CONSTRUCTED RESPONSE QUESTION- 4 POINTS INFORMATIONAL TEXT
Essay
Read this passage. Then, answer the question(s).
The early-twentieth-century artist George Bellows is an important figure in the artistic discovery of the city. (2) Without overly sentimentalizing his subjects, he finds the distinctive values of urban existence. (3) Take the painting that he called Cliff Dwellers. (4) Borrowing a term for earlier peoples living on mountainsides, Bellows instead paints figures in the “cliffs” of tenement houses in a crowded city neighborhood. (5) The painting is vividly realistic, and most of the people that it shows clearly lead difficult lives. (6) Yet the overall message is one of joyous celebration, of urban energy, of human resilience. (7) Similarly, consider Bellows’s famous painting A Morning Snow—Hudson River, which shows a scene on New York’s Upper West Side. (8) Here, snow covers the usual urban grit, and a father and child walk peacefully down a snow-lined path in the right foreground. (9) Yet Bellows makes sure that we never forget that his setting is a city, where most people work hard for a living. (10) Thus, in the left foreground, contrasting with those leisurely strollers, is a working man shoveling snow from the sidewalk. (11) Echoing the theme of work are the boats sailing the Hudson River in the distant background, their smokestacks belching steam into the crisp morning air.

29. Based on the passage, what can you infer were the inspirations for Bellows’s art. Use evidence from the passage to support your answer.