Ultimate Art Quiz

Question: Which of these painters is known for making portraits of the leading figures of the American Revolution?

Answer: American painter Charles Willson Peale is best remembered for his portraits of the leading figures of the American Revolution and as the founder of the first major museum in the United States. In his long life, Peale painted about 1,100 portraits, including sitters such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams.

Question: Who painted "The Starry Night"?

Answer: "The Starry Night" is a moderately abstract landscape painting (1889) of an expressive night sky over a small hillside village. It is one of the most celebrated works of the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh painted "The Starry Night" during his 12-month stay at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France.

Question: Which of these is a paint made from pigments and plastic?

Answer: An acrylic paint is water-soluble, and made from pigments with a plastic binding agent.

Question: During which dynasty was the Mosul school of painting developed?

Answer: Mosul school of painting is a style of miniature painting that developed in northern Iraq in the late 12th to early 13th century under the patronage of the Zangid dynasty (1127–1222). In technique and style, the Mosul school was similar to the painting of the Seljuq Turks but, the Mosul artists emphasized subject matter and degree of detail rather than the representation of three-dimensional space.

Question: The first artist to receive the MacArthur Foundation "genius" award was:

Answer: Robert Irwin is an American painter and sculptor known for pioneering the Light and Space movement, a variety of West Coast Minimalist art that was concerned with the visual impact of light on geometric forms and the viewer’s sensory experience of the work. In 1984 he became the first artist to receive the MacArthur Foundation "genius" award.

Question: Which Egyptian art style did Amenhotep IV create?

Answer: Amarna style was a revolutionary style of Egyptian art created by Amenhotep IV, who took the name Akhenaton during his reign (1353–36 BCE) in the 18th dynasty. His innovations were centered upon a new religion based on the worship of Aton. The artistic elements that Akhenaton introduced in the decoration of the Aton temples and on other monuments of his reign, both at Karnak and at his new capital of Akhetaton (Tell el-Amarna), are referred to collectively as the Amarna style.

Question: When did Constructivism in art begin?

Answer: Constructivism is a Russian artistic and architectural movement that was first influenced by Cubism and Futurism. It is known to have been started in 1913 with the abstract geometric constructions of Vladimir Tatlin. The expatriate Russian sculptors Antoine Pevsner and Naum Gabo joined Tatlin and his followers in Moscow, and upon publication of their jointly written Realist Manifesto in 1920, they became the spokesmen of the movement. It is from the manifesto that the name Constructivism was derived; one of the directives that it contained was “to construct” art.

Question: Which architect founded the Bauhaus school of design?

Answer: The Bauhaus school of design was founded in 1919 by architect Walter Gropius.

Question: When did the Novgorod school of art flourish?

Answer: Novgorod school is an important school of Russian medieval icon and mural painting that flourished around the northwestern city of Novgorod from the 12th through the 16th century. A thriving merchant city, Novgorod was the cultural center of Russia during the Mongol occupation of most of the rest of the country in the 13th and 14th centuries.

Question: What are Japanese hanging scroll paintings called?

Answer: In Japanese art, Kakemono is a scroll painting intended to be hung on a wall.

Question: Which style of painting flourished in France around the turn of the 20th century?

Answer: Fauvism was a style of painting that flourished in France around the turn of the 20th century. Fauve artists used pure and brilliant color aggressively applied straight from the paint tubes to create a sense of an explosion on the canvas. They painted directly from nature, as the Impressionists had before them, but their works were invested with a strong expressive reaction to the subjects portrayed.

Question: In which year was the German art society Nazarene founded?

Answer: German art society Nazarene is an association formed by some young German painters in 1809 to return to the medieval spirit in art. Reacting particularly against 18th-century Neoclassicism, the brotherhood was the first effective anti-academic movement in European painting. The Nazarenes believed that all art should serve a moral or religious purpose.

Question: Which art group was founded by a group of women artists devoted to fighting sexism and racism within the art world in 1985?

Answer: Guerrilla Girls was an American group of art activists, founded in 1985 with the twofold mission of bringing attention to women artists and artists of color and exposing the domination of white males in the art establishment. In 1985, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City mounted a large exhibit titled An International Survey of Painting and Sculpture, in which only 13 women out of a total of 169 artists were included. This disparity became the impetus for the formation of an influential and energetic activist group to combat sexism and racism in the art world.

