Deck 12: The Industrial Age

Question 1

Which example best illustrates the Victorian spirit of progress and the use of new industrial materials?

A) L. C. Tiffany's colored glass
B) Manet's Luncheon on the Grass
C) Paxton's Crystal Palace
D) Bonheur's The Horse Fair

Answer 1

C

Question 2

In which work is the principle of "natural selection" a central concept?

A) Dickens' David Copperfield
B) J. S. Mill's On Liberty
C) Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil
D) Darwin's Origin of Species

Answer 2

D

Question 3

What statement best expresses the utilitarian philosophy of J. S. Mill?

A) all ideas come from God and deserve to be heard
B) actions are right insofar as they promote happiness
C) all species, including humans, are engaged in the struggle to survive
D) the strong must be free to create their own value system

Answer 3

B

Question 4

What made Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace notable?

A) use of neoclassical motifs
B) iron-and-glass construction
C) Art Nouveau-style decoration
D) Gothic gloominess and mystery

Question 5

Why would traditional art critics in 1850 have criticized Gustave Courbet's Burial at Ornans?

A) it depicted a commonplace scene from ordinary life
B) it used brilliant and bizarre color combinations
C) it depicted mythological creatures and fantastic scenes
D) it imitated classical sculpture and architecture

Question 6

Which statement best describes a central principle of "social" Darwinism?

A) divisions in society result from a competitive struggle for life
B) all should strive for the greatest good for the greatest number
C) liberal society will evolve into a community utopia
D) history progresses through the struggle of the rational and the real

Question 7

Which of these works would properly be classified as "realist"-aiming to depict its subject in full detail and with honesty?

A) Renoir's Le Moulin de la Galette
B) Flaubert's Madame Bovary
C) Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil
D) Van Gogh's Starry Night

Question 8

Which of these decadent and mystical artists helped inspire a movement called l'art pour l'art - "art for art's sake"- with morbidly erotic poetry?

A) Claude Monet
B) Richard Wagner
C) Gustave Courbet
D) Charles Baudelaire

Question 9

In whose world would one expect to find a Leitmotif?

A) Henrik Ibsen
B) Georges Seurat
C) Richard Wagner
D) Claude Monet

Question 10

Which statement best describes Richard Wagner's cycle of four operas titled Ring of the Nibelung?

A) important in the development of late nineteenth-century ballet
B) experimented with the tonalities of exotic instruments
C) adapted the love stories and gay tales of traditional opera
D) synthesized orchestral music, song, and staging in a "total" art work

Question 11

What composer achieved innovations in orchestration and tonality that are often called "impressionism in music"?

A) Claude Debussy
B) Johannes Brahms
C) Giuseppe Verdi
D) Richard Wagner

Question 12

The literary names of Gustave Flaubert and Henrik Ibsen are closely associated with what "-ism"?

A) realism
B) symbolism
C) impressionism
D) socialism

Question 13

Why would the artistic public of the 1860s most likely have rejected Edouard Manet's Luncheon on the Grass?

A) the work's sketchy brush strokes seemed amateurish
B) the picture placed a bold nude woman in a contemporary setting
C) the work seemed to call for violent uprisings of urban workers
D) the work depicted exotic tropical scenes in garish colors

Question 14

In explaining the importance of Baron Haussmann's new Paris, which cheerfully destroyed traditional neighborhoods in favor of efficient boulevards and up-to-date apartment buildings, what term would you most appropriately use?

A) realism
B) Art Nouveau
C) nationalism
D) modernity

Question 15

Which term is best associated with Louis Sullivan's Wainright Building in St. Louis and other "Chicago-style" skyscrapers?

A) exoticism
B) the steel-cage frame
C) post-impressionism
D) iron-and-glass construction

Question 16

How is the style of Art Nouveau best described?

A) sought to depict things as they really are
B) imitated models from the classical past
C) expressed intense inner feelings and states of mind
D) employed floral and vegetal motifs

Question 17

Which statement best describes the statue of the novelist Balzac sculpted by Auguste Rodin?

A) was quickly recognized as a masterpiece by critics
B) consciously imitated the style of classical Greece
C) suggests the appetites and energy of its famous subject
D) sought to achieve a flawlessly smooth surface

Question 18

What stylistic term is best associated with the flowing lines and vegetal decoration of Gaudí's Casa Milá in Barcelona?

A) post-impressionism
B) architectural nationalism
C) Art Nouveau
D) Gothic revival

Question 19

Which phrase best describes the music of Claude Debussy, as exemplified in works like Prelude to 'Afternoon of a Faun' and Claire de lune (Moonlight)?

A) static compositions based on tonal colors and harmonic innovation
B) based on interwoven Leitmotiven ("leading motives")
C) earned him praise as Europe's greatest operatic composer
D) continued the abstract music tradition of Mozart and Beethoven

Question 20

In what European city would one have seen the first impressionist exhibition?

