Narrative crept back into art through a side door marked fashion photography. In April 1967, French Vogue published a spread by Bob Richardson, the American photographer, that soon became a legend Informally christened " the Greek trip " by Richardson’s admirers, the spread featured Donna Mitchell, a striking brunet model, hanging out on the Aegean island of Rhodes with a male companion.
Of course, narrative never disappeared—it just went to the movies, and stayed, and stayed. But what had caused stories to be exiled from high art The idea of essence, and the equation of essence with goodness. Can you imagine Visual art is essentially composed of form, color, materials. Anything to do with content is extraneous and therefore to be associated with badness; therefore to be eliminated. Moreover, content, says this line of thought, is controlling. This means that a rose is the Virgin Mary (depending on what the meaning of " is " is). And art, like society, must be liberated from such hierarchically imposed values. What this argument overlooked, of course, is that narrative is a form in itself, not just a vehicle for content. Indeed, the ideology of formalism originated, in Soviet Russia, with the analysis of old folk tales. Narrative form, the analysis went, typically proceeds from an initial state of equilibrium through a series of destabilizing episodes, concluding with a heightened state of equilibrium at the end. Think Indiana Jones. You can plug whatever content you want in there as long as it creates the form. Each episode simply has to do with the work of creating disequilibrium.
A narrative does not, in other words, tell a story. A story is told to give listeners the pleasure of the narrative form. If you were to isolate the form of disequilibrium from the specifics of plot, you might arrive at something resembling the collected work of Cindy Sherman. Initially modeled after movie stills, Sherman’s pictures are not, of course, abstract. Over the years, in fact, their content has become increasingly elaborate. I see this as a form of generosity as well as a sign of advanced technical skills. Not since Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-1593), perhaps, has an artist contrived to turn the human figure into a more bountiful cornucopia for the eye.
Yet even the most visually splendid of Sherman’s images are minimalist, in that they reduce the narrative down to the precise moment when the center of gravity shifts. Perhaps some unheard word is spoken. A floorboard squeaks. From upstairs comes a thump. And a tentative state of equilibrium gives way to anxiety or dread. That moment, too, represents essence. What more do you need to know
People who support the idea of essence most probably agree that（）
A. narrative is only a vehicle for content
B. art develops with its own values
C. Virgin Mary can be metaphorized as a rose
D. content should be eliminated for its narrative form
参考答案：A
解析：
细节题。本题的出题点在第二段。从“What this argument overlooked, …is that narrative is…not just a vehicle for content”可知，作者在上文提到的argument (the idea of essence)把narrative只当成了内容的载体，故A项正确。文中提到“And art, …must be liberated from such hierarchically imposed values”，由此可知the idea of essence认为艺术必须摆脱强加的价值观，由此推出，艺术在一定程度上受到强加的价值观的影响，故B项错误；支持本质主义观点的人认为内容是有控制性的，“一朵玫瑰是圣母玛利亚”就是这样的例子，而艺术必须从强加给它的这种价值观中解放出来，也就是说支持本质主义的人不会同意说“一朵玫瑰是圣母玛利亚”，故排除C项；支持本质主义的人认为content是应当从艺术中摒弃的，但不承认“narrative is a form”(叙述手法是一种形式)，故D项错误。