Read the following passage carefully:
The scaffold creaked under their combined weight as Elena leaned close to the damp plaster of the chapel dome. With a camel-hair brush, she gingerly lifted a flake of soot from the saint’s left eye, revealing only the faint shadow of fourteenth-century lapis lazuli. "We must stop here," she whispered, her voice tight with reverence. "If we clean any deeper, we risk dissolving the original tempera entirely. The history is in the decay; the ghost of the fresco is more honest than a recreation."
Behind her, Julian mixed a vibrant, synthetic cobalt blue in a ceramic jar, the sharp scent of turpentine filling the small alcove. He laughed, a brief, dry sound. "An honest ghost, Elena, will not pay for the roof over this chapel, nor will it satisfy the Duke’s desire for a spectacle. Art is not a relic to be mummified in dust. It must sing to the living. A stroke of cobalt here, a touch of gilding on the halo, and the saint breathes again. The patrons do not buy history; they buy splendor."
Elena did not turn around. She held her breath, her fingers steadying against the cold wall. To sheathe the old master’s quiet restraint in Julian’s loud, modern pigments felt like a betrayal. Yet, looking down at the empty pews below, she knew the Duke’s coins were the only barrier between the chapel’s survival and its demolition.
In the passage, the contrast between Elena’s and Julian’s approaches to the fresco restoration primarily functions to do which of the following?
- Ademonstrate how Elena’s stubbornness will ultimately lead to the chapel’s financial ruin and demolition
- Bestablish Julian as an unfeeling antagonist whose primary motivation is to humiliate Elena’s artistic devotion
- Cconvey the author’s critique of the Duke’s corrupting influence on the integrity of Renaissance artists
- underscore the thematic tension between preserving historical integrity and yielding to pragmatic, commercial demandsAnswer
- Esuggest that Julian’s use of synthetic paints represents a superior, more modern methodology than Elena’s older techniques