The unironic representation of objects from everyday life

Adam Lyons, Magoosh Tutor

Hey Thanh!
The quotation marks show that the artists think of themselves as high, but the author does not quite agree. The meaning is that these are so-called high artists, or artists who think they are high, but actually might not be. So the quotation marks show that it's the artists who are calling themselves high, and not anyone else.

Jul 8, 2019 • Reply

Sam Kinsman, Magoosh Tutor

Hi Wenjie,

Keep in mind that "unironic" means "not ironic." So the first part of the sentence says that straightforward (i.e. unironic) representation of objects is ______ in serious American art. If we don't know that goes in the blank, we don't know yet what the sentence is saying. However, "missing from" goes in the blank, so the sentence is saying that there is no straightforward depiction of things in American art.

You are right about the second part of the sentence - it says that serious artists have given up straightforward depiction of objects.

I hope that helps!
Sam

Jul 4, 2018 • Reply

Adam

Hi! "Unironic" means "not ironic." I'd recommend looking up words you're unsure about on Wordnik.com:

https://wordnik.com/words/unironic

Feb 1, 2017 • Reply

Adam

Good thinking, Louie! However, allow me to qualify your statement that "ceded should signify a negative tone in the fist blank."

We're not quite looking for a "negative" word in the blank. Rather, we should see that there is a contrast between the way in which "high" artists depicted everyday life and the way in which "illustrators, advertisers, and packaging designers" did so.

We know that the latter did so in a "straightforward way," and that "high" artists ceded this manner of depiction to them. Therefore, "high artists" did *not* depict everyday life in a straightforward way, which means they did *not* do so "unironically." This leads us to "missing from."

Dec 22, 2015 • Reply

Ashwin Palaniappan

I did the same mistake ;)

Mar 3, 2017 • Reply