Question: Which one of these is not a well-known Indian sculptor?

Answer: Henry Moore was a famed English sculptor. The other three are among the many famed sculptors of India.

Question: In which country are the Gongbi and Baimiao techniques of painting found?

Answer: Both Gongbi and Baimiao technique of painting is from China. Gongbi in Chinese painting is a meticulous brush technique that delimits details very precisely and without independent or expressive variation. Baimiao brush technique produces a finely controlled, supple ink outline drawing without any color or wash (diluted ink or paint applied in broad sweeps) embellishment.

Question: What was the artistic movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th-century?

Answer: Futurism is an early 20th-century artistic movement centered in Italy that emphasized the dynamism, speed, energy, and power of the machine and the vitality, change, and restlessness of modern life. During the second decade of the 20th century, Futurism, influence radiated outward across most of Europe, most significantly to the Russian avant-garde. The most significant results of the movement were in the visual arts and poetry.

Question: Name the painting technique that is executed entirely in shades or tints of a single color unnatural to the object.

Answer: Camaieu is a painting technique in which an image is executed either entirely in shades or tints of a single color or several hues unnatural to the object, figure, or scene represented. When a picture is monochromatically rendered in gray, it is called grisaille, and when in yellow, it is called cirage.

Question: American Gothic painting, used as parodies in popular culture, was painted by which American artist?

Answer: American artist Grant Wood was one of the major exponents of Midwestern Regionalism. His American Gothic caused a sensation when it was exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago. The hard, cold realism of this painting and the honest, direct, earthy quality of its subject was unusual in American art.

Question: Which art technique uses light and shadow to define three-dimensional objects?

Answer: Chiaroscuro is an art technique employed in the visual arts to represent light and shadow as they define three-dimensional objects. The technique was first brought to its full potential by Leonardo da Vinci in the late 15th century in such paintings as his Adoration of the Magi (1481). By the late 17th century, the term was routinely used to describe any painting, drawing, or print that depended on its effect on an extensive gradation of light and darkness.

Question: What animal often symbolizes peace in art?

Answer: The dove represents peace in many artworks. Pablo Picasso, for example, painted a dove for the World Peace Conference held in 1951.

Question: Early photographers made their images on which of these materials?

Answer: Early photographers applied light-reactive chemicals to fragile glass plates and exposed them to light to make images.

Question: What type of painting depicts scenes from everyday life in a realistic manner?

Answer: Genre painting is a type of painting of scenes from everyday life, of ordinary people in work or recreation, depicted in a generally realistic manner. Genre art contrasts with that of landscape, portraiture, still life, religious themes, or any traditionally idealized subject matter. Intimate scenes from daily life are almost invariably the subject of genre painting.

Question: What is the other name of the art movement Orphism?

Answer: Orphism is also called Simultaneism in the visual arts. It is a trend in abstract art spearheaded by Robert Delaunay that derived from Cubism and gave priority to light and color. The movement’s name was coined in 1912 by the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire.

Question: Who is the founder of the 19th-century school of Neo-Impressionism?

Answer: Georges Seurat was the founder of the 19th-century French school of Neo-Impressionism, whose technique for portraying the play of light using tiny brushstrokes of contrasting colors became known as Pointillism. Using this technique, he created compositions with small detached strokes of pure color too small to be distinguished when looking at the entire work but making his paintings shimmer with brilliance.

Question: Which school of painting was founded by the Mongol Il-Khans in the early 14th century?

Answer: Tabrīz school in painting is a school of miniaturists founded by the Mongol Il-Khans early in the 14th century and active through the first half of the 16th century. The style represented the first full penetration of East Asian traditions into Islamic painting, an influence that was extreme at first but then blended with the native idiom.

Question: Who is known as the father of European painting?

Answer: Giotto was the most important Italian painter of the 14th century, whose works point to the innovations of the Renaissance style. For almost seven centuries, Giotto has revered as the father of European painting and the first of the great Italian masters. He is believed to have been a pupil of the Florentine painter Cimabue and to have decorated chapels in Assisi, Rome, Padua, Florence, and Naples with frescoes and panel paintings in tempera.

Question: Name the form of painting that depicts Christian sacred personages or events.

