227 Fun Facts About Art History

Lascaux and Chauvet in France are famous sites of which prehistoric art form?

Prehistoric cave paintings, such as those found in Lascaux and Chauvet, are among the earliest known forms of art, often featuring detailed depictions of animals.

What classical sculpture technique involves a figure standing with most of its weight on one foot, resulting in a relaxed, asymmetrical pose?

Contrapposto first appears in the Kritios Boy of about 480 BCE, which breaks from the rigid frontal stance of the earlier kouroi.

Which technique, perfected in the Mona Lisa, softens edges by blending tones without hard outlines?

Sfumato, from the Italian sfumare, to evaporate like smoke, melts outlines into gradual tonal transitions; Correggio, Raphael and Giorgione also used it.

Which Italian term names the strong contrast of light and shadow used to model volume?

Chiaroscuro, Italian for light-dark, began as a Renaissance drawing technique on coloured paper, heightened with white gouache and deepened with ink.

Which Manet painting scandalised the Paris Salon of 1865 with a frank nude whose details marked her as a prostitute?

Olympia's confrontational gaze did the damage: she stares straight at the viewer, and details in the picture identified her as a prostitute.

What did Marcel Duchamp call a factory-made object he simply picked and declared art, his 1917 urinal 'Fountain' being the most notorious?

Readymade borrowed an American term for factory-made goods; Duchamp began making them in 1914 as an antidote to what he called 'retinal art'.

Whose 1924 Surrealist Manifesto beat a rival version by Yvan Goll and established the movement in Paris?

Goll's manifesto had appeared two weeks earlier, but Breton's group won the name and led the movement for decades.

What genre of three-dimensional art transforms an entire room into an immersive environment?

Installation art is a genre of three-dimensional art that is often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space, engaging the viewer physically and sometimes multisensorily.

Modern graffiti was born in the 1960s and 70s in Philadelphia and which other city?

New York City's subway cars carried graffiti from the 1970s Bronx and Manhattan scene worldwide, though Mayor Ed Koch saw it as blight rather than art.

What are the tall carved wooden sculptures of Pacific Northwest Coast Indigenous cultures called?

Totem poles are usually carved from western red cedar and, contrary to a common misconception, are not objects of worship.

Which Italian Renaissance painter is known for the masterpiece 'The Birth of Venus'?

Sandro Botticelli painted The Birth of Venus in Florence in the mid-1480s, showing the goddess arriving at the shore on a scallop shell.

Which movement, formed in Paris after World War I, aimed to let the unconscious express itself in dreamlike scenes?

Surrealism took Freud's ideas about free association and dream analysis as the tools for liberating the imagination.

The Great Pyramid of Giza was built as a tomb for which pharaoh?

The Great Pyramid of Giza, the oldest and largest of the Giza pyramids, was constructed for Pharaoh Khufu during the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom.

Which artist is renowned for painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel?

Michelangelo spent four years painting the monumental frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, depicting scenes from the Book of Genesis.

What art movement is characterized by visible brushstrokes, open composition, and an emphasis on light?

Impressionism, a 19th-century art movement, focused on capturing fleeting moments and the changing effects of light with loose, visible brushstrokes.

Which artist produced the series of 32 paintings known as 'Campbell's Soup Cans' in 1961-62?

Andy Warhol hand-painted one canvas for each of the 32 soup varieties Campbell's sold at the time, and the subject became synonymous with his name.

Which architectural style is characterized by pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and flying buttresses?

Gothic architecture was called opus Francigenum, 'French work', by contemporaries; the choir of Saint-Denis near Paris (1140-44) first drew its elements together.

Which Renaissance polymath painted 'The Last Supper'?

Leonardo da Vinci painted The Last Supper on a refectory wall in the 1490s; his experimental tempera-on-plaster technique began deteriorating within decades.

The 'kouros' and 'kore' figures are characteristic sculptures from which period of Ancient Greek art?

The male kouros and draped female kore stand rigid and frontal, often with the faint 'Archaic smile'.

Which Mexican artist is famous for her self-portraits and her distinctive folk art style?

Frida Kahlo is one of Mexico's most celebrated artists, known for her vibrant self-portraits that explore identity, post-colonialism, and nationality.

Which style, born in Rome around 1600, used contrast, movement and grandeur to inspire awe?

Baroque churches commissioned by popes from Paul V onward were meant to move the faithful through emotion and drama, and the style spread from Italy across Europe.

Which Impressionist spent his final decades painting the water lilies in his garden at Giverny?

Claude Monet, a founder of French Impressionism, painted the lily pond at his Giverny home from the late 1890s until his death in 1926.

What painting technique forms images from small distinct dots of colour that the viewer's eye blends?

Pointillism builds an image from tiny dots of pure colour that the eye blends at a distance; A Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte (1884-86) is the showpiece.

Which movement, pioneered by Braque and a Spanish partner around 1907-08, showed objects from many viewpoints at once?

Cubism's Spanish partner was Picasso; Juan Gris and Fernand Léger joined later, and historians split it into early, 'high' and late phases running to about 1921.

Which Dutch Post-Impressionist painted 'The Starry Night'?

Vincent van Gogh painted The Starry Night in June 1889, a year before his death; the swirling night sky hangs over a partly imagined village.

Which Japanese artist created the iconic woodblock print 'The Great Wave off Kanagawa'?

Katsushika Hokusai made The Great Wave off Kanagawa about 1831 as a colour woodblock print; its claw-like wave looms over three boats with Mount Fuji small behind.

