Art Appreciation Quizzes
Visual Literacy
The ability to read, write, and comprehend visual language:
False
Conceptual art is composed of its basic elements: color, line, composition, and texture. These elements constitute the fundamental language used by art critics to examine and analyze works of art. (true or false)
Prehistory
Ritual artifacts and standing stones from the foggy years before written history
The Age of Discovery
Trans-continental travel open art to global influence
Futurism
Umberto Boccioni, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913)
Historical Context
Understood as the events, or the climate of opinion, that surround the issue at hand
The Information Age
1960 to the Present
Earth art
Robert Smithson Spiral Jetty (1970)
Semiotics
The study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation
The Industrial Age
A loud, dirty, dangerous and ugly mechanical solution to sleek mass reproduction that births concepts like leisure, consumption, museums, a thriving middle class, and Modernity (Modern art movements)
Seeing
A mental process of perception, involves recognizing or connecting the information the eyes take in with your previous knowledge and experiences in order to create meaning. This requires time and attention.
Hieratic Scaling
A system used to visually communicate power in ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian art, and used through the middle ages. Important people, whether a pharaoh or the Virgin Mary, were depicted as much larger than other figures in a scene
Chiaroscuro
A technique depicting the subtle transitions from light to dark that were developed during the Renaissance, where a strong light source, and the contrast between light and dark creates a powerful impression of three-dimensionality
Impressionism
Aimed to capture the momentary, sensory effect of a scene
Futurism
Celebrated advanced technology and urban modernity. Its members wished to destroy older forms of culture and to demonstrate the beauty of modern life - of the machine, speed, violence and change
e
Cultural heritage: Choose the incorrect a. helps determine what is worthy of being preserved for future generations and what is not b. a set of cultural objects or traditions from the past c. helps us to remember our cultural diversity d. something that is inherited and reflective of values and traditions e. consist of money or property
Renaissance Art
Cultural rebirth through intellectual inquiry
Modernism
Dada, Cubism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Performance Art, Earth Works, Minimalism, Conceptualism, Surrealism
Expressionism
Edvard Munch, The Scream (1893)
Minimalism
Donald Judd Untitled (1965)
True
Form = visual and content = message (true or false)
True
Formal properties refer to the essential elements of design and the principles by which they are arranged for the purpose of effect and to make relational meaning (true or false)
False
Formalism is the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. (true or false)
Gothic Art
From the vantage point of the Latin-speaking elite, the ornate decoration and opulence of this style certainly seemed grotesque
The Middle Ages
Gothic Art, Romanesque, Byzantine Art
Surrealism
Hoped to access powerful ideas by going beyond conscious thought.
What kinds of colors do you see? How would you describe them?
In the analyzing step of visual literacy, which of the following questions does NOT belong to this specific category:
Why did the artist create this artwork?
In the describing step of visual literacy, which of the following questions does NOT belong to this specific category:
Renaissance Art
In the early 15th century, in Florence Italy
Do you think that the work(s) has a benefit for others?
In the interpretation step of visual literacy, which of the following questions does NOT belong to this specific category:
Do you think there are things in the artwork that represent other things/symbols?
In the judgement step of visual literacy, which of the following questions does NOT belong to this specific category:
Cultural Heritage
Includes tangible culture (such as buildings, monuments, landscapes, books, works of art, and artifacts), intangible culture (such as folklore, traditions, language, and knowledge), and natural heritage (including culturally significant landscapes, and biodiversity)
Interpret
Last step in visual literacy, combines our descriptions and analysis with our previous knowledge and any information we have about the artist and the work; allows us to draw conclusions about the image
Dada
Marcel Duchamp, Fountain (1917)
Representational
Naturalism
Non-objective
Non-representational
Representational
Objective
Cubism
Pablo Picasso, Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon (1907)
Surrealism
Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory (1931)
Iconography
Symbolic representation, especially the conventional meanings attached to an image or images
Earth Art
The movement originated from the rise of environmental awareness and the Conceptual and Minimalist ideas in postmodernism.
Fauvism
These "wild beasts" were a loosely allied group of French painters with shared interests
Gothic Art
This name for the movement initially meant to insult, a reference to the Germanic tribes who sacked Rome and effectively ushered in the European dark ages
Describe
This step can help you to identify and organize your thoughts about what you have seen; includes the visual facts.