A) Berlin
B) London
C) Paris
D) Munich

Question 21

For what shortcoming would a tradition-minded connoisseur most likely have criticized early impressionist paintings?

A) overuse of classical images
B) depiction of evil and violence
C) use of dull earth colors
D) sketchy brushstrokes

Question 22

What pair of painters sought to develop beyond the impressionist style in the direction of greater formal order and abstraction?

A) Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas
B) Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir
C) Rosa Bonheur and Thomas Eakins
D) Paul Cézanne and Georges Seurat

Question 23

What technique of the impressionist and post-impressionist styles, visible especially in Mary Cassatt's later works, was adapted from Japanese ukiyo-e prints?

A) repetition of the circle and square to create order and regularity
B) sketchy brushwork lending a sense of spontaneity
C) precise observation of realistic detail
D) flattened perspective and unbroken fields of bright color

Question 24

What characteristic of the impressionist style is best illustrated by Renoir's Le Moulin de la Galette?

A) use of recurring formal shapes such as the cube and sphere
B) gaiety of life communicated through light and color
C) graphically realistic treatment of scientific and sporting subjects
D) careful observation of the human figure in awkward postures

Question 25

What American impressionist painter was known for paintings focused on the intimacy of mother and child?

A) Edgar Degas
B) Mary Cassatt
C) Auguste Renoir
D) Claude Monet

Question 26

What pair of painters best defines the pure impressionist style of brilliant color and vibrant brushwork?

A) Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas
B) Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir
C) Gustave Courbet and Honoré Daumier
D) Paul Cézanne and Georges Seurat

Question 27

Which is a post-impressionist work that used vivid colors to achieve greater emotional power and expressiveness than the impressionists did themselves?

A) Manet's Bar at the Folies-Bergère
B) Seurat's Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
C) Van Gogh's Starry Night
D) Daumier's Rue Transnonain

Question 28

Which of these characteristics best describes Georges Seurat's Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte?

A) use of color and symbolism to impart a concentrated emotional intensity
B) painstaking method of applying tiny dots of color
C) attempt to catch a fleeting impression of light and color
D) unbroken expanses of brilliant color in search of satisfying design

Question 29

Who was an impressionist painter whose works are marked by careful observation of the human figure, often in awkward movements and positions?

A) Paul Cézanne
B) Edouard Manet
C) Edgar Degas
D) Honoré Daumier

Question 30

What pair of painters responded to the impressionist style by seeking more intense expressiveness of color and design?

A) Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin
B) Claude Monet and Mary Cassatt
C) Rosa Bonheur and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
D) Paul Cézanne and Georges Seurat

Question 31

How is Fyodor Dostoevsky's tale of the "Grand Inquisitor," from his novel The Brothers Karamazov, best described?

A) a feminist protest against the traditional family
B) an anguished anticipation of the conditions of mass society
C) an ironic examination of romantic love in the modern era
D) a savage critique of religion's role in imperialist oppression

Question 32

Which work develops and applies the concept of the Übermensch-a type of humans willing to reach "beyond good and evil" and create their own values?

A) Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra
B) Flaubert's Madame Bovary
C) Ibsen's A Doll's House
D) Darwin's Origin of Species

Question 33

What Japanese art, perfected by the artists Hiroshige and Hokusai, exercised a great influence on European artists of the late nineteenth century?

A) gamelan orchestra
B) the realist novel
C) iron-and-glass construction
D) the color wood-block print

Question 34

What figure understood the human will in light of his pessimistic conclusion that "life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome"?

A) Arthur Schopenhauer
B) Anton Chekhov
C) Gustave Courbet
D) Charles Baudelaire

Question 35

Summarize the principal values or beliefs of the Victorians-the prosperous middle classes of nineteenth-century industrial societies.

Question 36

Illustrate the "spirit of progress" in later nineteenth-century society with examples from science, politics, architecture, and city planning.

Question 37

Define the realist style as practiced in nineteenth-century art and literature, citing examples from different arts.

Question 38

Identify Richard Wagner's most significant musical innovations.

Question 39

Illustrate the late romantic sensibility in poetry, design, sculpture, and music.

Question 40

Characterize the "pure impressionist" style of Monet and Renoir.

Question 41

Summarize Dostoevsky's and Nietzsche's criticisms of modern Western society and its materialist values.

Question 42

Trace the development of nineteenth-century European painting from realism to impressionism to post-impressionism. Carefully define the stylistic and thematic concerns of each phase of this development, and show how each phase developed from previous stages. Refer to specific artists and works in each phase.

Question 43

Evaluate modernity as a shaping force in nineteenth-century Western civilization, noting both its positive and negative effects as reflected in the works of artists and thinkers of the industrial age.