The Roman Colosseum was primarily used for what type of events?

Gladiatorial contests filled the elliptical amphitheatre, which held tens of thousands and also staged animal hunts, executions and, briefly, mock sea battles.

Which art movement emphasized order, clarity and classical antiquity, reacting against Rococo?

Neoclassicism, prominent from the mid-18th century, drew inspiration from ancient Greek and Roman art, advocating for simplicity, harmony, and moral virtue.

Which late 18th–early 19th century art movement glorified emotion, individualism and nature?

Romanticism pushed back against Enlightenment rationalism, prizing intuition, the sublime and the medieval past over classical order.

Which artist created the iconic painting 'The Scream'?

Munch made several versions of the composition, and the Norwegian postal service put it on a stamp for the 150th anniversary of his birth.

Which style of around 1900 borrowed the sinuous curves of plants and flowers?

Art Nouveau, French for 'New Art', flourished around 1890-1910; its plant-like curves spread from painting into architecture and the decorative arts.

Which international art movement, born at Zürich's Cabaret Voltaire during World War I, rejected prevailing ideas about art itself?

Dada began at the Cabaret Voltaire in 1916 with sound poems and nonsense performances before spreading to Berlin, Paris and New York.

Which post-WWII New York School movement is known for large canvases and gestural brushwork?

Critic Robert Coates first applied the term to American art in 1946, and it made New York rather than Paris the centre of the Western art world.

Which art movement incorporated imagery from popular culture, advertising, and comic books?

Pop Art, emerging in the 1950s and 60s, challenged traditional fine art by using commercial images and techniques, often with irony and humor.

Gold-ground icons, glittering mosaics and stylized frontal figures are hallmarks of which empire's art?

Byzantine art made the icon its signature genre, and its gold-leaf and mosaic techniques travelled to Italy and shaped early Italian painting.

Which painter completed 'The Ghent Altarpiece' in 1432 after it was begun by his brother Hubert?

Jan van Eyck finished the Ghent Altarpiece in 1432 after Hubert's death in 1426; two panels were stolen in 1934 and the Just Judges has never been recovered.

Which Dutch painter created 'The Garden of Earthly Delights'?

Hieronymus Bosch's 'The Garden of Earthly Delights' is a triptych famous for its intricate, symbolic, and often surreal imagery, full of moral and religious allegory.

Which early-1600s Italian painter is known for radical naturalism and dramatic spotlighting against darkness?

Caravaggio painted figures directly from life and spotlit them against darkness, shocking contemporaries and opening a new chapter in painting.

Which Dutch Golden Age painter is famous for his numerous self-portraits and his etchings?

Rembrandt left roughly three hundred paintings and three hundred etchings, and his self-portraits alone span his whole career.

Which Austrian Symbolist painter created 'The Kiss', a masterpiece adorned with gold leaf?

Painted in 1907-08 at the height of his 'Golden Period', it also uses silver and platinum leaf alongside the gold.

Which American painter developed his famous 'drip' technique after moving to Springs, New York, laying canvases on the floor?

Jackson Pollock poured and splashed household paint onto canvases laid flat on the floor so he could work them from every angle.

Which Dutch abstract pioneer painted geometric grids of primary colors and black lines?

Piet Mondrian co-founded De Stijl with Theo van Doesburg in 1917 and dropped an 'a' from his surname to fit in with the Parisian avant-garde.

Which performance artist sat silently opposite visitors for hours a day in 'The Artist Is Present' at MoMA in 2010?

Marina Abramović shared a period of silence with each stranger who sat in front of her, day after day, for her 2010 MoMA retrospective.

Which anonymous, England-based street artist is known for politically charged stencil graffiti around the world?

Banksy has been active since the 1990s, combining dark humour with a distinctive stencilling technique; Invader uses tiles and Fairey uses posters.

Which period of Italian art did the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood want to return to?

The Pre-Raphaelites admired the Quattrocento, Italian painting before Raphael, and painted thin glazes over a wet white ground to recapture its jewel-like colour.

Which English Romantic painter of storms and seas grew nearly abstract in his old age?

Known in his own day simply as William Turner, he is credited with raising the status of landscape painting.

Which French sculptor's 'The Thinker' and 'The Kiss' both began as figures on one unfinished portal?

Auguste Rodin spent decades on a monumental bronze portal commissioned in 1880 for a museum that was never built, spinning its figures off as independent sculptures.

The 'Venus de Milo' is a famous Hellenistic sculpture of which goddess?

The 'Venus de Milo' is an ancient Greek sculpture, believed to depict Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty, created during the Hellenistic period.

In which Italian city is the Uffizi Gallery, home to many Renaissance masterpieces, located?

The Uffizi in Florence began in 1560 as offices ('uffizi') for Cosimo I de' Medici's magistrates and grew into the family's picture gallery.

The Tate Modern art gallery is located in which major city?

Tate Modern opened in May 2000 at Bankside on the south bank of the River Thames in London.

Which Paris institution houses the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace?

The Louvre opened as a public museum in the former royal palace in 1793; the Venus de Milo arrived in 1821 and the Winged Victory was found on Samothrace in 1863.

What is the name for a stone coffin, first used by Egyptian pharaohs of the 3rd dynasty?

Sarcophagus is Greek for 'flesh-eater', after a limestone that was thought to consume the body inside.

Which civilization, centred on the palace of Knossos, is known for vibrant frescoes and marine motifs?

