Video Explanation

Text Explanation

Here, the sentence is constructing a parallel structure between "the classical ideals of painting" and "what governed the work of 15th century artists."

In choice (A), both of those are objects of the same preposition, "to" . Here, "classical ideals" is a noun, and "what governed the work of 15th century artists" is a substantive clause, so that's legitimate for parallelism. None of the other four answer choices execute the parallel structure correctly.

In addition, (B) has a verb with a funny awkward tense "would govern", which could be the future from the perspective of the past, but the 15th century artists were BEFORE Raffaello. The artists in the 15th century are the earliest participants in this sentence, so they are not in the future of anyone discussed here. This tense is wrong.

Choice (C) changes the meaning: ideals governed the 15th century artists, not the person Raffaello himself. Furthermore, this makes the mistake of using 'like' to introduce an example, which is always wrong on the GMAT. This is incorrect.

Choice (D) does what (C) does. It suggests that Raffaello himself was the governing force. 

Once again, choice (E) suggests that Raffaello, rather than "classical ideas" is the object of reference for the clause that follows, and it uses 'like' for an example. 

For a variety of reasons, (A) is the best answer.