<p>Why is "several of Frank Stella's painings were inspired by the shpaes of waves and whales, titled after chapter headings from Moby-Dick" worse than "Several of Frank Stella's paintings, inspired by the shapes of waves and whales,are titled after chapter headings from Moby-Dick"??</p>
<p>I feel like the former is better than the latter.</p>
<p>first one is wrong because of incorrect modifier.</p>
<p>Isn’t titled modifies “several of Frank Stella’s paintings”??? What’s wrong with that? Isn’t the verb after comma modifies the subject of the previoius sentence?</p>
<p>A participle (in this case, “titled”) is supposed to modify the noun it follows most closely. </p>
<p>In the version you like, the participle “titled” most closely follows the noun “whales,” yet very few whales have, in fact, been titled after chapter headings from Moby-Dick.</p>
<p>In the version you don’t care for, “inspired” is a participle, which both closely follows and properly modifies the noun “paintings.” In this version, “titled” is no longer used as a participle. Because the auxiliary verb “are” has been moved in front of “titled,” the verb phrase “are titled” is now the main verb of the sentence.</p>