Passage (Walter Pater, *The Renaissance*, 1873, from "The School of Gi…

Question

Passage (Walter Pater, *The Renaissance*, 1873, from "The School of Giorgione"):

"All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music. For while in all other works of art it is possible to distinguish the matter from the form, and the understanding can always make this distinction, yet it is the constant effort of art to obliterate it. That the mere matter of a poem, for instance — its subject, its given incidents or situation; that the mere matter of a picture — the actual circumstances of an event, the actual topography of a landscape — should be nothing without the form, the spirit, of the handling; that this form, this mode of handling, should become an end in itself, should penetrate every part of the matter: this is what all art constantly strives after, and achieves in different degrees."

In the sentence "it is the constant effort of art to **obliterate** it," the word *obliterate* most nearly means:

Accepted Answer

A. erase

Pater says the *understanding* can always distinguish matter from form, *yet* art constantly works to **obliterate** that distinction. The *yet* signals a contrast: the act of art is working *against* the act of distinguishing. The verb must therefore mean *to wipe out* or *erase*.
*Obliterate* — from Latin *ob-* (against) + *littera* (letter) — literally means *to blot out the letters of*, i.e. erase a written record. The figurative sense extends to any erasure.
- **A** (emphasize) is the *opposite* of what art is doing — emphasizing the matter/form split is the *understanding's* work, not art's.
- **B** (memorialize) is unrelated.
- **D** (complicate) is close but wrong — art is *removing* the distinction, not adding to it.

Answer

memorialize

Answer

emphasize

Answer

complicate