Where in the World Can I See These Paintings? Quiz

Answer: Madrid, Spain

Madrid, on the River Manzanares, is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The metropolitan area has a population of around 7 million while the city has 3.5 million inhabitants. Madrid is the country's cultural, political, and economic center and hosts several landmarks including the Prado Museum, the Reina Sofia Museum, and the Retiro Park (Parque de El Retiro).

In the Prado Museum, among countless works of art is the painting "Las Meninas" (in English, "Ladies-in-waiting"), painted around 1656 by Diego Velazquez (1599-1660). The central point of the painting is the Infanta, daughter of King Philip IV, and her ladies of honor, but other figures, such as the king and queen, appear in the painting. In the background, a self-portrait of the artist can be seen also. It is perhaps the artist's most analyzed painting and is considered one of the most important paintings in the history of Western art.

Answer: Paris, France

Paris, with more than 2 million inhabitants, is the capital and most populous city in France and one of the most populous European cities. Paris receives more than 15 million visitors annually, attracted not only by its beauty but also because it is one of the largest financial, commercial, cultural, fashion centers, etc. in Europe. Millions of visitors come to Paris to visit the Louvre Museum, the largest art museum in the world.

In the Louvre Museum, the painting "Liberty Leading the People" (1830), by the French painter Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863), can be seen. The work shows a bare-breasted woman with a Phrygian cap personifying the Goddess of Liberty and who is at the same time a woman of the people, leading a group of people and wielding the tricolor flag of the French Revolution and a bayonet. The painting was acquired by the museum in 1874 and remains on display there ever since, except for a few traveling exhibitions.

Answer: Florence, Italy

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and has around a million inhabitants. It was founded in the 1st century BCE as a military colony. Throughout its existence Florence was a republic, the seat of the Duchy of Tuscany, and the capital of Italy. In the 14th-16th centuries, Florence managed to establish itself as a commercial, financial, educational center, and especially an arts center. It was a city without great political or military power but which had and still has great influence in Italy. Rich Florentine families hosted and sponsored artists. Giants such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Dante, and Galileo passed through Florence. There are numerous famous buildings in Florence, including the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, the Ponte Vecchio over the River Arno, the Uffizi Gallery, and countless other famous works of art.

"The Birth of Venus" is a painting dating from the mid-1480s, by the Italian artist Sandro Botticelli (c. 1445-1510), undoubtedly one of the world's most famous works of art. Venus appears naked on a shell on the seashore. To her left the winds blow and send her roses and to her right a servant waits with a garment. Although not a pair of paintings, "The Birth of Venus" is always analyzed with another mythological painting by the same painter, "Primavera" (Spring), dated to the late 1470s or early 1480s. The two paintings can be seen in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

Answer: Oslo, Norway

Oslo, which was founded in about 1050, is the capital and the largest city in Norway. The original city was destroyed by fire in 1624 and rebuilt further west, at this time named Christiania. In 1925 the city was renamed Oslo. The city is the center of Norwegian industry, banking, trade, shipping, and culture. The Port of Oslo is the largest and busiest in the country. In the capital, there are many theaters, music centers, and museums.

Two artists steal the cultural scene in Oslo. In Vigeland Park, an open-air museum, there are more than 200 sculptures in granite, bronze, and wrought iron from the Norwegian artist Gustav Vigeland. At the National Museum and Munch Museum, also in Oslo, "The Scream", the composition created by the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1863-1944) can be seen. The agonized face is one of the most iconic images symbolizing anxiety in the human condition. Several versions of "The Scream" were created: two in paint and two in pastels and also a lithograph stone. One version was painted in 1893 and is part of the collection of the National Museum of Norway in Oslo. A pastel version from that year, which according to experts may have been a preliminary study, is in the collection of the Munch Museum, also in Oslo.

Answer: New York, USA

New York City is the largest and most populous city in the state of New York and in the United States, located mainly on three islands: Long Island, Manhattan, and Staten Island. The city is a cultural, financial, entertainment, health care, political, and tourism center. Its parks, historical sites, theaters, and museums are famous. Among the museums is the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the largest art museum in the Americas and the fourth-largest in the world.

"The Persistence of Memory" (1931), also called "The Soft Watches" and "Melting Clocks", is one of the best-known works by the surrealist artist Salvador Dali (1904-1989), recognized for his skills and distorted images. In the work there are hard objects, pocket watches, melting on rocks, a branch of a tree, and water as a backdrop, creating confusion for observers. Many scholars say that the melting clocks are the symbols of the relativity of time and space, as the artist would have incorporated Albert Einstein's ideas about relativity. However, asked by Ilya Prigogine if this was indeed the case, Dali replied that the painting was based on his surrealist perception of a Camembert cheese melting under the sun. Since 1934, the painting has been part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York City.

