module 1
Card 1
Front: What is the chapter’s most fundamental definition of art?
Back: Art is human-made: produced or heavily manipulated by people.
Card 2
Front: What is an aesthetic experience?
Back: A perceptual and emotional response to something, such as awe, wonder, joy, or beauty.
Card 3
Front: How does an art-based aesthetic experience differ from a natural one?
Back: Art is deliberately constructed by humans and carries human content and context; nature is not human-made. Neither experience is necessarily better.
Card 4
Front: What does art reflect about its creators?
Back: Their social and historical context, values, ideas, and experiences.
Card 5
Front: Who painted Blind Homer and His Guide, and when?
Back: William-Adolphe Bouguereau, in 1875.
Card 6
Front: What does Homer symbolize in Bouguereau’s painting?
Back: Civilization, culture, and inherited wisdom.
Card 7
Front: What does the young guide symbolize in Blind Homer and His Guide?
Back: The younger generation’s responsibility to protect and carry culture forward.
Card 8
Front: What does the wilderness symbolize in Blind Homer and His Guide?
Back: Threats to human culture and spirit; wilderness can be cultural as well as physical.
Card 9
Front: Which epic poems are associated with Homer?
Back: The Iliad and the Odyssey.
Card 10
Front: What do the Blombos Cave shell beads demonstrate?
Back: Humans made decorative objects for personal adornment very early in history, alongside practical tools.
Card 11
Front: Where were the Blombos Cave beads found, and what date range does this reading give?
Back: South Africa; 101,000–70,000 BCE.
Card 12
Front: How does this chapter define culture?
Back: A group of people who agree about what is important.
Card 13
Front: What are the two broad needs behind art-making?
Back: The personal need to express ideas and feelings, and the community’s need to assert shared values.
Card 14
Front: What is one purpose of the Australian Aboriginal bark painting discussed?
Back: To map the world through symbols and tell the story of the great hunter snake.
Card 15
Front: What is a mandala?
Back: A circular diagram; the Buddhist sand mandalas discussed map the cosmos and represent the individual’s relationship to the whole and levels of awareness.
Card 16
Front: What is personal commentary in art?
Back: Art that expresses an individual’s viewpoint, thoughts, or lived experience.
Card 17
Front: Which artist is associated with action painting in this reading?
Back: Jackson Pollock, an Abstract Expressionist.
Card 18
Front: Why are Pollock’s paintings more than doodles?
Back: They involve artistic thought as well as delight in painting and personal discovery.
Card 19
Front: Who created Persepolis, and what does it recount?
Back: Marjane Satrapi; a graphic novel recounting her experiences and thoughts during the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Card 20
Front: What is catharsis?
Back: Bringing hidden emotions to the surface through art so they can be recognized and understood more clearly.
Card 21
Front: Which work illustrates catharsis and criticism of government?
Back: The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault; the reading connects it to outrage following a ship’s sinking.
Card 22
Front: How can art help maintain a community’s stability?
Back: By expressing common values and experiences that bring people together.
Card 23
Front: What is a convention?
Back: An agreed-upon way of thinking, speaking, or acting within a social context; art also has visual conventions.
Card 24
Front: Give an example of a visual convention.
Back: Left-to-right reading habits can influence how a viewer moves through a picture or interprets its sequence.
Card 25
Front: What can architecture communicate?
Back: A building’s function and a community’s values.
Card 26
Front: Why do some U.S. government buildings use Greek and Roman architectural elements?
Back: To suggest strength, stability, virtue, and integrity.
Card 27
Front: What does form follows function mean?
Back: A design’s shape and appearance should be guided by its intended purpose.
Card 28
Front: Who is associated with the principle form follows function?
Back: Louis Sullivan.
Card 29
Front: Who designed the Bauhaus building discussed, and what did he emphasize?
Back: Walter Gropius; efficient, functional use of space and materials rather than unnecessary decoration.
Card 30
Front: What is the communal purpose of a monument?
Back: To commemorate people or events and remind citizens of shared values or public virtues.
Card 31
Front: Which monument shows a bold warrior on horseback?
Back: Equestrian Statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni by Andrea del Verrocchio.
Card 32
Front: How does Rodin’s Burghers of Calais depart from conventional monuments?
Back: The figures stand at ground level, bringing the six men’s humanity and inner struggles to the viewer’s level.
Card 33
Front: Who designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and how is it unconventional?
Back: Maya Lin; the memorial lies below ground level and names the individuals who died, emphasizing personal loss.
Card 34
Front: What is a mural?
Back: A painting on a wall; murals may appear in public or private spaces.
Card 35
Front: How did ancient Egyptian murals commemorate leaders?
Back: By combining images and writing; some were erased when a leader fell out of favor.
