Multiple choice

The author points out the coexistence of romanticism and realism most probably in order to show that

Directions: Read the passage and answer the question.

In the past century Irish painting has changed from a British - influenced lyrical tradition to an art that evokes the ruggedness and roots of an Irish Celtic past. At the turn of the twentieth century Irish painters, including notables Walter Frederick Osborne and Sir - William Orpen, looked elsewhere for influence.
Osborne’s exposure to “Plein Air” painting deeply impacted his stylistic development; and Orpen allied himself with a group of English artists, while at the same time participating in the French avant - garde experiment, both as painter and teacher.
However nationalist energies were beginning to coalesce, reviving interest in Irish culture and Irish visual arts. Beatrice Elvery’s Aire (1907), a landmark achievement, merged the devotional simplicity of fifteenth - century Italian painting with the iconography of Ireland’s Celtic past, linking the history of Irish Catholicism with the still - nascent Irish republic. And, although also captivated by the French Plein Air school, Sir John Lavery invoked the mythology of his native land for a 1928 commission to paint the central figure for the bank note of the new Irish Free State. Lavery chose as this figure Aire, with her arm on a Celtic harp, the national symbol of independent Ireland. In Irish painting from about 1910, memories of Edwardian romanticism coexisted with a new sense of realism, exemplified by the paintings of Paul Henry and Sean Keating, a student of Orpen’s realism also crept in to the work of Edwardian’s Lavery and Orpen, both of whom made paintings depicting World War I, Lavery with a distanced Victorian nobility, Orpen closer to the front, revealing a more sinister and realistic vision. Meanwhile, counterpoint to the Edwardians and realists came Jack B. Yeats, whose travels throughout the rugged and more authentically Irish west led him to depict subjects ranging from street scenes in Dublin to boxing matches and funerals. Fusing close observations of Irish life and icons with an Irish identity in a new way, Yeats changed the face of Irish painting and became the most important Irish artist of his century.

  1. Irish painters of the early twentieth century often combined elements of realism with those of romanticism into a single painting

  2. for a time painters from each school influenced painters from the other school

  3. Yeats was influenced by both the romantic and realist schools of Irish painting

  4. the transition in Irish painting from one predominant style to the other was not an abrupt one
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
D Correct answer
Explanation

The passage’s main concern, expressed in the passage’s first sentence, is the transition in Ireland from art that was influenced primarily by Britain’s lyrical tradition to art that reflected Ireland’s distinct national character. Of the four answer choices, (4) is most consistent with his overall concern.

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