To critics accustomed to the style of fifteenth-century narrative paintings by Italian artists from Tuscany, the Venetian examples of narrative paintings with religious subjects that Patricia Fortini Brown analyzes in a recent book will come as a great surprise. While the Tuscan paintings present large-scale figures, clear narratives, and simple settings, the Venetians filled their pictures with dozens of small figures and elaborate building, in addition to a wealth of carefully observed anecdotal detail often irrelevant to the paintings’ principal subjects—the religious stories they narrate. Although it occasionally obscured these stories, this accumulation of circumstantial detail from Venetian life—the inclusion of prominent Venetian citizens, for example—was considered appropriate to the narration of historical subjects and underlined the authenticity of the historical events depicted. Indeed, Brown argues that the distinctive style of the Venetian paintings—what she calls the “eyewitness style”—was influenced by Venetian affinity for a strongly parochial type of historical writing, consisting almost exclusively of vernacular chronicles of local events embroidered with all kinds of inconsequential detail.
　　And yet, while Venetian attitudes toward history that are reflected in their art account in part for the difference in style between Venetian and Tuscan narrative paintings, Brown has overlooked some practical influences, such as climate. Tuscan churches are filled with frescoes that, in contrast to Venetian narrative paintings, consist mainly of large figures and easily recognized religious stories, as one would expect of paintings that are normally viewed from a distance and are designed primarily to remind the faithful of their religious tenets. In Venice, where the damp climate is unsuited to fresco, narrative frescoes in churches were almost nonexistent, with the result that Venetian artists and their public had no practical experience of the large-scale representation of familiar religious stories. Their model for painted stories was the cycle (集成围绕同一主题或者英雄的传统诗歌或者故事的集合) of secular historical paintings in the Venetian magistrate’s palace, which were indeed the counterpart of written history and were made all the more authoritative by a proliferation of circumstantial detail.
　　Moreover, because painting frescoes requires an unusually sure hand, particularly in the representation of human form, the development of drawing skill was central to artistic training in Tuscany, and by 1500 the public there tended to distinguish artists on the basis of how well they could draw human figures. In Venice, a city virtually without frescoes, this kind of skill was acquired and appreciated much later. Gentile Bellini, for example, although regarded as one of the supreme painters of the day, was feeble at drawing. On the other hand, the emphasis on architecture so evident in the Venetian narrative paintings was something that local painters obviously prized, largely because painting architecture in perspective was seen as a particular test of the Venetian painter’s skill.
　　9. Which one of the following best states the main idea of the passage?
　　(A) Tuscan painters’ use of fresco explains the prominence of human figures in the narrative paintings that they produced during the fifteenth century.
　　(B) In addition to fifteenth-century Venetian attitudes toward history, other factors may help to explain the characteristic features of Venetian narrative paintings with religious subjects produced during that period.
　　(C) The inclusion of authentic detail from Venetian life distinguished fifteenth-century Venetian narrative paintings from those that were produced in Tuscany.
　　(D) Venetian painters were generally more skilled at painting buildings than Tuscan painters were at drawing human forms.
　　(E) The cycle of secular historical paintings in the Venetian magistrate’s palace was the primary narrative paintings with religious subjects.
　　10. In the passage, the author is primarily concerned with
　　(A) Pointing out the superiority of one painting style over another.
　　(B) Citing evidence that requires a reevaluation of a conventionally held view.
　　(C) Discussing factors that explain a difference in painting styles.
　　(D) Outlining the strengths and weaknesses of two opposing views regarding the evolution of a painting style.
　　(E) Arguing for the irrelevance of one theory and for its replacement by a more plausible alternative.
　　11. As it is described in the passage, Brown’s explanation of the use of the eyewitness style in Venetian narrative painting suggests that
　　(A) The painting of architecture in perspective requires greater drawing skill than does the representation of a human form in a fresco.
　　(B) Certain characteristics of a style of painting can reflect a style of historical writing that was common during the same period.
　　(C) The eyewitness style in Venetian narrative paintings with religious subjects was largely the result of the influence of Tuscan artists who worked primarily in fresco.
　　(D) The historical detail in Venetian narrative paintings with religious subjects can be traced primarily to the influence of the paintings in the Venetian magistrate’s palace.
　　(E) A style of painting can be dramatically transformed by a sudden influx of artists from another region.
　　12. The author suggests that fifteenth-century Venetian narrative paintings with religious subjects were painted by artists who
　　(A) were able to draw human figures with more skill after they were apprenticed to painters in Tuscany
　　(B) assumed that their paintings would typically be viewed from a distance
　　(C) were a major influence on the artists who produced the cycle of historical paintings in the Venetian magistrate’s palace
　　(D) were reluctant to paint frescoes primarily because they lacked the drawing skill that painting frescoes required
　　(E) were better at painting architecture in perspective than they were at drawing human figures
　　13. The author implies that Venetian narrative paintings with religious subjects included the representation of elaborate buildings in part because
　　(A) the ability to paint architecture in perspective was seen in Venice as proof of a painter’s skill
　　(B) the subjects of such paintings were often religious stories
　　(C) large frescoes were especially conducive to representing architecture in perspective
　　(D) the architecture of Venice in the fifteenth century was more elaborate than was the architecture of Tuscany
　　(E) the paintings were imitations of a kind of historical writing that was popular in Tuscany
　　14. Which one of the following, if true, would most weaken the author’s contention that fifteenth-century Venetian artists “had no practical experience of the large-scale representation of familiar religious stories” (line 40-42)?
　　(A) The style of secular historical paintings in the palace of the Venetian magistrate was similar to that of Venetian narrative paintings with religious subjects.
　　(B) The style of the historical writing produced by fifteenth-century Venetian authors was similar in its inclusion of anecdotal details to secular paintings produced during that century in Tuscany.
　　(C) Many of the artists who produced Venetian narrative paintings with religious subjects served as apprentices in Tuscany, where they had become familiar with the technique of painting of frescoes.
　　(D) Few of the frescoes painted in Tuscany during the fifteenth century had secular subjects, and those that did often betrayed the artist’s inability to represent elaborate architecture in perspective.
　　(E) Few of the Venetian narrative paintings produced toward the end of the fifteenth century show evidence of the enhanced drawing skill that characterized the paintings produced in Venice a century later.