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Pictured above is the Arnolfini Portrait, and can be found at the Website of National Gallery, London.
The painting's audience was likely __________.
The painting was commissioned by Giovanni Arnolfini for the purpose of private viewing in his house.
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This early-to-mid sixteenth-century Flemish artist was known for his realistic, everyday scenes of peasants and commoners in his native Netherlands, such as Hunters In The Snow (1565).
Pieter Bruegel the Elder was known to many at the time of his work as "peasant Bruegels" because he often used commoners and everyday scenes as his subject matter.
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Which of the following pieces is an example of a polyptych?
The Ghent Altarpiece consists of a set of folding panels and is thus called a polyptych. The Portinari Altarpiece has three panels and is therefore considered a triptych. The Well of Moses is a sculpture. St. Anthony Tormented By Demons is an engraving.
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The painting was created for the leading family of __________.
This is "The Birth of Venus" by Sandro Botticelli. He worked directly for the Medicis, a family of bankers who ruled the northern Italian city-state of Florence.
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Venus' pose is called ________.
In Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus", Venus is standing in the classical contrapposto pose. Literally meaning "counter pose", the pose features the subject placing most of her weight on one foot, giving the effect of movement. This classical pose became very popular in the Renaissance, in large part because of Botticelli.
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Pictured above is the Arnolfini Portrait, and can be found at the Website of National Gallery, London.
The medium of the work is __________.
As is common in the Northern Renaissance tradition, Van Eyck takes advantage of the slow drying time of oil to get the level of detail he achieves.
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Pictured above is the Arnolfini Portrait, and can be found at the Website of National Gallery, London.
The image depicts a __________.
The figures are arranged in a standard pose of a newly-married couple, and the poses of each as well as the adornment on the woman's head suggest they are wed.
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The above painting depicts what biblical scene that was a common feature of medieval art?
This painting is by the Medieval artist Fra Angelico and known as the Cortona Annunciation. Painted from 1433-1434, it depicts the archangel Gabriel telling the Virgin Mary that she is pregnant with the Christ child. The Annunciation, as a key moment in the Bible, was a very popular theme in Medieval European art. This particular painting was part of an altarpiece in a church in Cortona, Italy, and painted by a priest.
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In Medieval art, a man dying with arrows in his sides depicts __________.
Saint Sebastian was a martyr of the early Christian church who died in the Diocletian persecutions of the third century CE. He became a popular figure in medieval art, usually shown as being tied to a tree with arrows in his sides. This image was to convey what an appropriate Christian martyr should look like.
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The Virgin Mary is usually depicted wearing what color garment in medieval art?
As one of the most revered figures in Christianity, the Virgin Mary was a constant theme of medieval religious art. In order to function as a highly visible symbol in a mostly illiterate culture, many different symbols were used to distinguish Mary. Most important was her robe, which was typically a bright blue color, which denoted expensive silks.
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In Christian hagiography, which figure is depicted as having a stone in his head?
Saint Stephen is traditionally considered the first martyr of Christianity, and his death by stoning is told in the biblical book of Acts. Due to the circumstances of his death, he was usually depicted with a stone implanted in his skull. Thanks to his position as "the first martyr," Saint Stephen very commonly depicted in Medieval art.
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Pictured above is the Arnolfini Portrait, and can be found at the Website of National Gallery, London.
The house in which the couple resides is located in __________.
The painting is of Netherlandish Renaissance style and was painted by Jan van Eyck, who is from the Netherlands.
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These two images each portray an important story from the Gospels in the New Testament, the four books that tell the life of Jesus Christ. The image on the left is of the Annunciation, the announcement an angel made to the Virgin Mary telling her that she was pregnant with the Christ child. It was painted in 1433 by Fra Angelico. The image on the right is of the risen Jesus encountering his disciples in Emmaus, painted by Caravaggio in 1606.
Figure 3: The Annunciation (Cortona) by Fra Angelico (1433)
Figure 4: Supper at Emmaus (Milan) by Caravaggio (1606)
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Most people in Medieval Europe could not read or write, but the Catholic church had a vested interest in helping all of its members to become familiar with and understand the stories of the Bible. A painting like the one presented here by Fra Angelico not only shows the Angel Gabriel telling the Virgin Mary of her status as the mother of the Christ child, but gives a larger symbolic structure to the event.
Figure 3: The Annunciation (Cortona) by Fra Angelico (1433)
Figure 4: Supper at Emmaus (Milan) by Caravaggio (1606)
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Both of these images were painted in _________.
Each of these images, Leonardo da Vinci's 1489 "Lady with an Ermine" and Sandro Botticelli's 1486 "The Birth of Venus", are classic examples of Italian Renaissance paintings. Da Vinci painted in Milan, under the patronage of the Sforza family, the longtime Dukes of Milan. Botticelli had the Medici family as patrons in the city-state of Florence.
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In the painting, the animal represents _____________.
The animal is an ermine (which is a type of weasel). In Leonardo da Vinci's time, the ermine was commonly used throughout Europe as a symbol for purity.
If you don't remember something like this on test day, you can still make an educated guess. For example, you might not remember anything about ermines, but perhaps you remember that white doves are often used in art to symbolize purity. That would lead you to the correct answer.
At the very least, you can probably eliminate the answers "disgrace" and "sensuality" just from looking at the painting. Eliminating two of the four answer choices doubles your chances of guessing correctly.
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The painting depicts a scene from ___________.
Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus" portrays a story from Greek mythology. This is common in Italian Renaissance art.
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The painting demonstrates _____________, which was introduced during the Renaissance.
While da Vinci's "Lady with an Ermine" is an excellent portrait in its own right, the truly revolutionary aspect of the work is the small sense of motion in the painting. Da Vinci's subject is turning ever so slightly and is captured in a small amount of tension. The ability to capture movement was something introduced during the Renaissance.
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Figure 1
Figure 2
The man in red in the lower image is most likely __________.
In the Christian tradition, particularly in Medieval Christianity, the inventor of Christian icons and the first person to paint any images of Christ was the Evangelist Saint Luke. In his 1440 painting, "Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin, the early Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden includes someone painting the Madonna and Child with a book open at his feet. Both of these clues indicate that the figure is Saint Luke.
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Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 1 is an early example of what would come to be known as __________.
"Genre painting" is a term used to denote any painting of an everyday scene, rather than a history painting, portrait, or landscape. "Genre painting" was essentially unheard of in the Middle Ages, when the focus was on devotional art and paintings of kings and rulers. Jan van Eyck's 1434 Arnolfini Portrait, which depicts a merchant getting married in his own chambers, is an early example of a move toward genre painting, which would become much more popular during the Renaissance.
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