Usage of comma- why did they use comma here?

Question

can you please tell why author used comma in the following sentence? If it was necessary, can you please explain why? I got this line from a book about art theory

"One of the main problems facing Gombrich when he started his scholarly career was the uncritical acceptance of the idea that the figurative artist produced images of what he saw , with the qualification that through historical time and across cultures people have seen differently"

If you can give an example of similar usage of comma that would be really helpful. Thanks

Answer 1

One of the main problems facing Gombrich when he started his scholarly career was the uncritical acceptance of the idea that the figurative artist produced images of what he saw, with the qualification that through historical time and across cultures people have seen differently.

The comma after saw has two functions:

1) It prevents readers from having to reparse the sentence when they hit what he saw with the qualification.

2) It signals that the clause that follows qualifies the idea that the figurative artist produced images of what he saw rather than a single, more proximate referent. The author could have used but, but apparently did not wish that strong a contrast.

A similar example:

He agreed to the interview, with the caveat that he could approve the final article.

The clause with the caveat that... modifies the entire independent clause, plus saves the reader from interview with the caveat.