The Stroke of Genius Unravelled

Answers to the previous quiz on artists.



1.Sir Joshua Reynolds

Sir Joshua Reynolds was the most important and influential of 18th century English painters, specialising in portraits and promoting the "Grand Style" in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect. He was one of the founders and first President of the Royal Academy. George III appreciated his merits and knighted him in 1769.

2.Tintoretto or Jacopo Robusti

Tintoretto (real name Jacopo Comin) was one of the greatest painters of the Venetian school and probably the last great painter of the Italian Renaissance.For his phenomenal energy in painting he was termed Il Furioso, and his dramatic use of perspectival space and special lighting effects make him a precursor of baroque art.


3.Fransisco Josede Goya y Lucientes ,the Spanish painter and printmaker .



The Naked Maja

Goya was a court painter to the Spanish Crown .Two of Goya's best known paintings are The Nude Maja (La maja desnuda) and The Clothed Maja (La maja vestida). They depict the same woman in the same pose, naked and clothed, respectively. He painted La maja vestida after outrage in Spanish society over the previous Desnuda. Without a pretense to allegorical or mythological meaning, the painting was "the first totally profane life-size female nude in Western art". He refused to paint clothes on her, and instead created a new painting.


4.John Zoffany

Zoffany was a German neoclassical painter, active mainly in England.He was known for being very arrogant with his art. He had been known to have an outstanding argument with many artists, he would often draw caricatures of other artists he did not like in his art. Zoffany became especially noted for producing huge paintings with large casts of people and objets d'art, all readily recognizable.



His "The Tribuna of the Uffizi" is one such hell of a work

5. Raphael Sanzio ,the Italian master painter and architect of the Florentine school in High Renaissance, celebrated for the perfection and grace of his paintings.

The inscription on his marble sarcophagus, written by Pietro Bembo, reads: "Ille hic est Raffael, timuit quo sospite vinci, rerum magna parens et moriente mori." Meaning : "Here lies Raffaello who, when alive, Nature was afraid to be won by him, when he died, she wanted to die herself".
Raphael was highly admired by his contemporaries. When compared to Michelangelo and Titian, he was sometimes considered inferior; at the same time, it was maintained that none of them shared all the qualities possessed by Raphael, "ease" in particular.

6. Maqbool Fida Husain ,the actress of course Madhuri Dixit

He actually made the film Gaja Gamini with his muse Madhuri Dixit, who was also the subject of a series of paintings which he signed Fida.

7.Amedeo Clemente Modigliani

Amedeo Clemente Modigliani as an Italian artist, practicing both painting and sculpture, who pursued his career for the most part in France. He died in Paris of tubercular meningitis— penniless and destitute—managing only one solo exhibition in his life and giving his work away in exchange for meals in restaurants. Had he lived through the 1920s when American buyers flooded Paris, his fortunes might well have changed. Since his death his reputation has soared. Nine novels, a play, a documentary and three feature films have been devoted to his life.

8. Leonardo Da Vinci

9. Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix

Eugene Delacroix was the most important of the French Romantic painters. Delacroix's use of expressive brushstrokes and his study of the optical effects of colour profoundly shaped the work of the Impressionists, while his passion for the exotic inspired the artists of the Symbolist movement.

1 0. Hans Holbein ,the German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known for his numerous portraits and his woodcut series of the Dance of Death.

Srtokes of an Artist

I have been coming across quite a few quizes on artists and painters, so i did a little research on the subject and managed to carve out some fine questions . So here is a compilation on some of the greatest artists in history.

1. Thoams Gainsborough ,the English painter is said to have painted his famous 'The Blue Boy' to prove another painter wrong.This painter had said in a lecture that blue should not be 'massed' in a painting .Name him.

The Blue Boy -
2. Which great sixteenth century painter hung this sign on the door of his studio ' The design of Michaelangelo and the colouring of Titian ' ?

3.Which great painter, regarded both as the last of the Old Masters and as the first of the moderns and also "the Father of Modern Art",escaped arrest by running away to Italy with a band of bullfighters?He was nearly hanged in Italy but returned,and later ,became a national hero.

4. Who painted ' The Last Supper in India ' and gave it to St.John's Church ,Kolkata,in 1787 ?Christ was modelled after a greek priest ,Father Parthenio ,St John after a magisterate, and Judas Iscariot after a local auctioneer.He did a similar painting in England.