Minoan is a modern name taken from the mythical King Minos of Knossos; the snake goddess figurines and marine-style pottery are its best-known artefacts.

Which artist painted the anti-war mural 'Guernica'?

Pablo Picasso painted it for the Spanish pavilion at the 1937 Paris world's fair, responding to the bombing of Guernica during the Civil War.

Which American Regionalist painter created the iconic work 'American Gothic'?

Grant Wood painted American Gothic in 1930 after spotting a small Carpenter Gothic farmhouse with a pointed window in Eldon, Iowa.

Which Mexican muralist is known for large-scale public works on Mexican history and society?

Diego Rivera painted murals from Mexico City's National Palace to San Francisco's stock exchange, chronicling Mexican history in sweeping public cycles.

Which Japanese artist is known for polka-dot installations and 'Infinity Nets' paintings?

Yayoi Kusama is a celebrated Japanese contemporary artist known for her use of polka dots, nets, and immersive installations that explore themes of infinity and self-obliteration.

Which American artist is famous for large flowers, New York skyscrapers and New Mexico landscapes?

Georgia O'Keeffe began her skyscraper series after moving to a 30th-floor apartment in the Shelton Hotel in 1925, and settled in New Mexico for good in 1949.

Which 1960s movement of Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely makes flat patterns seem to move?

Op Art, short for Optical Art, is a style of visual art that employs geometric patterns and contrasting colors to create illusions of movement, depth, or hidden images.

Which early-1960s New York movement reduced painting to hard edges and flat surfaces?

Minimalism's best-known figures, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin and Frank Stella, often worked in raw industrial materials such as steel, plexiglass and fluorescent tubes.

Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte hangs in which museum?

The Art Institute of Chicago has held A Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte since 1926; the canvas measures roughly 2 by 3 metres.

Which critic first applied the term 'abstract expressionism' to American art, in 1946?

Robert Coates used the term in a 1946 New Yorker review of a Hans Hofmann show; Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg became the movement's leading critics.

Leonardo left his Adoration of the Magi unfinished after departing Florence for which city in 1482?

Leonardo went to Milan in 1482 to serve Ludovico Sforza, abandoning the Adoration commissioned by the Augustinian monks of San Donato a Scopeto in 1481.

Albrecht Dürer, master of the woodcut, was born in which German city?

Albrecht Dürer was born in Nuremberg in 1471, and from 1512 he was patronised by Emperor Maximilian I.

The Altamira cave paintings are in which Spanish region?

Altamira, near Santillana del Mar in Cantabria, was the first European cave art proposed to be prehistoric, in 1880, though experts accepted it only in 1902.

Who modelled for the man in Grant Wood's American Gothic?

The family dentist, Byron McKeeby of Cedar Rapids, posed for the man; Wood's sister Nan posed for the woman.

American Gothic was painted on what unusual support?

Wood painted American Gothic in oil on beaverboard, a cheap pressed-wood-fibre panel; the house that inspired it is in Eldon, Iowa.

Andy Warhol was born in which US city?

Andy Warhol was born in Pittsburgh in 1928 to working-class Rusyn immigrants from what is now Slovakia.

The Apollo Belvedere is a Roman copy of a bronze by which Greek sculptor?

Leochares is the sculptor to whom the lost bronze original of about 330 BC is attributed; the marble has stood in the Vatican since 1511.

The 1913 Armory Show introduced Americans to which European styles?

The Armory Show, opened at New York's 69th Regiment Armory in February 1913, introduced Fauvism and Cubism; Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase was its scandal.

The name Art Deco came into use after a 1925 exhibition in which city?

Art Deco takes its name from the 1925 Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes in Paris, whose pavilions showcased bold geometry and luxury materials.

Which Baroque painter was the first woman admitted to Florence's Accademia di Arte del Disegno?

Artemisia Gentileschi joined the Florentine academy in 1616 and later worked at the court of Charles I of England in 1638-40.

Rodin's The Thinker was originally conceived as part of which larger work?

The Thinker sat over the doors of The Gates of Hell, Rodin's 1880 commission for a planned museum of decorative arts; the first monumental bronze was cast in 1904.

Jeff Koons's Balloon Dog sculptures are made of what?

Balloon Dog is mirror-polished stainless steel with a transparent colour coating, made in blue, magenta, yellow, orange and red versions between 1994 and 2000.

Banksy's work grew out of the underground scene of which English city?

Banksy emerged from Bristol's underground graffiti scene in the 1990s, switching to his distinctive stencilling technique around 2000.

The Bauhaus was founded in 1919 in which German city?

Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1919; it moved to Dessau in 1925 and Berlin in 1932 before closing in 1933.

Roughly how long is the Bayeux Tapestry?

The Bayeux Tapestry runs nearly 70 metres (about 68.3 m), embroidered in wool on linen with the story of the Norman Conquest of 1066.

The Book of Kells is held at which library?

Trinity College Dublin has held the Book of Kells since 1661; it was made around 800 AD in a Columban monastery.

The Bust of Nefertiti is displayed in which Berlin institution?

The Neues Museum on Berlin's Museum Island has shown the bust since reopening in 2009; Ludwig Borchardt's team found it at Amarna in 1912.

The Bust of Nefertiti was found in the workshop of which sculptor?

The sculptor Thutmose's workshop at Amarna yielded the bust in 1912; it is thought to date from about 1345 BC.

Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans were first exhibited in 1962 where?

Irving Blum showed the 32 canvases at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles in July 1962; each measures 20 by 16 inches.

Caravaggio's extreme use of chiaroscuro came to be known as what?

Tenebrism, from the Italian tenebroso ('murky'), describes Caravaggio's spotlit figures against near-black grounds; he spent his last four years moving between Naples, Malta and Sicily.

Roughly how many caves in France and Spain contain prehistoric art?

Nearly 350 caves in France and Spain are known to hold prehistoric art, and some scientists argue the oldest marks were made by Neanderthals.

The Chauvet Cave, with some of the best-preserved cave paintings, was discovered in which year?

Chauvet Cave in the Ardèche was found on 18 December 1994 by Jean-Marie Chauvet and two companions.

Dalí's Christ of Saint John of the Cross hangs in which city's Kelvingrove gallery?

Glasgow bought the painting for £8,200 in 1952; Dalí said a dream told him to omit nails, blood and thorns.

Claude Monet was raised in which Normandy port?

Monet's family moved to Le Havre in 1845 when he was five; Impression, Sunrise (1872) depicts its harbour.

Whose 1916 Dada Manifesto first set out the movement's principles?

Hugo Ball read his Dada Manifesto at Zürich's Zunfthaus zur Waag on 14 July 1916; Tzara's better-known manifesto followed in 1918.

How tall is Michelangelo's David?

David stands 5.17 metres tall, the first colossal marble statue made since antiquity, and was unveiled in 1504.

Michelangelo's David was moved to the Galleria dell'Accademia in which year?

David was moved indoors to the Galleria dell'Accademia in 1873 to protect it from weathering; a replica has stood in the Piazza della Signoria since 1910.

Diego Rivera's 27-mural series was painted for which US city?

The Detroit Industry Murals followed his 1931 MoMA retrospective.

The contemporary art exhibition Documenta is held every five years in which German city?

Documenta has run in Kassel since Arnold Bode founded it in 1955 and is nicknamed the 'museum of 100 days'.

Donatello's David was the first freestanding what since antiquity?

Donatello's bronze David, probably made for the Medici in the 1440s, was the first freestanding nude male sculpture since antiquity.

More than half of Edgar Degas's works depict what subject?

Dancers: Degas haunted the Paris Opéra's rehearsal rooms, and more than half his output shows them.

Which nihilist urged the young Edvard Munch to paint his own emotional state?

Hans Jæger, leader of the Kristiania bohemians, urged Munch to paint from his own life; Munch called the result 'soul painting'.

Which Austrian Expressionist died in the 1918 influenza pandemic at 28, three days after his wife?

Egon Schiele died of Spanish flu on 31 October 1918, three days after his pregnant wife Edith, leaving about 300 paintings and thousands of drawings.

Elgin's agents removed about what share of the surviving Parthenon sculptures?

Elgin's agents took about half of the surviving Parthenon sculptures, shipping them to Britain between 1801 and 1812; Parliament bought them in 1816.

What does 'les Fauves', the name of the Fauvist painters, mean?

Les Fauves means 'the wild beasts', a jibe by critic Louis Vauxcelles at the 1905 Salon d'Automne; Henri Matisse and André Derain led the movement.

Duchamp's Fountain was submitted in 1917 to the inaugural exhibition of which group?

The Society of Independent Artists promised to show any work for a fee, yet hid Fountain, signed 'R. Mutt', at its 1917 debut exhibition.

Goya became court painter to the Spanish Crown in which year?

Goya became painter to the Spanish Crown in 1786 and First Court Painter in 1799; he is called the last of the Old Masters and first of the moderns.

Fresco painting is executed on what kind of surface?

Fresco, Italian for 'fresh', is painted on wet lime plaster so the pigment binds into the wall as it dries.

Which Frida Kahlo painting sold at Sotheby's New York for $54.7 million in November 2025?

The Dream (The Bed), a 1940 self-portrait of Kahlo asleep beneath a skeleton, sold at Sotheby's New York on 20 November 2025 for $54.7 million.

Whose 1909 manifesto launched Futurism?

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti published the Futurist Manifesto on the front page of Le Figaro on 20 February 1909; Boccioni's Unique Forms of Continuity in Space followed in 1913.

Besides pointillism, Seurat devised which technique?

Chromoluminarism, also called divisionism, separates colours into individual dots or patches that the eye mixes optically; Seurat also drew in conté crayon on rough paper.

Georgia O'Keeffe is known by what nickname?

Georgia O'Keeffe is called the 'Mother of American modernism' for her large-scale flowers and Southwestern landscapes, though she refused to be seen as a 'woman artist'.

The Ghent Altarpiece is also known by what title?

The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, named for its central panel of the Lamb of God, is sometimes called the first major oil painting.

Which sculptor is credited with creating the Baroque style of sculpture?

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, sculptor of the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, also wrote, directed and acted in plays and designed their sets.

Giotto's masterwork is the decoration of which chapel in Padua?

The Scrovegni Chapel, also called the Arena Chapel, was frescoed by Giotto around 1305 for the banker Enrico Scrovegni.

In 2018 a framed Banksy Girl with Balloon shredded itself at what moment, via a device hidden in the frame?

Just after being sold at auction the frame's hidden mechanism fired; the half-shredded work was retitled Love Is in the Bin.

Girl with a Pearl Earring belongs to the Dutch genre known as what?

A tronie is a 'head' not meant as a portrait.

Girl with a Pearl Earring has hung in which museum since 1902?

The Mauritshuis in The Hague received the painting in 1902 from the bequest of Arnoldus des Tombe, who had bought it for two guilders in 1881.

