Art History Quiz: Identifying Artists and Movements
1.The term “sublime” was considered to inspire which of the following feelings?
Awe mixed with terror
2.Which of the following artists represented what was called the “sublime” in eighteenth-century art?
Henry Fuseli
3.In Courbet’s The Stonebreakers it has been said that he reveals to the viewer the drudgery of manual labor. What technique did he use to convey this message?
Use of a palette of dirty browns and grays
4.Rosa Bonheur in her most famous work, The Horse Fair has depicted the power and strength of the Percherons. The dramatic lighting, loose brushwork, and rolling sky reveal her admiration for which of the following artists.
Géricault
5.Thomas Eakins was an artist who had a desire to portray things as he saw them and not as the public might want them portrayed. Which of the following is one of his works that demonstrated this?
The Gross Clinic
6.Which of the following artists had firsthand knowledge and experience of the American Civil War Winslow Homer
7.The French viewing public were greatly horrified by Manet’s Olympia not only because of the portrayal of a naked prostitute as a work of art but also due to which of the following?
Her look of cool indifference and shamelessness
8. How did Bouguereau depict fictional themes or mythological subjects in his paintings? Through the use of polished illusionism/Through the use of radical representation/Through the use of rough techniques/Through the use of non-traditional representation
9. Muybridge used his device, the zoopraxiscope to project a series of images. Based on the motion studies he performed, Muybridge proved that the brain holds whatever the eye sees for a fraction of a second after the eye stops seeing it. The illusion of motion was created. Which of the following was also created as a result of the illusion of motion?
The illusion of continuous change
10. Sargent, an expatriate American artist living and working in London, developed a style of applying paint in thin layers in order to create a quick and lively illusion. He learned this technique after studying which of the following works?
Las Meninas
11. The mood in The Thankful Poor by Tanner is one of quiet devotion, not far removed from the Realism of which of the following artists?
Millet
12.In Rossetti’s Beata Beatrix, the model for this image was the artist’s wife, Elizabeth Siddal. She died shortly before Rossetti began the panting. He incorporated two symbols commemorating her death. Which of the following is one of those symbols?
Red dove
13.Courbet preferred to paint which of the following themes?
Realistic scenes as he saw them
14.Which of the following artists was most concerned with painting realistic scenes of poor and oppressed peoples?
Courbet
15.Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa represents which of the following?
The aftermath of a nineteenth-century French shipwreck and was considered an attack on government ineptitude
16.La Madeleine in Paris was intended for which of the following purposes?
A temple of glory for Napoleon’s armies
17.François Rude’s sculpture La Marseillaise for the Arc de Triomphe represents which of the following moments in French history?
The birth of individual freedoms in the country
18.The great “Romantic dialogue” about color and form was carried on in the famous contest between which of the following artists?
Delacroix and Ingres
19. Which of the following artists painted in the United States?
a. Friedrich
b. Constable
c. Turner
d. Cole
20. Timothy O’Sullivan documented which of the following wars?
American Civil War
21. Who among the following artists liked to paint images of the Romantic transcendental landscape?
Friedrich
22. Which of the following conditions is characteristic of the 19th century agrarian working class and is missing from the Haywain by Constable?
Civil unrest
23. What did Thomas Eakins believe was a prerequisite for his art?
a. knowledge
b. poetry
c. fortune
d. support
24.Who studied with Eakins before moving to Paris?
Tanner
25. Julia Margaret Cameron used a short focal length lens that allowed only a small area of sharp focus. What kind of effect would a lens like this produce?
Ethereal, dreamlike images
1.In The Night Café, the artist has shown us a benign scene yet the scene has a sense of charged energy and oppressive atmosphere. How did the artist communicate this?
Through us of vivid hues whose juxtaposition augmented their intensity
2.Antonio Gaudi longed to create an architectural style that was both modern and appropriate for his native country of Spain. How does Casa Milá represent his ability to conceive a building as a whole and mold it almost as a sculptor would create a figure from clay?
It is a squared structure sheathed in concrete
3.In Klimt’s The Kiss, the artist has captured the flamboyance and decadence of the period. How was this painting a visual manifestation of the fin de siècle?
It captured a decadence conveyed by opulent and sensuous image
4.Which of the following influenced Degas in his technique of using spatial projections and off-center empty space to create illusion and direct the viewer’s attention into the picture?
18th century Japanese woodblock prints
5. William Morris helped to shape the Arts and Crafts movement through his support of high quality craftsmanship and design based on natural forms. Which of the following artists was also a member of the Arts and Crafts movement?
Louis Comfort Tiffany
6.The Burghers of Calais expresses the emotions of despair, defiance, and resignation. Rodin has captured these emotions in the roughly textured surfaces of the figures. He wanted the citizens of Calais to experience this heroic episode in their city’s history. Which of the following was a device Rodin used to create the pathos of this heroism?
No traditional high base placed the monument eye-to-eye and closer to the viewers
7.Which of the following ideas did Vincent van Gogh attempt to communicate in his Starry Night?
Vastness of the universe
8. Which of the following artists was most concerned with painting realistic scenes of poor and oppressed peoples?
Courbet
9.Monet’s Rouen Cathedral is a series that observed the same viewpoint during which of the following?
Different times of the day
10.Cassatt’s style of work owes much to which of the following?
Japanese prints
11.Which of the following architects conceived the building as a whole and molded it almost as a clay sculpture?
Antonio Gaudi
12.Extreme subjectivity and the need to see through reality to a deeper reality was most typical of which of the following styles?
Symbolists
13.Which of the following artists is categorized as a Symbolist?
Redon
14.What is the most important feature of Sullivan’s Prudential Building that distinguishes it from earlier structures?
The reflection of the subdivision of the interior spaces in the outer structure
15.Berthe Morisot focused her work in the only area allowed her as a woman in upper-class French society. Which of the following was that area?
Domestic scenes
16.Which of the following artists explored the properties of light, plane, and color and their interrelationships?
Cézanne
17. Which of the following artists presented a sumptuous and sensual image in Jupiter and Semele?
Moreau
18.Who was a denizen of the night world of Paris, consorting with the tawdry population of entertainers, prostitutes and other social outcasts?
Toulouse-Lautrec
19. Who said: “Instead of trying to reproduce exactly what I have before my eyes, I use color more arbitrarily so as to express myself forcibly . . . I have tried to express the terrible passions of humanity by means of red and green . . .”?
Van Gogh
20.Who said: “I want to make of Impressionism something solid and lasting like the art in the museums”?
Cézanne
21.Georges Seurat differed from the Impressionist painters in which of the following ways?