Pictures at an Exhibition - Music, Maestro Quiz

Answer: James Whistler

Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) was a Dutch Abstract painter. Some titles of his that can be viewed in this room in our imaginary exhibition: "Composition in Red, Yellow and Blue" (1921); "Rhythm of Straight Lines" (1942) and "Broadway Boogie Woogie" (1943).
Arshille Gorky is the pseudonym of the Armenian artist Vosdanig Adoian (1904-1948). After having fled to the USA, Gorky adopted the American nationality and his pseudonym. His artworks include a painting entitled "Staten Island" and a pencil drawing of Elaine De Kooning, the wife of Willem De Kooning.
Hergé is the pseudonym of Georges Remy (1907-1983), the Belgian author of the comic books "Tintin". The only link with classical music in this cartoon series is the soprano Bianca Castafiore, who frequently bursts out in the "Jewel Aria" out of the opera "Faust" by Charles Gounod (1818-1893). Whenever Bianca Castafiore starts singing, glasses explode by the vibrations. Oh, incidentally: I've left out the accent on the second "e" to avoid confusing displays in flash mode.
The correct answer is James Abbott McNeil Whistler (1834-1903), an American Impressionist painter.
The subtitle of "Arrangement in Grey and Black Nr. 1" is "Portrait of the Artist's Mother", but it is inevitably named "Whistler's Mother". This painting shows us a Puritan retired lady, dressed in chaste black, sitting before a wall painted in grey. The only decoration visible in the painting is a landscape made by Whistler himself (but some years earlier), depicting (for as much you could recognise it) some London quays on the Thames.
There have been various interpretations on this painting. Whistler was reputed a rake, quite the opposite of his mother. And yet we sense in this painting a sort of reverence to Whistler's mother and her Puritan, austere (even a bit ascetic) way of life.

Answer: Jane Avril

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) was born in a family of nobility. Toulouse-Lautrec suffered from severe health problems, partly inherited. Therefore he didn't launch himself in the normal activities of the "noblesse", but started a painting career. His paintings frequently depict the "Moulin Rouge" and other Parisian night clubs.
Josephine Baker (born Freda Josephine McDonald, 1906-1975) was born in the USA. In 1925 she moved to France and later adopted French nationality. She is famous for her dance act at the Parisian night club "Les Folies Bergères", dressed in a skirt of banana leaves.
Anna Pavlova (1881-1931) was perhaps the best known Russian ballerina. Her master act is "The Dying Swan", based on music by Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921). As far as I know, she never performed in a night club or cabaret.
Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) was not a dancer, but an American Impressionist painter. She specialised in painting mothers with their children.
Jane Avril is the artist name of a French can-can dancer born as Jeanne Beaudon (1868-1943). She started working at the Moulin Rouge in 1889, and replaced in 1895 the star dancer La Goulue (Louise Weber, 1866-1929). Both Jane Avril and La Goulue were frequently portrayed by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The 1893 poster shows us Jane Avril performing as a can-can dancer.

Answer: Thomas Gainsborough

Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782) was the youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). Johann Christian Bach left us hundreds of compositions, of which 91 are symphonies (although there is some doubt on the authenticity of almost half of them).
The portrait to which I refer shows us a man with a grey wig. He turns his head to the spectator and is dressed in a blue shirt (with many ruffs) and a brown coat, as was fashionable in 1776.
Did you already find out the painter's first name is Thomas? Well done, but this will not help you pick the right answer.
Let's start with Thomas Lawrence - probably the least famous of those four artists. Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) was a British portrait painter. As you see, he was too young to portray Johann Christian Bach in 1776.
Thomas Sheraton (1751-1806) was not a painter, but a furniture designer. A neoclassical style of furniture was named after him. The Sheraton hotel chain however was not named after him.
Thomas Chippendale (1718-1779) was another famous furniture designer and cabinet maker. His style reconciles Rococo and Neoclassical elements. Chippendale, too, gave his name to a style of interior decoration. Don't confuse Thomas Chippendale with the erotic performers "The Chippendales".
The painter whom we are looking for is Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788). He made several portraits as well as a few landscapes. His best known work is probably the "Blue Boy" (1770) - a teenager dressed in a blue costume, and with a detached expression on the face.