Answer: Icon, in Eastern Christian tradition, a representation of sacred personages or events in mural painting, mosaic, or wood. It is a representation of sacred personages or events in mural painting, mosaic, or wood. After the Iconoclastic Controversy of the 8th–9th century, which disputed the religious function and meaning of icons, the Eastern Church formulated the doctrinal basis for their veneration: since God assumed the material form in the person of Jesus Christ, he could be represented in pictures.

Question: Name the type of painting technique done by mixing pigments with hot liquid wax.

Answer: Encaustic painting is a painting technique in which pigments are mixed with hot liquid wax. Artists can change the paint’s consistency by adding resin or oil to the wax. After the paint has been applied to the support, which is usually made of wood, plaster, or canvas, a heating element is passed over the surface until the individual brush or spatula marks fuse into a uniform film. This “burning in” of the colors is an essential element of the true encaustic technique.

Question: Who coined the term "Post-Impressionism" for a French art movement?

Answer: In Western painting, Post-Impressionism was an art movement in France that represented both an extension of Impressionism and a rejection of that style’s inherent limitations. The term Post-Impressionism was coined by the English art critic Roger Fry for the work of such late 19th-century painters as Paul Cézanne, Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and others.

Question: Which of these art forms is practiced primarily in East Asia?

Answer: Scroll painting is an art form practiced primarily in East Asia. The two dominant types may be illustrated by the Chinese landscape scroll, which is that culture’s greatest contribution to the history of painting, and the Japanese narrative scroll, which developed the storytelling potential of painting.

Question: Name the term to describe a figure that stands with one leg holding its full weight and the other leg relaxed.

Answer: Contrapposto, in the visual arts, is a sculptural scheme, originated by the ancient Greeks, in which the standing human figure is poised such that the weight rests on one leg, freeing the other leg, which is bent at the knee. With the weight shift, the hips, shoulders, and head tilt, suggesting relaxation with the subtle internal organic movement that denotes life. Contrapposto may be used for draped as well as nude figures. The Greeks invented this formula in the early 5th century BC as an alternative to the stiffly static pose in which the weight is distributed equally on both legs that had dominated Greek figure sculpture in earlier periods.

Question: Which artistic movement grew principally out of the earlier Dada movement?

Answer: Surrealism was a movement in visual art and literature, flourishing in Europe between World Wars I and II. Surrealism grew principally out of the earlier Dada movement, which before World War I produced works of anti-art that deliberately defied reason; but Surrealism’s emphasis was not on negation but the positive expression.

Question: In the quarrel of color versus drawing, what are the supporters of the supremacy of disegno (“drawing”) over color called?

Answer: Poussinist are any of the supporters of the supremacy of disegno (“drawing”) over color in the “quarrel” of color versus drawing that erupted in the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris in 1671. The quarrel was over the preeminent importance of drawing (i.e., the use of line to depict form) or color in the art of painting.

Question: To which artistic movement does Paul Gauguin’s The Yellow Christ belong?

Answer: French painter Paul Gauguin was one of the earliest practitioners of cloisonnism, a post-Impressionist style characterized by vivid areas of color separated by dark contour lines.

Question: In which year did the German art organization Die Brücke begin?

Answer: Die Brücke, an art organization of German painters and printmakers that from 1905 to 1913 played a pivotal role in the development of Expressionism. The group was founded in 1905 in Germany by four architectural students in Dresden—Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, who gave the group its name, Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.

Question: What was the subject of the earliest known paintings?

Answer: The paintings in the Lascaux caves in France of 15,000 years ago were of bison, antelope, mammoths, and other migratory animals.

Question: Name the art group formed from the initials of the founders'' home cities

Answer: COBRA, an Expressionist group of painters whose name is derived from the first letters of the three northern European cities—Copenhagen, Brussels, Amsterdam, that were the homes of its members. COBRA included among its members Karel Appel, Corneille, Constant Nieuwenhuis, Pierre Alechinsky, Lucebert, and Jean Atlan. COBRA had a great impact on the development of subsequent European Abstract Expressionism.

Question: Who is the creator of the famous sculptures The Thinker and The Kiss?

