Evelyn Reed approached the restoration of the fifteenth-century Devonshire tapestries with a profound, almost stubborn reluctance to use modern synthetic dyes. While her contemporaries at the Metropolitan Guild eagerly embraced newly developed color-fast polymers that promised centuries of structural stability, Reed insisted on scouring the English countryside for wild weld, dyer's greenweed, and madder root. To Reed, the chemical sheen of modern pigments was an insult to the original weavers' intent, representing a jarring departure from the organic textures of the past. Her assistants frequently lamented her insistence on hand-grinding these raw botanicals in ancient stone mortars, a practice that consumed weeks of labor before a single thread could be dyed. Yet, Reed remained unbothered by their complaints, viewing the physically exhausting preparation not as an obstacle, but as an essential ritual of historical immersion.
Based on the passage, Reed’s attitude toward her assistants’ complaints about the manual preparation of dyes is best described as which of the following?
- indifference, because she considered the exhausting work to be a vital part of historical immersion.Answer
- Bresentment, because she believed their protests demonstrated a lack of respect for the original weavers.
- Canxiety, because she feared the slow pace of hand-grinding would delay the restoration project.
- Dregret, because she wished she could adopt the synthetic methods used by her contemporaries.