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Quiz about Hanging Around the Muse dOrsay
Quiz about Hanging Around the Muse dOrsay

Hanging Around the Musée d'Orsay Quiz


While the Louvre may be a name which is more familiar as a Paris art museum, if you want to explore (mostly) French painters working in the second half of the 19th century, the Musée d'Orsay, located in a former railway station, is the one to visit.

A photo quiz by looney_tunes. Estimated time: 4 mins.
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Author
looney_tunes
Time
4 mins
Type
Photo Quiz
Quiz #
391,203
Updated
Dec 03 21
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Easy
Avg Score
8 / 10
Plays
604
Awards
Top 5% quiz!
Last 3 plays: Guest 50 (7/10), Guest 1 (5/10), Guest 107 (8/10).
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Question 1 of 10
1. 'The Gleaners' was painted in 1857 by Jean-François Millet, who is known for using peasant farmers as the subject matter for much of his work. He was one of the founders of a painting school, named after a village near which a group of the artists worked. What was this group called? Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. When Édouard Manet's painting, then titled 'Le Bain' ('The Bath'), was rejected in 1863 after he submitted it to the Paris Salon, the official annual exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, he decided to join with a number of other innovative artists whose works had been rejected to participate in an alternative show called the Salon des Refusés. This exhibition was one of the pivotal moments in establishing the reputations of the artists who were to become known as members of which movement? Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. Edgar Degas started out as an historical painter, but, influenced by Édouard Manet, he changed to contemporary subjects, such as the café patrons shown here, in a painting originally produced in 1873, but which received its current title, 'L'Absinthe' ('The Absinthe Drinker' or 'Glass of Absinthe'), when it was displayed in London in 1893. Although it is typical of Degas's style, it is not typical of his subject matter. Which of these were the subject of over half of his paintings, prints and drawings? Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. The 1876 painting 'Bal du moulin de la Galette' ('Dance at the Moulin de Galette') shows patrons of the mill engaged in activities typical of a Sunday afternoon there - dancing, eating (especially the cakes called galettes, made from flour ground at the mill) and drinking, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. Its painter may be better known for his later focus on nudes, but this is typical of his earlier 'en plein air' work. Which Impressionist produced this painting? Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. 'Le Repos au bord d'un ruisseau. Lisière de bois' ('Rest Along the Stream. Edge of the Wood') was painted in 1878 by a painter who had been born (of English parents) and raised in France, where he spent most of his life. Which of these was it? Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. The 1879 painting 'Châtaigniers à Louveciennes' ('Chestnut Grove at Louveciennes') was produced by a painter known as a leading member of both the Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist movements. Indeed, his decision to abandon Impressionism is sometimes seen as defining the end of that movement. Camille Pissarro is often called the Father of Impressionism, and is identified by most as a French painter. However, his first years of professional painting were carried out in which far-removed country? Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. This 1888 painting titled 'Starry Night over the Rhône' was painted while Vincent van Gogh was living in Arles, staying at the Yellow House a few minutes' walk from the river. A more famous sequel, 'The Starry Night', was painted in 1889. Where was van Gogh residing when he painted it? Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. 'Le Cerq' ('The Circus') was the third painting from Georges Seurat in a circus-themed series. His final painting, it was still unfinished at the time of his death. Like much of his work, it is composed of only primary colors, applied in dots to create the image, a fuller range of colors being produced by the appropriate placement of the dots. What was this technique derisively named by its early critics? Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. When I tell you that the title of this 1891 painting is 'Tahitian Women on the Beach', you will probably have a good idea who painted it, even if you did not instantly recognise his style. Which Post-Impressionist painter spent the last years of his life in French Polynesia, where he died on 8 May 1903? Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. Paul Cezanne painted 'Apples and Oranges' in 1899, as one of a series of six paintings in what genre? Hint



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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. 'The Gleaners' was painted in 1857 by Jean-François Millet, who is known for using peasant farmers as the subject matter for much of his work. He was one of the founders of a painting school, named after a village near which a group of the artists worked. What was this group called?

Answer: The Barbizon School

Inspired by the work of Constable in England, a number of painters felt that they should be concentrating on the countryside and rural scenes. As a rule, their work features the use of natural features as the subject of the work, not just a background. Millet usually included rural laborers (changing the earlier emphasis of most paintings from the rich and powerful members of society to the ones who provide its solid base), but many of them just produced studies of the scenery and animals.

The village of Barbizon, located close to the forest of Fontainebleau, made an ideal base for them to work.

This movement thrived from roughly 1830 through 1870.
2. When Édouard Manet's painting, then titled 'Le Bain' ('The Bath'), was rejected in 1863 after he submitted it to the Paris Salon, the official annual exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, he decided to join with a number of other innovative artists whose works had been rejected to participate in an alternative show called the Salon des Refusés. This exhibition was one of the pivotal moments in establishing the reputations of the artists who were to become known as members of which movement?