Answer: French sculptor Auguste Rodin is the creator of the two famous sculptures, "The Thinker" and "The Kiss." "The Thinker" is a pensive nude male sculpture by Rodin. It is a 6-foot (1.8-metre) bronze statue (commonly called a monumental) cast in 1904 that sits in the gardens of the Rodin Museum in Paris and his marble statue "The Kiss" (1886), once considered inappropriate for public viewing, is today a centerpiece of the Rodin museum.

Question: Who designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial?

Answer: Maya Lin, an American sculptor and architect, created the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Question: Which school of the visual arts flourished in Prague under the patronage of Charles IV?

Answer: The Bohemian school of the visual arts flourished in and around Prague under the patronage of Charles IV, king of Bohemia from 1346 and Holy Roman emperor from 1355 to 1378. The Bohemian tradition in architecture and a distinctive independent style in painting had an important influence on 14th-century late Gothic art, especially that of Germany. The most significant achievements of the Bohemian school were in fresco and panel painting.

Question: Which American artist was a pioneer of Abstract Expressionism?

Answer: Jackson Pollock was an American painter who was a leading exponent of Abstract Expressionism. During his lifetime, he received widespread recognition for the radical poured, or drip technique that he used to create his works. He is also one of the first American painters to be recognized during his lifetime and after as a peer of 20th-century European masters of modern art.

Question: What school of painting flourished under the Timurid ruler Shāh Rokh?

Answer: Herāt school was a 15th-century style of miniature painting that flourished in Herāt, western Afghanistan, under the patronage of the Timurids. Timurid ruler Shāh Rokh, the son of the Islāmic conqueror Timur (Tamerlane), founded the school, but it was his son Baysunqur Mīrzā (died 1433), who developed it into an important center of the painting, bringing to his court artists from all over Persia and Afghanistan.

Question: Which ornamental art style flourished between 1890 and 1910 throughout Europe and the United States?

Answer: Art Nouveau is an ornamental style of art that flourished between about 1890 and 1910 throughout Europe and the United States. It is characterized by its use of a long, sinuous, organic line and was employed most often in architecture, interior design, jewelry and glass design, posters, and illustration.

Question: Which American filmmaker is also known as one of the originators of the assemblage form of sculpture?

Answer: Joseph Cornell was an American self-taught artist and filmmaker and one of the originators of the form of sculpture called assemblage, in which unlikely objects are joined in an unorthodox unity. He is known for his shadow boxes, collages, and films.

Question: Which French painter is called the leader of the Realist movement?

Answer: Gustave Courbet was a French painter and leader of the Realist movement. Courbet rebelled against the Romantic painting of his day, turning to everyday events for his subject matter. His huge shadowed canvases with their solid groups of figures, such as The Artist’s Studio (1854–55), drew sharp criticism from the establishment. From the 1860s, a more sensuous and colorful manner prevailed in his work.

Question: What is Chinese landscape painting called?

Answer: Jinbi shanshui (Chinese: “gold-bluegreen landscape”) is a style of Chinese landscape painting that prevailed during the Sui (581–618) and Tang (618–907) dynasties. In this style, a rich decorative effect was achieved by the application of two mineral colors, azurite blue, and malachite green, together with gold, to a fine line drawing.

Question: The motto "Art for art''s sake" belongs to which art movement?

Answer: The phrase "Art for art''s sake" was coined by philosopher Victor Cousin in France, 1818, when Aestheticism was gaining popularity in France. Aestheticism began in the late 19th-century, which centered on the doctrine that art exists for the sake of its beauty alone and that it need serve no political, didactic, or other purposes.

Question: During whose reign did the Carolingian art begin?

Answer: Carolingian art began during the reign of Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne (768–814), and thereafter until the late 9th century. Charlemagne’s dream of a revival of the Roman Empire in the West determined both his political aims and his artistic program. His strong patronage of the arts gave impetus to a remarkable return to Roman classicism in the copying of Early Christian models and the influence of contemporary Byzantine and Greco-Roman styles.

Question: Name the church where Leonardo da Vinci''s famous fresco the "Last Supper" is painted.

Answer: "Last Supper" one of the most famous artworks in the world, painted by Leonardo da Vinci probably between 1495 and 1498, for the Dominican monastery Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. It depicts the dramatic scene described in several closely connected moments in the Gospels, including Matthew 26:21–28. According to Leonardo’s belief that posture, gesture, and expression should manifest the “notions of the mind,” each one of the 12 disciples reacts in a manner that Leonardo considered fit for that man’s personality. The result is a complex study of varied human emotion, rendered in a deceptively simple composition.

