The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
There's a common idea that museum artworks are somehow timeless objects available to admire for generations to come. But many are objects of decay. Even the most venerable Old Master paintings don't escape: pigments discolour, varnishes crack, canvases warp. This challenging fact of art-world life is down to something that sounds more like a thread from a morality tale: inherent vice. Damien Hirst's iconic shark floating in a tank – entitled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living – is a work that put a spotlight on inherent vice. When he made it in 1991, Hirst got himself in a pickle by not using the right kind of pickle to preserve the giant fish. The result was that the shark began to decompose quite quickly – its preserving liquid clouding, the skin wrinkling, and an unpleasant smell wafting from the tank.
Artworks may not last forever; they may deteriorate with time, and the challenge is to slow down their degeneration.
The passage challenges the idea that museum artworks are timeless: many are objects of decay — pigments discolour, varnishes crack, canvases warp — owing to “inherent vice”. Damien Hirst’s shark, which began to decompose because the wrong preservative was used, illustrates the problem.
The keyed summary — artworks may not last forever; they deteriorate with time, and the challenge is to slow their degeneration — captures the central point (art decays from within) and the practical difficulty the passage calls a “challenging fact of art-world life”.
The summary about museums guarding timeless treasures from intrinsic defects contradicts the passage, which denies that artworks are timeless, and it narrows the point to paint, polish and canvas.
The summary about museums bearing a moral responsibility because artists cannot preserve their works beyond their life adds ideas not in the passage; ‘morality tale’ is only a figure of speech for the term ‘inherent vice’.
The summary about museums evolving to preserve artworks forever contradicts the passage’s claim that works decay, and the passage says nothing about museums’ changing role.
Hence, the answer is Artworks may not last forever; they may deteriorate with time, and the challenge is to slow down their degeneration.
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Important Questions from Non Grammar
- In formulating Principle VI (a), the ILC clarified the term "waging of a war of aggression" because:
- The author attributes the growing public frustration with the UN primarily to which pair of continuous failures?
- A primary point of divergence between the US Conservative position and the Secretary-General's Conservative position on security matters, according to the summary is:
- According to the critique's conclusion, the immediate, insurmountable barrier preventing the implementation of any reform, major or minor, is:
- The Secretary-General's 'Agenda for Peace' proposed a specific military capability intended to address the gap between traditional peace-keeping and full military action. This proposed unit was explicitly characterized by the summary as being:
