lsat-8-3-4

mage

In the history of nineteenth-century landscape painting in the United States, the Luminists are distinguished by their focus on atmosphere and light. The accepted view of Luminist paintings is that they are basically spiritual and imply a tranquil mysticism that contrasts with earlier American artists' concept of nature as dynamic and energetic. According to this view, the Luminist atmosphere, characterized by "pure and constant light", guides the onlooker toward a lucid transcendentalism, an idealized vision of the world.

What this view fails to do is to identify the true significance of this transcendental atmosphere in Luminist paintings. The prosaic factors that are revealed by a closer examination of these works suggest that the glowing appearance of nature in Luminism is actually a sign of nature's Domestication, its adaptation to human use. The idealized Luminist atmosphere thus seems to convey, not an intensification of human responses to nature, but rather a muting of those emotions, like awe and fear, which untamed nature elicits.

One critic, in describing the spiritual quality of harbor scenes by Fitz Hugh Lane, an important Luminist, carefully notes that "at the peak of Luminist development in the 1850s and 1860s, spiritualism in America was extremely widespread." It is also true, however, that the 1850s and 1860s were a time of trade expansion. From 1848 until his death in 1865. Lane lived in a house with a view of the harbor of Gloucester, Massachusetts, and he made short trips to Maine, New York, Baltimore, and probably Puerto Rico. In all of these places he painted the harbors with their ships - the instruments of expanding trade.

Lane usually depicts places like New York Harbor, with ships at anchor, but even when he depicts more remote, less commercially active harbors, nature appears pastoral and domesticated rather than primitive or unexplored. The ships, rather than the surrounding landscapes - including the sea -- are generally the active element in his pictures. For Lane the sea is, in effect, a canal or a trade route for commercial activity, not a free powerful element, as it is in the early pictures of his predecessor, Cole. For Lane nature is subdued, even when storms are approaching: thus. the sea is always a viable highway for the transport of goods. In sum. I consider Lane's sea simply an environment for human activity-nature no longer inviolate. The luminescence that Lane paints symbolizes nature's humbled state, for the light itself is as docile as the Luminist sea, and its tranquility in a sense signifies no more than good conditions on the highway to progress. Progress, probably even more than transcendence, is the secret message of Luminism. In a sense, Luminist pictures are an ideological justification of the atmosphere necessary for business, if also an exaggerated, idealistic rendering of that atmosphere. (这句话不太明白，应该是本文的中心思想，不过有太多抽象词，反而很难把握准确的理解)

chelseayang

"In a sense, Luminist pictures are an ideological justification of the atmosphere necessary for business, if also an exaggerated, idealistic rendering of that atmosphere."

这句话的关键就在这两个词上，Luminist pictures are an justification, if also an interpretation of the atmosphere. In short, Luminism is basically a for-business -ism.

mage

chelseayang的英文解答很厉害，看得出英文功底已经非常深厚，在下已经仔细阅读了你在逻辑区的每个解答，再加上lawyer的一些精华总结，偶得lsat逻辑从错一半以上到现在45分钟错3-5个，全拜二位所赐，偶不是灌水，只是想表达一下感激之情，真心的希望二位都梦想成真！

关于上面那句话我明白了，翻译成中文是不是：从某种意义上来说，光派绘画是对商业环境的意识形态上的体现，如果也是一种夸大的、理想化的体现。

我觉得这篇文章的结构有点松散，第二段完全可以略去，第二段的最后一句话是个并没有展开的小观点，说光派氛围不是强化人对自然的反应，而是使由未驯服的自然引发的感情沉默。我做这篇文章时没能马上提炼出很明确的中心来就是因为这句话的干扰。

lawyer_1

光派画从意思形态上解释了商业所需的环境，或者说夸张地，理想化地描述了该商业环境。

if：used when you are adding that something may be even more, less, better, worse etc than you have just said

rendering：the way an event, situation etc is described

lawyer_1

1。LSAT的阅读文章实在是非常严谨，没有那段甚至那句是多余的。

2。第二段是文章的主题，末段是二段的具体化，如何能省掉呢。

3。全文结构（可看出LSAT的文章是多麽严密）：

一段：普遍观点（accepted view，即代反驳的观点）

二段：指出该观点只是看到表面，指出光画派描写的安静的环境其实是被人驯服的环境。（作者观点）

三段：举例说明：持普遍观点的某个批评家对L的画的解释，作者指出这种解释是片面的

四段：作者对L的画的解释，详细说明作者观点

lawyer_1

第二段的末句话是：光画家理想化的环境因此似乎并不是强化了人对自然的反应，而是将未经开拓的环境产生的诸如敬畏，害怕的感情淡化。

mage

哇哇哇，佩服的趴下啦！

要是再不明白就比猪还笨了!