General knowledge / 100 QUESTIONS

Art and Culture Quiz

Explore paintings, theatre, writing and wider cultural trivia in this art and culture quiz. Across five rounds, the questions move between creative works and the people and ideas connected with them. Choose your set, select a starting difficulty and answer at your own pace.

Set 1 of 5

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Start at question 1. Play all 20, from Easy to Very hard.

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What’s in this art and culture quiz?

Each of the five sets contains 20 questions, with five questions at each difficulty. Choose Easy for the full round, Medium for 15 questions, Hard for 10 or Very hard for five.

Topics in the mix

Paintings and artists
Theatre, plays and Shakespeare
Creative works and cultural trivia

Hosting a quiz? Open the question and answer list below, choose a set and print separate player and answer sheets. Read the quiz-night instructions.

Art and Culture Quiz questions and answers · quizmaster view

Spoilers ahead. Pick a set for your quiz night, then read the questions aloud or print separate question and answer sheets. One point per correct answer.

Question set

Set 1 · Art & culture

Easy
In Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, Caesar's last words were...
Answer: Et tu, Brute?
Easy
What color is produced by mixing black and white?
Answer: Grey
Easy
Who painted "The Starry Night"?
Answer: Vincent van Gogh
Easy
Who painted the biblical fresco The Creation of Adam?
Answer: Michelangelo
Easy
Who wrote the award winning musical "In The Heights"?
Answer: Lin-Manuel Miranda
Medium
Which one of these paintings is not by Caspar David Friedrich?
Answer: The Black Sea
Medium
Which artist's style was to use small different colored dots to create a picture?
Answer: Georges Seurat
Medium
Who is the musical director for the award winning musical "Hamilton"?
Answer: Alex Lacamoire
Medium
Diego Velazquez, a Spanish Baroque Era painter, became most famous with what kind of paintings?
Answer: Portraits
Medium
What sentence was Vincenzo Perugia given for stealing the Mona Lisa painting in 1911?
Answer: 7 months
Hard
Which artist painted "The Treachery of Images," a painting of a pipe with the description "this is not a pipe"?
Answer: Magritte
Hard
The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical "Cats" is based off a book of poems written by which author?
Answer: T.S. Elliot
Hard
Bill Robinsons style of dance emphasizes clean toe taps. Which tap great developed a style that put emphasis on percussive heel stomps?
Answer: John W. Bubbles
Hard
What name was used to refer to Leonardos famous painting before it was known as Mona Lisa?
Answer: A Certain Florentine Lady
Hard
Pas de basque, pas de chat, pas de deux are terms related to ballet. What does the French word pas mean in English?
Answer: step
Very hard
What was the first successful and commercially viable photographic technique?
Answer: The Daguerreotype
Very hard
What was the major distinction between the English and French Gothic styles of architecture?
Answer: Fan vaulting
Very hard
Albrecht Dürer's birthplace and place of death were in...
Answer: Nürnberg
Very hard
Who played "Charlie Price" in the musical "Kinky Boots" on Broadway in New York from May 26th - Aug 6th 2017?
Answer: Brendon Urie
Very hard
After England, more Shakespeare plays are set in this present day country than in any other.
Answer: Italy

Set 2 · Art & culture

Easy
The musical "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" is set in what country?
Answer: France
Easy
Who painted the Mona Lisa?
Answer: Leonardo da Vinci
Easy
Who wrote the musical "Hamilton"?
Answer: Lin-Manuel Miranda
Easy
Which artist painted the late 15th century mural 'The Last Supper'?
Answer: Leonardo da Vinci
Easy
When was the play "Macbeth" written?
Answer: 1606
Medium
Which of these words can be defined as an expert critical judge of art?
Answer: connoisseur
Medium
Which musical of the 50s featured the song Some Enchanted Evening?
Answer: South Pacific
Medium
What was the name of the riverboat in the Kern/Hammerstein musical, Showboat?
Answer: Cotton Blossom
Medium
Which musical has won the most Tony awards?
Answer: The Producers
Medium
Rembrandt initially achieved success as a painter of what type of paintings?
Answer: Portraits
Hard
Which Swedish metal band pretends to play instruments in the video New Millennium Cyanide Christ, while actually only moving their hands and bodies?
Answer: Meshuggah
Hard
Sfumato, which means blended in Italian is an art technique, created by which Italian Renaissance artist?
Answer: Leonardo da Vinci
Hard
The story in the 1955 Broadway play Inherit the Wind is a fictionalized version of what famous event in US history?
Answer: The 1925 Scopes trial
Hard
What is the name of the act of getting on the stage during a concert and then jumping in the crowd below?
Answer: Stage diving
Hard
Which ancient author wrote Ten Books of Architecture, a work that contained the principles followed by Renaissance architects?
Answer: Vitruvius
Very hard
The paintings of Italian painter Giorgio Morandi, who was born in Bologna in 1890, were featured in which film by Federico Fellini?
Answer: La Dolce Vita
Very hard
How many paint and pastel versions of "The Scream" is Norwegian painter Edvard Munch believed to have produced?
Answer: 4
Very hard
Which of these is not an additional variation of the color purple?
Answer: Kobicha
Very hard
The painting "The Starry Night" by Vincent van Gogh was part of which art movement?
Answer: Post-Impressionism
Very hard
What year was the Mona Lisa finished?
Answer: 1504