5.In the Vatican hangs this famous painting - The School of Athens.It was painted in the early sixteenth century and was commissioned by the Pope.The painting has Plato,Aristotle ,Socrates ,Euclid ,Pythagoras and Epicurus in it. Who is the painter?

The School of Athens -

6.This artist has portrayed a Bollywood actress as Europa being gored by 'McBull'- a take-off on an incident in Greek mythology .The 'McBull' is a pun on the artist's name.Name the actress and the artist.

7.Name this great painter who died in 1920 , only thirty five ,after selling very few paintings at a good price and living a riotous life in Paris .He once peeled potatoes to make a living but what are remembered are his portraits of women ,many of them nudes.All of them have oval faces and swan necks.

8.Pope Leo X banned him from the mortury in Rome after he dissected some thirty odd cadavers. Who was this greusome genius? No points for guessing.

9.When Gericault's 'Raft of the Medusa ' was first displayed ,this painter was so excited that he 'ran like a madman through the streets of Paris'.Shortly afterwards ,his first major painting - Dante's Bark - made waves.Name the painter.

Dante's Bark -

10.This famous painter was born in Germany but lived in Switzerland and later moved to England where he became King Henry VIII's court painter .His famous paintings include 'The Ambassadors' and 'The Merchants of Steelyar'.He died during the plague in 1543.Who is the painter.?

The Ambassadors -

The Keeper of the Dragon Balls

Akira Toriyama is a widely known and acclaimed "mangaka" (Japanese word for a comic artist. Outside of Japan, manga usually refers to a Japanese comic book and mangaka refers to the author of the manga, who is usually Japanese .) known mostly for his work in the Dragon Ball metaseries .

He debuted in 1979 with the story Wonder Island, published in Weekly Shonen Jump magazine, and first gained popularity for the anime and manga series Dr. Slump, originally serialized weekly in Shonen Jump from 1980 to 1984. In 1984, Toriyama was responsible for developing Dragon Ball which was initially serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump. It became an instant accomplishment — primarily selling over 35,000,000 copies in Japan. The series was equally successful worldwide as well, including in the US and Latin America.

Toriyama is mostly acknowledged for his hit series Dragon Ball. Its success "forced" Toriyama to work on Dragon Ball from 1984 to 1995. During that eleven-year period, he produced 519 chapters, collected into 42 volumes.

Each volume has an average of 200 pages and the entire Dragon Ball storyline extends to almost 9,000 pages. Moreover, the benefit of the manga led to an animated television series; it brought forth the famed Dragon Ball Z, numerous feature-length animated movies, several video games, and mega-merchandising.

His works after Dragon Ball tend to be short (100-200 page) stories, including ' Kajika', and 'Sand Land', as well as one-shots, like the self-parody 'Neko Majin'. Most recently, he has been the character designer for 'Dragon Quest Swords' for Nintendo .

The name of Toriyama's studio is Bird Studio, which is a play on his name, meaning "Bird Mountain". 鳥 tori means "bird" and 山 yama means "mountain". 明 akira means "intelligent" or "brightness".

The Man with the Blue Guitar

The Old Guitarist is a picture by Pablo Picasso, painted in 1903, just after the suicide death of Picasso's close friend, Casagemas. Picasso's “Blue Period” spanned the years of 1901–1904, and was followed by his “Rose Period”. These periods were both precursors to Cubism, which defined much of Picasso's career.
The Old Guitarist depicts a blind man, clad in tattered rags, huddled about his guitar. The figure is reportedly modeled after Senor Sebastian Mazzarella, the blind artist who mentored Picasso in his earlier days in Madrid.
This work made in the distorted style (note that the upper torso of the guitarist seems to be reclining, while the bottom half appears to be sitting cross-legged) is reminiscent of the works of El Greco.
The painting is also notable for the ghostly presence of a mysterious image painted underneath it. It is very likely that Picasso originally started painting a portrait of a woman, who appears to possibly be seated, and then changed his mind and painted the guitarist over her to save canvas.

