Fractured Artists and Poets Trivia Quiz

Answer: Michelangelo

Michelangelo Buonarroti was born on March 6, 1475, in Caprese, Italy. At the age of thirteen, he studied under Domenico Ghirlandaio. Ghirlandaio was painting a chapel in Florence and it was there that Michelangelo learned the technique of fresco, which is painting on fresh plaster before it dries.

Perhaps one of his most famous creations are the paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He was commissioned by Pope Julius II in 1508, and completed 'his' ceiling in or about 1512. However, upon the death of Pope Julius II in 1513, Michelangelo created tombs for Giuliano and Lorenzo de' Medici. In 1534, he returned to Rome, where he created the fresco "The Last Judgement" on the Sistine Chapel. He lived out the remainder of his life in Rome until his passing on February 18, 1564.

Some of his works include a figure of Moses, the statue of David, Bacchus, Victory, Awakening Captive, Madonna with child, Pietŕ, and the cross for the "Crucifixion," which is the only one of his works to be completely done in wood.

Answer: Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts. Most of her younger years were spent in various houses, as the family homestead was sold in 1833, and was not repurchased until 1855 by Emily's father, Edward.

Some of her works include "I'm Nobody! Who Are You?," "I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed," "The Soul Unto Itself," and "I Cannot Live Without You."

On May 15, 1886, Emily passed away in the very house in which she was born.

Answer: Rembrandt

Rembrandt Harmenszoon Van Rijn was born on July 15, 1606. When Rembrandt was in his late teens or early twenties, he enrolled in University of Leiden's art program. While at the university, he was influenced by the works of many great Italian painters. By 1631, Rembrandt's work had become well known, and he decided to move to Amsterdam.

In Holland, he was the leading portrait painter and received numerous requests for portraits, as well as being commissioned for paintings of a religious nature. Some of his works include: "The Return of the Prodigal Son," "Supper at Emmaus," and "Belshazzar's Feast." Rembrandt died on October 4, 1669.

Answer: Edgar Allen Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was born in 1809, in Boston, Massachusetts. Poe and his mother were abandoned by his natural father before he was two years old. When Edgar's mother died, he became a ward of John Allan, a wealthy businessman. John Allan brought Poe to the United Kingdom in 1815, and resided there until 1820, when they moved back to the United States.

In 1827, he enlisted in the United States Army. After leaving the Army, Poe came to reside in Philadelphia, and took up residence at 230-32 North 7th Street, near Spring Garden Street. Poe lived in the house for six years, and wrote some of his best works while living there.

Some of the works that Poe had published while living in Philadelphia include "The Telltale Heart," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Pit and the Pendulum," "The Gold-Bug," and what historians consider the first murder mystery, "Murders in the Rue Morgue." Poe passed away on October 3, 1849.

Answer: Titian

Tiziano Vecellio was born in 1485. When he was nine years old, he was sent to Venice to study under Sebastiano Zuccato, who was a painter and has since been forgotten. He worked hard and learned much from Zuccato, but he felt his mentor did not appreciate him. When Vecellio was seventeen years old, he made a decision to leave Zuccato's workshop and went to study with the Bellini Brothers.

In his fresco, "The Jealous Husband," a man is seen murdering his wife, Titian is believed to have used Michelangelo's Eve, from his Sistine Chapel Fresco "The Fall and Expulsion from Garden of Eden," as inspiration for the creation of the woman that is murdered by her jealous husband. Although Titian was a great admirer of Michelangelo's work, the two did not have a chance to meet until Titian spent eight months in Rome in 1545.

Titian did what most artists never imagined could be possible, instead of making preliminary sketches and filling it in as he went along, he brushed the paint directly onto the canvas and built it up in layers, which is known as the alla prima method.

According to historians, of all the paintings that Titian created, the "Crowning with Thorns" is considered to be truly proto-Baroque because of the appearance that the picture area extends beyond what is being viewed. As with everything that he created, color and lighting were very crucial to the emotional impact of his works.

