World Book Trivia Challenge Advanced--05/12--painting

Thinners reduce the viscosity (thickness) of a paint so the paint can be more easily applied to the support. Different binders require different thinners. Water is used to thin water color and paints made of synthetic resins. But because oil and water do not mix, water cannot thin oil paint. Instead, painters commonly use turpentine or mineral spirits.

Italy was the home of the Renaissance, primarily because so much classical tradition of ancient Greece and Rome survived there.

Salvador Dalí was a famous Surrealist painter. His unusual pictures made him one of the most publicized figures in modern art. The pictures show strange, often nightmarish combinations of precisely detailed figures and objects.

The most common subjects of cave paintings are large animals—horses, cattle, bison, deer, and mammoths. Many paintings show close observation, with subtle shadings of color, producing a startling realism. Some of the most famous cave paintings were discovered in a cave in Lascaux, France

Unprecedented numbers of women became painters during the 1800's, but they rarely enjoyed the success and popularity of male artists. This inequality resulted from several factors. Women were not allowed into the best art schools, primarily because it was considered improper for women to study and paint a nude model. Thus, women lacked the necessary training to compete with men in the area most admired in the academic world, figurative and historical painting.

Paintings consist of many artistic elements. The most important elements are (1) color, (2) line, (3) mass, (4) space, (5) texture, (6) composition, and (7) light and shade. These artistic elements are as important to a painter as words are to an author. By stressing certain elements, a painter can make a picture easier to understand or bring out some particular mood or theme.

The Rococo style developed in France after the death of Louis XIV in 1715. Artists painted lighthearted, frivolous subjects, such as courtship, the theater, and games. Neoclassicism refers to a severe style that developed in France at the end of the 1700's in reaction to the playful quality of Rococo art. Neoclassicism dominated French art from the late 1700's to the early 1800's.

Rivera received several major mural commissions in the United States during the 1930's. His most significant commission was the Detroit Industry murals executed at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Rivera worked toward creating a national Mexican style that reflected the history of the Mexican people as well as the socialist spirit of the Mexican Revolution of the early 1900's. Rivera's mural style influenced artists in both Mexico and the United States. It combined decorative folklore elements of the Mexican art tradition with dramatic realism.

The earliest known paintings date from about 30,000 years ago, during the Paleolithic Period, also known as the Old Stone Age. Prehistoric paintings are found on the walls of caves in Australia, France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. Archaeologists believe that Australian Aborigines may have made cave paintings even earlier than 30,000 years ago.

Expressionism was a movement in the early 1900's that emphasized strong emotional content. Like the Romantic movement of the 1800's, Expressionism valued personal vision and spiritual revelation. Matisse's use of color to evoke feelings in the viewer is a type of Expressionism. His use of color connected him with artists of the previous generation such as Vincent van Gogh and Edvard Munch. All three artists were influential figures in Germany during the early 1900's, where Expressionism developed. What is usually called German Expressionism consists of two groups of artists who worked in Germany between 1905 and 1914. One was called Die Brucke (The Bridge), and the other was Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider).