best," etc. in these answers as they often are not supported by the information in the stimulus.