Notice what a portrayal changes
Read for meaning first. Select a highlighted word if you want a closer look.
One display paired a photograph with a caricature that enlarged the subject's spectacles and narrowed his already long face. The caption avoided the cliche that every serious artist must be a lonely genius, since that familiar idea explained little about this particular person. Another draft created a distortion by cropping out the collaborators and implying that he had worked alone. Exaggeration for a clearly labeled comic portrait differed from a misleading account presented as a straightforward record.
The curator kept the caricature because visitors could see that its selected features were deliberately exaggerated for humor. She removed the cliche from the caption and replaced it with a detail from the displayed correspondence. To correct the distortion, she restored the wider photograph and identified the other people at the table. These changes did not require every image to be literal; they required the exhibition to make its methods and claims understandable to its audience.
Before you move on
Look away from the passage. Can you explain each focus word in your own words?
Original fictional passages for vocabulary practice.