Deck 37: After the War: Existential Doubt, artistic Triumph, and the Culture of Consumption

Question 1

According to Søren Kierkegaard,why must Christians live in a state of anguish caused by their own freedom of choice?

A)They must endure the guilt of their sins
B)Belief in God requires suspension of reason
C)They hold responsibility for Jesus's sacrifice
D)Temptation awaits them at every turn

Answer 1

B

Question 2

What in American society were the Beat artists reacting against?

A)Capitalism
B)Gender roles
C)False values
D)Conservative politics

Answer 2

C

Question 3

To reap the full effect of David Smith's Blackburn: Song of an Irish Blacksmith,what must the viewer do?

A)See it in different lights
B)Move around it
C)Know Smith's background
D)See it move

Answer 3

B

Question 4

What is the central thematic concern of the Theater of the Absurd?

A)Futility of organized religion
B)Ridiculousness of the masses
C)Meaninglessness of existence
D)Fragmentation of the human psyche

Question 5

In Albert Camus's The Stranger,why does society condemn Meursault,the main character?

A)He refuses to lie
B)He murders his mother
C)He believes in nothing
D)He has an affair

Question 6

Why did the London-formed Independents call their creations "Pop Art"?

A)They based it on American popular culture
B)The vivid colors they used pop from the canvas
C)It celebrated the popular films of the 1950s
D)It became very popular with war-ravaged Londoners

Question 7

According to theologian Reinhold Niebuhr,what did religion provide the post-World War II alienated person?

A)Capacity to forgive
B)Freedom to act morally
C)Courage to conquer despair
D)Power to accept change

Question 8

Why is Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist play titled Huis Clos (No Exit)?

A)Main character is in prison
B)Set in a concentration camp
C)Main character is in hell
D)Focuses on a loveless marriage

Question 9

Why do the works by Jean Dubuffet,such as Corps de Dame,look do disordered?

A)He practiced "ghost drawing," producing works while in a trance
B)He aimed for "authentic" art,divorced from convention and tradition
C)He modeled his works after the art brut created by psychotics and children
D)He deconstructed figures,reducing them to unraveled lines

Question 10

In Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different,So Appealing,why does Richard Hamilton position a canned ham in front of the nearly nude stripper?

A)The can reflects the stripper's curves
B)Both were accessible American commodities
C)Like the ham,the stripper is not quite "real"
D)Both are consumable flesh-"meat"

Question 11

What is Jean-Paul Sartre's first principle of his atheistic existentialism?

A)"Only in suffering can a man make a leap of faith"
B)"A man's eternal hell is other people"
C)"The path up and down are one in the same"
D)"Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself"

Question 12

How did Jackson Pollock create his Abstract Expressionist mental landscapes?

A)Action painting
B)Hard-edge painting
C)Wet-on-wet painting
D)Combine painting

Question 13

What did the philosophical movement of existentialism offer people?

A)Explanation for the horrors of World War II
B)Affirmation of the existence of a higher power
C)Path for finding some sense of meaning in life
D)Realization that people are not in control of their lives

Question 14

Why did a rooster have psychological meaning to Jackson Pollock,who painted one into his Guardians of the Secret?

A)Like the rooster,Pollock had an colossal ego
B)He grew up on a California chicken farm
C)A rooster had stolen his severed fingertip
D)Like his art,roosters symbolize honesty

Question 15

Why did the organization of Abstract Expressionist artists known as "The Club" exclude in their charter communists,homosexuals,and women?

A)They were incapable of producing serious art
B)They brought negative attention to The Club
C)They used art to make political statements
D)They were the three groups that take over

Question 16

In Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot,why does Godot never arrive?

A)He is dead
B)Audience never knows
C)He does not exist
D)He goes to the wrong place

Question 17

According to existential feminist Simone de Beauvoir,why are women often satisfied with secondary status to men?

A)Women are conditioned to accept they are the lesser gender
B)Men provide women financial and existential protection
C)Women define their existence through the needs of others
D)Men have conditioned women to shun change

Question 18

What effect do the somber color fields of a Mark Rothke painting often have on viewers?

A)Suicidal thoughts
B)Religious revelations
C)Tearful breakdowns
D)Overwhelming despair

Question 19

What work best characterizes the Beat generation?

A)Robert Frank's The Americans
B)Jack Kerouac's On the Road
C)William S.Burrough's Naked Lunch
D)Allen Ginsberg's "Howl"

Question 20

Which of the following did not come into being during the 1950s?

A)Cheerios
B)McDonald's
C)Frisbee
D)Playboy

Question 21

As discussed in the chapter's "Continuity and Change" section,in 1954 why did the U.S.Supreme Court rule that "separate but equal" schools for whites and blacks were unacceptable?

A)The races were alienated from each other
B)Separate by definition means inherently unequal
C)Not all districts could afford racially separate schools
D)The South was excluding blacks from education

Question 22

Why did Frank Lloyd Wright design the Guggenheim Museum in New York as a spiral with a ramp and an open rotunda in the middle?

A)Visitors could see what they had viewed and what was to come
B)Modern art would be viewed in a distinctly modern setting
C)Visitors would not tire from climbing many stairs
D)Visitors could see the art in a natural light

Question 23

From the London Independents to Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein,artists of the 1950s and early 1960s were fascinated by American popular culture.Identify and explain two reasons for this fascination.

Question 24

Define existentialism,and give two reasons for its appeal to post-World War II people.

Question 25

Identify and define two of existential feminist Simone de Beauvoir's reasons for a woman not being able to realize her own existence.Do these reasons have relevance in our post-women's liberation society? Defend your response.

Question 26

Why was Lawrence Ferlinghetti,owner of San Francisco's City Lights bookstore,charged with obscenity?

A)For publishing Ginsberg's "Howl"
B)For hosting a Kaprow Happening
C)For selling copies of Kerouac's On the Road
D)For hosting Beat poetry readings

Question 27

What question about art did the Minimalists seem to be asking with their works?

A)Why must art include imagery?
B)What makes a work of art?
C)How can art be made new?
D)What role does a viewer play?

Question 28

What does Roy Lichtenstein criticize in Oh,Jeff ...I Love You,Too ...But ...?

A)Comic book mentality
B)Georges Seurat's pointillism
C)Modern love's emptiness
D)America's obsession with Hollywood

Question 29

Matching

Question 30

Describe Jackson Pollock's process for creating an "action painting." Then explain the meaning of the result of this technique.

Question 31

Minimalist art seems to ask an intriguing question-what,minimally,makes a work of art? Using as your examples the works discussed in this chapter,list three qualities necessary for a work to be considered art.

Question 32

List and explain two characteristics of Theater of the Absurd,illustrating your points with specific plays.

Question 33

Identify and explain two ways the art of the Abstract Expressionists introduced a new aspect-the creation of meaning shifting from artist to audience.

Question 34

In The Second Sex,Simone de Beauvoir presented complacency with the status quo as the reason for women occupying a secondary status to men.List two female Abstract Expressionist painters,and discuss their contributions to the male-dominated art.