Animal
Food
Life and death
Legacy
Sport, music and more
100
In David's version, Napoleon Bonaparte rides a large, strong steed with a long mane, and this is one figment of David's version that is irrefutably untrue. On which animal did Bonaparte cross the Alps?
Napoleon is known to have ridden a mule on his journey (which was borrowed from a local peasant), rather than a horse.
100
A patron of the arts orders a bunch of asparagus from Edouard Manet and, very happy with the result, offers him more money than expected. Manet thanked him by sending him a new painting of...
The art collector Charles Ephrussi had commissioned a still life representing a bunch of asparagus - Une botte d'asperges - from Édouard Manet in 1880 for the sum of 800 francs. When he received the work, he gave him 1,000. Manet then decided to offer a new, smaller painting to his generous sponsor, which he sent him with the following note: "Your boot was missing one. »
100
The Pietà by Michelangelo Buonarroti, housed in St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City has one unique important detail. Which is...
The famous Pietà is the only piece of art signed by Michelangelo Buonarroti. According to legend, the artist, motivated by the incredulity over his sculpture, broke into the Vatican to sign his work.
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Van Gogh's ear
100
What is special about the figures in this painting by Claude Monet "Three Women in the Garden".
Claude Monet's companion and future wife Camille Doncieux lent her features to all the characters . Even the man behind the bouquet is her. A work that was nevertheless rejected by the jury at the 1867 Salon who wanted to "save art" from Impressionism...
100
Which important event awarded medals for works of art inspired by sport, divided into five categories: architecture, literature, music, painting, and sculpture?
Art used to be an Olympic event! The founder of the modern Games, the Baron Pierre de Coubertin, was enamoured with the idea of the true Olympian being a talented artist and sportsperson, between 1912 and 1948 medals were given out for sporting-inspired masterpieces.
200
What did Gustav Klimt use as fixative?
Cat urine! His obsession with cats actually led him to cover the pages of his sketchbooks with cat urine. He believed it was the best fixative available. The odor was bad, but worse, he destroyed works that would likely be worth millions today.
200
Sandy Skoglund once filled an entire Room with ...
She created an installation in just one day because your material is uncooked bacon orraw ground beef and those happen to start smelling pretty rank in short order.
200
Why are people discussing Mark Rothko death?
There May Have Been a Conspiracy To Murder Mark Rothko! After his death, there was the suspicious handling of his estate and a lawsuit fromhis family that exposed corruption in the international art world. Between betrayal, missing paintings, laundered money, and forgery, there is justenough evidence to make one think that maybe his death wasn’t a suicide after all.
200
Yves Klein was unsatisfied with all of the options available when it came to color. What did he create?
He created and patented his own–InternationalKlein Blue (IKB).
200
Between 1947 and 1948, Yves Klein conceived a symphony that consisted of...
Between 1947 and 1948, Yves Klein conceived his Monotone Symphony that consisted of a single 20-minute sustained chord followed by a 20-minute silence.
300
In which environment did Jason deCaires Taylor created his Sculpture park and museum?
Jason deCaires Taylor is a British sculptor and creator of the world's first underwater sculpture park – the Molinere Underwater Sculpture Park – and underwater museum. He is best known for installing site-specific underwater sculptures which develop into artificial coral reefs.
300
Dali's performance that was most “out there”, however, was his trip to Paris in a car filled with vegetables. Which vegetable?
Dalí filled up a white Rolls Royce Phantom II with 500kg of cauliflowers and drove it from Spain to Paris in December 1955. The reasoning was, he later told an audience of 2,000, that “everything ends up in the cauliflower!”
300
What happened to "The Boat", a paper-cut by Henri Matisse, when the Museum of Modern Art in New York hung the piece, a short time after his death?
In 1961, the Museum of Modern Art in New York hung the work upside-down, causing a minor stir. The error wasn’t discovered for 47 days, going unnoticed by curators and museum staff, as well as some 116,000 visitors.
300
What does Cai-Guo Qiang use to create art with to initiate a dialogue between extraterrestrials and human beings?
Cai-Guo Qiang is an incredible contemporary artist, setting off explosions with gunpowder, fireworks, and sometimes just drawing with fire.
300
What did a visitor do to Twombly's triptych Phaedrus when it was on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Avignon in 2007?
Police arrested Cambodian-French artist Rindy Sam after she kissed one panel of Twombly's triptych Phaedrus. The panel, an all-white canvas, was smudged by Sam's red lipstick.
400
Abraham Poincheval's performances consist of exploring the world and experimenting with time through singular living conditions. In which animal did he confine himself?
In 2014, he locks himself in a naturalized bear during a performance at the Musée de la chasse et de la nature in Paris. For thirteen days, the artist hibernates in the animal's belly.
400
English artist Andy Brown found notoriety in the Trivia world when he created a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II out of ...
Andy Brown created a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II out of 1000 used and unused tea bags!
400
Salvador Dali almost suffocated while trying to explain surrealism. Why?
July 1, 1936: During The International Surrealist Exhibition in London, Salvador Dali attempts to give the lecture 'Fantomes paranoiaques authentiques' while wearing a deep-sea diving suit, but almost suffocates and has to be rescued by the young poet, David Gascoyne, who arrives with a hammer in the nick of time.
400
Andy Warhol was a hoarder: toenail clippings, dead ants, a mummified foot, Studio 54 invitations, coffee sachets - Andy Warhol saved it all in 600 sealed boxes. What did he call them?
From the early 1970s, until his death in 1987, Warhol created 610 Time Capsules. Warhol’s Time Capsules were almost completely unknown until his death.
400
Picasso was suspected of complicity and arrested after the the theft of which famous painting?
On August 22, 1911, the most famous painting in the Louvre was stolen. Picasso was suspected of complicity and arrested in the Mona Lisa affair. The portrait of the Mona Lisa was found two years later in Paris. It had been stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian glazier who had worked at the Louvre.
500
Originally entitled "Judge St. Bernard Wins on a Bluff", the painting by C. M. Coolidge as been renamed after a famous battle, which one?
Now known simply as "Waterloo", the pictured work is one of a serie of anthropomorphic dogs commissioned by the Brown & Bigelow advertising company to sell cigars.
500
It is not made of food so what made possible for Willard Wigan to inhale one of his art piece by accident?
Wigan’s works are ‘micro-sculptures’, so tiny they must be viewed through a microscope. In creating his art, Wigan has to slow his heartbeat and work between pulses. The work he inhaled was Alice, from Alice in Wonderland, but apparently she was even better when remade.
500
This figurine of a soldier with a horse was found in a pit, along with thousands of companion figures, in a Chinese field in 1974. What nickname is given to this collection of figures?
The Terracotta Army is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. It is a form of funerary art buried with the emperor in 210–209 BCE with the purpose of protecting the emperor in his afterlife.
500
Pierre Bonnard got in trouble for a painting habit. It even gave his name to the French verb "bonardiser". What does it mean?
Bonnard had to explain himself to the caretaker of the Musée du Luxembourg, who alpacated him while he was grinding a shade of green on the foliage of one of his canvases, directly on the wall. The painter was so accustomed to the fact that today, in painting, this practice of retouching is called "bonnardiser".
500
What event is represented in Eugène Delacroix's painting "Liberty Leading the People"?
Contrary to popular belief, Eugène Delacroix's painting does not depict a scene from the French Revolution of 1789. It refers to the revolution of July 1830, known as the Three Glorious Days because it lasted three days in a row.