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Humanities through the Arts (A Complete Summary)

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PART I: FUNDAMENTALS 

Chapter 1: THE HUMANITIES: AN INTRODUCTION

Chapter 2: WHAT IS A WORK OF ART?

Chapter 3: BEING A CRITIC OF THE ARTS

PART 2: THE ARTS

Chapter 4: PAINTING

Chapter 7: LITERATURE

Part 3: Music & Dance

Chapter 9: MUSIC

Chapter 10: DANCE

Part 4: Interrelationships

Chapter 15: Interrelationships - THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS OF THE ARTS

Chapter 16: INTERRELATIONSHIPS - THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS OF THE HUMANITIES

Questions to Practice:

  1. We know from history that Guernica memorialises the Nazi bombing of the town of Guernica in the Spanish Civil War in 1937. What is the subject matter of Guernica by Pablo Picasso—what the work is about: War? Death? Horror? Suffering? Fascism? Or something else? 
  2. What are some basic differences between viewing a photograph of a real man being killed and viewing a painting of such an event? Does that distinction alone qualify or disqualify either work as a work of art? Elaborate your answer with reference to Francisco Goya, May 3, 1808. 
  3. Should a work of art be evaluated completely without reference to its creator? Does knowing The Polish Rider was probably painted by Willem Drost instead of Rembrandt van Rijn diminish your participation with the painting? Does the fact that it was painted by a student negatively affect your evaluation of the painting?
  4. Describe The Last Supper applying descriptive criticism.
  5. Briefly summarise participation, artistic form and content. To what extent does Kevin Carter’s photograph Vulture and Child in Sudan have an artistic form?
  6. What are the important distortions in the painting ‘Echo of a scream’ by David Alfaro Siqueiros? What effects does the distortion of the baby’s head have on you? What political values are revealed through the painting? Elaborate.
  7. What are the most prominent objects in the painting Guernica by Pablo Picasso? What seems to be the relationship of the animals to the humans? 
  8. We know from history that Guernica memorialises the Nazi bombing of the town of Guernica in the Spanish Civil War in 1937. What is the subject matter of Guernica—what the work is about: War? Death? Horror? Suffering? Fascism? Or something else? 
  9. Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is one of the most famous paintings in the history of art. What, in your opinion, makes this painting noteworthy? 
  10. The woman portrayed in Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa may be Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, the wife of a local businessman, and the painting has long been known in Italy as La Gioconda. Is it necessary to our sense of participation that we know who the sitter is, or that we know that Leonardo kept this painting with him throughout his life and took it wherever he went? 
  11. What is a work of art? Elaborate your answer on the basis of your understanding of the painting  Shovel painted by Jim Dine. 
  12. How is the painting May 3, 1808 by Fransisco Goya different from Adams’s photograph Execution in Saigon in the way the details work together? 
  13. What are some basic differences between viewing a photograph of a real man
    being killed and viewing a painting of such an event? Does that distinction alone qualify or disqualify either work as a work of art? Elaborate your answerably comparing a painting May 3, 1808 by Fransisco Goya and Adams’s photograph Execution in Saigon.
  14. Does knowing The Polish Rider was probably painted by Willem Drost instead of Rembrandt van Rijn diminish your participation with the painting? Does the fact that it was painted by a student negatively affect your evaluation of the painting? Should a work of art be evaluated completely without reference to its creator? 
  15. Painting awakens our visual senses so as to make us see colour, shape, light, and form in new ways. Elaborate. 
  16. Define the following terms with examples:
    1. Tempera
    2. Fresco
    3. Oil Painting
    4. Watercolour
    5. The Episodic Narrative
    6. The Organic Narrative
    7. The Quest Narrative
  17. Define and differentiate abstract painting and representational painting. 
  18. What are the most contrasting colours in the painting The Swing by Jean-Honore Fragonard? What does the colour imply? 
  19. What importance does the frame have for our enjoyment of a painting? 
  20. What is the Imagist School of poets? Discuss the main theme of the poem Venus Transiens by Amy Lowell.
  21. What is the organic narrative? How does the narrator present Teresa to us? What does he expect our view of Teresa will be in Maxim Gorky’s story “Her Lover”?
  22. What is a metaphor? What metaphoric symbols can you find in William Blake's poem The Sick Rose? Explain. 
  23. How is Edwin Arlington Robinson’s poem ‘Richard Cory’ a perfect example of irony? Elaborate. 
