Deck 13: Nature, Knowledge, and Technology

Question 1

Which animal appears in medieval European art as a horse with some goat features and a long, single horn projecting from its forehead?

A)Centaur
B)Griffin
C)Unicorn
D)Satyr

Answer 1

C

Question 2

Flowers were often symbols within the Christian religion in earlier times; for example, what did the iris represent?

A)John the Baptist
B)Mary
C)Christ
D)Constantine the Great

Answer 2

C

Question 3

In the later years of his life, Claude Monet's paintings approached abstraction, as what became more important than imagery to him?

A)Futurist manifestos
B)Genre
C)Pointillism
D)Brushstrokes

Answer 3

D

Question 4

Why did Robert Smithson create earthworks?

A)He was entranced by the beauty of nature.
B)He wanted to control nature.
C)He was interested in moving his art outside the gallery system.
D)Before becoming an artist, he was an environmental scientist.

Question 5

What aspect of the beauty of nature did Ansel Adams's photographs emphasize?

A)Nature's beauty was a metaphor for goodness.
B)Its beauty offered an alternative to modernity.
C)Its beauty showed it was untouched by humans.
D)Its beauty symbolized the higher truths offered through philosophy.

Question 6

What are visitors to the Zen Garden of Contemplation in Japan expected to do?

A)Be awed by its great size
B)Sit still and meditate
C)Be reminded of the tenets of Confucius
D)Enjoy the range of seasonal flowers

Question 7

Chris Ofili, a British artist of Nigerian descent, often uses which element of elephants in his art?

A)Dung
B)Tails
C)Hides
D)Tusks

Question 8

In Japan, flowers are viewed as a vehicle for greater understanding; which activity is considered an important art form, on the level of painting, calligraphy, and pottery?

A)Gardening
B)Horticulture
C)Flower arranging
D)Still-life

Question 9

In areas of Peru and Bolivia, which animal is highly regarded because it can signify weather changes and can predict rainfall?

A)Monkey
B)Spider
C)Parrot
D)Butterfly

Question 10

What did Islamic gardens often symbolize?

A)Purity
B)Allah
C)Earthly delights
D)Paradise

Question 11

Which kind of attributes did satyrs, symbols of excess, combine with human elements?

A)Goat or eagle
B)Eagle or serpent
C)Horse or monkey
D)Goat or horse

Question 12

Which movement that experimented with patterns to affect visual perception was popular in the United States and Europe in the 1960s?

A)Pop Art
B)Post-Impressionist
C)Op Art
D)Abstract Expressionist

Question 13

Why were landscapes popular in China and Japan?

A)They were a symbol of affluence.
B)Nature was revered as holy.
C)Cities were noisy, polluted, and crowded.
D)It was a tradition brought by the Mongols.

Question 14

Which are metaphors for humans in Thai, Hindu, and Buddhist art?

A)Demons
B)Eagles
C)Monkeys
D)Serpents

Question 15

Which statement is true of Andreas Vesalius's anatomical illustrations?

A)He relied on the tradition of classical and medieval Arabic sources to create his work.
B)Basing his images in dissection, he overturned many prior assumptions about the human body.
C)Vesalius initially trained as an oil painter, thus gaining his ability to realistically render human form.
D)Vesalius's works show the dichotomy between art and science.

Question 16

What did the unicorn became a Christian symbol for?

A)Mary
B)St. John the Divine
C)The Holy Spirit
D)Christ

Question 17

Which Impressionist artist was well known for his paintings of natural scenes such as water lilies and haystacks?

A)Claude Monet
B)Edgar Degas
C)Georges Seurat
D)Gustave Courbet

Question 18

What kind of contemporary works are large-scale environmental pieces in which the land itself is an important component?

A)Earthworks
B)Happenings
C)Landscapes
D)Mixed media

Question 19

John Constable's works, though Romantic in essence, were the foundation for which artistic movement?

A)Post Impressionism
B)Impressionism
C)Neoclassicism
D)Fauvism

Question 20

Which kind of Chinese and Japanese paintings often found inspiration from poetry or the beliefs of Daoism, which held nature in high esteem?

A)Samurai
B)Genre
C)Shunga
D)Landscape

Question 21

Which work comments on the way society both creates and is defined by specific mass-produced objects?

A)Ai Weiwei's Forever Bicycles
B)Joseph Mallord William Turner's The Fighting Temeraire Tugged to Her Last Berth to Be Broken Up
C)Fernand Léger, The City
D)Salvador Dalí, The Persistence of Memory

Question 22

​ Anselm Kiefer's Breaking of the Vessels likely makes which cultural references?

A)Both to the modern production of vessels and the loss of traditional methods
B)Both to the Hebrew Kabbalah and the Nazi's Kristallnacht
C)To the ceremonial use of vessels by Catholic Christians
D)To the loss of identity and break with tradition of modern urban living

Question 23

Ansel Adams's photographs helped raise public support for national parks and for the environmental movement in general.

Question 24

​ Which statement is correct about Vessel in the Form of a Monkey ?

A)It represents Hanuman, the monkey god.
B)It was used ritually to signal the renewal of life every spring.
C)It shows the importance of monkeys in Aztec culture.
D)It comes from the tradition of animal-shaped vessels used throughout Central and South America.

Question 25

The Mask of Hanuman is both fantastic and based on a specific species of monkey.

Question 26

The Incan civilization in Peru produced huge animal drawings by scraping the desert floor to reveal the lighter-colored sand beneath it.

Question 27

The tradition of Audubon's Birds of America is still seen in the use of illustrations in medical and scientific training.

Question 28

Which leader connected the symmetry of his garden's designs with the well-maintained order of his rule?

A)Genghis Khan
B)Ramses II
C)Babur
D)Ashurbanipal II

Question 29

​ Which artistic movement does Salvador Dalí's The Persistence of Memory represent?

A)Fauvism
B)Pointillism
C)Surrealism
D)Cubism

Question 30

​ Given most people have seen Walter De Maria's The Lightning Field through photographs rather than in person, what kind of work can it be regarded?

A)Environmental
B)Conceptual
C)Installation
D)Photography

Question 31

Which is a feature of Australian Aboriginal depictions of the natural world?

A)Like Audobon's work, they focused on scientifically accurate depictions of animals in their setting.
B)They were based on a process of dissection and observation.
C)Color reflected the meaning of the different elements.
D)Both the internal and external features of figures are represented.

Question 32

​ What is the Serpent (or Snake )Mound an example of?

A)The North American tradition of animal-shaped earthworks
B)Robert Smithson's early earthworks
C)The importance of ecological concerns with the Minoan Snake Goddess cult
D)Garden design by the Mayans

Question 33

​ Which culture created the work Relief Depicting a Priest Making an Offering, and a Snake behind Him from carved basalt?

A)The Assyrians of the ancient Near East
B)The Yoruba of Nigeria
C)The Olmecs of Central America
D)The Aborigines of Australia

Question 34

​ Pear Blossoms is a lyric painting by Qian Xuan that is accompanied by which type of text?

A)Lines of poetry
B)Lines of scripture
C)Lines of propaganda
D)Lines of an epic saga

Question 35

​ Which society produced the relief carving Ashurbanipal II Killing Lions ?

A)Olmec
B)Assyrian
C)Mesoamerican
D)Thai

Question 36

​ What is a likely meaning of the tapestry The Unicorn in Captivity ?

A)The unicorn represents the purity of Mary, the mother of Jesus.
B)The unicorn, like the lover in chivalric tales, is enchained by his love.
C)The unicorn represents the interest in exotic animals seen in menageries throughout medieval Europe.
D)The unicorn has an important role is chivalric legends regarding the origin of the French people.

Question 37

Orozco's frescoes for an American university celebrate the ongoing value of education.

Question 38

Which statement about Jan Bruegel's flower paintings is correct?

A)Based on careful observation, Bruegel derived his still lifes from what he could see at the Antwerp botanical gardens.
B)Each flower conveyed such specific symbolism that the bouquet can be interpreted as a visual sermon.
C)Although Bruegel studied flowers firsthand, his painted bouquets never existed; it would have been impossible because the flowers are from different places and seasons of the year.
D)Bruegel painted flowers as practice for his later landscape paintings.

Question 39

The European painter John Constable painted his large landscapes outdoors from direct observation.

Question 40

​ What's the relationship between the two ships in Turner's The Fighting Temeraire Tugged to Her Last Berth to Be Broken Up ?

A)The elegant older sailing vessel contrasts the newer, ungraceful tugboat.
B)The power of the newer tugboat overshadows the defunct sailboat.
C)Turner was famed as a colorist so the ships just serve as formal devices.
D)The two ships are metaphors for England and France, perpetually at war.