Great Works of Art and Their Workers Quiz

Answer: Michelangelo

Art doesn't get much loftier than the Sistine Chapel's ceiling, painted by Michelangelo. The chapel was built in the Vatican between 1477 and 1480 and was named after Pope Sixtus IV. Michelangelo painted the ceiling between 1508 and 1512. It includes nine scenes from the Book of Genesis.

Answer: Unknown

The Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave in southern France was discovered in 1994 by three speleologists (cave specialists). It is full of cave paintings that carbon dating techniques have revealed are approximately 30,000 years old. The paintings include images of lions, rhinos, and deer, as well as many abstract lines and dots.

In 2014, UNESCO granted it World Heritage site status for its archeological importance.

Answer: Edward Hopper

"Nighthawks" is probably Edward Hopper's best known work. He created the oil painting, which features people in a late night diner, in 1942. Highly influential, the painting has been depicted in plays, literature, film, and television.

Answer: Hokusai

Katsushika Hokusai created the woodblock print, "The Great Wave off Kanagawa", sometime around the 1820s-1830s. It is an image of a large wave tossing small boats, with the great Mt. Fuji in the background. He studied under a bookseller and engraver before becoming a woodblock print artist.

Answer: Seurat

Georges Seurat painted "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" in 1884. A pointillist painting, it is full of tiny, singular dots placed to create images on the canvas. In 1974, the Art Institute of Chicago purchased the painting for its collection.

Answer: Van Gogh

After one of many psychotic episodes he suffered in his 37 years of life, Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh checked himself into a psychiatric hospital near Provence in 1889. From there, he painted "Starry Night," an oil painting depicting the view of a starry night and a small village. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound a year later.

Answer: Klimt

Austrian painter Gustav Klimt used silver and gold leaf touches on his oil painting "The Kiss," which he painted from 1907-1908. The painting, which shows a couple draped in robes embracing, is housed in a gallery in Vienna's Upper Belvedere Palace.

Answer: Picasso

Spanish painter Pablo Picasso painted "Guernica" to depict the bombing of that Basque village in 1937. At the time of the bombing, most of the men of the city were in battle elsewhere, so the victims were largely women and children. Over 11 feet tall and over 25 feet wide, the painting is the size of mural.

Although Spanish rulers wanted to bring the painting to Spain, Picasso fought that, saying that he would only allow it after Spain became a democracy. After his death, eventually this was sorted out and the moving depiction of the worst elements of war is now housed in Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid.

Answer: da Vinci

It is believed that Leonardo da Vinci's painted "Mona Lisa" in the early 16th century. The model was Lisa del Giocondo, a member of a prominent Italian family and wife of a wealthy silk merchant. At only 30 by 21 inches, it was small enough for a thief to stuff it under his shirt when it was stolen from the Louvre in 1911.

It was returned to the museum three years later. It is now housed behind bullet-proof glass.

Answer: Munch

Norwegian artist Edvard Munch created several versions of "The Scream," an agonized human figure with an open mouth, hands over ears, under an orange, wavy sky. He created four versions, two in oil and two in pastels. Munch had a diary entry describing the inspiration for the image:

"I was walking along the road with two friends - the sun was setting - suddenly the sky turned blood red - I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence - there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city - my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety - and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature." - Nice, 22 January 1892