Prior to his death on August 27, 1576, Titian began creating a Pietá for his tomb, but sadly he was unable to complete the task himself and therefore, it fell to his pupil Palma il Giovane to finish his teacher's Pietá.

Answer: Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman was born in 1819, near Huntington, Long Island, New York. He is the second of eleven children. Whitman's formal education ended when he was eleven years old, when he left the public school system. After leaving school he held various jobs such as an office boy for a physician, he was a clerk at a law firm, and he was a printer's apprentice. It was at the printshop, that Whitman learned to spell, punctuate and acquired the rudiments of prose style.

What is perhaps most memorable about Whitman's writings is that he normally did not rhyme his words, even without the art of rhyming, he could still make a poem sound good.

Some of his works include "A Noiseless Patient Spider," "The World Below the Brine," "Beat! Beat! Drums!," and "O Hymen! O Hymenee!" Whitman also wrote numerous poems about Abraham Lincoln, but he was also famous for having once published his own book entitled "Leaves of Grass." Some years before his death in 1875, at the age of seventy-three, Whitman had a stroke, and historians believe that his imminent death was from a second stroke.

Answer: Matisse

Henri Émile Benoît Matisse was born in December of 1869, in Le Cateau, France. He was a French artist and leader of the Fauve group, and is considered a master of the use of color and form to convey emotional expression.

He began painting while he was recovering from surgery, and in 1891, moved to Paris to study art. Matisse became an accomplished painter, sculptor, and designer and was considered one of the most influential artists of the 1900s.

Matisse passed away on November 3, 1954, in Nice, France. Unlike other artists, Matisse was well known throughout his life. Some of his works include "The Painter and His Model," "The Snail," "Red Studio," "Dance," and "Green Stripe."

Answer: Arthur Rimbaud

Arthur Rimbaud was born on October 20, 1854. When Arthur was twenty years old, he faked his death because his poem, "A Season in Hell" was criticized. Eighteen years later, he was found alive in a hospital in Marseille, where he passed away on November 20, 1891, due to complications from an amputated leg. Some of his works include "The Drunken Boat," and "Letter From The Seer."

Answer: Rodin

Auguste Rodin was born on November 12, 1840, in Paris, France. In 1897, he tried to gain admission into the prestigious and conservative École des Beaux-Arts, but was rejected with the reason that his work was not creative enough. Rodin is most famous for his sculpture "The Thinker" and for "The Kiss," which was originally part of his "Gates of Hell." The largest collection of Rodin pieces can be found on display, in a specially made viewing room, located three blocks away from The Philadelphia Museum of Art, at 23rd and Ben Franklin Parkway; which holds the largest collection of Rodin's work outside of Paris, France.

On January 29, 1917, Rodin married his lifetime companion Rose Beuret. Unfortunately, Rose died three weeks later and Rodin followed shortly. He passed away on November 10, 1917. Friends and well known dignitaries came to Rodin's funeral to see him laid to rest beside Rose at his country home in Meudon with "The Thinker" at the base of his tomb.

Answer: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born in 1806, in Herefordshire, England. She lived her childhood on her family's estate. She was the oldest of twelve children, and was known to family and friends as something of a prodigy. She surpassed her brothers in Latin and Greek, and could soon read in the modern languages of French, Italian, and Portuguese.

Elizabeth starting writing poetry at a very young age, but by the time she was twenty, she was gaining recognition in a wider literary circle.

She was forty when she met and married Robert Browning. Her father had forbidden her to marry, but marry Robert she did...and secretly of course, and then the couple fled to Italy. Once she and her husband left England, she never communicated with her father again. Elizabeth passed away in 1861, but is most remembered as a truly talented and gifted poet.

Some of her works include "How Do I Love Thee?," "Change Upon Change," "A Dead Rose," "The Autumn," and "The Deserted Garden."