Gothic art developed in the 12th century out of which earlier style?

Gothic art grew out of Romanesque in Northern France in the 12th century, alongside the new Gothic architecture of Saint-Denis.

Picasso's Guernica is exhibited in which Madrid museum?

Guernica has hung in the Museo Reina Sofía since 1992, after decades at MoMA in New York and a spell in the Prado's Casón del Buen Retiro.

Which colours make up Picasso's Guernica?

Grey, black and white only, as if in newsprint, for a painting about the bombing of a Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao opened in which year?

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Frank Gehry's titanium-clad building, opened in October 1997; the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice opened in 1951.

Klimt was a founding member of which movement?

Gustav Klimt co-founded the Vienna Secession in 1897 and served as its first president; the group's motto was 'To every age its art, to art its freedom'.

Which artist led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting?

Gustave Courbet led French Realism from the 1850s, insisting on painting only what he could see; his Burial at Ornans (1850) scandalised the Salon.

The Hermitage Museum was founded in 1764 by which ruler?

Catherine the Great founded the Hermitage in 1764 when she bought 225 paintings from the Berlin merchant Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky.

Hieronymus Bosch spent most of his life in which town?

Bosch lived and worked in 's-Hertogenbosch, from which he took his name; his family surname Van Aken points to ancestors from Aachen.

Impression, Sunrise is usually displayed at which Paris museum?

The Musée Marmottan Monet has held Impression, Sunrise since Michel Monet's 1966 bequest; the canvas was stolen in 1985 and recovered in 1990.

Which critic coined 'Impressionism' in a satirical 1874 review?

Louis Leroy's mocking review 'Exhibition of the Impressionists' ran in Le Charivari on 25 April 1874, taking the name from Monet's Impression, Sunrise.

Willem de Kooning's Interchange originally sold in 1955 for how much?

Interchange sold for $4,000 in 1955 to Edgar Kaufmann Jr.; in September 2015 Kenneth Griffin bought it for about $300 million.

How many works were stolen from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990?

The museum offers a $10 million reward.

The Gardner thieves posed as what to gain entry?

Two men dressed as policemen claimed to be answering a disturbance call, tied up the guards and took Vermeer's The Concert among the works.

At what age was J.M.W. Turner accepted as a student at the Royal Academy?

Turner entered the Royal Academy Schools in December 1789 at 14, having started as a watercolourist and architectural draughtsman.

Which artist did Jackson Pollock marry in 1945?

She became an important influence on his career and legacy.

Jan van Eyck was called 'the inventor of oil-painting' by which biographer?

Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists (1550) credited Jan van Eyck with inventing oil painting, a claim now considered an oversimplification.

Basquiat first found notoriety as part of which graffiti duo?

SAMO, a tag short for 'same old', was sprayed around Lower Manhattan by Basquiat and Al Diaz from 1978 to 1980.

Besides painting, Vermeer followed his father into which trade?

An art dealer like his father Reynier, Vermeer traded pictures alongside his own slow output; his widow Catharina was left in debt at his death in 1675.

John Constable's paintings of which area are known as 'Constable Country'?

Dedham Vale on the Essex-Suffolk border, where Constable grew up, became 'Constable Country'; he was elected to the Royal Academy only in 1829, at 52.

Hokusai's Great Wave belongs to which print series?

Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, published about 1830-32, actually runs to 46 prints; the Great Wave opens the series.

Keith Haring first drew attention with chalk drawings where?

Keith Haring chalked on the matte black paper covering unused advertising panels in New York subway stations from 1980, making hundreds of drawings.

Leonardo's Lady with an Ermine is held in which city?

It is one of Poland's national treasures.

The Laocoön Group was excavated in Rome in which year?

The Laocoön was unearthed in a Roman vineyard on 14 January 1506, with Michelangelo among those who came to see it; Pliny the Elder had praised it in the highest terms.

Velázquez's Las Meninas depicts the court of which Spanish king?

Las Meninas (1656) shows the Infanta Margarita with her ladies-in-waiting, with Philip IV and Queen Mariana reflected in a mirror at the back.

The Lascaux caves are in which French department?

Lascaux, near Montignac in the Dordogne, was found in 1940 by four teenagers and contains over 600 wall paintings.

Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe was originally titled what?

Shown as Le Bain ('The Bath') at the 1863 Salon des Refusés after the Salon jury rejected it, the picture was renamed Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe in 1867.

Leonardo da Vinci trained in Florence under which master?

Leonardo entered Andrea del Verrocchio's Florentine workshop around 1466; he was born out of wedlock in Vinci to the notary Ser Piero.

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon depicts prostitutes on a street in which city?

The Carrer d'Avinyó gave the painting its name.

Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People commemorates which event?

Delacroix painted Liberty Leading the People in late 1830 to commemorate the July Revolution of that year, which toppled Charles X; it is often wrongly linked to 1789.

Which French king converted the Louvre into a royal residence in 1546?

Francis I demolished the medieval keep and in 1546 had Pierre Lescot begin a Renaissance palace on the site; Louis XIV later moved the court to Versailles.

Warhol's Marilyn Diptych is based on a still from which film?

Warhol silkscreened a publicity still from the 1953 film Niagara fifty times, twenty-five in colour and twenty-five fading in black and white.

Mark Rothko was born in which country?

Rothko was born Markus Rothkowitz in 1903 in Dvinsk, now Daugavpils in Latvia; his family emigrated to Portland, Oregon in 1913.

Rothko refunded a lucrative commission for murals meant for which restaurant?

