All AP Art History Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #5 : Analyzing Twentieth And Twenty First Century 2 D Art
Which of the following best describes the purpose of Picasso's Guernica?
A reaction to industrialization
A response to Fascist violence during the Spanish civil war
An exploration of human relationships
A reflection on the purpose of war
A response to Fascist violence during the Spanish civil war
Pablo Picasso's Guernica (1937) was painted in response to the Fascist bombing of the Spanish town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. The black-and-white cubist painting uses animal imagery to denote brutality and darkness, as well as a women with a torch to symbolize freedom.
Example Question #5 : Analyzing Twentieth And Twenty First Century 2 D Art
All of the following statements are true of Henri Matisse's Red Room (Harmony in Red) except ___________.
as a development of fauvism, color here is utilized as the formal element most responsible for pictorial coherence and is the primary conveyor of meaning
this painting testifies to the Fauve movement's interest in color's structural, expressive, and aesthetic capabilities
the rich contrasting colors here give this simple scene much of its emotional intensity
this painting demonstrates the fauvist tendency to use mixed, muted colors to convey meaning, rather than pure, intense hues
the objects are depicted in a simplified and schematized fashion with flattened-out forms
this painting demonstrates the fauvist tendency to use mixed, muted colors to convey meaning, rather than pure, intense hues
Henri Matisse and the Fauve movement where primarily interested in intense, unadulterated color as a formal element to convey meaning. The colors in this painting imbue it with deep emotional intensity.
Example Question #6 : Analyzing Twentieth And Twenty First Century 2 D Art
Which conflict most inspired the work shown here?
Napoleonic Wars
Franco-Prussian War
World War II
World War I
World War I
Self-Portrait as a Soldier was painted in 1915, just after the artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner had volunteered for service in World War I and quickly been discharged for mental health reasons. The alienation and detachment is shown by the off color in the main subject's skin tone and his missing hand, while his pride of being a soldier is evident in the prominence of the military uniform. With the general abstractness and surreality of the expressionists present before World War I, the horrors and frustrations of the conflict made post-war expressionism much darker in both color and subject.
Image is in the public domain, accessed through Wikipedia Media Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kirchner_-_Selbstbildnis_als_Soldat.jpg
Example Question #7 : Analyzing Twentieth And Twenty First Century 2 D Art
Piet Mondrian's Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow from 1930 represents the artist's style by featuring ___________________.
wide use of natural light elements
obvious brushstrokes in bright colors
abstract representations of natural figures
large blocks of the primary colors
large blocks of the primary colors
Piet Mondrian was a part of the Dutch artistic movement known as De Stijl, Dutch for simply "The Style," a group of painters working before the First World War who attempted to distill art to its basic elements. Between the World Wars, Mondrian pushed ahead with similar work in Paris he termed "Neoplasticism." Mondrian's hallmarks from this period were thick black horizontal and vertical lines across a white canvas, while inside some of the resultant rectangular shapes were large blocks of primary colors.
Example Question #8 : Analyzing Twentieth And Twenty First Century 2 D Art
Georges Braque used stencilled letters in this work in order to __________________.
force the viewer to see the work outside of representational terms
underscore the tie to realistic representation in the overall work
draw a contrast to the strong imagery in the rest of the work
label his work with the piece's title
force the viewer to see the work outside of representational terms
The letters “D BAL” are stenciled in the upper right corner of Portuguese, placed there by Georges Braque seemingly separately from the rest of the painting. As a cubist artist, Braque’s intention was to deconstruct the very concept of representation and clear imagery and present art in a new manner. Including the stencilled letters further reinforces the way in which the work of art intentionally separates itself from the traditional expectations of painting.
Example Question #341 : Ap Art History
George Braque’s frequent choice of a monochromatic color palette allows for ________________.
the viewer to focus on the main image of the work
deeper color saturation throughout the work
sharper contrast between dark and light in the work
the fragmented nature of the work to be minimized
the viewer to focus on the main image of the work
Georges Braque intentionally picked a monochromatic palette for his cubist works to highlight the way he deconstructed his images into framents. With a monochromatic palette, the viewer would have to focus on Braque’s lines and geometric shapes, rather than be distracted by blocks of saturated color or sharp contrasts between light and dark elements.
Example Question #342 : Ap Art History
Mark Rothko's mature work is notable for all of the following recurring features except ___________________.
Two to four floating shapes against a vertical background
A large scale
Paint applied in thin washes
Translucent rectangles of color
Monochromaticism
Monochromaticism
All of these are features of Rothko's work with rectangles except the notion that his works were monochromatic -in fact, the colors he employed varied over the course of his career, beginning as bright contrasting hues and moving toward darker maroons and blacks.
Example Question #343 : Ap Art History
Screen printing is an artistic method that allows for __________.
transforms the brushstrokes in a painting into different shapes
projects an image onto a canvas to allow for hand copying
reproduction of an image on different pieces of art
transforms the colors on a canvas painting
reproduction of an image on different pieces of art
The technique of screen printing involves taking a stamp, covering it with cotton mesh, and inking the stamp onto a canvas to produce an exact image from the stamp. The technique, first developed in the early twentieth century, allows an artist to reproduce the same image repetitively on different pieces of art. This ability was used by Pop Artists like Andy Warhol to create similar images onto canvases which he then painted in a variety of colors to make similar, yet highly diverse, series of images.
Example Question #2 : Understanding Terminology That Describes Twentieth And Twenty First Century 2 D Art
Surrealism is the style most closely associated with which of the following artists?
Salvador Dalí
Henri Matisse
Pablo Picasso
Amedeo Modigliani
Salvador Dalí
Surrealism was inspired by the work of pioneering psychologists like Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, and used odd, dreamlike imagery in realistic lines and shapes. Its most famous figure was Salvador Dalí, who was the archetypical surrealist. Dali's painting often featured familiar images juxtaposed with strange objects in barren and off-putting landscapes.
Example Question #15 : Twentieth And Twenty First Century 2 D Art
The American painter Grant Wood is most closely associated with the artistic movement known as __________.
regionalism
neo-classicalism
pop art
abstract expressionism
regionalism
Grant Wood lived almost his entire life in the state of Iowa, teaching at schools and supporting organizations in the state. His painting reflected this attachment to his native region, and were articulated by Wood, along with Thomas Hart Benton, into an artistic style known as "regionalism." Wood's most famous work "American Gothic," featuring a farming couple in an honest, empathetic, yet slightly off perspective, is emblematic of the style.
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