Answer: Chicago, USA

Chicago, one of the largest cities in the United States, is located on Lake Michigan, in Illinois. Chicago is an industrial, transportation, cultural, and educational center. The country's first skyscraper was built in Chicago. The city has many museums, music and theater companies. Among the city's museums is the world-famous Art Institute of Chicago, of which the painting "American Gothic" is part.

Grant Wood (1891-1942) was an American artist who from a very young age dedicated himself to work in several types of media, including lithography, charcoal, and metal, and is famous for his rural paintings. Strolling around Iowa, the painter noticed the "Dibble House", which caught his attention for its Gothic-style window. After getting permission from the property owner to paint it, Grant imagined the type of person who would live in that house. Thus he created the picture named "American Gothic", in 1930, which is one of the most famous works of American Art.

Answer: Dresden, Germany

Dresden, situated in the basin of the Elbe River, is the capital of Saxony in Germany, and one of the cultural centers of Europe. During WWII, the city was almost destroyed by bombing carried out by the Allied forces. The city was rebuilt and historic sites were reconstructed after the war. It is in a highly industrialized region and has theaters, an opera company, a symphony orchestra, as well as numerous educational and research institutions. Among the city's attractions are its art museums.

Among the countless works of art found in the city is "Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window", an oil painting by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, completed in 1657-1659 and is on display at the Gemäldegalerie. This painting was altered after the author's death and underwent a restoration process from 2018 to 2011, which revealed the painting of Cupid on the wall behind the girl.

Answer: London, England

London is the capital, largest city, and economic, transportation, and cultural center of the United Kingdom and England. It is an ancient city located on the banks of the River Thames that pleases visitors for its diversity. Its powerful architecture, countless gardens, theaters, historic buildings, art galleries, and museums provide ample choices to visitors.

An interesting visit is "The National Gallery" in Trafalgar Square, founded in 1824. Among numerous works of art, one can see the oil-on-canvas painting "The Fighting Temeraire" by Joseph Mallory William Turner (1775-1851), dated 1838. Turner was well known for the color of his works, the landscape, and the turbulence portrayed in his paintings, especially in his marine paintings. "The HMS Fighting Temeraire" was one of the last second-rate ships of the line to take part in the Battle of Trafalgar. In this melancholy painting, she is shown being towed up the Thames by a tug to the anchorage at Rotherhithe, to be destroyed. In a public poll organized by the BBC in 2005, this painting was voted as Britain's greatest painting. In the £20 polymer banknote, issued on 20 February 2020, appears the image of Queen Elizabeth II on the obverse and the self-portrait of the painter J.M.W. Turner and his painting "The Fighting Temeraire" on the reverse.

Answer: Melbourne, Australia

Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, in Australia, is situated at the head of Port Phillip Bay at the mouth of the Yarra River, and was named for the British prime minister, Lord Melbourne. In 1851, it became the capital of Victoria and served as the first capital of the Australian Commonwealth from 1901 to 1927. It is one of the two largest cities in the country, along with Sydney, and an important industrial, commercial, financial, and artistic center, in addition to housing several universities and research institutes.

The English-born Australian artist Thomas William Roberts (1856-1931), at the age of 25, traveled to Europe where he spent around four years studying art. In 1885, he returned to Australia and with other artists organized avant-garde art exhibitions in the country, encouraging artists to capture life in Australia. Among his numerous works, the painting "Shearing the Rams" (1890), considered the masterpiece of Australian Impressionism, deserves to be highlighted. The painting took around two years to complete. Although at that time electric shears began to be used in Australia, the artist preferred to show the sheep being shorn with blade shears. The painting is part of the National Gallery of Victory's Australian art collection, held in the Ian Potter Centre, Melbourne.

Answer: Stockbridge, USA

Stockbridge, Massachusetts, was founded by British missionaries in 1834, as a praying town for local Indians. In 1850, with the arrival of the railroad, the place developed as a resort for the wealthy of Boston and its surroundings. The local environment is the subject of great care and the town has attracted many artists. Its population in the early 2020s was around 2,200 people. Among its attractions is the Norman Rockwell Museum.

The museum, founded in 1969, houses 574 original works of art by Norman Perceval Rockwell (1894-1978), an American painter and illustrator. His work became popular in the United States for its reflection of the country's culture. Rockwell became known for the covers he created for almost 50 years for "The Saturday Evening Post" magazine. Among these covers, one of the best known is the reproduction in oil on canvas, dated 1964, "The Problem We All Live With", considered an iconic image of the Civil Rights Movement in the USA, which can be seen in the Norman Rockwell Museum. The screen shows a 6-year-old black girl being escorted by four deputy U.S. marshals, on her way to an all-white elementary school on November 14, 1960, during a period of great turmoil in New Orleans. This event, which served as inspiration for Rockwell, occurred with Ruby Bridge (1954 -), the first African American black child to attend a previously white-only school.