The Man with the Blue Guitar

Wallace Stevens penned the poem “The Man With the Blue Guitar” after viewing this piece, though in the poem the guitar, rather than the man, becomes blue. The blueness here becomes an image of the transformative power of art, as expressed in the opening lines,

The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.
They said, “You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are.”
The man replied, “Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar.”
And they said then, “But play, you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,
A tune upon the blue guitar
Of things exactly as they are.”

A Beatle's Version

Viewing this painting in the hospital after the birth of his daughter, Paul McCartney was inspired to write his 2 finger song. McCartney observes that the old man in the picture was infact using just two fingers while playing . Finding this strange McCartney,a multi instrumentalist himself, tries to copy the old man's fingering and play what he believed the old man was playing, using his own guitar.Having struck on a note he then tunes a song using just two basic notes.
You may listen to the song by clicking the link.

Road Map to Connecticut

1. A slightly weak but interesting one all the same.

"bah humbug" is a phrase which was often used by Ebenezer Scrooge, the protoganist in the Charles Dicken's novel A christmas carol.

Through the looking glass is ofcourse the sequel to Alice in wonderland written by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson more popularly known to us by his pseudonym Lewis Carroll.

Pope John Paul II the second's real name was Karol Józef Wojtyla.

The connection of course is the name 'Carol'.

2.Wolverine

Mahindra and Mahindra in association with Renault had recently launched The Logan.Now if u r familiar with marvel comics ,the name Logan first brings to mind the X-men hero Wolverine.Born James Howlett,Wolverine is one of the Xmen ,guys with the x gene in them which gives them special abilities.A mutant, Wolverine possesses animal-keen senses, enhanced physical capabilities, and a healing factor that allows him to recover from virtually any wound. The near unbreakable metal alloy adamantium bonded to his skeletal system gives him his razor-sharp retractable claws.He is portrayed on screen by the actor Hughe Jackman in the 'X-men" films .the first 2 of which were directed by Brian Singer.

3.Spiderman

The amazing Fantasy #15 ,1962 issue gave us the comic super hero Spiderman.

Created by Stan Lee the amazing webslinger had the alter ego Peter PArker who worked as a press photographer at the 'Daily Bugle' newspaper which had Joseph 'Robbie' Robertson as the Editor in Chief.Among his many deadly supervillains 'Venom' would rank as one ofthe most dangerous.Initially a parasitic alien life form ,venom infects Edward 'Eddie' Brock a fellow press photographer and rival to Peter Parker and becomes the supervillian.

4.Tin tin.

Pablo is a character from The Adventures of Tintin series of classic comic books written and drawn by Hergé. He is a native of the fictional country of San Theodoros and lives in the capital Los Dopicos.Tin Tin's dog snowy is called Milou in the french version and Struppi in the german version.The first Tin Tin comics appeared in Le Petit vingtième, the weekly children's supplement to Le Vingtième siècle newspaper while Herge was its editor.Charles de Gaulle once famously said "Actually, you know, my only international rival is Tintin. We are the little fellows who refuse to be had by the big fellows. People don't notice the resemblance because of my stature."

5.The Battle of Thermopylae pass.

A personal favourite.In the Battle of Thermopylae of 480 BC, an alliance of Greek city-states fought the invading Persian Empire at the pass of Thermopylae in central Greece. Vastly outnumbered, the Greeks held back the Persians for three days in one of history's most famous last stands.Thermopylae means "hot gateway" in greek.Ephialtes was the local who betrayed the greeks by helping the persians penetrate the pass.around 1300 greeks of which about 300 were spartan warriors fought against King Xerxes' 1/2 a million men.The Spartans assembled at full strength a year later and led a pan-Greek army that defeated the Persians decisively at the Battle of Plataea, ending the Greco-Persian War and with it the expansion of the Persian Empire into Europe.

The film 300 is based on this historic stand off.

6. This one has some magic in it.

These are the friends of 'Peter Rabit' created by Helen Beatrix Potter (1866 – 1943), an English children's book author and illustrator.

Now have the sir name in mind.J.K Rowling was the First Person to become US dollar billionaire by writing books.Brain Charles Lara HAd the word 'Wizard' written on his bat and Thomas Alva Edison was of course the 'Wizard of Menlo Park.'
answer Harry Potter

CONNECTICUT

So here is my first attempt at connection questions and i give u a full set on them.

