Question 1

By the beginning of ____________, many painters labored to reproduce scenes as they would have appeared to observers, becoming more "scientific" through the use of mechanical devices to see, measure, and render.

Accepted Answer

The Renaissance was a period of great artistic and scientific achievement, where painters such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo used mechanical devices like the camera obscura to help them accurately capture and depict the world around them. This move towards a more scientific approach to painting was a hallmark of the Renaissance period.

Question 2

The practitioners of ____________ made films that tended to dramatize the social conditions of the French working class, mostly through fictional stories featuring tragic antiheroes.

Accepted Answer

The practitioners of Poetic Realism, also known as French poetic realism, made films that usually showcased the harsh social conditions and plights of the French working class people. They mostly relied on fictional stories, featuring tragic antiheroes, to tell their stories.

Question 3

____________ is a set of techniques for depicting spatial depth within two-dimensional pictorial space.

Accepted Answer

Perspective is the set of techniques for depicting spatial depth within two-dimensional pictorial space. It allows artists to create the illusion of a three-dimensional space on a flat surface by using techniques such as vanishing points, foreshortening, and overlapping. Cartography is the art and science of map-making and does not necessarily involve the creation of pictorial space. Realism is an artistic movement focused on accurately portraying the world, but it does not necessarily involve the use of perspective. Constructivism is an artistic and architectural movement that emphasizes the use of modern materials and construction methods, but does not necessarily involve the creation of pictorial depth.

Question 4

____________ rendered landscapes through the empirical experience of being in nature, observing and subjectively recording the light and color changes they experienced during the painting session.

Accepted Answer

Impressionists were known for their emphasis on capturing the sensory experience of a moment in time, particularly in natural landscapes. They would often work en plein air, or outdoors, to observe and record the changing light and color of a scene through their subjective interpretation. This approach was a departure from earlier art movements such as Cartesian perspectivists, who prioritized mathematical accuracy and grid-like structures in their landscapes. Cubists and conceptual artists also deviated from a realistic representation of nature, instead focusing on abstract or conceptualized forms.

Question 5

____________ produced works in which the idea is more important than the visual product.

Accepted Answer

Conceptual artists prioritize the concept or idea behind their art over the visual product itself. They often use various mediums, including text and performance, to express their ideas.

Question 6

____________ images are by definition images that break with the convention of representing what is seen, and they can be analog as well as digital.

Accepted Answer

The answer of ____________ images are by definition images that...

Question 7

____________ is a physical, three-dimensional space that can be mathematically measured.

Accepted Answer

Cartesian space, also known as Euclidean space, refers to a physical space with three dimensions (length, width, and height) that can be mathematically measured using the Cartesian coordinate system.

Question 8

Examples of early Christian art, such as the second-century ce painted ceilings of Rome's underground burial catacombs, reveal that their painters were more concerned with ____________ than ____________.

Accepted Answer

The early Christian art, specifically the painted ceilings in Rome's underground catacombs, suggests that the painters were more focused on using symbols to convey religious messages rather than accurately reproducing realistic scenes or using techniques like perspective.

Question 9

Who stated that "there are thousands of ways for a painter to be a realist"?

Accepted Answer

Jean Cassou is known for his statement about the diversity of realism in painting, emphasizing the multitude of approaches a painter can take to achieve realism.

Question 10

What constitutes ____________ in a given political time and place can be subject to intense contestation, and engaging in one form over another can be a political choice that may incur risk and impact one's career.

Accepted Answer

The answer of What constitutes ____________ in a given political...

Question 11

Who regarded techniques for rendering depth as a kind of deception?

Accepted Answer

Plato regarded techniques for rendering depth as a kind of deception as he believed that the material world was an imperfect distortion of the true reality.

Question 12

The perspectival grid works much better to depict ____________ than ____________.

Accepted Answer

The perspectival grid is a tool commonly used in architecture to create the illusion of depth and space in a two-dimensional representation. As such, it is well-suited to depicting built architectural space. On the other hand, it may not be as effective in depicting the human body, which is three-dimensional and subject to movement and change over time.

Question 13

Although the influence of ____________ had a long history, in the nineteenth century it was transformed from a metaphor of truth to a metaphor of that which conceals or inverts truth.

Accepted Answer

The use of the term "camera obscura" as a metaphor for something that inverts truth can be traced back to the 17th century, but it became more prevalent in the 19th century. The camera obscura was originally a device used in optics that projected an inverted image onto a surface, but the term came to represent anything that distorts or conceals the truth.

