The first sentence of the stimulus conveys that the reason as to why figurative painting was revived in the late 1970s makes complete sense, i.e. there is no mystery behind it.
The rest of the stimulus explains why the revival makes sense: people want to look at images that they can recognize. Art theories reflected in abstract paintings are not substitutes for the sense of empathy that is evoked by realistic paintings of a figure in a landscape. The stimulus then states that members of the art viewing public may have even resented abstract art because its lack of realistic subject matter was a rejection of the viewers and their world.
Thus, the entire stimulus points to the reason as to why the revival of figurative painting makes sense: members of the art viewing public liked figurative painting more.
Answer choice (E) states: "The artistic preferences of the art viewing public stimulated the revival."
This is exactly the main point of the stimulus. The information in the passage leads us to the main point that the reason behind the revival of figurative painting in the late 1970s was the preference of the members of the art viewing public.
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