The Four Seasons restaurant in the Seagram Building was the intended site; Rothko withdrew, returned the fee and later gave nine murals to the Tate, which received them on the day he died in 1970.

Which New York museum's Cloisters branch in Fort Tryon Park is devoted to medieval European art?

The Metropolitan Museum of Art opened The Cloisters in 1938, built around elements of medieval French cloisters and funded by John D. Rockefeller Jr.

The Museum of Modern Art opened in 1929 just days after what event?

MoMA opened on 7 November 1929, nine days after the Wall Street Crash of 29 October; Abby Aldrich Rockefeller was among its three founders.

The Musée d'Orsay is housed in a former what?

The Musée d'Orsay occupies the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built for the 1900 Exposition; the museum opened in 1986.

Whose writings during the rediscovery of Pompeii helped birth Neoclassicism in Rome?

Johann Joachim Winckelmann's writings on Greek art, notably his 1764 History of the Art of Antiquity, inspired the Neoclassicism that Grand Tour students carried home from Rome.

The Winged Victory of Samothrace stands on a base shaped like what?

The Nike stands on a grey marble base carved as a ship's bow, or prow; it has topped the Louvre's Daru staircase since 1884.

Pollock's No. 5, 1948 sold in 2006 for what record price?

No. 5, 1948 changed hands privately for a reported $140,000,000 in November 2006, a record that stood until Cézanne's The Card Players sold in April 2011.

Modigliani's Nu couché was painted under the patronage of which Polish patron?

Léopold Zborowski, a Polish poet turned dealer, paid Modigliani a daily fee and supplied models; police shut down the 1917 Berthe Weill show of the nudes.

The oldest known oil paintings were made by Buddhist artists in which country?

The oldest known oil paintings, from the 7th century AD, were identified in 2008 in the Bamiyan caves of Afghanistan, made with walnut and poppy-seed oils.

Who modelled for Manet's Olympia?

Victorine Meurent, who also posed for Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, modelled for Olympia; the French state acquired it in 1890 after a subscription led by Monet.

Picasso began formal art training at what age, under his father?

Picasso was seven when his father José Ruiz y Blasco, an art teacher, began his formal training in figure drawing and oil painting.

Construction of the Parthenon began in which year?

Work on the Parthenon began in 447 BC under Pericles and the building was complete by 438 BC, with sculptural decoration continuing to 432 BC.

Which American sculptor's hanging abstract works, moved by air currents, were dubbed 'mobiles' by Duchamp?

Alexander Calder's first motorised kinetic sculptures were dubbed 'mobiles' by Marcel Duchamp in 1931; Jean Arp then named the static works 'stabiles'.

Gauguin spent a privileged early childhood in which country?

Gauguin spent his early childhood in Lima, Peru, from 1850 to 1855 among his mother's wealthy relatives; he later worked as a stockbroker before painting full-time.

Rubens is considered the most influential artist of which tradition?

Rubens, the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradition, ran a vast workshop and also served as a diplomat, knighted by both Philip IV and Charles I.

Murujuga, a peninsula with one of the world's densest concentrations of petroglyphs, is in which country?

Murujuga, on the Burrup Peninsula in Western Australia, holds more than a million petroglyphs, images made by removing part of the rock surface.

Renoir's son Jean became famous as what?

Jean Renoir became a filmmaker, directing La Grande Illusion (1937) and The Rules of the Game (1939); another son, Pierre, was an actor.

Bruegel the Elder settled in which city in 1555?

Bruegel the Elder was back in Antwerp by 1555 designing prints for Hieronymus Cock's publishing house, before moving to Brussels in 1563.

Michelangelo's Pietà is carved from which marble?

Michelangelo chose the block of Carrara marble himself for the Pietà, completed in 1499; it stands in Saint Peter's Basilica.

Which two artists developed pointillism in 1886?

Georges Seurat and Paul Signac developed pointillism in 1886; critic Félix Fénéon named the group Neo-Impressionists, while 'pointillism' began as ridicule.

Pop art first developed in Britain through Eduardo Paolozzi and whom?

Richard Hamilton's 1956 collage Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing? is often called the first Pop artwork; he and Paolozzi belonged to the Independent Group.

Klimt's Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I is also known by what nickname?

The Lady in Gold, painted 1903-07 with gold and silver leaf, was seized by the Nazis in 1941 and returned to Maria Altmann in 2006 after a US Supreme Court case.

Which critic organised the 1910 London exhibition 'Manet and the Post-Impressionists', popularising the term?

Roger Fry staged Manet and the Post-Impressionists at the Grafton Galleries in November 1910, fixing the label on Cézanne, Gauguin and van Gogh.

Which artist is the most extensively represented in the Prado?

Francisco Goya is the single most extensively represented artist in the Prado, which opened in 1819 with works from the Spanish royal collection.

Which god stands at the far left of Botticelli's Primavera, stirring the clouds?

Mercury, in red with winged sandals, raises his caduceus at the far left of Primavera while the Three Graces dance beside him; Zephyrus is at the far right.

Raphael probably trained in the workshop of which painter?

Raphael probably trained under Pietro Perugino in Perugia from about 1500; his father Giovanni Santi had been court painter in Urbino.

Realism emerged in France in which decade?

Realism emerged in France in the 1840s around Courbet and Millet, rejecting the drama of Romanticism for everyday subjects.

Rembrandt's 'The Night Watch' (1642) shows a militia company led by which captain?

Captain Frans Banninck Cocq, in black with a red sash, leads the company in The Night Watch, with Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch in yellow beside him.