Answer: Saint Cecilia

Domenichino (born Domenico Zampieri, 1581-1641) was a prolific Italian painter. He excelled in religious and mythical paintings.
Domenichino's fresco shows us a classical Roman interior. On the right sits a man, apparently the judge, dressed in a scarlet gown and white pants (quite uncommon for a Roman). He points his finger to the girl in the centre of the painting, dressed in a light blue gown. At the left side, a young man dressed in a green loin cloth brings in a ram. The man with the ram would be identified as a slave, if it weren't for his laurel crown - which is the classic attribute of an Olympic champion, and only free men were allowed to compete at the Olympics.
If you are fond of classical music, you will know certainly where some of the options I gave came from. Mind you: every one of the given options is a real saint, albeit that some don't appear on the official calendar anymore.
Let's start with Saint Matilda. She was the mother of the German Emperor Otto the Great. Matilda was notorious for her charity. She is *not* related to the Mathilda in the Australian song "Waltzing Mathilda". Saint Matilda is venerated March 14th and she patronizes large families.
Saint Thais was born in Alexandria, Egypt. After a sinful life she entered a convent and did extreme penance for three years. Her name day is October 8th. The opera "Thais" by Jules Massenet (1842-1912) was based upon a theatre play by Anatole France (1844-1924) inspired by the life of Saint Thais. By the way, there was also a Greek prostitute by the name of Thais in the Fourth Century BC.
Saint Regina was a martyr in France during the Second Century. She was beheaded for her refusal to marry a pagan. Her feast day is September 7th. Opera fanatics will be tempted to see a link with the choir "Regina Coeli" out of Pietro Mascagni's opera "Cavalleria Rusticana". However, the aria to which I refer sings the glory of Our Lady, Queen of Heaven (what can be translated in Latin as "Regina Coeli").
Saint Cecilia lived in Rome in the beginning of the Third Century. Having converted many pagans to Christianity, she would have been persecuted. (However, there is no record of persecution of Christians in that era). According to legend, Saint Cecilia was to be suffocated in the baths. When this torture didn't have any effect, an executioner tried to chop off her head. However, her head and body couldn't be separated, and she bled to death over three days, preaching and consoling other Christians. Saint Cecilia is venerated on November 22nd.

Answer: Alvar Aalto

Oscar Niemeyer (born 1907) is a Brazilian architect. He designed many of the official buildings in Brazil's new capital Brasilia, set out on a ground plan designed by Niemeyer's friend Lucio Costa. The project took off in 1956 and was completed in 1960.
Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723) was evidently not a Finn, but one of the most renowned British architects. After the Great Fire of London (1666), Wren started reconstruction. His masterpiece is the St. Paul's Cathedral.
Jorn Utzon (born in 1918) is a Danish architect. He is best known for the Opera House in Sydney, Australia (1957-1973).
The Finnish architect we were looking for is Alvar Aalto (1898-1976). He designed the Essen Opera House between 1959 and 1974, but construction started only posthumously, in 1986. Aalto's widow Elissa (1922-1994) supervised the construction, while the general contractor was the German Harald Deilmann (1920-2008). The Essen Opera House is a quite large building in white or grey shades. The roof resembles a rolled up scroll.

Answer: Johannes Vermeer

"Girl Interrupted" shows us a young woman reading notes. A lute lies near by. A young man hands a letter to the girl, who is apparently startled by the content of this letter.
Claus Sluter (1340-1405) was a Belgian or Dutch sculptor (in that time there was not yet a country named Belgium, and nationalities were rather vague). He is best known for his "Moses Well" in the Carthusian convent in Champmol, near Dijon.
Antonio Moro (1519-1576) was a Dutch painter. He was born Antoon Mor van Dashorst, but during his life in Italy he adopted a more Italian sounding alias. He worked in the Netherlands (including, at that time, Belgium and part of Northern France), Italy, Spain, Portugal and England. Most of his paintings are portraits of family of Emperor Charles V, his most important advisors and their families.
Frans Hals (1580-1666) was a prolific Dutch painter. He made portraits, religious paintings, genre pieces, and some allegories. In this room of the imaginary exhibition you would find his tableaux "Singing Boy with a Flute", "Buffoon Playing a Lute", and perhaps "Malle Babbe" - a portrait of a waitress in an inn who gave her nickname to a song by Rob De Nijs.
The painter we were looking for is Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675). Typical of his style of painting is the background: interiors (mostly drawing rooms) of typical Dutch upper middle class houses. He usually depicted one or more young women in such a setting. Vermeer's master piece is "Girl with the Pearl Earring" (1665).