1.connect

i "bah Humbug"

ii Through the looking glass

iii Pope John Paul II

2.connect

i Mahindra - Renault

ii James Howlett

iii Adamantium

iv Bryan Singer

3.connect

i "Amazing Fantasy #15",1962

ii Edward Brock

iii Joseph Robertson

4.connect

i Los Dopicos

ii Milou / Struppi

iii Le Vingtieme Siecle

iv Charles de Gaulle's "only international rival".

5.connect

i "hot gate way"

ii Ephialtes

iii 1300:500,000

iv Plataea

6.connect

i Hunca Munca,Squirrel Nutkin , SAmuel Whiskers

ii First Person to become US dollar billionaire by writing books.

iii Brian Lara

iv Thomas Alva Edison

Time for Change

Over the last couple of weeks i have gone through some of the other quiz sites online and came to painfully realize that many questions which i had in my armoury were in fact direct rip offs from other sources.

There is very little one can do to check for the authenticity and uniqueness of these 'type set' questions and therefore i have decided to change the format a little bit. Ungettable one liners are not worthy to be asked for quizzes , so i therefore have made a conscious effort to bring in something new.A quiz ought to have a certain 'charm' in it .It must be something worth to cherish . And it is this which i seek to achieve.

As i said i came across some seriously good quiz blogs run by some former and current IITites and was clearly bowled over.Surely nothing i churn up would be nearly as good as the stuff they put up, still i now have something to raise my sights to.Do file in ur comments as and when u like.

Also due to the 'mind blowing' response i ve had for my previous posts , i have decided to include answers encoded in my posts from here on. hope the change in style will be taken well by the readers.

Answers to SET 4

1.google
2.'Jama' means Friday.In arabic i guess.
3.Walt Disney of Donald Duck
4.Leon Trotsky
5.Madan Lal

Answers to SET 3

1. Idi Amin
2.He was the Greek who convinced the Trojans to take the woden horse into their city.
3.R. S. Owens Company which makes the oscar statuettes
4. Alexander Woollcott
5. This is the window through which one mister Lee Harvey Oswald got a shot at President Kennedy on november 26 th 1963.

Answers to SET 2

1.Alexander the Great.
2. AIDS .Gay Related Immuno Deficiency .
3.The first is Charles Lindberg.U can see the 'Spirit of Saint Louis' behind him.The second is ?Jim Mollison.The former was the first to fly solo across the atlantic from West to East.The latter was the first to fly across the atlantic from East to West.
4.Bernard Shaw
5.The Kremlin

Answers to SET 1

1. Walt Disney.
2. i DeBeers
ii Rolling Stones
3. The battle of Thermopylae between the greeks and the persians
4. Aspirin
5. This is what Angelina Jolie said of her being lara croft the tomb raider.

# SET 4

1. It was started as a research project in Stanford University and was created by a few Phd. Candidates.Its staff then included a former neurosurgeon and also a rocket scientist.And another person had the job title 'spiderman'.Which company are we talking about?

2. What does 'Jama' stand for in Jama Masjid?

3. Who remarked what as " a combination of all the people I ever disliked " ?

4. Lev Davidavich Bronstein was born in Ukraine in 1979.He was a disciple of Karl Marx and joined The Social Democrats but was imprisoned for his revolutionary activities.He escaped from prison and reached England by means of a forged passport that used the name of his jailer.How do we bwtter know him?

5.Who bowled the first bowl of the first over of the first match of the first Cricket World Cup?

# SET 3

1. He declared himself King of Scotland ,arch enemy of Israel, and wanted a war with a neighbouring country to be settled by means of a boxing match between the two heads of states with Mohammed Ali as the match refree.Who?

2.In Dante's Divine Comedy, a person called Sinon suffers the greatest punishment - being held permanently between Satan's jaws. What had he done to deserve this punishment?

3.Which company makes these statuettes , and name their most famous product ?

4. "All the things I really like to do are either immoral,illegal or fattening.",who said these?

5. What is this window's claim to fame?

How to Answer

I realize i haven't mentioned any method for the readers to answer the quiz questions.
Well, to make sure your answers are not overseen by the next person ,you could go to the link www.rot13.com .get your answers encrypted and post them as comments.
Answers will be posted every week.


Thank You