Rembrandt was born in which Dutch city?

Rembrandt was born in Leiden in 1606 and opened a studio there in 1625, sharing it with Jan Lievens before moving to Amsterdam in 1631.

René Magritte was born in which Belgian town?

René Magritte was born in Lessines, Hainaut, in 1898; his mother drowned herself in the River Sambre in 1912, when he was 13.

The Rijksmuseum was originally founded in 1798 in which city?

The Rijksmuseum began in 1798 as the Nationale Kunst-Galerij in The Hague's Huis ten Bosch and moved to Amsterdam in 1808 at Louis Bonaparte's order.

Rococo emerged in France in the 1730s as a reaction against what?

Rococo arose in the 1730s as a reaction against the grandeur and formality of the Louis XIV style, replacing it with shell-like rocaille motifs and pastel lightness.

The Rosetta Stone bears a decree from 196 BC on behalf of which king?

The Rosetta Stone records a priestly decree of 196 BC honouring Ptolemy V Epiphanes; French officer Pierre-François Bouchard found it in July 1799.

Roy Lichtenstein replicated which printing technique by hand?

Ben-Day dots, the cheap printing method used in comics, were painted by hand and later through stencils by Lichtenstein to mimic mass-produced images.

The official Paris Salon began in which year?

The Salon began in 1667 as the exhibition of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture; from 1881 it was run by the Société des Artistes Français.

Which genre ranked first in the Salon's academic hierarchy?

History scenes ranked first in the hierarchy of genres, above portraits, genre scenes, landscapes and still lifes; a Salon medal assured a career.

Salvador Dalí was born in which Catalan town?

Salvador Dalí was born in Figueres in 1904 and is buried in the Dalí Theatre-Museum there; he joined the Surrealist group in 1929.

Leonardo's Salvator Mundi shows Christ holding what in his left hand?

Christ holds a crystal orb in his left hand while blessing with his right; Christie's sold Salvator Mundi for $450.3 million in November 2017.

Which group revived Botticelli's reputation in the late 19th century?

The Pre-Raphaelites and John Ruskin revived Botticelli's reputation in Victorian Britain; his real name was Alessandro Filipepi.

Which 1433 Van Eyck painting may be the earliest known panel depiction of the artist himself?

Portrait of a Man in a Turban, dated 21 October 1433 on its frame, is thought to be a self-portrait; its motto 'Als Ich Can' puns on van Eyck's name.

Which pope commissioned Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling?

Julius II commissioned the ceiling in 1508; his uncle Sixtus IV had built the chapel in the 1470s and gave it his name.

Van Gogh's second Sunflowers series was painted in which town in 1888?

Van Gogh painted the Arles Sunflowers in August 1888 to decorate the Yellow House for Gauguin's visit; the earlier Paris series showed cut flowers on the ground.

Tate Modern occupies a former what?

Tate Modern occupies the former Bankside Power Station, designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, whose turbine hall became the museum's vast entrance space.

Tempera, the standard panel-painting medium before oils, uses what as its binder?

Egg yolk binds the pigment in tempera, drying fast to a matte finish; casein paint uses milk protein instead.

The Terracotta Army was discovered in 1974 by whom?

Local farmers digging a well near Xi'an in March 1974 struck the first pit; estimates put the army at over 8,000 soldiers.

Holbein's The Ambassadors features a lute with what telling detail?

The lute's broken string symbolises discord, lying beside a Lutheran hymnal open at Luther's hymns, a nod to Europe's religious split in 1533.

The Arnolfini Portrait hangs in which museum?

The National Gallery in London bought the Arnolfini Portrait in 1842; a convex mirror on the back wall expands the room and reflects two visitors.

Which fresco by Michelangelo is chronologically the fourth Genesis panel on the Sistine ceiling?

The Creation of Adam is the fourth of the nine Genesis scenes, after the Separation of Light, the Creation of the Sun and Moon, and the Separation of Land and Water.

When closed, the outer panels of Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights show what scene?

The closed shutters show the Third Day of Creation in grisaille: the Earth as a transparent globe, with God the Father small in the upper left corner.

Which pigment revolutionised Japanese prints in The Great Wave?

Prussian blue, a synthetic pigment imported through Dutch and Chinese traders, gave The Great Wave its deep, non-fading blues around 1831.

Under what title was Klimt's The Kiss exhibited in 1908?

Klimt showed the painting as Liebespaar (The Lovers) at the 1908 Kunstschau in Vienna, where the Austrian state bought it; it hangs in the Belvedere.

Leonardo's Last Supper is housed in the refectory of which Milan convent?

The Last Supper covers the north wall of the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie, a Dominican convent in Milan, painted 1495-98 for Ludovico Sforza.

What is misleading about the title of Rembrandt's The Night Watch?

Its official title names Captain Frans Banninck Cocq.

How much did Dalí's The Persistence of Memory sell for when first exhibited in 1932?

An anonymous donor gave it to MoMA in 1934.

Who painted The Raft of the Medusa?

Théodore Géricault painted The Raft of the Medusa in 1818-19, aged 27, after the 1816 wreck of the French frigate Méduse.

In Raphael's School of Athens, which figure is believed to be a portrait of Michelangelo?

Heraclitus, the brooding figure leaning on a block in the foreground, was added late and is taken as a portrait of Michelangelo; Plato is thought to be Leonardo.

Under what German title was The Scream first exhibited?