Answer: Impressionism

Although Manet did not consider himself an Impressionist, and did not participate in any of the explicitly Impressionist exhibitions, he was considered a pivotal figure in establishing the movement, primarily because of this painting, now known as 'Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe' ('Luncheon on the Grass').

While it does show some of the traits of Impressionism (including the fact that brushstrokes were left visible, and the use of light as a significant element of the painting), it is also clearly based on more classical works.

However, his inclusion of a nude woman just casually eating a meal with two men was considered scandalous - that is not the way the female nude was supposed to be displayed in paintings! His was one of the most controversial inclusions in the Salon des Refusés, and brought the work of the other artists to public attention in a way that helped establish the new movement.
3. Edgar Degas started out as an historical painter, but, influenced by Édouard Manet, he changed to contemporary subjects, such as the café patrons shown here, in a painting originally produced in 1873, but which received its current title, 'L'Absinthe' ('The Absinthe Drinker' or 'Glass of Absinthe'), when it was displayed in London in 1893. Although it is typical of Degas's style, it is not typical of his subject matter. Which of these were the subject of over half of his paintings, prints and drawings?

Answer: Dancers

Degas is usually grouped with the Impressionists, with whom he was good friends, but he did not agree with their emphasis on working outdoors, and painting quickly, although he did participate in most of their exhibitions. He planned his work carefully, often with extensive preparatory sketches.

His work uses slightly unusual angles in its portrayal of people, introducing elements of tension in the relationships between figures which suggest that the scene is part of a larger story. While he did paint a lot of horses and jockeys, he is best known for the dancers, primarily ballet dancers.

He found their classical costumes gave him a chance to play with light and color in a very satisfying way. His first major work to feature dancers was 'Mlle. Fiocre in the Ballet "La Source"', which was in the 1868 Salon.
4. The 1876 painting 'Bal du moulin de la Galette' ('Dance at the Moulin de Galette') shows patrons of the mill engaged in activities typical of a Sunday afternoon there - dancing, eating (especially the cakes called galettes, made from flour ground at the mill) and drinking, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. Its painter may be better known for his later focus on nudes, but this is typical of his earlier 'en plein air' work. Which Impressionist produced this painting?

Answer: Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Renoir's early work made him one of the leading figures in the Impressionist movement. This painting (or a smaller one with the same title, which may have been the original one) was part of the Third Impressionist Exhibition in 1877. The painting at the d'Orsay is larger than the one now in a private collection, and slightly less freely painted in its brushwork, which suggests he may have produced it later, in the studio, based on the original painted on site. Then again, stories about how much difficulty he had making it stay in place in the wind suggest that the larger one may be the original. In either case, the painting is often cited as a typical example of Impressionism.

If you are not a fan of Impressionist art, you may still have recognised the surname, since his son Jean and his grandson Claude (nephew of Jean) were both distinguished filmmakers. Claude's father Pierre had a long acting career, and his uncle Claude was an artist who worked in ceramics.
5. 'Le Repos au bord d'un ruisseau. Lisière de bois' ('Rest Along the Stream. Edge of the Wood') was painted in 1878 by a painter who had been born (of English parents) and raised in France, where he spent most of his life. Which of these was it?

Answer: Alfred Sisley

Sisley's father was a wealthy merchant, and the painter's early years had no financial concerns. In 1870, however, the business failed, and Sisley had to depend on his painting for his living - times became distinctly tougher, with a common-law wife and two children to support.

The forest to which this painting's title refers is the forest of Fontainebleau (where the Barbizon school worked a generation earlier), near which the Sisleys were living, in the village of Moret-sur-Loing. A few years before he painted this, Sisley also produced a number of paintings along the Thames while he was visiting England, which are considered to capture his style in brief. Whether in England or in France, he maintained his desire to portray the interaction of light and shadow in natural scenes.
6. The 1879 painting 'Châtaigniers à Louveciennes' ('Chestnut Grove at Louveciennes') was produced by a painter known as a leading member of both the Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist movements. Indeed, his decision to abandon Impressionism is sometimes seen as defining the end of that movement. Camille Pissarro is often called the Father of Impressionism, and is identified by most as a French painter. However, his first years of professional painting were carried out in which far-removed country?

Answer: Venezuela

Pissarro was born of French parents on the then-Danish island of St Thomas in 1830. He was sent to France to study, where he became familiar with the French masters, and learned technical drawing and painting skills. After school he returned to St Thomas, where he went to work in his father's business, using all his spare time to practice his art work.

At the age of 21 he was persuaded to leave his job and move to Venezuela by the Danish painter Fritz Melbye. Two years later he moved to Paris, where he got work with an art dealer while he continued to develop his technique.

While studying with Camille Corot, he became a big fan of 'plein air' painting, and shared that with other painters, including Claude Monet, Armand Guillaumin and Paul Cézanne, who were to form the nucleus of the Impressionist movement. Pissarro was part of the famous Salon des Refusés in 1863. Due to his Danish citizenship, he was forced to move to England during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870.

