63 Questions from Britannica’s Most Popular Visual Arts Quizzes

Question: The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was painted by:: Answer: Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel between 1508 and 1512.

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: Who designed the Hagia Sophia?: Answer: The cathedral was built at Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) in the 6th century CE (532–537) under the direction of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I.

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: Which fashion designer is credited with having launched the skinny silhouette for menswear in the 2000s?: Answer: Hedi Slimane was head creative director at Dior Homme from 2000 to 2007, during which time he launched skinny menswear, a trend that transformed the fashion world.

Question: Who painted Guernica?: Answer: Pablo Picasso’s mural painting Guernica (named for the Basque town bombed in 1937 by the Fascists) was commissioned by the Republican government for the Spanish pavilion at the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris. Its imagery is vivid: the gored horse, the fallen soldier, and screaming mothers with dead babies (representing the bullfight, war, and female victims, respectively) were employed to condemn the useless destruction of life, while at the same time the bull represented the hope of overcoming the unseen aggressor, fascism.

Question: Which of these women was associated with the nihilistic art movement called Dada?: Answer: Hannah Höch was among the women associated with Dada, the nihilistic movement in the arts that flourished primarily in Zurich, Switzerland; New York City; Berlin, Cologne, and Hannover, Germany; and Paris in the early 20th century. It favoured group collaboration, spontaneity, and chance.

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: What prolific female architect merged Modernism and populism in works she built largely in Brazil?: Answer: The multitalented Italian-born Lina Bo Bardi was an architect among many other things. She made Brazil her home for several years.

Question: Which artist is known for self-portraits?: Answer: Each of these artists is known for many self-portraits—Rembrandt in the 17th century, van Gogh in the 19th century, and Sherman in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Question: This artist has the reputation for painting the same subject over and over again.: Answer: Monet painted series of paintings depicting the same subject such as haystacks, water-lilies, and the Rouen cathedral.

Question: Pablo Picasso was born in France.: Answer: Pablo Picasso was born in Malaga, Spain. He lived in Paris and other parts of France for much of his working life as a famed artist, however.

Question: Which artist invented the ready-made?: Answer: Dada artist Marcel Duchamp came up with the concept of the ready-made, a mass-produced object presented as art. He presented his most notorious ready-made in 1917, a porcelain urinal titled Fountain and signed “R. Mutt.”

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

Question: Peter Fabergé was famous for eggs.: Answer: Peter Fabergé was famous for exquisite and ingenious masterpieces of jewelry and china. Best known were his imperial Easter eggs. Tsar Alexander III of Russia commissioned the first egg in 1884.

Question: Which artist died of a drug overdose at age 27?: Answer: American artist Basquiat, known for his graffiti-like paintings, died of a heroin overdose in 1988.

Question: Who was the first American artist to make welded metal sculpture?: Answer: David Smith’s pioneering welded metal sculptures and massive painted geometric forms made him the most original American sculptor in the decades after World War II.

Question: Which artist’s first name was Claude?: Answer: Monet’s first name was Claude.

Question: Titian was the great painter of which city in Italy?: Answer: Titian (1488/90–1576) is considered the greatest Renaissance painter of Venice.

Question: Of what material is the spire of the Chrysler Building in New York City made?: Answer: The Chrysler Building is topped by a sunburst-patterned stainless steel spire. This skyscraper was completed in 1930 in New York City.

Question: Who designed Hearst Castle?: Answer: Julia Morgan, one of the most prolific and important woman architects ever to work in the United States, designed Hearst Castle.

Question: Jean Nouvel: Answer: Jean Nouvel was the recipient of the 2008 Pritzker Architecture Prize.

Question: Monet and his paintings are most closely associated with the region of Aix-en-Provence, France.: Answer: Cezanne, not Monet, is the painter most closely identified with Aix-en-Provence. Monet’s art is instead associated with the French village Giverny, where the artist spent the last half of his life.

