Question

Passage A
Art historians have long debated the sudden and overwhelming international triumph of Abstract Expressionism in the years following World War II. While the formal innovations of artists like Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko are undeniably significant, the movement's meteoric rise to global prominence cannot be fully understood outside the context of Cold War politics. In the late 1940s and 1950s, influential American art critics and major cultural institutions, most notably the Museum of Modern Art, began to aggressively champion the movement. They actively framed the chaotic, completely nonrepresentational canvases as the ultimate manifestation of Western individualism, spontaneity, and unbridled creative liberty. The ability of artists to paint without recognizable subject matter was heralded as the absolute antithesis of totalitarian control. This critical framing was deliberately and explicitly positioned in stark contrast to the rigid, state-mandated aesthetic of Soviet Socialist Realism, which demanded strict ideological conformity and realistic depictions of proletarian life. Consequently, the American cultural establishment embraced Abstract Expressionism not merely for its aesthetic breakthroughs, but primarily because it served as a potent, highly visible emblem of the intellectual freedoms purportedly enjoyed under democratic capitalism. The movement's unprecedented dominance in the art world was, therefore, significantly propelled by its strategic alignment with the era's dominant geopolitical imperatives.

Passage B
The conventional narrative of American modern art frequently centers on the lone, rebellious genius striving for pure aesthetic expression, isolated from political concerns. However, the global ascendance of Abstract Expressionism was heavily aided by a remarkably coordinated, albeit covert, state apparatus. Extensive historical research has recently illuminated the surprising extent to which the United States government, particularly through its intelligence agencies, secretly funded, organized, and promoted international exhibitions of abstract art throughout the early Cold War period. This cultural Cold War was viewed by policymakers as being just as critical to national security as the military standoff. Front organizations, such as the Congress for Cultural Freedom, were strategically utilized to bypass conservative domestic political opposition, which frequently derided modern art as subversive or aesthetically nonsensical. By secretly sponsoring lavish European tours featuring the works of American abstract painters, the government sought to directly counteract pervasive Soviet propaganda that routinely depicted the United States as a culturally barren, fiercely materialistic wasteland devoid of intellectual sophistication. The overarching objective of this clandestine program was to demonstrate unequivocally that a free, democratic society could foster dynamic, avant-garde, and intellectually rigorous cultural production. Thus, the international prestige and rapid dissemination of Abstract Expressionism was not a purely organic artistic phenomenon resulting solely from aesthetic evolution. Rather, it functioned as a vital, subsidized component of a deliberate ideological strategy designed to win the cultural allegiance of the European intelligentsia.

Which one of the following most accurately expresses the main point shared by both passages?