Deck 26: The Arts

Question 1

An urban legend is an example of

A) monotheism.
B) animatism.
C) animism.
D) folklore.

Answer 1

folklore.

Question 2

Alan Lomax and his co-researchers found that __________ seems to vary with cultural complexity.

A) visual art
B) body adornment
C) folklore
D) song style

Answer 2

song style

Question 3

Singing is most likely to involve soloists in which type of society?

A) an elaborately stratified society
B) a society with a leader who gained his position through demonstration of his abilities
C) a ranked society
D) a society where captives in war are treated differently from others in the village

Answer 3

an elaborately stratified society

Question 4

Which of the following artistic styles is most likely to occur in an egalitarian society?

A) a relatively "crowded" design
B) enclosed figures
C) greater use of varied colors
D) symmetrical design

Question 5

Psychological anthropologists suggest that art

A) like religion, expresses the typical feelings, anxieties, and experiences of people in a culture.
B) like music and dance, expresses the repressed feelings and anxieties felt by all members of a cultural group.
C) is a subconscious process of translating fears and anxieties into a form with which they can be dealt.
D) is just for art and is not related to other psychological processes.

Question 6

The Navajo were not weavers until

A) they migrated from Canada to what is now Arizona.
B) they borrowed the technology from the Hopi.
C) this very century.
D) they became sheep herders in the fifteenth century.

Question 7

As ancient Athens became more stratified, the painting on its vases became

A) more graceful and less crowded.
B) more crowded.
C) more symmetrical and elegant.
D) stylistically no different from earlier periods.

Question 8

Egalitarian visual art differs from stratified societies' visual art in all of the following, except for

A) repetition of simple elements versus the integration of unlike elements.
B) much empty or irrelevant space versus little empty space.
C) simple colors sparingly used versus a huge amount of colors used throughout.
D) symmetrical design versus asymmetrical design.

Question 9

According to Stith Thompson, the widespread Native American Star Husband tale

A) deals metaphorically with incestuous intercourse, stars representing the father.
B) works to cut problems of sibling rivalry, different stars representing different brothers.
C) deals with the conflict between patrilocal residence and matrilineal inheritance in Plains Indian societies.
D) probably originated on the Plains and spread from there to other regions of North America.

Question 10

One explanation for the regular beat in music is that

A) it is similar in sound to the natural pattern of waves breaking along the coastline.
B) it is a simulation of the regular beat of the heart.
C) the beat simulates the sounds of insects in the surrounding forests of village peoples.
D) that simple beats are easier to reproduce.

Question 11

The kinds of materials available for artistic purposes

A) may limit or influence artistic expression but do not determine what is done with them.
B) largely determine the style of art that people adopt.
C) consist overwhelmingly of stone, wood, bones, and clay.
D) are much the same everywhere.

Question 12

Which of the following is most likely to occur in the art of a stratified society?

A) symmetrical design
B) enclosed figures
C) repetition of similar elements in the design
D) greater use of "focal" colors

Question 13

In how many societies do people decorate or adorn their bodies?

A) a few
B) many
C) fifty percent
D) all

Question 14

__________ (is/are) transmitted orally, but it/they may be written. It/they include(s) myths, legends, etc.

A) Fairytales
B) Stories
C) Folklore
D) Mythology

Question 15

An association between __________ and a high degree of female participation in food-getting has been discovered by Alan Lomax.

A) syzygy
B) chromatic artistic style
C) patterns of light and color
D) polyphony

Question 16

Which of the following is not a common reason for body decoration?

A) indicator of social position
B) erotic stimulation
C) indicator of one's sex
D) camouflage

Question 17

Alan Dundes thinks that Native American folktales have characteristic structures. One is the movement

A) away from disequilibrium.
B) toward disequilibrium in order to express the randomness of the world.
C) toward spiritual harmony with the universe.
D) against the forces of evil and intimidation, such as the coyote.

Question 18

According to Clyde Kluckhohn, which of the following is not a universal theme of folklore?

A) castration
B) incest
C) a happy ending
D) slaying of monsters

Question 19

Which of the following served to represent the most prestigious gods in ancient Sumer?

A) larger eyes
B) wings
C) halos
D) smaller bodies

Question 20

As indigenous populations were decimated, many artistic traditions were lost. Contact with Western societies may have changed art also by

A) inducing the existing indigenous peoples into producing commercial art.
B) stimulating the production of art for commercial sale to the dominant population.
C) limiting the number of individuals involved in the production of artwork for sale.
D) forcing changes which made the artwork clearly simpler in style and function.

Question 21

What are the qualities of art? How are artistic activities cultural?

Question 22

In a culture, the most obvious way for artistic creations to reflect how the people live is by

A) copying each other's work.
B) mirroring the environment.
C) declaring one kind of art to be universally practiced.
D) comparing creations with other cultures.

Question 23

There have been few studies of cross-cultural variation in the frequency of certain features in folktales. One thing they found, however, was

A) there was a lack of fear.
B) there were patterns of aggression.
C) they never reflected reality.
D) they never reflected the conflicts that people typically have.

Question 24

How have indigenous art styles changed due to cultural contact? Use an example from North America or Australia.

Question 25

Anthropologists have found people in all countries decorate or adorn their bodies. They are of two general types,

A) permanent and scarring.
B) temporary and paintings.
C) permanent or temporary.
D) none of the above.

Question 26

Anthropologist Sally Price had an interest in how Western museums look at art of the less complex cultures. She found

A) they never explain where the art is from
B) they never explain how it was constructed.
C) they usually displayed it without the name of the artist.
D) they never explain what it can be used for.

Question 27

Societies that severely punish children for aggression are likely to have myths

A) in which the heroes are not aggressive.
B) with non-aggressive themes.
C) with high dependency needs.
D) with very little aggression.

Question 28

What does visual art tell us about a cultural group?

Question 29

Describe the evidence that "counterpoint" is not just an invention of European high culture.

Question 30

In North America, contact between native groups produced changes in art even before the Europeans came. This was because

A) new materials with which to make art were being introduced.
B) groups forced their ideas of art on others.
C) there was a great deal of published material available.
D) groups had little contact with each other, but they imagined the differences.

Question 31

In regards to the arts, anthropologists have found cultures to

A) emphasize different materials.
B) have different ideas of beauty.
C) have characteristic styles and themes.
D) all of the above.

Question 32

It is believed that people decorate themselves for

A) aesthetic considerations.
B) the media.
C) as a way of hiding from everyone.
D) repetition of past experience.

Question 33

Contact with the West did alter some aspects of art in other cultures. However, previous to that contact

A) art often had undergone change.
B) it had never undergone change.
C) there was very little art.
D) no one know anything about art.

Question 34

In regards to music, anthropologists realize that music from another culture may sound very different to us because

A) we never know what is an acceptable variation.
B) we can hear the subtleties of time and rhythm.
C) the "meaning" of music has been programmed into us by our culture.
D) we always understand the music we are listening to.

Question 35

Folklore is a very broad category which includes cultural

A) myths.
B) legends.
C) riddles.
D) all of the above.

Question 36

In what forms does folklore come? How does folklore transmit cultural information?

Question 37

What is music? How does it vary from simple to complex societies?

Question 38

What conclusions about the universality of emotions have been derived from the study of masks?

Question 39

John Fischer describes several stylistic features of art in relationship to social situation. Describe his conclusions.