Card 36
Front: What does the Roman mural at the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor depict?
Back: Landscape and architectural views between painted columns, creating the impression of looking outward from inside a villa.
Card 37
Front: Who created The Last Supper and the Sistine Chapel ceiling?
Back: Leonardo da Vinci created The Last Supper; Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
Card 38
Front: Why were religious murals useful when many people could not read?
Back: They visually taught religious stories, history, and doctrines.
Card 39
Front: What do Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry murals depict and communicate?
Back: Industrial workers and advances in science, technology, and medicine; they show the interdependence of conceptual thinking and physical labor.
Card 40
Front: Who designed The Great Wall of Los Angeles, and who helped execute it?
Back: Judith Baca; hundreds of community members helped create the mural.
Card 41
Front: What is an icon?
Back: An image or likeness used as a guide to religious worship; more broadly, a person or thing symbolically representing a quality or virtue.
Card 42
Front: What does the Greek word eikon mean?
Back: Image or likeness; the reading phrases it as ‘to be like.’
Card 43
Front: Why were images of St. Sebastian commissioned for hospitals?
Back: Believers associated his survival of arrow wounds with miraculous healing and hoped his image would be curative.
Card 44
Front: What is a secular icon, and what example does the reading give?
Back: A nonreligious icon; the bust of football coach Knute Rockne, whose nose students rub for good luck before exams.
Card 45
Front: Why does the chapter bring up J. Robert Oppenheimer?
Back: To introduce the problem of using knowledge and power wisely; scientific ability alone does not ensure wise choices.
Card 46
Front: Why does art matter in a liberal arts education?
Back: Studying art, history, and cultures helps develop wisdom about how to use knowledge and power for oneself and one’s community..
Card 47
Front: According to this course’s quiz, what do humans uniquely choose to create?
Back: Art. Treat this as the course’s framing, not a settled universal scientific claim about animal behavior.
Card 48
Front: How does Verrocchio’s Equestrian Statue depict Colleoni?
Back: As a bold and victorious warrior.
Card 49
Front: What is an agreed-upon way of thinking, speaking, or acting in a social context called?
Back: Convention.
Card 50
Front: True or false: Architecture often expresses a community’s values.
Back: True.
Card 51
Front: True or false: Aesthetic experiences of nature and art are different.
Back: True. Art is human-made and carries human intentions and context.
Card 52
Front: What is creating art to uncover and understand hidden emotions called?
Back: Catharsis.
Card 53
Front: Which famous quotation is associated with Andy Warhol in the quiz?
Back: “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”
Card 54
Front: True or false, according to this chapter: Art must be human-made.
Back: True.
Card 55
Front: What does Homer represent in Blind Homer and His Guide?
Back: Civilization and culture. His physical blindness does not make him a symbol of ignorance in this painting.
Card 56
Front: What text is the source of Oppenheimer’s quotation about becoming Death, the destroyer of worlds?
Back: The Bhagavad Gita, described in the quiz as a Hindu epic tale.
Front: What is a medium in art?
Back: The material or means used for artistic expression, such as paint, photography, sculpture, dance, or poetry.
Card 58
Front: Have definitions of art and the artist remained constant?
Back: No. They change across time and cultures.
Card 59
Front: What is mimesis?
Back: Imitation or copying of reality, associated with the ancient Greek view of art.
Card 60
Front: What happened in the story of Zeuxis and Parrhasios?
Back: Zeuxis painted grapes that fooled birds. Parrhasios painted a curtain that fooled Zeuxis, and was declared the winner.
Card 61
Front: Why does Pollock challenge mimesis as a complete definition of art?
Back: Abstract art can be art without imitating recognizable objects.
Card 62
Front: Who defined art as the communication of feeling?
Back: Leo Tolstoy.
Card 63
Front: What is a limitation of Tolstoy’s definition?
Back: We cannot confirm that viewers receive the artist’s exact feelings; an unseen artwork would communicate nothing but could still be art.
Card 64
Front: Who proposed significant form, and when?
Back: Clive Bell, in 1913.
Card 65
Front: What is significant form?
Back: An arrangement of formal elements, such as line, shape, mass, and color, that produces aesthetic pleasure.
Card 66
Front: What is a limitation of significant form?
Back: Aesthetic pleasure is subjective and cannot reliably determine what counts as art.
Card 67
Front: Who is associated with institutional or Artworld theory?
Back: George Dickie and Arthur Danto; the reading places its promotion in the 1960s.
Card 68
Front: What is institutional or Artworld theory?
Back: Art receives its status through recognition by people acting on behalf of the artworld.
Card 69
Front: What criticism does the chapter make of Artworld theory?
Back: It focuses on who has the power to define art rather than on art’s aesthetic qualities.