Set 4 · Art & culture

Easy
What play is the quote "Hell is other people" from?
Answer: No Exit
Easy
What is the name of the Japanese art of folding paper into decorative shapes and figures?
Answer: Origami
Easy
Who painted the Sistine Chapel?
Answer: Michelangelo
Easy
Who sculpted the statue of David?
Answer: Michelangelo
Easy
Who designed the Chupa Chups logo?
Answer: Salvador Dali
Medium
Which of these artists is known to have become fascinated with the Mona Lisa painting?
Answer: Raphael
Medium
Who wrote Divina Proportione which explored the use of the golden ratio in the Renaissance architecture?
Answer: Luca Pacioli
Medium
The World Chess Championship in Chess, Act 1 is set in which Italian city?
Answer: Merano
Medium
Which Broadway show features the character of Billy Bigelow as the male lead?
Answer: Carousel
Medium
In dancing, what is Triple Threat?
Answer: Singing, Dancing and Acting
Hard
Which King hated the Mona Lisa painting so much, that he had it removed from his palace?
Answer: King Louis XV
Hard
Which of these movie musical numbers was NOT nominated for a Best Original Song Oscar?
Answer: Come What May, Moulin Rouge
Hard
Shoeless Joe Hardy sold his soul to the devil in which 50s musical revised in the 1990s?
Answer: Damn Yankees
Hard
The song Send in the Clowns from the musical A Little Night Music was specifically written for which actress?
Answer: Glynis Johns
Hard
Which of the following actors was not a performer in the original Broadway production of Hair?
Answer: Matthew Broderick
Very hard
Which Shakespeare play features the stage direction "Enter a messenger, with two heads and a hand"?
Answer: Titus Andronicus
Very hard
During which century did Italian painter Michelangelo live and work?
Answer: 15th-16th century
Very hard
The movement Pittura Metafisica (metaphysical painting), that presents an alternative and illogical reality, was founded in 1917 by which Italian artists?
Answer: Carlo Carra and Giorgio de Chirico
Very hard
Sammy Davis, Jr. was a great tap dancer, actor, singer, comic actor, and a member of the Rat Pack. What was the name of the act that led to his fame?
Answer: The Will Mastin Trio
Very hard
Which Latin dance is not performed in International Style Ballroom competitions?
Answer: Merengue

Set 5 · Art & culture

Easy
What is the world's oldest known piece of fiction?
Answer: Epic of Gilgamesh
Easy
Who painted "Swans Reflecting Elephants", "Sleep", and "The Persistence of Memory"?
Answer: Salvador Dali
Easy
In Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of War of the Worlds, the chances of anything coming from Mars are...
Answer: A million to one
Easy
Which Van Gogh painting depicts the view from his asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in southern France?
Answer: The Starry Night
Easy
Who painted the epic mural Guernica?
Answer: Pablo Picasso
Medium
What was the nickname of Jacopo Robusti (1518-1594), an Italian artist, often compared to Furioso?
Answer: Tintoretto
Medium
How long did it take Leonardo Da Vinci to finish the Mona Lisa painting?
Answer: 4 years
Medium
What is the lyrical dance a mix of?
Answer: Jazz and Ballet
Medium
Which country is not correctly paired with its national dance?
Answer: Brazil - Salsa
Medium
The most common hardcore move two step was taken from which dance?
Answer: Skanking
Hard
Which were the two authors of the 1955 Broadway play Inherit the Wind?
Answer: Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
Hard
Where does Edward Hoppers most famous painting, “Nighthawks”, reside?
Answer: The Art Institute of Chicago
Hard
Which musician(s) created the rock opera Tommy?
Answer: The Who
Hard
Which painter and founder of cubism would not divorce his first wife, Olga Khoklova, so she would not get half his wealth?
Answer: Picasso
Hard
Which of these works was not painted by Claude Monet?
Answer: The Luncheon on the Grass
Very hard
Which Medici family member commissioned the great Florentine architect Brunelleschi to reconstruct the Church of San Lorenzo in 1419?
Answer: Cosimo the Elder
Very hard
Who serves as the speaker of the prologue in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet?
Answer: Chorus
Very hard
In Les Misérables, who is Prison Code 24601?
Answer: Jean Valjean
Very hard
Painter Piet Mondrian (1872 - 1944) was a part of what movement?
Answer: Neoplasticism
Very hard
Which actor has NOT portrayed Billy Flynn in the musical "Chicago"?
Answer: Christopher Walken

Questions adapted from Open Trivia Database and OpenTriviaQA, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected, filtered and arranged into fixed rounds. Sources & editorial notes.

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