Meme of the Minute: Art History

[asterroc]

Your result for The Famous (and Not So Famous) Art Quiz...

Art Lover

85% Artiste!

Art Lover: You scored 85% Artiste. You may not have any formal training, but you are a big fan of art, at least what you've been able to see in your local museum. Try broadening your horizons a little and exploring some lesser known artists.

Take The Famous (and Not So Famous) Art Quiz

Considering how bad I was at art history in high school, this must've been a remarkably easy quiz - and up until the last page with photographers/sculptors, I really did find it easy. AFAI can tell, I got only one wrong prior to that last page (Monet/Manet), and only one right on that last page. The creator of the quiz did pick paintings/artists with distinct styles, but also put the choices as people from the same time period and similar general styles of art, so it wasn't all no-brainers, but still not as difficult as it could have been. I'd've liked to see the answers next to the actual paintings at the end.

Comments

[calzephyr77.livejournal.com]

That's the best quiz I've taken in a while! I think I goofed the Marc Chagall one...I scored 97%. I wouldn't mind seeing a harder one too.

Yeah, that photographers were a little tougher. I know I lucked out with the Cindy Sherman one and the victory kiss.

[marquiswildbill.livejournal.com]

73%, I know I made a few dumb mistakes, and a few of the paintings were from styles that I just never cared that much about. And I was pretty much helpless with the photographers. I still love museums, I grew up going to various museums throughout NYC and Philthy (and museums are always a top priority to visit in new cities).
The answers next to the paintings really would have been nice and a right/wrong listing as well. Listing the style of the painting would have been nice to.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

I really hated art history at the time, b/c so much of it felt to me like just rote memorization, but I realize now that what I've retained is the categorization - as in *this* is what cubism looks like, and *these* are cubist painters. (My scientist brain likes categories.) For many of the individual painters that I know, I think I understand them as specific variations on the standard of the category that I know they belong to.

Except Degas I know as the ballerina guy, it never occurs to me what style he does. ;)

[marquiswildbill.livejournal.com]

I <3 patterns and categories. They make understanding things so much easier possible.
Degas was one of the early impressionists. He didn't like to be categorized and he would label his work as "realism." I think thinking of him as the ballerina guy works just fine though. I love his racetrack paintings. He captured movement extremely well, and while dance was his favorite subject for painting motion he did a few great pictures of horse races.
He did have a more realistic looking style than many impressionists in a number of his works (how I see it anyway). I think that many of his works seem to go past impressionism. He almost takes the style to another level. Him and Monet are my favorites from that era.
I was lucky that I grew up in a family with a lot of appreciation for art, so I got to be exposed to a lot of stuff. Going to MoMA with my mom is great because she was a VIP tour guide there in her 20s.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

My father has little appreciation for art, but my mother does. She teaches English, she's just two years away from retirement, and even now she's always taking classes at the Met on Asian art to help with her Asian Lit class. I'm trying to convince her that when she retires she should volunteer as a docent at the Met or some other museum.

[erin-trying.livejournal.com]

100%. That was easy, especially because there were no repeats--and the vast majority were very well known works [even Van Gogh's Shoes are pretty famous]. Fun, but definitely could have been more challenging.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

I didn't know the Shoes, but the style was obvious.