The painter Roy Lichtenstein helped to define pop art—the movement that incorporated commonplace objects and commercial-art techniques into paintings— by paraphrasing the style of comic books in his work. His merger of a popular genre with the forms and intentions of fine art generated a complex result: while poking fun at the pretensions of the art world, Lichtenstein's work also managed to convey a seriousness of theme that enabled it to transcend mere parody. That Lichtenstein's images were fine art was at first difficult to see, because, with their word balloons and highly stylized figures, they looked like nothing more than the comic book panels from which they were copied. Standard art history holds that pop art emerged as an impersonal alternative to the histrionics of abstract expressionism, a movement in which painters conveyed their private attitudes and emotions using nonrepresentational techniques. The truth is that by the time pop art first appeared in the early 1960s, abstract expressionism had already lost much of its force. Pop art painters weren't quarreling with the powerful early abstract expressionist work of the late 1940s but with a second generation of abstract expressionists whose work seemed airy, high-minded, and overly lyrical. Pop art paintings were full of simple black lines and large areas of primary color. Lichtenstein's work was part of a general rebellion against the fading emotional power of abstract expressionism, rather than an aloof attempt to ignore it. But if rebellion against previous art by means of the careful imitation of a popular genre were all that characterized Lichtenstein's work, it would possess only the reflective power that parodies have in relation to their subjects. Beneath its cartoonish methods, his work displayed an impulse toward realism, an urge to say that what was missing from contemporary painting was the depiction of contemporary life. The stilted romances and war stories portrayed in the comic books on which he based his canvases, the stylized automobiles, hot dogs, and table lamps that appeared in his pictures, were reflections of the culture Lichtenstein inhabited. But, in contrast to some pop art, Lichtenstein's work exuded not a jaded cynicism about consumer culture, but a kind of deliberate naivete, intended as a response to the excess of sophistication he observed not only in the later abstract expressionists but in some other pop artists. With the comics— typically the domain of youth and innocence—as his reference point, a nostalgia fills his paintings that gives them, for all their surface bravado, an inner sweetness. His persistent use of comic-art conventions demonstrates a faith in reconciliation, not only between cartoons and fine art, but between parody and true feeling.Q: Which one of the following most accurately states the main point of the passage? Answer Choices: (A)Lichtenstein's use of comic book elements in his paintings, considered simply a parodic reaction to the high-mindedness of later abstract expressionism, is also an attempt to re-create the emotionally powerful work of earlier abstract expressionists. (B)Lichtenstein's use of comic book elements is not solely a parodic reaction to the high-mindedness of later abstract expressionism but also demonstrates an attempt to achieve realistic and nostalgic effects simultaneously in his paintings. (C)Lichtenstein's use of comic book elements obscures the emotional complexity contained in his paintings, a situation that has prevented his work from being recognized as fine art in the expressionist tradition. (D)Lichtenstein's use of comic book elements appears to mark his paintings as parodic reactions to the whole of abstract expressionism when they are instead a rebellion against the high-mindedness of the later abstract expressionists. (E)Lichtenstein's use of comic book elements in his paintings, though a response to the excessive sophistication of the art world, is itself highly sophisticated in that it manages to reconcile pop art and fine art.
A: Among A through E, the answer is
(A)Lichtenstein's use of comic book elements in his paintings, considered simply a parodic reaction to the high-mindedness of later abstract expressionism, is also an attempt to re-create the emotionally powerful work of earlier abstract expressionists.
(B)Lichtenstein's use of comic book elements is not solely a parodic reaction to the high-mindedness of later abstract expressionism but also demonstrates an attempt to achieve realistic and nostalgic effects simultaneously in his paintings.
(C)Lichtenstein's use of comic book elements obscures the emotional complexity contained in his paintings, a situation that has prevented his work from being recognized as fine art in the expressionist tradition.
(D)Lichtenstein's use of comic book elements appears to mark his paintings as parodic reactions to the whole of abstract expressionism when they are instead a rebellion against the high-mindedness of the later abstract expressionists.
(E)Lichtenstein's use of comic book elements in his paintings, though a response to the excessive sophistication of the art world, is itself highly sophisticated in that it manages to reconcile pop art and fine art.