2017届河南省虞城县高考英语一轮完形填空阅读编选：5（含解析）_高考复习指南

2017届河南省虞城县高考英语一轮完形填空阅读编选：5（含解析）

　　According to The New York Times, over the past 15 years, Glafira Rosales fooled two local commercial art galleries into buying 63 false works of art for more than $30 million．She passed off fake paintings as works by 20th century modernist masters such as American artists Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock．But in fact, these so called "newly discovered works" were all produced by a single man, a Chinese immigrant named Qian Peishen．

　　The art world was shocked by Rsales' deception．But to the public, it was amusing and 6most satisfying to see wealthy people get tricked．

　　So what decides the value of a piece of art? Is it beauty? Is it the artist's talent and craftsmanshipOr is it just because the artist is famous?

　　We should take beauty out． If the buyers were buying paintings only for their beauty, they'll be content displaying good fakes on their walls． They wouldn't be so upset when a forgery is exposed．

　　The art market claims that great artists are inimitable, and that this inimitability justifies the absurd price of their works． We can't deny that most famous artists are good at what they o, but forgers like Qian show that their works are imitable．Otherwise, the difference between the original and the copycats woul be obvious and Rosales would not be able to fool anyone．

　　According to an article in the Economist, expensive paintings are what．economists call positional goods． They are valuable because other people can't have them． With other goods, a higher price reduces demand．But art turns down the laws of economics． “When the goods that is really being purchased is evidence that the buyer has paid a lot, price increases cause demand to boom," explained the article．That's why scarcity and authenticity are so important in the art market． Artists sometimes forget this．Demien Hirst, the British pop artist, is famous for his spot paintings． But they dropped in value when it became clear that they had been produced in quantities so vast that nobody knew how many were out there．The art market lost faith in these paintings because no one could be sure which of them were authentic and which were fake．