RC 3

Directions for questions 37 to 39: The passage given below is followed
by a set of three questions.
Choose the most appropriate answer to each question.
So just what Dante scorns as unworthy alike of heaven and hell,
Botticelli accepts, that middle world in
which men take no side in great conflicts, and decide no great causes,
and make great refusals. He thus
sets for himself the limits within which art, undisturbed by any moral
ambition, does its most sincere and
surest work. His interest is neither in the untempered goodness of
Angelico's saints, nor the untempered
evil of Orcagna's Inferno; but with men and women in their mixed and
uncertain condition, always attractive,
clothed sometimes by passion with a character of loveliness and
energy, but saddened perpetually by
the shadow upon them of the great things from which they shrink. His
morality is all sympathy; and it is
this sympathy, conveying into his work somewhat more than is usual of
the true complexion of humanity,
which makes him, visionary as he is, so forcible a realist.
It is this which gives to his Madonnas their unique expression and
charm. He has worked out in them a
distinct and peculiar type, definite enough in his own mind, for he
has painted it over and over again,
sometimes one might think almost mechanically, as a pastime during
that dark period when his thoughts
were so heavy upon him. Hardly any collection of note is without one
of these circular pictures, into which
the attendant angels depress their heads so naïvely. Perhaps you have
sometimes wondered why those
peevish-looking Madonnas, conformed to no acknowledged or obvious type
of beauty, attract you more and
more, and often come back to you when the Sistine Madonna and the
virgins of Fra Angelico are forgotten.
At first, contrasting them with those, you may have thought that there
was even something in them mean

or abject, for the abstract lines of the face have little nobleness
and the colour is wan. For with Botticelli
she too, though she holds in her hands the "Desire of all nations," is
one of those who are neither for God
nor for his enemies; and her choice is on her face. The white light on
it is cast up hard and cheerless from
below, as when snow lies upon the ground, and the children look up
with surprise at the strange whiteness
of the ceiling. Her trouble is in the very caress of the mysterious
child, whose gaze is always far from her,
and who has already that sweet look of devotion which men have never
been able altogether to love, and
which still makes the born saint an object almost of suspicion to his
earthly brethren.


37. What is the essential difference between Boticelli's Madonna and
other artists' Madonnas?
(a) Boticelli's Madonna is more beautiful than the Madonnas painted by
other artists.
(b) Boticelli's Madonna is not as beautiful as the Madonnas painted by
other artists.
(c) Boticelli's Madonna inspires more reverence than the ones painted
by other artists.
(d) Boticelli's Madonna is not larger than life but belongs to the middle world.


38. The author calls Boticelli both a visionary and a realist
(a) because Boticelli belonged to the middle world of ordinary men.
(b) because he depicted neither saints nor evil men in his paintings.
(c) because his work conveyed the real complexion of humanity.
(d) because his Madonna chose the common man over Gods and saints.


39. What is the primary purpose of the author?
(a) To discuss the religious underpinnings of Botticelli's art.
(b) To explain how Botticelli's Madonna is integrated with the
artist's reverential approach to art and
life.
(c) To describe how Botticelli's art is a reflection of his realism.
(d) To reflect on the techniques in Botticelli's paintings that make
them invaluable.