Toward the end of the nineteenth century, a small group of artists working in France and Germany began to re-evaluate the meaning and function of art. In the preceding century, art had lost many of its traditional functions. It had ceased to be an important method for recording the way things look because that job had been taken over by the camera. Artists now sought to isolate the special province of art, to define its own particular essence. Painters and sculptors joined other intellectuals in questioning classical standards based on rationalized patterns and generalized ideals. The world view of the 1890s had been so altered by the tumultuous changes of the nineteenth century that the cool, orderly classical figure style and static Renaissance compositions no longer seemed appropriate forms of expression.According to this paragraph, in the 1890s artists sought to （）.
A、fight against the threat posed by the camera
B、restore many of art's traditional patterns
C、redefine the specific essence of art
D、use art to record reality precisely
【正确答案】：C
【题目解析】：由第一句和第四句可知，19世纪末，法国和德国的一小部分艺术家开始重新评价艺术的意义和功能。这个时期的艺术家试图将艺术独自管辖的领域分离出来，并重新定义其独特的内涵。故选C。
