Anecdotes And Trivia About Great Painters Quiz

Answer: Honoré Daumier

Daumier(1808-1879) was a French sculptor, painter and caricaturist who showed a keen interest in the underprivileged and used his talent to satirize some aspects of social and political reality in France.
Paul Gauguin was born in Paris (1848) and died in French Polynesia (1903).
Gustave Courbet was the great promotor of "realistic tendencies" in French painting. He was born in 1819 at Ornans in the French Jura.
When his political commitment began to cause him more trouble than he could cope with, he fled to Switzerland (1871) and died there at La-Tour-de-Peilz in 1877.

Answer: Crete

Domenikos Theotocopoulos, later nicknamed El Greco, was born in Crete in 1541, and first went to Venice, then to Rome(1570). By 1577 he was at Toledo where he remained until his death in 1614.
That he did not deny his origins can be seen by the fact that he always signed his work in Greek characters, with the addition "Kres" (= from Crete).

Answer: Botticelli

Sandro Botticelli's first employer was nicknamed Botticello : the little barrel. That seems to be how he got his own nickname Botticelli. Others point to his elder brother Giovanni,a pawnbroker, having been called Botticello.
Anyway his real name was Allessandro di Mariano Filipepi (1445-1510). He spent all of his life in his birthplace Florence, except for the short period during which he painted wall frescoes in the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican.
His "Birth of Venus"(1485) and "Primavera" (1477-78) paintings are among the most perfect expressions of the Renaissance spirit.
Venice-born Jacopo Robusti Tintoretto lived from 1518 till 1594. His nickname derives from his father's profession who was not a painter ("pittore"), but a dyer ("tintore"). Titian and Michelangelo influenced his sense of colour and his mastery of drawing.
Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) came to Paris in 1906 and 'discovered' the works of such innovators as Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, Georges Rouault and Pablo Picasso. He was a close friend of the Romanian-born sculptor Constantin Brancusi. As can be seen from the faces of some of his "portraits", he took a strong interest in African masks.

Answer: Titian

Van Dyke worked for Charles I of England, Holbein worked for Henry VIII of England, and Velazquez worked for Philip IV of Spain.

Answer: Fra Filippo Lippi

It would not have been in da Vinci's line of preferences to run off with a nun.
Fra Filippo Lippi (1406-1469) may be considered to have been the most talented successor of Massacio. His own 'best pupil' was Botticelli.
In spite of his being a monk, Fra Filippo Lippi seems to have had his human weaknesses.
Though a monk, he had a relationship with the nun Lucretia Buti, who bore him a son Filippino.
Fra Angelico, born in 1395 at Vicchio di Mugello as Guido di Piero, got the monk's name: Fra Giovanni (da Fiesole - because his monastery was there). He died in 1455.
"Angelico" is only a posthumous addition.

Answer: Giotto

Brunelleschi is held to be the discoverer of perspective.
Caravaggio was the specialist of the chiaro oscuro. He was born as Michel Angelo Merisi on September 28 1573 in Caravaggio, Italy. Realistic naturalism and dramatic representation were his trademark.
A less glorious "detail" from his life is that he was exiled for murder. He indeed killed an opponent after a disputed score in a game of court tennis. He died in dramatic circumstances on July 18, 1610.
Leonardo da Vinci was born - as his name suggests - at Vinci in the Republic of Florence(1452). He died in France on May 2, 1519 at Cloux in France. From 1495 till 1497 he worked on his "Last Supper" and from 1503 till 1506 on his "Mona Lisa".
He had been a pupil of Andrea del Verrocchio.
Giotto di Bondone was born about 1266 in the village of Vespignano near Florence. He was the son of a small landed farmer. The poet Dante became his friend. The Church of Santa Croce in Florence is adorned by Giotto murals depicting the "Life of St. Francis". Also the so-called Arena Chapel (built by Enrico Scrovegni) in Padua has top-class murals painted by Giotto.

Answer: Whistler

Pollock invented action painting and indeed poured out paint, but did not throw it into the face of his public.
Maurice de Vlaminck (1876-1958) was a French "fauvist" painter, yet in comparison with Jackson Pollock his "wildness" was still very tame.
Seurat (b. Dec.2, 1859, Paris - d. March 29, 1891 Paris) is the well-known "inventor" of pointillism. Also called divisionism. One of his most famous works is the "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of the Grande Jatte"
James Abbot McNeil Whistler (1834-1903) was an American-born painter, born in Lowell, Massachusetts, who was mainly active in England.
Ruskin was shocked by his innovative painting style.

Answer: George Stubbs

George Stubbs was born in 1724 and died in 1806. Equine anatomy was his speciality.
John Constable (1776-1837) ranks with Joseph Mallord William Turner as one of the greatest English landscape painters. Thomas Gainsborough (1728-1788) was a master of portrait making as well as of landscape painting. Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), is a representative of the Rococo era in England.

Answer: Turner

J.M.W. Turner was born in London in 1775 and died in London in 1851. Long before the Impressionists he was obsessed by "capturing light" on canvas.
William Blake(1757-1827) was a poet, artist and engraver. Among his works there is a series of illustrations to Dante's "Divina Commedia".

Answer: Vincent van Gogh

Van Gogh was born at Groot-Zundert (Netherlands) near the Belgian frontier (1853). From 1878 till 1880 he stayed in the Belgian coalmining area near Charleroi. In 1886 he joined his brother Theo in Paris. In 1887 he met Gauguin. In 1888 van Gogh moved to Arles. Incident with the cut ear. In 1889 he was committed to an asylum in Saint-Rémy. In 1890 he moved again. This time to Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris. In July he shot himself.
Hans van Meegeren got into serious trouble for faking some Vermeers.
Vermeer (1632-1675) lived and worked at Delft.
Han (Henry) van Meegeren was born in 1889 at Deventer and died in 1947 at Amsterdam in 1947.