Marat stabbed in the bath is very famous - the iconic painting of the French Revolution, yet the lowest guessed at 34%. The could-be-anybody Rembrandt was gotten by 84%. What am I missing?
If I'm not mistaken, the painting has been cropped just a little. In the images that I have seen, mainly in French history and art history classes the painting has the subject's and the artist's names in the lower right corner. Of course, that would have ruined it for the quiz, but it makes it easier to remember who he was after you've seen it a few times.
I recognize the painting of Marat, but I could not recall his name. I got Rembrandt correct...I didn't know it was him on sight, but it looks very much like an artist in that picture, and I generally recognize the style of the painting to be the style of the Dutch masters, so...Rembrandt is an obvious choice from there.
I haven't heard of or seen marat before. And all the others were easy. So not that famous. "in French history and art history classes" Well that explains it, might be well known if you are from france or study art. But if you havent had those classes.
(and yea the rembrandt painting is all over the place, on jetpunk alone I ve seen it a dozen times (I thinkeven more than henry! though henry definitely has been the answer more often and the thumbnails on quizzes, not counting those)
I think including Marat made sense. I learned about both him as a figure and this painting of him at my (American) high school. While he's typically overshadowed by figures like Robespierre (probably because he wasn't a political leader himself and basically lived in a bath tub), he still played a major role in drumming up the sentiment that led to the Reign of Terror. And his death was quite significant as well, leading to further radical sentiment against "enemies of the state" and his depiction as a martyr.
TL;DR Marat was an pretty important figure in the France Revolution who should be recognized more. Also, the painting itself is pretty amazing.
It doesn't need art History classes or French history classes. French Revolution is World History, and you don't need to know those paintings. Any dead person on a bathtub is Marat as any one in the cross is Jesus, someone tied to a mast is Odysseus and naked woman on top of a horse is Godiva.
I've never seen the portrait, but I saw the play, Marat/Sade, a shortened name of the correct title, "The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade," and it was an easy guess. (It was a very strange play.)
Excellent! I tried Jacobin for #14 -- because you never know what the Quizmaster might have permitted :-) Then tried "Jean Paul" (couldn't remember Marat at first) and even David (the painter), on the same theory. Great choice of a painting. It's very famous, but it's interesting that the actual subject, a huge deal at the time, has slipped into relative obscurity - so that it's the painter, and not the person, that I bet most people would remember! It'd be fun to have a whole quiz of famous paintings of now-obscure "famous subjects."
That's what I come to this site for. I have actually never seen that painting before, never heard Marat, and have never even heard of the artist. Time to learn!
Great concept for a quiz! Got stumped only on Cleopatra but in the last seconds I noticed the bottom of the Isis symbol... the goddess she is supposed to embody. I love many of these paintings, nice one!
Plus, who would a Victorian painter show as a dark and sultry temptress wearing a crown and sitting on a throne under an Egyptian symbol showing snakes? Not many candidates!
it was the cat head that did it for me, led me towards Africa, and hence Cleopatra, on review the decoration on the wall behind her looks clearly egyption
Quite a few imaginary characters here, does anyone know what they actually looked like?! Especially "Adam" who is reaching out to a hand older than his, which would make him, er, not the first dude on Earth...
lovelllly quiz that i've been waiting for to be made because i'm a lazy hoe :^) although it is rather easy, i have to say...even marat, supposedly the more difficult painting, is easily recognizable for anyone with a vague interest in art and the more famous paintings/artists
I totally agree. Knowledge of history plays a role too. In Italian first grades of primary school French Revolution is stressed for its breakthrough standing and if you ask a kid "gimme three names of revolutionaries" they will be Robespierre, Danton and Marat.
Got Godiva; missed Marat (thought that he was the artist, not the subject); Confucius (looked vaguely like Rasputin to me) and I never saw this particular depiction of Odysseus.
I know very little about art appreciation, but when I saw this self-portrait of Rembrandt at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC I was transfixed.
does anyone know why Godiva did that? no? it was to get peasants attention so she could stir them up to not pay taxes to the king. i see it worked at getting attention from what ive read.
The version I’ve heard was that her husband, the lord, wanted to raise taxes on the peasantry. She protested, and he said he wouldn’t raise them if she rode naked through the town, thinking that she’d never do that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Marat
(and yea the rembrandt painting is all over the place, on jetpunk alone I ve seen it a dozen times (I thinkeven more than henry! though henry definitely has been the answer more often and the thumbnails on quizzes, not counting those)
TL;DR Marat was an pretty important figure in the France Revolution who should be recognized more. Also, the painting itself is pretty amazing.
I stumbled on the stunning Lady Godiva, though.
And by the way, what do you meant, and which one is "impossible"?
Thanks!