AP Art History

Answer: A - Literati refers to a group of scholarly and sophisticated Chinese artists who worked to paint for themselves rather than for fame and fortune.

Key Takeaway: Scholar-officials, or literati, were civil servants who were appointed by the Chinese emperor to perform that day-to-day governance of the dynasty until the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1912. Most of the members of the literati were men from the scholar-gentry who had passed the extremely rigorous civil service examinations and were educated in Confucian texts, history, and calligraphy.