Card 70
Front: What unifying definition of art does Chapter 2 propose?
Back: Art moves ideas from the mind into the world.
Card 71
Front: How does the chapter contrast science and art?
Back: Science moves information from the world into the mind through observation and testing; art moves ideas from the mind into the world through expression.
Card 72
Front: How does this chapter distinguish craft from fine art?
Back: Craft follows rules toward a predetermined result; fine art involves free, open-ended exploration whose outcome can be original or surprising.
Card 73
Front: Can an object combine fine art and craft?
Back: Yes. The reading says almost all fine art objects combine them; formerly functional objects, such as quilts, may be regarded as fine art.
Card 74
Front: What is an artisan?
Back: A skilled maker or craftsperson; historical artisans were often judged by their adherence to cultural standards rather than original personal expression.
Card 75
Front: What does the Seated Statue of Gudea illustrate about historical makers?
Back: A skilled but anonymous artisan worked within established cultural conventions rather than producing a uniquely personal likeness.
Card 76
Front: What material was used for many Gudea statues discussed?
Back: Diorite, a very hard stone valued for its rarity and ability to hold fine carved lines.
Card 77
Front: What is ceramic?
Back: Clay hardened by heat.
Card 78
Front: What is an amphora?
Back: A tall, two-handled jar with a narrow neck.
Card 79
Front: What was inside the Panathenaic Prize Amphora, and why was it awarded?
Back: Precious olive oil from Athena’s sacred trees; it was awarded to a competition winner at a festival honoring Athena.
Card 80
Front: Who signed the Panathenaic Prize Amphora discussed?
Back: Nikodemos, the potter. The painter is identified as the Painter of the Wedding Procession.
Card 81
Front: Who created Pear Blossoms?
Back: Qian Xuan, around 1280, using ink and colors on paper.
Card 82
Front: Who were the literati or scholar-painters?
Back: Highly educated Chinese artists whose work was valued for personal, expressive, and spontaneous qualities and cultural learning.
Card 83
Front: What does Pear Blossoms unite?
Back: Painting, poetry, and calligraphy; the flowers and poem evoke passing time and memories.
Card 84
Front: What do the red seals on Chinese paintings signify?
Back: Signatures or marks of artists, collectors, and scholars, which can add to the work’s history and composition.
Card 85
Front: What does art for art’s sake mean in the Whistler discussion?
Back: Art made for its own aesthetic qualities and expression, without needing another practical or moral purpose.
Card 86
Front: What influenced Whistler’s work and butterfly signature?
Back: Japanese art influenced his colors, patterns, and compositions; East Asian makers’ marks influenced his monogram.
Card 87
Front: What is the role of the viewer?
Back: The viewer brings personal experience and knowledge to the artwork; enjoyment does not always require knowing the artist’s full intention.
Card 88
Front: What are the three factors in art as communication, according to the quiz?
Back: Art, artist, audience.
Card 89
Front: What is form?
Back: The artwork’s components and how they work together: its visual or material organization.
Card 90
Front: Give examples of primary formal features.
Back: Color, line, shape, space, texture, value, scale, dimensions, mass, and medium.
Card 91
Front: Give examples of secondary formal features.
Back: Relationships such as balance, contrast, rhythm, movement, proportion, unity, and variety.
Card 92
Front: What is content?
Back: What the work is about: its subject, meaning, or message.
Card 93
Front: What is primary content?
Back: The literal subjects, objects, actions, or poses you can identify in the work.
Card 94
Front: What is secondary content?
Back: Meaning or identification requiring additional knowledge, such as recognizing a depicted person as Hillary Clinton or a blindfolded figure with scales as Justice.
Card 95
Front: What is context?
Back: The circumstances of the artwork’s creation and reception, including time, place, culture, artist, and purpose.
Card 96
Front: What is contextualism?
Back: Studying an artwork’s cultural circumstances to deepen understanding of it.
Card 97
Front: How does context help explain the Sicán gold mask?
Back: It connects the object with a deity or lord and with funerary and spiritual practices, beyond its visual appearance.
Card 98
Front: What does James Rosenquist’s F-111 comment on in the chapter?
Back: War and consumerism in 1960s America.
Card 99
Front: How do Migrant Mother and Working Mother show content and context?
Back: Both depict maternal worry during economic hardship, but Lange’s 1936 image belongs to the Great Depression and Thirtyacre’s 2009 image to a later economic crisis.
Card 100
Front: Must good art always be visually pleasing?
Back: No. Art can be disturbing and still be meaningful, skillful, or socially important.
Card 101
Front: What does Goya’s The Third of May illustrate?
Back: Disturbing imagery can show artistic skill and provoke social and political outrage.