Question: Which sculptor is best known for his colossal Statue of Freedom?

Answer: Neoclassical sculptor, Thomas Crawford best known for his colossal Statue of Freedom, which was posthumously cast and hoisted atop the dome of the Capitol in Washington D.C. in 1863. Crawford had completed his plaster model for the 19.5-foot- (5.9-metre-) tall Statue of Freedom sculpture when he died suddenly at age 43. The model, which was shipped by boat in five pieces from Rome to Washington, D.C., was finally cast in bronze in 1862, and, weighing 15,000 pounds (6,800 kg), was installed in pieces atop the Capitol dome in 1863.

Question: The Kishangarh painting belongs to which state of India?

Answer: Kishangarh painting is an 18th-century school of the Rājasthanī style of Indian painting that arose in the princely state of Kishangarh (central Rājasthān state). The school is clearly distinguished by its individualistic facial type and its religious intensity. The sensitive, refined features of the men and women are drawn with pointed noses and chins, deeply curved eyes, and serpentine locks of hair.

Question: Which Buddhist portraiture was developed by the Zen sect in 1200?

Answer: Chinsō, in Japanese art, is a type of Buddhist portraiture developed especially by the Zen sect about 1200. Chinsō were official pictures of high ecclesiastics, usually posed seated in a chair and dressed in their official robes. These intimate portraits show great technical mastery and meticulous execution. Simple, sober colors give a highly refined harmony.

Question: Which art movement flourished in Zurich, Switzerland, during the early 20th century?

Answer: Dada, the nihilistic and antiaesthetic movement in the arts that flourished primarily in Zürich, Switzerland; New York City; Berlin, Cologne, and Hannover, Germany; and Paris in the early 20th century. Dada did not constitute an actual artistic style, but its proponents favored group collaboration, spontaneity, and chance. In the desire to reject traditional modes of artistic creation, many Dadaists worked in collage, photomontage, and found-object construction, rather than in painting and sculpture.

Question: What does the Venus of Brassempouy represent?

Answer: The Venus of Brassempouy is one of the oldest known representations of the human head. It is a fragment of what was once a larger figurine, and is probably about 25,000 years old.

Question: Which artist is known as the creator of Cubism?

Answer: Pablo Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century and the creator (with Georges Braque) of Cubism. Picasso and Braque worked together closely during the next few years (1909–12), the only time Picasso ever worked with another painter in this way and, they developed what came to be known as Analytical Cubism.

Question: Who was the teacher of Leonardo da Vinci?

Answer: Andrea del Verrocchio was a 15th-century Florentine sculptor and painter and the teacher of Leonardo da Vinci. His equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni, erected in Venice in 1496, is particularly important. Verrocchio’s reputation was widespread in the second half of the 15th century and many well-known artists of the Italian Renaissance studied painting and sculpture at his Florentine studio. The most important of his students were Leonardo da Vinci and Perugino, the latter Raphael’s teacher.

Question: Which art movement, first in painting and later in music, developed in France during the late 19th and early 20th centuries?

Answer: Impressionism, a major movement first in painting and later in music, developed chiefly in France during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Impressionist painting comprises the work produced between about 1867 and 1886 by a group of artists who shared a set of related approaches and techniques. In music, it was to convey an idea or affect through a wash of sound rather than a strict formal structure.

Question: Name the type of sculpture that represents a person dying or in death.

Answer: Gisant in sepulchral sculpture is a recumbent effigy representing the person dying or in death. The typical gisant depicts the deceased in “eternal repose,” awaiting the resurrection in prayer or holding attributes of office and clothed in the formal attire of his social class or office.

Question: Who is the founder of the Rayonism art movement?

Answer: Russian art movement Rayonism was founded by Mikhail F. Larionov representing one of the first steps toward the development of abstract art in Russia. Larionov exhibited one of the first Rayonist works, "Glass," in 1912 and wrote the movement’s manifesto that same year, which though was not published until 1913.

Question: What did I.M. Pei design outside the Louvre, in Paris?

Answer: Made of glass and metal and designed by I.M. Pei, a pyramid stands before the Louvre, the famed museum in Paris, France.