The Art and the Artist Trivia Quiz

Answer: Peter Rubens

"Daniel in the Lion's Den" is an oil on canvas painting done sometime between 1614 and 1616. The painting is seven by ten feet tall. Peter Rubens studied the lions at a zoo in Ghent and a royal menagerie in Brussels. He wanted the painting to reflect drama and emotion.

Answer: John Copley

"Watson and the Shark" is an oil on canvas painting done in 1778. The painting depicts the true story of fourteen year old Watson, who was bitten by a shark in 1749 Cuba. Watson asked John Copley to paint his story thirty years after the attack occurred.

The painting made Copley famous. The original 1778 version can be found at the National Gallery of Art. Copley also painted a copy of "Watson and the Shark" for himself. It was later given to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts.

Answer: John Constable

"Wiven-hoe Park" was painted as an oil on canvas in 1816. The painting shows the estate where Major General Francis Rebow lived. Major General Rebow asked John Constable to paint the estate. Constable did the majority of the painting from memory.

Answer: Georgia O'Keefe

Georgia O'Keefe painted six pictures of the North American flower in six stages. All six paintings were done in oil on canvas in 1930. Each painting sheds a layer of the flower.

Answer: Rembrandt van Rijn

"The Mill" is an oil on canvas painting done in 1645. The painting is a detailed look at an eight sided grain mill with a cottage nearby. "The Mill" is Rembrandt Van Rign's largest landscape painting. The painting isn't of a specific place, but a place in Rembrandt's imagination.

He used a technique called chiaroscuro to give the painting a dramatic effect with both lightness and darkness in the painting.

Answer: Canaletto

Canaletto painted the oil on canvas sometime between 1742 and 1744. Venice was Canaletto's favorite city to paint. The painting shows the center of trade there. Canaletto added two hundred figures into his painting.

Answer: Jasper Cropsey

Jasper Cropsey painted the picture in 1860 as an oil on canvas while he was staying in London. "Autumn--On the Hudson River" turned out to be his largest painting at nine feet wide and five feet tall. Cropsey took a year to paint it from memory and London loved it. He posted leaves next to the painting to prove to the viewer that he was accurate when painting the color of the leaves.

Answer: George Bellows

"New York" was painted as an oil on canvas in 1911. When George Bellows painted the picture, the electric traffic light was a year from being invented. Bellows painted Madison Square at the intersection of Broadway and twenty-third street. Into the painting "New York", he incorporated some of Manhattan's famous features.

Answer: Elizabeth Le Brun

Elizabeth Le Brun was high in demand for her portrait paintings because she made her clients look good. "The Marquis de Pezay and the Marquise de Rouge with her sons Alexis and Adrien" was an oil on canvas portrait painted in 1787. She was a lover of fashion, so she painted the clothes in meticulous detail. Le Brun used her portraits to provide for her mother and brother.

She has eighty portraits to her name.

Answer: Chuck Close

Chuck Close takes photos of his subjects and then transfers those photos onto grids marked on a canvas. In the case of "Fanny", after transferring the picture, Close dipped his fingers into oils and finger painted the portrait. From a distance, "Fanny" looks like a black and white photograph, but up close the portrait is a plethora of fingerprints lightly or heavily pressed onto the canvas. "Fanny" was painted in 1985.

The subject was a woman named Fanny Lieber, a Holocaust victim and Chuck Close's grandmother-in-law. Due to a spinal injury, "Fanny" was the last finger painting Close was able to paint.

Answer: Fra Angelico & Fra Lippi

Fra Angelico was a Dominican monk and Fra Filippo Lippi was a Carmelite monk. The monks painted their tempera on panel between 1440 and 1460. "The Adoration of the Magi" is a tondo painting. A tondo painting is a painting in a round or oval shape. The figures in the painting are set to make use of the space.

Answer: Osias Beert

Osias Beert, the Elder, painted this oil on panel between 1620 and 1625. He wanted the arrangement of food to give the viewer a sense of taste as well as sight.

Answer: Wayne Thiebaud

"Cakes" was painted as an oil on canvas in 1963. Wayne Thiebaud used heavy brush strokes to give the cakes a textured look. The white icing on the cake was a mixture of orange, blue and beige oil paint.

Answer: Giusseppe Arcimboldo

"Four Seasons In One Head" was painted as an oil on canvas in 1590. This was Giusseppe Arcimboldo's final painting before moving back to Milan. Arcimboldo's name is scribbled on a stripped piece of bark in the painting.

Answer: Johannes Vermeer

Johannes Vermeer painted this oil on canvas in 1664. Normally, he worked with capturing moments in time. Vermeer liked allegories; for instance, "Woman Holding a Balance" was painted to remind people that no matter what's going on in life a person should enjoy the small things.

Answer: Joan Miró

"The Farm" was painted as an oil on canvas between 1921 and 1922. The painting is of Jean Miró's farm in Catalonia. Ernest Hemingway purchased the painting for his first wife in 1925 or 1926. Mary Hemingway, Ernest's fourth wife, gifted "The Farm" to the National Gallery of Art after his death.

Answer: Romare Bearden

Roman Bearden used charcoal and graphite on canvas for his 1967 picture. A collection of magazine illustrations, wallpaper, and color paper cut-outs were glued onto the canvas to make the picture.

Answer: Roy Lichtenstein

"Look Mickey" is an oil on canvas painting done in 1961. Roy Lichtenstein used a comic book style for the painting. The painting comes from an illustration in the 1960 Walt Disney book, "Donald Duck Lost and Found".

Answer: Alexander Calder

The National Gallery of Art asked Alexander Calder in 1976 to create something for the atrium of the museum. Alexander built a giant mobile that would hang from the ceiling. The mobile in the atrium at the National Gallery of Art weighs 920 pounds. Calder passed away before he could give a name to his design.

Answer: Edgar Degas

"Four Dancers" is an oil on canvas painting done by Edgar Degas around 1899. Degas painted thousands of paintings on ballet; however, none of the paintings depict dancers in the midst of a ballet dance. His paintings depict moments before the dancers go on stage or after they have come off the stage.

In "Four Dancers", Degas used yellow and white paint on the dancer's tutus to show the light hitting them.