Arts trivia

The arts category covers painting, sculpture, literature, classical music, opera and ballet. Most questions ask who made a famous work, which is the classic trivia format, and a few ask about terms and forms like sonnets, quartets and the word forte on sheet music.

Who made what

The same names come up because the same works are famous. On the painting side that means Leonardo, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Gogh, Monet, Munch, Picasso and Dalí. In literature it is Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Austen, the Brontës, Melville, Tolstoy, Fitzgerald and Orwell. Composers include Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky.

What we leave out

We don't ask about auction prices, museum attendance or "most valuable painting", because those change. We also skip questions where attribution is disputed among experts. Every work in the bank has a well-established creator.

How to get better at it

Distractors in this category are usually from the same country and era as the right answer. A question about Girl with a Pearl Earring will offer Rembrandt and Frans Hals as well as Vermeer, so knowing "Dutch Golden Age" isn't enough. It helps to attach one signature work to each name: Vermeer has the pearl earring, Rembrandt has The Night Watch, Munch has The Scream and Dalí has the melting clocks.