Realism
Though never a coherent group, this movement is recognized as the first modern movement in art
b
What is the pertinent negative in the image of this figurine? Select one: a. the sculpture is made of marble, a kind of stone b. the figure has no head, hands, or functioning feet c. the figure is abstract d. the sculpture is a female figure
False
When attempting to read and artwork, cultural context is not critical to understanding and artwork. (true or false)
d
Which of the following was not one of the six attributes of "good" art in the Middle Ages? Select one: a. Art that would illuminate the hidden meanings of the cosmos b. Images that would evoke predictable responses from an illiterate population c. Visual representation of sacred Christian texts d. Three-dimensional illusion of space
Avant-garde
new and unusual or experimental ideas, especially in the arts, or the people introducing them
Form
refers to a work's style, techniques and media used, and how the elements of design are implemented
Naturalism
refers to the depiction of realistic objects in a natural setting
Media/medium
refers to the materials that are used to create a work of art
Figurative
representing forms that are recognizably derived from life
Contemporary Art
the art of today, produced in the late 20th century or in the 21st century
Content
the essence or "aboutness" or the subject matter of an artwork
Composition
the nature of something's ingredients or constituents; the way in which a whole or mixture is made up
Art history
the study of human produced objects and images in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style
Aesthetics
the study of the philosophy of beauty
Zeitgeist
Is a German word, translating roughly to 'time mind' and is used in aesthetics to describe the inextricable connection between art and culture
Material History
Is an interdisciplinary field telling of relationships between people and their things
False
Optical color mixing is the actual color of an object (as defined by the wavelength of light it reflects). (true or false)
The Middle Ages
500 - 1400
Beauty
A combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight
Earthwork
An artistic work that consists of a large-scale alteration or modification of an area of land in a configuration designed by an artist or of an artist's sculptural installation, as in a museum or gallery, of soil, rock, or similar elemental materials
Modernism
An evolving set of ideas among a number of painters, sculptors, writers, and performers who - both individually and collectively - sought new approaches to art making
Camera obscura
A darkened box with a convex lens or aperture for projecting the image of an external object onto a screen inside. It is important historically in the development of photography
Romanesque Art
A revival of classical Roman styles
The Information Age
A shift from traditional industry to the commodification of information via the internet and computerization leading to globalization, transportation, and the internet
Venus
A statuette of a female figure, usually carved of ivory and typically having exaggerated breasts, belly, or buttocks, often found in Upper Paleolithic cultures from Siberia to France
The Age of Discovery
1400 - 1800
The Industrial Age
1800 - 1945
Romanticism
1800-1860's
Modernism
1870 - 1960
Analyze
An opportunity to consider how the figures, objects and settings you identified in your description fit together to tell a story
The Ancient World
3000 BCE - 500
Prehistory
40000 BCE - 300 BCE
Henge
A type of Neolithic monument of the British Isles, consisting of a circular area enclosed by a bank and ditch and often containing additional features including one or more circles of upright stone or wood pillars: probably used for ritual purposes or for marking astronomical events, as solstices and equinoxes
Post-Impressionism
A wide range of distinct artistic styles that all share the common motivation of responding to the opticality of the Impressionist movement
Conceptualism
Abandoned beauty, rarity, and skill as measures of art
False
According to the reading, seeing an image is similar to skimming a text while looking at an image is comparable to reading it. (true or false)
Idealism
Affirms imagination and attempts to realize a mental conception of beauty, a standard of perfection, juxtaposed to aesthetic naturalism and realism
Divine proportions
Also known as the Golden Ratio, this way of using math to arrange compositions and structures is a balance or fraction derived from the observation of pattern in nature and design which is both aesthetically appealing and functional
Minimalism
An approach to art - principally sculptural - which stressed anonymous, industrial manufacturing and austere, geometric forms.
Linear perspective
An artistic innovation of the early Renaissance that recreates the 3-dimensional illusion on two-dimensional surfaces using the mathematical application of a grid in space
Pop art
Andy Warhol, Campbell's Soup Cans, 1962
Expressionism
Announced new standards in the creation and judgment of art. Art was now meant to come forth from within the artist, rather than from a depiction of the external visual world, and the standard for assessing the quality of a work of art became the character of the artist's feelings rather than an analysis of the composition.
