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The question as to what constitutes art is hardly a (i)_____ one. Today, artists exist whose main goal seems only to subvert work that no longer warrants the trite tag "cutting-edge." Once the proverbial envelope is pushed even further, the public inevitably scratches its collective head – or furrows the collective brow – thinking that this time the "artists" have (ii)_____. That very same admixture of contempt and confusion, however, was not unknown in Michelangelo`s day only what was considered blasphemous, art-wise, in the 16th Century, would today be considered (iii)_____.
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Monarchial reigns (i)_____ tended to be more (ii)_____, dynastically speaking, than those royal courts in which palace machinations had not become a quotidian affair. In the latter, a pall of complacency would fall over the kingdom so that if suddenly there were an earl with an axe to grind, so to speak, his path to usurpation would be (iii)_____.
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Very few veteran critics tend to be (i)_____ ?the recent decade in cinema. Nonetheless, based on movie reviews many could easily come to the conclusion that the last ten years were indeed banner ones. Once the province of lettered intellectuals, a few even household names (Pauline Kael comes to mind), the role of the movie critic has been (ii)_____ by those lacking any notable credentials. With this flood of veritable tyros opining from the rafters, a movie`s overall rating-as compiled and tabulated by popular Internet sites–often times confers a(n) (iii)_____ on a film, an assessment that posterity will most likely deem specious.
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Perkin`s wit, surprisingly (i)_____ by the prudishness of his time, may not have been nearly as (ii)_____ had he lived in an era not so prone to (iii)_____.
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The Hellenistic and Judaic philosophy of the early centuries did not so much (i)_____ ancient Greek philosophy as it did (ii)_____ the Platonic concepts of this time with its understanding of the way in which an ideal world, or one of perfect forms, (iii)_____ the existence of a perfect being. Even the philosophy of the Middle Ages was so inextricably bound with the ideas of ancient Greece that many philosophers could hardly imagine discussing the existence of a perfect being without invoking the conceptual framework laid down by Plato more than a thousand years earlier.
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Advocates of anti-smoking campaigns are (i) _____ the fact that the number of smokers per capita has (ii) _____ since the 1970s, perhaps aware that, lest this trend reverse itself, their message, which is predicated on dire predictions, is likely to be more (iii) _____ than one rooted in reality.
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Perhaps there is nothing more to the album than its case that experimentalism into uncharted sonic landscapes did not (i)_____ with Stockhauen. Or perhaps its forays--many of which could rightly be dubbed sophomoric--into the avant-garde also lead to the (ii)_____: that to create an unprecedented sound one has to (iii)_____ a discernible melody.
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Hollywood has a way of (i)_____ reality, thereby completely altering not only past events but our perception of these events. To take but one example, after watching Milos Forman`s Oscar-Winning Picture, Amadeus, audiences smugly walk away "knowing" the Italian composer Antonio Salieri sordidly did away with the divine genius Mozart. That such a story is at best a (ii)_____ is, to them, not even a(n) (iii)_____.
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The subjectivity inherent in travel is aptly captured in the range of styles used by different writers. For Hemingway, writing eighty years ago, the experience of travel-regardless of how momentous-was rendered in (i) _____ observations, a style many of today`s writers studiously (ii) _____. Then there is travel writer Pico Iyer, for whom a simple stroll through an airport can beget sentences bursting forth with as many semicolons as revelations. Who thought the terminal could be so (iii) _____? Surely not many writers today.
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The classical music critic suffers the double indignity of opining on a field that the layman mostly (i)_____: not only must he deal with the fact that the public tends to look (ii)_____ on critics but he must also risk coming across as (iii)_____ a subject in which few deign to show any interest.
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A successful revolution, whereby those who have unseated the previous government are able to usher in an irenic transformation, is not (i) _____. Nonetheless, scholars, and even the public at large, persist in believing that the American Revolution, while clearly successful, bequeathed a(n) (ii) _____ that all restive nations need only follow to enjoy effective self-rule. One must look no further than the sweep of the 20th century, to realize the (iii) _____ of this conception.
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Public officials recently announced plans to (i) _____ noise pollution in parts of the downtown. Aside from citing the usual costs of enforcing ordinances, the city also referenced reports indicating that residents had become (ii) _____ the hubbub, a finding that, for the most part, is not (iii)_____ the dearth of media coverage on the issue-when a municipality is responsible for disgruntled citizens, the newspapers are sure to follow up with a flurry of coverage.
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It is telling that a politician long adept at inhabiting any role that will serve his immediate purpose has been able to (i)_____ a disgruntled electorate, an outcome that perhaps speaks more to the electorate`s (ii)_____ nature than it does to his ability to be (iii)_____.
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History has known few as _____ as the Irish wit Oscar Wilde: on his inaugural trip to America, when asked by customs officials if he had anything to declare, Wilde replied: "The only thing I have to declare is my genius."
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The travel writer must invite _____. Few, if any travelogues, have ever been inspired by a languorous afternoon poolside.
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The recent discovery of the existence of a far greater number of planets than had previously been thought only _____ undergirds the argument for intelligent lifeforms; such an argument depends on more than a mere tally of planets, for only those planets that can form a viable atmosphere can host the conditions necessary for life.
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Anticipating a dry, hot fall, city officials are _____ citizens to rake up any leaves on their respective property: many radio shows have slotted 15-second spots warning listeners about the heightened possibility of fire should sufficient underbrush collect in untended parts of residents` premises.
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Though she would _____ at a mere peccadillo, she would, with nary more than a wagging finger, condone far more untenable behavior.
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That art wields political power is not an incontrovertible position-if it is even true at all: Picasso`s Guernica, a painting capturing the wanton plundering of a Spanish village, hangs almost _____ in the Guggenheim, framed by a soft light best befitting a seaside idyll.
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The city council was notorious for voting down any measure that would restrict its ability to wield power, so that it _____ a bill aimed to narrow the ambit of its jurisdiction was surprising only to the small few who had come to believe that the council would pull an about-face.
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