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Van Gogh's Starry Night: swirling dark blue sky, tall cypress tree, and moonlit village
Photo: QuizFury
ArtEasy

Who Painted This Masterpiece?

Van Gogh paints Starry Night from the Saint-Rémy asylum in 1889, Vermeer signs his Girl with a Pearl Earring, Munch freezes The Scream in 1893. Identify 10 masterpieces from descriptions only, no visuals.

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The 10 quiz questions

Question 1 : Who painted this nocturnal landscape with a swirling star-filled sky, a dark cypress in the foreground and a sleeping village nestled in the hills?

Possible answers:

  • Claude Monet
  • Paul Gauguin
  • Vincent van Gogh
  • Paul Cézanne

Explanation: The Starry Night (1889) is one of Vincent van Gogh's most famous works. He painted it from his room at the asylum of Saint-Remy-de-Provence, one year before his death.

Question 2 : Who painted this enigmatic portrait of a woman with a mysterious smile, hands crossed against a misty Italian landscape?

Possible answers:

  • Raphael
  • Titien
  • Michel-Ange
  • Leonardo da Vinci

Explanation: The Mona Lisa (1503-1519), also known as La Gioconda, is the most famous portrait in the world. Leonardo da Vinci brought it to France where Francis I acquired it.

Question 3 : Who painted this screaming figure with a deformed face and hands pressed to the cheeks, on a fjord bridge beneath a blood-red sky?

Possible answers:

  • Egon Schiele
  • Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
  • Emil Nolde
  • Edvard Munch

Explanation: The Scream (1893) by Edvard Munch has become a universal symbol of human anguish. There are actually four versions: two paintings, a pastel and a lithograph.

Question 4 : Who painted this intimate portrait of a young woman looking over her shoulder, wearing a blue and yellow turban with a glittering pearl earring?

Possible answers:

  • Pieter de Hooch
  • Johannes Vermeer
  • Frans Hals
  • Rembrandt

Explanation: Girl with a Pearl Earring (~1665) by Johannes Vermeer is nicknamed the "Mona Lisa of the North". It is not really a portrait but a "tronie", a character study. We still do not know who the model was, and the pearl may even be silvered glass rather than a real pearl.

Question 5 : Who painted this revolutionary allegory of a bare-breasted woman brandishing a tricolour flag atop Parisian barricades?

Possible answers:

  • Eugène Delacroix
  • Théodore Géricault
  • Jacques-Louis David
  • Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

Explanation: Liberty Leading the People (1830) by Eugene Delacroix commemorates the July Revolution. The figure of Marianne became a symbol of the French Republic.

Question 6 : Who painted this embracing couple in a shimmering gold setting, covered in geometric patterns and gold mosaics against a Byzantine-style background?

Possible answers:

  • Egon Schiele
  • Gustav Klimt
  • Oskar Kokoschka
  • Alphonse Mucha

Explanation: The Kiss (1907-1908) by Gustav Klimt is the most famous work of his "golden period". Klimt used real gold leaf in his compositions.

Question 7 : Who painted this iconic fresco where two hands almost touch, God reaching his index finger toward a reclining Adam, on the Sistine ceiling?

Possible answers:

  • Michel-Ange
  • Tintoretto
  • Caravaggio
  • Raphael

Explanation: The Creation of Adam (~1512) decorates the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican. Michelangelo painted the entire ceiling in just 4 years, mostly alone. Funny detail: he considered himself a sculptor, not a painter, and reminded everyone of that fact in his letters at the time, with a "this is not my job" tone.

Question 8 : Who painted this blonde goddess emerging nude from a giant shell, carried by the winds above the sea, draped by the Hours?

Possible answers:

  • Sandro Botticelli
  • Titien
  • Raphael
  • Giorgione

Explanation: The Birth of Venus (~1485) by Sandro Botticelli depicts the goddess emerging from the sea. Commissioned by the Medici family, it is kept at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

Question 9 : Who painted this raft of shipwrecked survivors at sea, bodies piled in dramatic poses, some waving rags toward the horizon?

Possible answers:

  • Eugène Delacroix
  • Gustave Courbet
  • Théodore Géricault
  • Antoine-Jean Gros

Explanation: The Raft of the Medusa (1819) by Theodore Gericault depicts the shipwreck of the frigate Medusa in 1816. Gericault studied corpses at the morgue to make the scene realistic.

Question 10 : Who painted this Japanese print where an immense wave with claw-shaped foam threatens three small boats, with Mount Fuji in the background?

Possible answers:

  • Tōshūsai Sharaku
  • Katsushika Hokusai
  • Utagawa Hiroshige
  • Kitagawa Utamaro

Explanation: The Great Wave off Kanagawa (~1831) is a ukiyo-e print by Katsushika Hokusai. It is part of the series "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji" and deeply influenced Western art.

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