Question: Francesco Borromini: Answer: Italian architect Francesco Borromini designed the San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane church in Rome.

Question: Whose self-portrait features the artist with a thorn necklace adorned with a hummingbird?: Answer: Frida Kahlo’s Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940) features the artist with a thorn necklace adorned with a hummingbird. Kahlo was best known for her uncompromising and brilliantly coloured self-portraits that deal with such themes as identity, the human body, and death.

Question: Who is generally regarded as the greatest artist of the German Renaissance?: Answer: Albrecht Dürer is the painter and printmaker generally regarded as the greatest German Renaissance artist. His vast body of work includes altarpieces and other religious works, numerous portraits and self-portraits, and copper engravings.

Question: Which style of painting uses water-based pigments on freshly applied plaster?: Answer: In the fresco method of painting, the colours, which are made by grinding dry-powder pigments in pure water, dry and set with the plaster to become a permanent part of a wall or other surface.

Question: For what is Henry Moore best known?: Answer: Henry Moore’s organically shaped, abstract bronze and stone figures constitute the major 20th-century manifestation of the humanist tradition in sculpture. Among his major commissions were sculptures for UNESCO headquarters in Paris (1957–58), for Lincoln Center in New York City (1963–65), and for the East Building of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (1978).

Question: Renaissance artists looked to which ancient civilization for inspiration?: Answer: Italian artists of the Renaissance looked back to the artists and philosophers of ancient Greece and strove to revive the spirit and aesthetics of Classical antiquity.

Question: Which family became the greatest patrons of the arts during the Renaissance?: Answer: The Medici were great patrons of the arts, primarily in Florence, and were a political dynasty for most of the period from 1434 to 1737.

Question: Jacopo Robusti painted under the name Jackson Pollock.: Answer: Renaissance painter Jacopo Robusti grew up working in his father’s dye factory. His professional name, Tintoretto, means “the little dyer.” The American painter Jackson Pollock was active in the mid-20th century.

Question: Which Abstract Expressionist is known for a series of some 150 works collectively entitled Elegies to the Spanish Republic?: Answer: In 1949 American artist Robert Motherwell painted the first in a series of works collectively entitled “Elegy to the Spanish Republic.” He painted almost 150 of these Abstract Expressionist paintings in the next three decades.

Question: The paper dress was a short-lived fad in which decade?: Answer: The paper dress came into fashion in the late 1960s. It was made of inexpensive disposable materials and was meant to be discarded after a few wearings.

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: Helen Frankenthaler: Answer: American Helen Frankenthaler was an abstract expressionist painter.

Question: The Seagram Building was designed by a team of architects. Who were they?: Answer: The Seagram Building was designed by Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson.

Question: The name for which type of trousers originated in Genoa, Italy?: Answer: The word jeans originates from “Gene fustian,” meaning “a type of twill cloth from Genoa (Italy).” It was then shortened to Gênes and eventually became jeans.

Question: Jan van Eyck: Answer: Flemish painter Jan van Eyck was famous for his oil painting.

Question: Which Spanish painter of Greek descent acquired in Italy the nickname by which he is known?: Answer: El Greco never forgot that he was of Greek descent and usually signed his paintings in Greek letters with his full name, Domenikos Theotokopoulos. He is nevertheless generally known as El Greco (“the Greek”), a name he acquired when he lived in Italy, where identifying a man by his country or city of origin was a common practice.

Question: Which artist made sculptures of writers Victor Hugo and Honoré de Balzac?: Answer: Rodin made bronze portrait sculptures of Hugo and Balzac in the late 19th century.

Question: What term is used to describe the fixing of pigments with heated wax?: Answer: In encaustic painting, pigments are mixed with hot liquid wax, and, after all the colours have been applied to the painting surface, a heating element is passed over them until the individual brush or spatula marks fuse into a uniform film.

Question: Who painted the highly controversial Luncheon on the Grass (1863)?: Answer: Manet created the painting of the two men having a picnic with a naked woman. When it was exhibited in 1863, it horrified the critics but enchanted the young painters who rallied around him and went on to launch the Impressionist movement.