Answer: Pablo Picasso

The painting to which I refer, shows us a red curtain. In front of the curtain stands a harlequin in very vivid attire: something that resembles a child's sleeping suit, but is made for an adult, and is brightly coloured (green, black, yellow, purple, bluish). The harlequin holds a music instrument that might be a guitar, but I think this might be some sort of lute (with a rectangular angle in the far end).
As is customary in Spanish families, this artist inherited two family names: the family name of his father and that of his mother. So his complete family name was Ruiz y Picasso. You'll need only his mother's family name, Picasso, in the answer here.
Picasso disposes however of an unusual number of first names. I'll give here all of his Christian names, each one preceded by a number between brackets: (1) Pablo (2) Diego (3) José (4) Francisco (5) de Paula (6) Juan (7) Nepomuceno (8) Maria (9) de los Remedios (10) Cipriano (11) de la Santisima Trinidad. I do pity his wives Olga Kokhlova and Jacqueline Roque for trying to remember Picasso's full name....
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was one of the founders of the Cubist movement in art. His masterpiece is "Guernica" (1937). Many paintings by Picasso feature a harlequin in chequered costume.

Answer: Modest Mussorgsky

Ilya Repine (1844-1930) was a Russian painter. He completed many portraits as well as paintings on historic or religious subjects.
Repine's portrait of the composer we're looking for, shows us a man with barely combed hair and a black beard and moustache. The sitter is dressed in a very dark green coat with a red collar. (Why don't these people consult a fashion advisor? Red and green make a terrible combination!)
Lev Tolstoy (1828-1910) was not a composer, but a Russian author. Tolstoy's masterpieces are "Anna Karenina" and "War and Peace". Repine portrayed him in 1887.
Boris Godunov (1551-1605) was Tsar of Russia from 1598 until his death. Alexander Pushkin made a theatre play on Godunov's life, and Mussorgsky composed an opera based upon this theatre play.
Kazimir Malevich (1878-1935) was a Russian painter. One of Malevich' typical paintings is his abstract composition "Suprematism" (1927): a white canvas on which a black horizontal rectangle superposes a red vertical rectangle, thus establishing a two-coloured cross.
The only Russian composer mentioned in the options I gave was Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881). Besides "Pictures at an Exhibition" and "Boris Godunov", his compositions include the opera "Khovanshchina" (named after a popular Russian fairy tale) and "Sorotjinskaja Yarmarka" ("The Fair at Sorochyntsi").

Answer: Gustave Moreau

Antonio Canova (1757-1822) was a prolific Italian sculptor. He was inspired for many of his statues by classical mythology. One of his finest sculptures is "Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss".
Baccio Bandinelli is the artist's name for Bartolomeo Brandini (1488-1560). He was an Italian sculptor who took his inspiration also from classical myth. Another famous sculpture of his is "Laocoon" - after the Greek original made in the Second Century before Christ.
Ossip Zadkine (1890-1967) was born in Russia, but he adopted French nationality. He was a sculptor and is best known for his statue "Destroyed City" in Rotterdam - a commemorative of the Nazi bombing of this city in 1940.
Of the four artists I've mentioned, only Gustave Moreau (1826-1898) made a painting of Orpheus. Moreau was a French Symbolist painter. In his painting "Orphée" he depicts the dying Orpheus, reunited with the predeceased Eurydice.

Answer: Edouard Manet

The "Young Flautist" to which I refer is dressed in a dark blue jacket and red trousers. Furthermore he wears a dark blue beret with a yellow sash.
The Zouaves started as French regiments in North Africa (Algeria, Morocco...) In 1866, when the painting was made, there were also Zouave regiments in Italy (the elite regiments of the Papal States) and in the USA. Soon afterward, Zouave regiments arose in Turkey and in Poland.
Every Zouave regiment consisted of very young unmarried soldiers. The combination of youth and lack of family responsibilities made them reckless and fierce fighters.
Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) was active in France, but did not have French nationality (in spite of what several sources state). He was born in the Virgin Islands and hence had Danish nationality.
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) was a French Post-Impressionist painter. His earliest works date from 1881, so well after the painting I've described in this question.
So you have to pick the right answer between Monet and Manet - a classical situation for every one who plays quizzes...
Well, Claude Monet (1840-1926) made several nice paintings of outdoor life (a series of haystacks in different times of the day, a series of the Cathedral of Rouen in different weather types, and - most impressive of all - a large series of water lilies in his garden at Givenchy.) But the only men in uniform he ever named a painting after were "Infantry Guards Wandering along the River" (1870). There might of course appear some sailors on his various riparian paintings.
It was Edouard Manet (1832-1883) who painted this "Young Flautist" well known by people interested by the Impressionists. Other, better known works of Manet include "Olympia" and "Luncheon on the Grass".

On line sources for this quiz include the Web Gallery of Art, Webmuseum, Naxos, Operone, Calendar of Saints and Wikipedia. Furthermore I've consulted the Encarta Encyclopaedia, the BBC television series "Private Life of a Masterpiece", and the following books: "Le Petit Larousse", "Verschueren Encyclopedisch Woordenboek", "World History" by Carl Grimberg et alii, and "7000 Years of World History" edited by Lekturama Rotterdam.