Famous Art Masterpieces Trivia Quiz

Answer: Paul Cézanne

Born in 1839 in Aix-en-Provence, north of Marseilles in southern France, Paul Cézanne has a quite unique style that make his paintings highly recognizable. "Head of an Old Man" is one of a large collection of Cézanne's work that can be seen at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

Other works by the artist at the same museum include "A Modern Olympia", "Saint Anthony the Abbott", "Self-Portrait with Pink Background" and "The Hanged Man's House".

Answer: Hieronymus Bosch

Painted in oil on oak, the triptych consists of a central square panel with two wings that close like shutters. Broadly speaking, the left panel depicts Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the center shows various interactions between (naked) people, and the right panel portrays Hell.
Born Jheronimus van Aken in the city of 's-Hertogenbosch in the southern Netherlands sometime around 1450, Hieronymus Bosch portrayed religious narratives through fantasy-like images in his works. Two other triptychs by Bosch ("Adoration of the Magi" and "The Haywain") can also be seen at the Prado.

Answer: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Born in 1525 in the Belgian city of Bree, close to the Dutch border, Pieter Bruegel the Elder is an early Flemish Renaissance painter best known for his peasant scenes and landscapes. He painted three versions of this work: the pictured one from 1563 that can be seen in Vienna, another known as the "Little Tower of Babel" that is housed in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, and a miniature on ivory that has now been lost. The Kunsthistorisches Museum houses one of the largest collections of work by Brueghel, including "The Procession to Calvary", "Massacre of the Innocents", "The Fight Between Carnival and Lent" and "The Suicide of Saul".

Answer: Salvador Dali

Entitled simply "Figure at Window", this rather poignant picture was painted by one of my favorite artists, Salvador Dali, at his father's house in Figueras, Spain.
The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid features large collections of the works of both Dali and Pablo Picasso. Dali masterpieces on display here include "Endless Enigma", "The Invisible Man", "The Great Masturbator" and "The Enigma of Hitler" whilst Picasso's awesome "Guernica" can also be seen here.

Answer: Caspar David Friedrich

Born in 1774 in Greifswald in Swedish Pomerania on the Baltic coast of Germany, Caspar David Friedrich is one of the most important German artists of the Romantic era. Many of his works are easily recognizable by his trademark shadowy figures, silhouetted against backgrounds of night skies (as in the pictured work), morning mists, barren trees or Gothic ruins.
Other works by Friedrich which can also be seen at the Alte Nationalgalerie include "The Monk by the Sea", "Giant Mountains: Landscape with Rising Fog", "Two Men by the Sea" and "Greifswald Harbour".

Answer: Sandro Botticelli

Born Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi in Florence around 1445, Sandro Botticelli is one of the most significant artists from the Florentine School of the 15th Century.
Botticelli has his own room at the Uffizi Gallery. Other highlights of a visit to that room include the spectacular "Primavera" (aka "Allegory of Spring"), "Madonna in Glory with Seraphim", "Fortitude", "The Discovery of the Body of Holofernes" and "Adoration of the Magi of 1475".

Answer: John Constable

John Constable painted three versions of this picture, each with varying cloud formations in the sky. One can be seen at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, one is on display as part of the Frick Collection in New York City, and the third is at the São Paulo Museum of Art in Brazil.

They were painted between 1821 and 1826. He also painted "Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows" in 1831, which can be seen at The National Museum of Wales in Cardiff.

Answer: Henri Rousseau

The art of Henri Julien Félix Rousseau, born in the town of Laval in western France in 1844, was not taken seriously during his lifetime. Since his death in 1910, though, he has been widely acknowledged as a self-taught genius. Although he never traveled out of France, many of his paintings (including the pictured one) depict stylized jungle scenes. The MOMA collection also includes other works by Rousseau such as "The Sleeping Gypsy".

Other significant Rousseau works include "In a Tropical Forest Combat of a Tiger and a Buffalo" (The Hermitage in St. Petersburg), "The Equatorial Jungle" (National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC), "The Football Players" (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City) and "Tiger in a Tropical Storm" aka "Surprised!" (National Gallery in London).

Answer: Canaletto

Born Giovanni Antonio Canal in Venice, Italy in 1697, Canaletto is best known for his landscapes of Venice and London. "The Stonemason's Yard", considered one of his finest works, depicts an everyday scene of Venetian life. Many of Canaletto's works can be seen in England: the Royal Collection, housed at Windsor castle, has numerous examples including most of the paintings he did in Rome, whilst many of his London works are part of the Wallace Collection in London.

In addition to "The Stonemason's Yard", the National Gallery also houses many other Canaletto works including "Venice: A Regatta on the Grand Canal" from 1735, "Venice: The Basin of San Marco on Ascension Day " from 1740, "London: Interior of the Rotunda at Ranelagh" and "Eton College", both painted in 1754.

Answer: Georges Seurat

Some artists have styles that make their work instantly recognizable, and Georges Seurat is one of those. Born Georges-Pierre Seurat in 1859 in Paris, he developed the painting technique known as "pointillism", and thus moved modern art from Post-Impressionism into Neo-Impressionism.
"A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" took Seurat two years to complete, from 1884 until 1886. Rather than physically mixing colors on the canvas, Seurat used dots of many colors superimposed one on the other with the result that the blending is actually done by the viewer's eyes.
A smaller version of the painting ("Study for A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte") can also be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Another version ("Oil Sketch for La Grande Jatte") painted in 1884 and the 1883 "Final Study for Bathers at Asnières" are other Seurat works that can also be seen at the Art Institute of Chicago.