Question: Which fashion designer ushered in the New Look for womenswear in the late 1940s?: Answer: Christian Dior introduced the New Look in 1947. The New Look paired form-fitting tops with very full skirts, which, together, exaggerated a woman’s waist.

Question: Louise Blanchard Bethune: Answer: Louise Blanchard Bethune was the first professional woman architect in the United States.

Question: Which term describes a dress with a triangular silhouette?: Answer: An A-line dress or skirt is a structured garment that is fitted at the top and extends out, forming the shape of an A.

Question: Which artist invented pointillism?: Answer: In the late 1880s Georges Seurat invented pointillism: the practice of applying small strokes or dots of color to a surface so that from a distance they visually blend together. His most-famous pointillist painting is A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884.

Question: Which artist designed a flying machine?: Answer: Designs for a flying machine much like the modern-day helicopter were found in Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks. He called it the “helical air screw.”

Question: A garment wrapped around the body and tucked in at the waist or the armpits is called what?: Answer: A wrapped garment is a sarong and can be worn either at the waist as a skirt or at the armpits as a full-length dress.

Question: Who painted the mural Last Supper in a monastery in Milan?: Answer: Leonardo da Vinci painted his Last Supper on a wall in the Dominican monastery Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan probably between 1495 and 1498.

Question: Who painted a self-portrait that features the artist with a bandaged ear, with a Japanese print of Mount Fuji visible in the background?: Answer: Vincent van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear (1889) features the artist with a bandaged ear; a Japanese print of Mount Fuji is visible in the background. His main intention with the work may have been to reassure his brother that his physical and mental health were improving.

Question: What great Ottoman architect designed the Mosque of Süleyman I the Magnificent?: Answer: Inspired by the Hagia Sophia, Sinan designed the Mosque of Süleyman I the Magnificent (1550–57).

Question: With which printmaking technique is 18th-century artist Francisco de Goya associated?: Answer: Aquatint became the most popular method of producing toned prints in the late 18th century, especially among illustrators. Its textural subtleties, however, remained largely unexplored by well-known artists except for Francisco de Goya. Most of his prints are aquatints, and he is considered the greatest master of the technique.

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: Andrea Mantegna: Answer: Andrea Mantegna was a painter and engraver of the Italian Renaissance.

Question: The French painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was also an Olympic athlete.: Answer: Toulouse-Lautrec suffered from health problems that left him disabled for most of his life. Deprived of the kind of life that a normal body would have permitted, the painter lived wholly for his art.

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.

Question: A duffle coat is fastened with what?: Answer: Duffle coats, worn by men and women, are woolen coats fastened with toggles that fit through loops, usually made of leather.

Question: Who painted a watercolour portrait featuring the artist’s sister and niece sitting on a divan with an unfinished background?: Answer: Berthe Morisot’s The Artist's Sister, Edma, with Her Daughter, Jeanne (1872) features the artist’s sister and niece sitting on a divan with an unfinished background. Morisot was an artist’s muse as well as an artist herself, frequently posing for Édouard Manet.

Question: Which artist or architect is credited with mastering the design and construction of the dome?: Answer: Brunelleschi was the architect and engineer who invented machines and a vaulting system to construct the dome of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (the Duomo) in Florence (1420–36).

Question: Who painted a portrait of a young woman, who may have been the mistress of the artist’s patron, with a pet ermine?: Answer: Leonardo da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine (c. 1489–91) featured a young woman with a pet ermine. The woman may have been Cecilia Gallerani, the mistress of Leonardo’s patron, Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan.

Question: Bichitr was an Indian painter in the 17th century Mughal court.: Answer: Bichitr painted in the Mughal court under Emperors Jahangir and Shah Jahan.

Question: Which artist’s primary medium was the quilt?: Answer: Faith Ringgold is known for her story quilts, many of which have a political or social message.