Card 102
Front: What factors shape judgments of art?
Back: Senses, emotions, physical responses, culture, knowledge, preferences, desires, and moral or political values.
Card 103
Front: What is aesthetics?
Back: Philosophical inquiry into beauty, taste, perception, and judgments about art.
Card 104
Front: What does subjective mean?
Back: Based on an individual’s experience, feelings, or perspective.
Card 105
Front: According to the quiz, perceptual definitions emphasize what?
Back: Subjective, personal standards.
Card 106
Front: What is Kant’s judgment of taste concerned with?
Back: Subjective pleasure and a claim to universality, with disinterested appreciation.
Card 107
Front: What does disinterested mean in Kant’s account?
Back: Appreciating beauty without a desire to own, use, or otherwise benefit from the object; it does not mean boredom.
Card 108
Front: How did Romanticism challenge Kant’s approach?
Back: It emphasized individual feeling, spontaneity, and imagination rather than universal, rational standards.
Card 109
Front: What did John Dewey emphasize about aesthetic experience?
Back: The ongoing interaction of artwork, viewer, artist, and culture; appreciation grows through experience and repeated engagement.
Card 110
Front: What are the four aspects of analyzing and critiquing art?
Back: Description, analysis, interpretation, evaluation.
Card 111
Front: What happens during description?
Back: Identify what is present: medium, size, subjects, and artistic elements.
Card 112
Front: What happens during analysis?
Back: Examine how elements relate and how design principles such as balance, rhythm, emphasis, and proportion organize the work.
Card 113
Front: What happens during interpretation?
Back: Explain possible meanings and support them with evidence; meanings can deepen or change with further study.
Card 114
Front: What happens during evaluation?
Back: Make an informed judgment of the work using what you observed, analyzed, interpreted, and felt.
Card 115
Front: What is imitationalism?
Back: Art is good when it imitates reality successfully.
Card 116
Front: What is emotionalism?
Back: Art is good when it communicates emotion and evokes an emotional response.
Card 117
Front: What is formalism as an evaluative theory?
Back: Art is good when it masters artistic elements and principles.
Card 118
Front: What is instrumentalism?
Back: Art is good when it communicates a message or advances a moral, social, religious, or political purpose.
Card 119
Front: What is institutionalism?
Back: In the course’s simplified wording, art is good if artworld experts recognize it as good.
Card 120
Front: What is structural criticism, according to this course?
Back: Our interpretation is shaped by preconceived ideas and systems of language, social interaction, and cultural experience.
Card 121
Front: What is deconstructive criticism, according to this course?
Back: Question and strip away stereotypes, preconceptions, and myths to uncover meanings they obscure.
Card 122
Front: What is formalist criticism?
Back: Focus on the work’s materials, elements, and principles rather than external circumstances.
Card 123
Front: Who is associated with formalist criticism and medium specificity?
Back: Clement Greenberg.
Card 124
Front: What is medium specificity?
Back: The distinctive properties and possibilities of the material or medium help shape the work’s meaning.
Card 125
Front: What is ideological criticism?
Back: Examine the relationship between art and social, economic, or political structures of power.
Card 126
Front: Whose writings influenced ideological criticism in the reading?
Back: Karl Marx.
Card 127
Front: What is psychoanalytic criticism?
Back: Interpret art through personal expression and the artist’s inner psychological life, including possible unconscious influences.
Card 128
Front: What limitation does the reading note for psychoanalytic criticism?
Back: Critics may speculate about psychological issues the artist did not recognize or that may not exist.
Card 129
Front: What is feminist criticism?
Back: Examine gender bias, neglected women artists, and representation; the reading describes its expansion to other underrepresented groups.
Card 130
Front: What feminist artwork and artists are named?
Back: Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party and the work of Nancy Spero.
Card 131
Front: What is the art canon?
Back: A culturally recognized body of works treated as important or exemplary; it is shaped by selection and debate.
Card 132
Front: Which three canon statements does the quiz mark as pros?
Back: Has passed the test of time; acts as an educational yardstick; allows access to the elite.
Card 133
Front: Which two canon statements does the quiz mark as cons?
Back: Is exclusive/binary; can be replicated without much thought.
Card 134
Front: Is the canon an official Harvard list from 1892 updated every five years?
Back: No. The quiz marks that claim false.
Card 135
Front: Which two criticism types were switched in the quiz review?
Back: Structural = preconceived ideas. Ideological = structures of power.
Card 136
Front: How can you distinguish formalism from ideological criticism quickly?
Back: Formalism asks about artistic organization; ideological criticism asks about power.
Card 137
Front: How can you distinguish art communication from art criticism steps?
Back: Communication = art, artist, audience. Criticism steps = description, analysis, interpretation, evaluation.