Paint Me Like One of Your French Girls Quiz

Answer: Ballet dancer

Degas, who did most of his work in the mid-to-late 19th century, was known for his Impressionist paintings, most of which depicted Parisian life, ballet dancers, and nude women. If I really wanted a painting of myself in the Degas style, I would need to be depicted in deft brushstrokes done to accurately portray movement and form (even though I have no real flexibility for ballet). Degas' most famous works are certainly the dancers, but like a number of other French painters of the time he opted to paint Parisian scenes as well.

The real issue is determining whether or not I'm comfortable posing in the nude; at least the tutu is modest.

Answer: Henri Matisse

Matisse, while clearly a proponent of Impressionism in his early days, was somewhat of a rebel to the norms of the movement (weren't they all at some point?) because over time his paintings lost much of the refined brushstrokes you would come to expect of a popular Impressionist piece, instead leaning more towards flat presentation.

The same images were there-- we had a lot of nudes and bowls of fruit at this time-- but into the early 20th century he was one of a group of artists who pioneered the fauvist movement (along with André Derain). One of Matisse's most famous pieces, "The Dance", depicts a group of people dancing in a circle in the nude; there's a version in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and another in the Hermitage.

It's certainly a bit more fanciful than the prospect of standing nude in his "Bathers with a Turtle". Recipe for disaster, I'm sure.

Answer: His wife

One of the main proponents of Impressionist painting, Monet is likely one of the most celebrated French painters of the 19th century. Although much of his popularity stems from his paintings of water lilies and colourful foliage, many of his earlier works depicted people, often family members or close friends.

The vast majority of his 'people art' paintings featured his first wife; after her death he created a number of paintings depicting her in death before leaving Paris for Giverny and the countryside.

A number of his works are known for their delicate use of lighting to depict dynamic and realistic landscapes. Marriage is a long way to go for my own selfish needs though.

Answer: False

While Cézanne painted a few women in his career, the vast majority of his art focused on the male form, often in self-portraits. Said to be a master of Post-Impressionist study, his paintings are known for harsher colours than his contemporaries and he pushed a lot of similar artists into proceeding styles (like cubism).

His early works, done in Paris, were often of city scenes and the like, but as he moved to Provence his focus turned to portraiture and still life. As stated, most of his subjects were male, though his later work "The Bathers" depicts numerous women in the nude.

Answer: Impressionist

Manet was a major figure, much like Claude Monet, in the push towards Impressionist art in France in the mid-19th century and while Monet was more known for his landscapes, Monet was known for his portraiture pieces; most of his works, even those depicting scenes, contained people in action, whether that be a musical gathering in The Tuileries or at "A Luncheon on the Grass" (and if I were in that, I guess I'd be in the nude, as you have luncheons, I figure). Progressing through life his paintings depicted Parisian goings-on and war before he moved to still life.

Answer: Marcel Duchamp

Originally one of Duchamp's more controversial paintings, "Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2" uses colour and abstraction to depict movement and completely do away with Impressionism. Not even the Cubists thought this was tactful, yet the painting is considered a Modernist classic because of the way it approaches the static medium so differently from everything that came before. Duchamp is perhaps better known for his readymade art ("Fountain", for instance) and his parody pieces like "L.H.O.O.Q."-- the version of the "Mona Lisa" with a moustache. Now that's an easy one for me to sit for.

Answer: Nursing

More so than the other artists of French history, Renoir placed a significant focus on depicting women and girls, capturing their form across his entire body of work while also reinforcing the Impressionist movement through the mid-to-late-19th century until his death in 1919.

Interestingly, his devotion toward art and realistic representation passed through his lineage; his children and grandchildren became celebrated filmmakers. And my choices are nearly endless-- Renoir painted young children in activities, women at Parisian luncheons, bathing nudes, female pianists, festive dancers, and on and on.

Despite being alive during the First World War, he did not paint anything to represent that trying time in French history.

Answer: Marianne

Eugène Delacroix was a Romantic painter whose works were, for the most part, done in the early half of the nineteenth century. He is likely best known for his 1830 piece "Liberty Leading the People", which depicted Liberty (Marianne, the Goddess of Liberty) waving the French flag during a revolution. You may know the image from the cover of Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" album. Delacroix is, perhaps, one of the most evocative Romantic painters; many of his works were influenced by and directly influenced international literature and arts of the day and his paintings are, to this day, a part of French national identity.

Answer: Farmer's fields

Like many of the other Impressionists of the day Pissarro's works generally focused on modern, urban locations-- he has a series of beautiful paintings of Montmartre-- but things took an interesting turn when, like Monet, he left the city to seek inspiration. Unlike Monet, however, that inspiration was in toil; critics were shocked when his paintings returned to exhibition and depicted women working in fields, performing the hard labour and dirty rigours of life outside the posh, metropolitan area of Paris. Pissarro is considered by many to be one of the true artistic historians of 19th century France since he depicted women in their daily lives, as they were, in conditions that existed even though people didn't really want to discuss them.

Answer: Pablo Picasso

Both Braque and Picasso popularized cubism around the same time and for many years, their works were almost indistinguishable due to their aesthetics. For both, it wasn't enough to depict an image clearly; like Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase", an image's movement and form were depicted in the abstract, in geometric shapes, and this avant-garde approach was very much divergent from the Impressionists that preceded his days. Braque did paint nudes, but to be frank, I wouldn't be able to distinguish them from his still life paintings...or a Picasso.

They really stretch the definitions of 'feminine form', though I'd probably look better as a series of blocks...