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
