求问一个阅读题…………

sjray637

Theimpressionist painters expressly disavowed any interest in philosophy, yettheir new approach to art had far-reaching philosophical implications. For theview of matter that the Impressionists assumed differed profoundly from theview that had previously prevailed among artists. This view helped to unify theartistic works created in the new style.

Theancient Greeks had conceived of the world in concrete terms, even endowingabstract qualities with bodies. This Greek view of matter persisted, so far aspainting was concerned, into the nineteenth century. The Impressionists, on theother hand, viewed light, not matter, as the ultimate visual reality. Thephilosopher Taine expressed the Impressionist view of things when he said, “Thechief ‘person’ in a picture is the light in which everything is bathed.”

InImpressionist painting, solid bodies became mere reflectors of light, anddistinctions between one object and another became arbitrary conventions; forby light all things were welded together. The treatment of both color andoutline was transformed as well. Color, formerly considered a property inherentin an object, was seen to be merely the result of vibrations of light on theobject’s colorless surface. And outline, whose function had formerly been toindicate the limits of objects, now marked instead merely the boundary betweenunits of pattern, which often merged into one another.

TheImpressionist world was composed not of separate objects but of many surfaceson which light struck and was reflected with varying intensity to the eyethrough the atmosphere, which modified it. It was this process that producedthe mosaic of colors that formed an Impressionist canvas. “Light becomes thesole subject of the picture,” writes Mauclair. “The interest of the object uponwhich it plays is secondary. Painting thus conceived becomes a purely optic art.”

Fromthis profoundly revolutionary form of art, then, all ideas—religious, moral,psychological—were excluded, and so were all emotions except certain aestheticones. The people, places, and things depicted in an Impressionist picture donot tell story or convey any special meaning; they are, instead, merely partsof pattern of light drawn from nature and captured on canvas by the artist.

3.     Theauthor’s quotation of a statement by Taine (lines 15-16) serves which of thefollowing functions in the passage?

(A) It furnishes a specific example of anImpressionist painting that features light as its chief subject.

(B) It resolves an apparent contradiction inthe philosophy of the Impressionists.

(C) It qualifies the statement that theancient Greeks viewed the world in concrete terms.

(D) It summarizes the unique perspectivethat the Impressionists brought to painting.（D）

(E) It provides a concrete illustration ofthe far-reaching philosophical implications of Impressionism.

我选的A，感觉内容描述特别符合，……但是答案选D，那个unique是怎么看出来的呢？