True
Appropriation is the use of pre-existing objects or images with little or no transformation applied to them. (true or false)
Conceptualism
Art need not look like a traditional work of art, or even take any physical form at all
Romanticism
Artistic revolt against the Age of Enlightenment reflecting the pining to access something more human than just reason and logic
Expressionism
Artists often employed swirling, swaying, and exaggeratedly executed brushstrokes in the depiction of their subjects. These techniques were meant to convey the turgid emotional state of the artist reacting to the anxieties of the modern world.
Abstract expressionism
Autumn Rhythm (Number 30) | Jackson Pollock
True
Avant-garde: new and unusual or experimental ideas, especially in the arts, or the people introducing them (true or false)
Realism
Beginning in France in the 1840s, this movement revolutionized painting, expanding conceptions of what constituted art
Expressionism
Developed a powerful mode of social criticism in their serpentine figural renderings and bold colors. Their representations of the modern city included alienated individuals - a psychological by-product of recent urbanization - as well as prostitutes, who were used to comment on capitalism's role in the emotional distancing of individuals within cities
Minimalism
Born when a loosely affiliated group of New York-based artists began to question the boundaries between multiple media and to express the basic materiality of art objects
True
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information that may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient as determined by governments, media outlets, authorities or other groups or institutions. (true or false)
d
Choose the incorrect response: In the visual arts the formal properties a. are a tool for visual analysis b. are what the viewer can see c. includes observations about scale, composition, pictoral space, form, line, color, light, tone, texture, pattern d. are Artist, Title, Date, Medium
Pop art
During the post-WWII American consumer commodity boom
Expressionism
Emerged simultaneously in various cities across Germany as a response to a widespread anxiety about humanity's increasingly discordant relationship with the world and accompanying lost feelings of authenticity and spirituality
Expressionism
Employed swirling, swaying, and exaggeratedly executed brushstrokes in the depiction of their subjects. These techniques were meant to convey the turgid emotional state of the artist reacting to the anxieties of the modern world
False
En Plein air is when the artist seeks to impart a mood or feeling through manipulation of the color; also known as arbitrary color. (true or false)
Cubism
Explored open form, piercing figures and objects by letting the space flow through them, blending background into foreground, and showing objects from various angles. Some historians have argued that these innovations represent a response to the changing experience of space, movement, and time in the modern world.
Icon
Greek for "image" or "painting" and during the medieval era, this meant a religious image on a wooden panel used for prayer and devotion
Historical Context
Helps to understand an artwork's urgency, its importance, its formation, or even its timing
False
Insider art is art produced by artists without formal training, especially by ones who work in an idiosyncratic style and are relatively isolated from mainstream artistic trends. (true or false)
Dada
Intent on incorporating chance into the creation of works of art. This went against all norms of traditional art production whereby a work was meticulously planned and completed
Cultural Heritage
Is the legacy of physical artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations
Impressionism
Its originators were artists who rejected the official, government-sanctioned exhibitions, or salons, and were consequently shunned by powerful academic art institutions
Impressionism
Loosened their brushwork and lightened their palettes to include pure, intense colors, unfinished appearance and seemingly amateurish quality
Fauvism
Major contributions to modern art was its radical goal of separating color from its descriptive, representational purpose and allowing it to exist on the canvas as an independent element
Fauvism
Members shared the use of intense color as a vehicle for describing light and space, and who redefined pure color and form as means of communicating the artist's emotional state
The Ancient World
Mesopotamia, Ancient China, Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Rome
The Industrial Age
Modernism, Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Pointillism, Expressionism, Photography, Cubism
Abstract expressionism
Monumental in scale, romantic in mood, and expressive of individual freedom
False
Objective color is when you create paint colors not by mixing them on the palette (or physically), but through knowledge of color theory and how the eye perceives colors that abut or overlay each other. (true or false)
Romanesque Art
Of or relating to a style of architecture developed in Italy and western Europe between the Roman and the Gothic styles and characterized in its development after 1000 by the use of the round arch and vault, substitution of piers for columns, decorative use of arcades, and profuse ornament
Prehistory
Paleolithic Era, Mesolithic Era, Neolithic Era
True
Pertinent negative is the absence of a specific detail or behavior that is as critical as stating the details and behaviors that are present (true or false)