Munch's own German title was Der Schrei der Natur, 'The Scream of Nature'; the Norwegian title is Skrik.

What obscures the face in Magritte's The Son of Man?

A green apple hovers before the bowler-hatted man's face; Magritte painted The Son of Man in 1964 as a self-portrait.

The Starry Night shows the view from Van Gogh's room at which asylum?

Van Gogh painted The Starry Night in June 1889 from his east-facing room at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy; MoMA acquired it in 1941 through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest.

Magritte's pipe painting The Treachery of Images is displayed in which city?

The Treachery of Images (1929) hangs in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; beneath the pipe Magritte wrote 'Ceci n'est pas une pipe'.

Kahlo painted The Two Fridas in 1939, the year she did what?

Kahlo and Diego Rivera divorced in November 1939, the year of The Two Fridas; they remarried in San Francisco in December 1940.

Titian was the leading painter of which Renaissance school?

Titian led the Venetian school of the 16th century; he was born in Pieve di Cadore near Belluno, in Venetian territory.

The term trompe-l'œil comes from a painting title by which artist at the 1800 Salon?

Louis-Léopold Boilly exhibited a painting titled Trompe-l'œil, 'deceive the eye', at the Paris Salon of 1800, and the phrase stuck as the genre's name.

Which last Medici heiress left the family's art to Florence in the 'family pact'?

Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici, Electress Palatine, signed the 1737 Patto di famiglia binding the collections to Florence forever.

What does ukiyo-e translate as?

Ukiyo-e means 'pictures of the floating world', the pleasure districts and theatres of Edo; it flourished from the 17th to 19th centuries.

Hiroshige is best known for which horizontal landscape series?

Hiroshige's Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō (1833-34) follows the highway's post stations from Edo to Kyoto; he is considered the last great ukiyo-e master.

Vanitas painting was a sub-genre heavily used by painters of which country during the Baroque?

Vanitas, Latin for 'vanity' or futility, flourished among Dutch still-life painters of the Netherlands, especially in Leiden in the 1620s-50s.

The Venice Biennale has been held every other year since which year?

The first Venice Biennale opened in 1895 under mayor Riccardo Selvatico; national pavilions began with Belgium's in 1907 in the Giardini.

The Louvre's armless marble Aphrodite was found by a farmer in 1820 on which Greek island?

Milos, in the Cyclades, yielded the statue in April 1820 when a farmer uncovered it; the Venus de Milo has been in the Louvre since 1821.

The Venus of Willendorf is about how tall?

The Venus of Willendorf stands just 11 centimetres tall, carved from oolitic limestone and tinted with red ochre; it was found in Lower Austria in 1908.

Roughly how many artworks did Van Gogh create in just over a decade?

Van Gogh made about 2,100 artworks between 1880 and 1890, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in his last two years.

Leonardo's drawing of a man within a circle and square illustrates which Roman architect's proportions?

Vitruvius described ideal human proportions in De architectura, which Leonardo illustrated around 1490 with a man inscribed in a circle and a square.

At what age did Kandinsky begin his painting studies?

Kandinsky gave up a law career and began painting studies at 30, settling in Munich in 1896 to study at Anton Ažbe's school.

Monet's Water Lilies series comprises roughly how many paintings?

Many were painted while he suffered from cataracts.

What is the formal title of Whistler's Mother?

Whistler titled it Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 to stress form over subject; the French state bought it in 1891 and it hangs in the Musée d'Orsay.

Yayoi Kusama was raised in which Japanese city?

Yayoi Kusama was born in Matsumoto in 1929 to a family of seed merchants and trained briefly in the nihonga style in Kyoto.

Manet rejected which career originally envisioned for him?

Manet failed the naval academy entrance exam twice, rejecting the naval officer career his family envisioned; he entered Thomas Couture's studio in 1850.

Which artist is often called the 'Father of Post-Impressionism'?

Paul Cézanne is called the father of Post-Impressionism for his structured brushwork and geometric simplification of nature; the movement ran roughly 1886 to 1905.

The Louvre Palace was originally built in the late 12th century under which king?

Philip II Augustus built the Louvre as a fortress around 1190 to guard Paris; remnants of its medieval walls survive in the basement.

Kazimir Malevich's 1915 Black Square launched which art movement?

Black Square launched Suprematism, Malevich's art of pure geometric feeling; the first of four versions hung high in a corner, icon-style, at the 0,10 exhibition in 1915.

On which island was El Greco born, at a time when it belonged to the Republic of Venice?

He often signed his name in Greek letters with the word Krēs, meaning 'Cretan'; the island was then a centre of Post-Byzantine art.

In which London museum does Fragonard's Rococo masterpiece The Swing hang?

The Wallace Collection in Manchester Square has held The Swing since the 4th Marquess of Hertford bought it in 1865; a young man hidden in the bushes gazes up at the lady.

Andrew Wyeth's 1948 Christina's World was inspired by seeing its subject doing what?

Wyeth saw Anna Christina Olson crawling across a field from a window; she had a degenerative muscular disorder and refused a wheelchair. MoMA bought the tempera in 1949.

What animal floats in formalin in Damien Hirst's 1991 'Physical Impossibility of Death' piece?

A tiger shark caught off Australia floats in formaldehyde; Charles Saatchi commissioned the piece in 1991 and the decaying original was replaced in 2006.

For how much did Edward Hopper sell Nighthawks to a Chicago museum in 1942?

Hopper sold Nighthawks for $3,000 in May 1942, months after finishing it; four people sit in a downtown diner seen through its big glass window.