Question 14

How does the computer screen offer a kind of seeing similar to Cubism?

Accepted Answer

Both computer screens and Cubism offer multiple perspectives or standpoints simultaneously. In Cubism, objects are depicted from multiple angles and viewpoints, offering a fragmented and multidimensional image. Similarly, a computer screen can display multiple windows or tabs at once, offering different viewpoints or perspectives on information.

Question 15

In photographer Francesca Woodman's self-portraits, she often appeared blurred through a combination of long exposures and her own movement. Rather than capturing herself exactly as she appeared in front of the camera, which could have easily been achieved with a faster shutter speed, her abstracted body was placed in front of a steady background in order to visualize her emotional truth. Woodman's use of blur is similar to the use of double exposure by ____________ in ____________.

Accepted Answer

Dziga Vertov used double exposure in his film Man with a Movie Camera to create a visual metaphor for the intersection of the individual and the collective. This technique allowed him to convey abstract concepts and emotions through the use of visual language, similar to Woodman's use of blur in her self-portraits.

Question 16

Carol is walking down a busy street, mostly paying attention to her phone. She suddenly notices that she has walked onto an abstract chalk painting. Even though Carol is firmly footed on the concrete, from a few feet away, it looks like she is walking on air over a canyon-like hole in the ground. What technique has the chalk artist used to create this effect?

Accepted Answer

Perspectival anamorphosis is a technique used to create distorted images that can only be seen properly from a particular angle or viewpoint. In this case, the chalk artist has created an abstract image that appears as if Carol is walking on air over a canyon-like hole in the ground, but it is only an illusion from a particular viewpoint.

Question 17

Tanya Brodsky is a contemporary sculptor who uses objects such as rails, prefabricated metal fixtures, and chain link fences, often joining or reconstructing them in such a way that these everyday objects designed with ease of use and convenience in mind become unusable, abstracted, and often unrecognizable. Whose practice is Brodsky's most similar to?

Accepted Answer

Tanya Brodsky's use of everyday objects and abstraction is most similar to Naum Gabo, a constructivist sculptor who also used modern materials in his work. Yves Klein was a performance artist and painter, Dziga Vertov was a film director, and Ana Mendieta was a performance artist and sculptor who worked with natural materials.

Question 18

In 2017, Pitzer College student Alegria Martinez wrote an email to the entire student body explaining a message she and a group of black and Latina students wrote on a wall at the university. It read "White girl, take off your hoops!!!" In the email, Martinez expressed frustration with "white women appropriating styles . . . that belong to the black and brown folks who created the culture." This is similar to accusations against which artist?

Accepted Answer

The accusation of cultural appropriation by white artists is often directed towards Pablo Picasso, who is known for incorporating elements of African art into his work without proper acknowledgement or respect for the cultures he was borrowing from.

Question 19

For the The Necessary Reconditioning of the Highly Deserving (2017), visual artist EJ Hill used images and sculptures of mountains, clouds, and ascension to visualize an elevation of the marginalized bodies so often seen dead or injured on the news. At the center of this installation is a swing on which the audience can sit. Hill's creation of a space in which bodies can, through the swing, literally elevate themselves, is an example of ____________.

Accepted Answer

The swing as a tool for physically elevating oneself aligns with the principles of empiricism, which is based on the idea that all knowledge comes from experience and observation. The swing allows the audience to experience a physical elevation and therefore learn and understand the concept of elevating marginalized bodies, rather than just being told about it or observing it passively. The other options do not relate directly to this particular installation.

Question 20

The Blair Witch Project (1999) is a movie in which three student filmmakers venture into the woods with a hand-held camera to film a documentary about the notorious Blair Witch. As they move farther into the woods, supernatural activity around them escalates, and the students eventually meet violent ends, their footage ostensibly found and edited by the film's directors. To convince the audience that the movie was indeed created by the students and not professional filmmakers, the film was shot by hand, resulting in shaky images, on cameras no longer standard in the film industry that students would likely have access to. The use of antiquated film technology by directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez to give the audience a sense of authenticity is similar to aesthetic choices made by the ____________.

Accepted Answer

The use of outdated and amateur equipment by the directors to create a sense of realism and authenticity is a technique often associated with the neorealist movement in cinema, which emerged in Italy after World War II. Neorealist filmmakers used non-professional actors, real locations, and handheld cameras to tell stories in a more naturalistic style. The Blair Witch Project employed similar tactics to create a sense of verisimilitude, making the events of the film feel more grounded and believable.

Quiz 4: Realism and Perspective: From Renaissance Painting to Digital Media