By the time he returned to France in 1890, he had started exploring the Neo-Impressionist technique known as pointillism, which was a technique of very constructed painting using dots of paint to create the image. That year is traditionally given as the end of Impressionism, which emphasised the use of free brush strokes to quickly construct a painting that conveyed the effect of light on the subject, as a formal movement.
7. This 1888 painting titled 'Starry Night over the Rhône' was painted while Vincent van Gogh was living in Arles, staying at the Yellow House a few minutes' walk from the river. A more famous sequel, 'The Starry Night', was painted in 1889. Where was van Gogh residing when he painted it?

Answer: The Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence

His brother Theo was a significant person in van Gogh's life, both because he believed in him and because he regularly provided financial assistance. While Theo did move to a Paris suburb to be nearby, Vincent did not stay with Theo at any time during the productive final years of his life. His time in the Yellow House, so described when it was the subject of a painting, saw the start of his major output, some of it while he was sharing the house with Paul Gauguin; during 15 months, he produced over 200 oil paintings at least 100 drawings and watercolor paintings that we know of. It was then that he produced the painting used in the question, in which (as he explained in a letter he wrote to Theo at the time) he tried to explore the difference between starlight and the newly-developed gas lighting in their effects on the night sky. Shortly after he finished it, he had a massive argument with Gauguin, and the infamous ear-cutting-off incident occurred. Not too long after that he voluntarily placed himself in an asylum so his depression could be treated. While there, he continued painting, and created some of his most famous works, including 'The Starry Night'.

After leaving the asylum, he spent his final months (still producing roughly a painting a day) living in an inn called the Auberge Ravoux ('Auberge' being French for an inn, and Ravoux the surname of the man who ran it). It was there that he died, several days after being fatally shot in the stomach. His death has been the subject of much debate - usually described as suicide, it has been speculated that it may have been due to a shooting accident.
8. 'Le Cerq' ('The Circus') was the third painting from Georges Seurat in a circus-themed series. His final painting, it was still unfinished at the time of his death. Like much of his work, it is composed of only primary colors, applied in dots to create the image, a fuller range of colors being produced by the appropriate placement of the dots. What was this technique derisively named by its early critics?

Answer: Pointillism

Although the title was originally scornful, it was embraced by those practitioners of Neo-Realism who adopted it. Seurat was the chief of these, and his massive painting 'Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte' ('A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Le Grande Jatte'), painted between 1884 and 1886, is usually designated as the beginning of the movement.

The subject of "The Circus' was a performance at the Circus Fernando, located near Seurat's studio in Montmartre. This circus had been used as a subject by a number of other painters, including Renoir, Degas, and Toulouse-Lautrec. Seurat had previously used it for 'Parade' ('Circus Sideshow') painted in 1887-8 and 'Le Chahut' ('The Can-Can') in 1889-90. Had he not died of an unidentified illness at the age of 31, it is likely he would have returned to this theme, as the color and activity of the circus were perfectly suited to his work.
9. When I tell you that the title of this 1891 painting is 'Tahitian Women on the Beach', you will probably have a good idea who painted it, even if you did not instantly recognise his style. Which Post-Impressionist painter spent the last years of his life in French Polynesia, where he died on 8 May 1903?

Answer: Paul Gauguin

If you have been taking this tour in its entirety, you may recall that Paul Gauguin had a fairly disastrous visit with Vincent van Gogh in 1888. It was in 1891 that he fulfilled a longtime dream of visiting the South Pacific, spending two prolific years in Tahiti before returning to Paris in 1893.

He continued to draw on his Tahitian experiences, but found his work poorly received, despite one moderately successful showing, so returned to Tahiti in 1895. In 1901, in pursuit of even more primitive society to provide him with inspiration, he moved to the Marquesas Islands, specifically to Hiva-Oa, where he worked until his death in 1903.
10. Paul Cezanne painted 'Apples and Oranges' in 1899, as one of a series of six paintings in what genre?

Answer: Still Life

In the 17th century, art critics decreed that there were five genres (main types) of painting: historic (depicting famous historic or mythical events), portrait (paintings of people), landscape (portrayals of nature, not usually including humans, and with any human presence essentially inconsequential), genre painting (scenes of everyday life), and still life. Their relative status was in the order listed. (Don't ask me to explain why genre painting is a genre - let's just say that careful use of non-confusing terminology was not on their list of priorities.)

Cezanne, one of the originators of Impressionism as a participant in the 1863 Salon des Refusés, also produced a number of still life paintings, which many associate more instantly with his name than some of his earlier work. While he painted still life subjects at various times, it was during the 1890s that he produced the series for which he is most famed. They all use similar components, arranged differently. The jug, dishes and the cloth used as a drapery can still be seen on display in the studio where he worked, which is now a museum.
Source: Author looney_tunes

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor ponycargirl before going online.
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