  24. How is hearing different from listening? To what extent do you think the emotional content of a piece of popular music may result in great differences of opinion among listeners of different generations? Do you and your parents listen to the same music? Do your parents listen to the same kind of music their parents listened to?
  25. Do you find structures in popular music like those of classical music—for example, theme and variations, rondos, fugues, sonatas, and so on? How closely related are popular music styles to those of classical music? How does understanding classical music help in appreciating popular music? 
  26. Contemporary rituals, especially weddings and state funerals, involve motion that can be considered dance motion. What other contemporary rituals involve dance motion? Do we need to know the meanings of the ritual gestures in order to appreciate the motion of the ritual? 
  27. Define the following terms:
    1. Social Dance
    2. The Court Dance
    3. Ballet
    4. Modern Dance
  28. Summarise Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake elaborating the major features of ballet. 
  29. How film interprets literature? E. M. Forster’s novel Howards End (1910) was made into a remarkable film in 1992 by producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. Does the film follow Foster’s story faithfully? Is it better to see the film first or to read the novel first? What informs your
    decision? 
  30. Define the following terms: 
    1. Painting Interprets Dance and Music
    2. Drama Interprets Painting
    3. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Values
  31. Define the following terms:
    1. Descriptive Criticism
    2. Interpretive Criticism
    3. Evaluative Criticism
OBJECTIVE QUESTIONS (With Answer)
  1. The branch of philosophy concerned with the feelings aroused in us by sensory experiences (those via sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell) is called ...
    (i) aesthetics (ii) epiphany (iii) creativity
    Answer: Aesthetics
  2. The ability to produce something that is innovative and useful is called
    (i) epiphany (ii) creativity (iii) aesthetics
    Answer: Creativity
  3. Mona Lisa is painted by
    (i) Leonardo da Vinci (ii) Van Gogh (iii) Jack Van Eyck
    Answer: Leonardo da Vinci
  4. Picasso’s Guernica, one of the most famous paintings of the twentieth century, is also dated ...
    (i) 1937 (ii) 1947 (iii) 1965
    Answer: 1937
  5. Shovel (1962) is created by
    (i) Paul Cézanne (ii) Eddie Adams (iii) Jim Dine
    Answer: Jim Dine
  6. Vulture and Child in Sudan was photographed in the year ...
    (i) 2003 (ii) 1993 (iii) 1893
    Answer: 1993
  7. ... concentrates on the form of a work of art.
    (i) Descriptive Criticism (ii) Interpretative Criticism (iii) Evaluative Criticism
    Answer: Descriptive Criticism
  8. ... explicates the content of the work of art.
    (i) Descriptive Criticism (ii) Interpretative Criticism (iii) Evaluative Criticism
    Answer: Interpretative Criticism
  9. ... functions to establish the quality and excellence of the work.
    (i) Descriptive Criticism (ii) Interpretative Criticism (iii) Evaluative Criticism
    Answer: Evaluative Criticism
  10. ... is a pigment bound by egg yolk and applied to a carefully prepared surface like the wood panels.
    (i) Fresco (ii) Tempera (iii) Oil
    Answer: Tempera
  11.  ... is a pigment dissolved in lime water applied to wet plaster as it is drying.
    (i) Fresco (ii) Tempera (iii) Oil
    Answer: Fresco
  12. The basic medium of literature is ...
    (i) spoken language (ii) written language (iii) visual language
    Answer: Spoken Language
  13. Lyric poetry was intended to ...
    (i) speak loudly (ii) murmur (iii) read silently
    Answer: speak loudly
  14. A lyric poem Venus Transiens is composed by ...
    (i) John Masefield (ii) Amy Lowell (iii) William Blake
    Answer: Amy Lowell
  15. ... is a comparison made without any explicit words: like, as, then, as if to tell us a comparison is being made.
    i) Symbol (ii) Simile (iii) Metaphor
    Answer: Metaphor
  16. A sound with one definite frequency or a sound dominated by one definite frequency is ...
    i) consonance (ii) a rhythm (iii) a tone
    Answer: a tone
  17. ... is the speed at which a composition is played in music.
    i) Tempo (ii) Rhythm (iii) Melody
    Answer: Tempo
  18. ... dance is not dominated by religious or practical purposes.
    i) Ballet (ii) The Court (iii) Social
    Answer: Social
  19. ... rebelled against the stylisation of ballet, with ballerinas dancing on their toes and executing the same basic movements in every performance.
    i) Modern dance (ii) The Court dance (iii) Social dance
    Answer: Modern Dance
  20. When a work of art takes another work of art as its subject matter, the former is an ... of the latter.
    i) appropriation (ii) interpretation (iii) reference
    Answer: Interpretation
  21.  Artists differ from other humanists because they create works that reveal ...
    i) values (ii) creations (iii) scientific standards
    Answer: Values
  22. Arts are closely related to the other humanities, especially history, philosophy, and ...
    i) music (ii) geography (iii) theology
    Answer: Theology
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