The Information Age
Pop Art, Abstract Expressionism, Arte Povera, Lowbrow, Photorealist
True
Principles of Design include: line, shape, color, form, value, texture, space (true or false)
Post-Impressionism
Rather than merely represent their surroundings, they relied upon the interrelations of color and shape to describe the world around them
True
Readymade: ordinary manufactured objects that the artist Marcel Duchamp selected and modified, as an antidote to what he called "retinal art". (true or false)
Surrealism
Shared Dada's anarchic rejection of bourgeois values, and called for a revolution of the mind. Influenced by Freudian theories on the unconscious, dreams, desire, and repression André Breton called on artists to bypass reason by accessing their unconscious via automatism or dreams
Post-Impressionism
Rejecting interest in depicting the observed world, they instead looked to their memories and emotions in order to connect with the viewer on a deeper level
The Age of Discovery
Renaissance, Mannerism, Baroque, Rococo, the Enlightenment, Neoclassicism
Realism
Replaced the idealistic image and literary conceits of traditional art with real-life events, giving the margins of society similar weight to grand history paintings and allegories
Conceptualism
Sol LeWitt Serial Project #1 (ABCD) (1966)
False
Subject matter: also known as form (true or false)
Abstraction
Subjective
False
Subjective Color is the act of painting outdoors in contrasts with studio painting or academic rules that might create a predetermined look. (true or false)
False
The Elements of Design include: harmony, unity, balance, emphasis, movement, rhythm, variety, proximity, illusion (true or false)
True
The Impressionists were a group of revolutionary painters responding to the philosophical impact of the camera on art. Because the camera was black and white, the Impressionists explored color in relationship to painting. (true or false)
Cubism
The artists abandoned perspective, which had been used to depict space since the Renaissance, and they also turned away from the realistic modeling of figures.
Culture
The attitudes and behavior characteristic of a particular social group
Anthropomorphic Representation
The attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities
Zeitgeist
The defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time
Byzantine Art
The development of Christian icons, churches and artwork throughout Europe and modern-day Turkey
Byzantine Art
The dominant visual language in Europe for much of the Middle Ages
The Middle Ages
The fall of classical culture leads to feudalism and gothic religion
Dada
The first conceptual art movement where the focus of the artists was not on crafting aesthetically pleasing objects but on making works that often upended bourgeois sensibilities and that generated difficult questions about society, the role of the artist, and the purpose of art
learning to see
The first step in learning to appreciate art is ...
The Ancient World
The invention of written language to the fall of the Roman Empire
Material History
The making, function, history, preservation, and interpretation of objects
Futurism
The most important Italian avant-garde art movement of the twentieth century arising from interactions with French Cubist ideas and a general desire for progress
Abstract expressionism
The most influential movement in post-war abstract painting, this movement flourished in New York, establishing America over Paris as the post-war leader of modern art.
Earth art
The movement introduced site-specificity to the art world using natural spaces and materials such as stones, water, gravel, and soil. Influenced by prehistoric artworks such as Stonehenge.
True
The post impressionists continued to explore how the human mind perceives color optically and psychologically. (true or false)
Observing
The process of building a catalog of visual elements - and is the bridge between looking and seeing:
Romanticism
The scale and the awe of nature became an ideal subject matter to express the inner life, the imagination and what it means to be human - a part of creation rather than separate from it.
Pop art
Visual vocabulary merged high art and popular culture, blending and elevating advertising, celebrity, and cartoons to the status of art
Style
a "...distinctive manner which permits the grouping of works into related categories". or "...any distinctive, and therefore recognizable, way in which an act is performed or an artifact made or ought to be performed and made"
Earth Art
a movement that uses the natural landscape to create site-specific structures, art forms, and sculptures
Design
a plan or drawing produced to show the look and function or workings of a building, garment, or other object before it is built or made; the art or action of conceiving of and producing
Craft
an activity involving skill in making things by hand; work or objects made by hand; skill
Art
an introspective language, communicative of the human experience
Artifact
an object made by a human being, typically an item of cultural or historical interest
Modern Art
artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1960s, and denotes the styles and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in the spirit of experimentation
Folk Art
encompasses art produced from an indigenous culture or by formally untrained; primarily utilitarian and decorative
Architecture
the style in which a building is designed or constructed, reflective of a specific period, place, or culture