Happy to help. The question is asking us to choose the answer that describes how the phrase "curious blind spot" from lines 2-3 is being used. What can we interpret this phrase to mean?
If we look closely at the text, we see that the author says that the late 19th century admirers of Watteau had a "curious blind spot" about him, and they believed that his art was a genuine embodiment of the image of 18th century France (lines 1 through 6).
Toward the end of the first paragraph, we're given info about the author's opinion of Watteau's imagery: "These engravings presented aristocratic (and would-be aristocratic) eighteenth-century French society with an image of itself that was highly acceptable and widely imitated by other artists, however little relationship that image bore to reality. This suggests that the author thinks that the 19th century writers failed to recognize that Watteau's imagery was not an accurate depiction of reality.
The author elaborates more on her belief that the aristocratic image of 18th century France wasn't historically accurate in lines 24 through 47.
From this, we know that the blind spot is referring to the writers' failure to recognize the discrepancy between Watteaus' work and what France was actually like during the 18th century. This leads us to (B), which says that certain writers' surprising lack of awareness of what the author considers an obvious discrepancy. This is exactly what we've identified "curious blind spot" to mean, and it's our correct answer choice.
(C) is incorrect because while the author does criticize some writers for not taking into account actual facts about 18th century France (lines 36 to 39), the author never states that these writers aren't taking into account these facts because they're failing to examine a "valuable source of information about the past." In fact, since the author suggests that Watteau's paintings aren't a valuable source of information about the time in which Watteau lived (due to the fact that they didn't accurately capture reality), the author isn't discussing any sources of information about the past in the passage, so (C) is beyond the scope of the passage. Therefore, we can get rid of it.
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