CSTU EXAM QUESTIONS AND
ANSWERS
World War I - Answer-Leaves over nine million dead
The Russian Revolution and Communism - Answer--Also called the Bolshevik revolution -the "Russian
Social Democratic Party"
-Led by Vladimir Lenin—succeeded by Joseph Stalin, who undertook a massive industrialization scheme
World War II - Answer--Marked by the rise of Adolf Hitler and Fascism in Germany
-Leaves between 50-80 million dead
-Leads to the lingering effects of Atomic warfare and the memory of the Holocaust
The New Science - Answer-• Einstein's General Theory of Relativity
• Heisenberg's "uncertainty principle"
• The Atom Bomb
Rise of Mass Media - Answer-• Franklin Roosevelt's "Fireside chats" on national radio develop a
newfound political immediacy
,• Shape the "New Deal," and the creation of the Works Progress Administration
• Television introduced by 1940
modernism - Answer-- "the aggressive style of 1900-1950 that demolished cultural traditions and
defined a bewildering future for the twentieth century"
- "Like romanticism, modernism was more of an attitude than a coherent philosophy or style . . .
Modernist art sought to free itself from the depiction of external reality and concentrated instead on
pure color, form, feeling, or idea"
- Modernist art "sought to free itself from the depiction of external reality, and concentrated instead on
pure color, form, feeling, or idea."
- "For all their differences, the modernists were responding to an era of turbulent change, to exhausted
artistic tradition, and to each other's radical new visions of artistic truth and beauty."
Pablo Picasso - Answer-• Called "the twentieth century's most versatile and influential artist."
• Key Work: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
Primitivism - Answer--"The influence of arts from supposedly 'primitive' tribal cultures in Africa"
Cubism - Answer--"a style that analyzed natural forms into planes, angles, and geometric shapes."
- Two key phases: "analytical" and "synthetic"
Georges Braque - Answer-• Alongside Picasso, the chief innovator of cubism
• Develops collage technique associated with
"synthetic" cubism
• Key Works: The Portuguese and Le Courrier
Futurists - Answer-"an aggressively modernist group that touted the automobile and modern war as the
salvation of the world."
, Abstraction - Answer-the seeking of the "form or abstract idea" inherent in a shape or object
Expressionism - Answer--work marked by the pursuit of an art of "pure expression— communicating
feelings and states of mind directly and intensely"
-Work sometimes associated with the Fauves (meaning "the wild ones")
Matisse - Answer--"Expression to my way of thinking does not consist of the passion mirrored upon a
human face or betrayed by a violent gesture. The whole arrangement of my picture is expressive. The
place occupied by figures or objects, the empty space around them, the proportions, everything plays a
part."
-Key Work: The Joy of Life
Dada - Answer--The "most radical of the early modernists' redefinition of art"
- The group of international artists dedicated to "undermining art and questioning the value of reason
and logic."
- Participated in "manifestations": "raucously improvised performances of nonsense poetry, theater, and
anti-war protest."
Marcel Duchamp - Answer-"the most radical figure within dada."
- Previously a well-known painter, he develops the "readymade":
"works that presented ordinary objects as art"
- His work called a "creative nihilism," an attempt to describe his work as creative anti-art.
- Key works: Nude Descending a Staircase, L.H.O.O.Q., and The Fountain
Sigmund Freud - Answer--responsible for re-framing the ways "humans saw themselves
-Key Works: The Interpretation of Dreams, Totem and Taboo, and Civilization and Its Discontents
ANSWERS
World War I - Answer-Leaves over nine million dead
The Russian Revolution and Communism - Answer--Also called the Bolshevik revolution -the "Russian
Social Democratic Party"
-Led by Vladimir Lenin—succeeded by Joseph Stalin, who undertook a massive industrialization scheme
World War II - Answer--Marked by the rise of Adolf Hitler and Fascism in Germany
-Leaves between 50-80 million dead
-Leads to the lingering effects of Atomic warfare and the memory of the Holocaust
The New Science - Answer-• Einstein's General Theory of Relativity
• Heisenberg's "uncertainty principle"
• The Atom Bomb
Rise of Mass Media - Answer-• Franklin Roosevelt's "Fireside chats" on national radio develop a
newfound political immediacy
,• Shape the "New Deal," and the creation of the Works Progress Administration
• Television introduced by 1940
modernism - Answer-- "the aggressive style of 1900-1950 that demolished cultural traditions and
defined a bewildering future for the twentieth century"
- "Like romanticism, modernism was more of an attitude than a coherent philosophy or style . . .
Modernist art sought to free itself from the depiction of external reality and concentrated instead on
pure color, form, feeling, or idea"
- Modernist art "sought to free itself from the depiction of external reality, and concentrated instead on
pure color, form, feeling, or idea."
- "For all their differences, the modernists were responding to an era of turbulent change, to exhausted
artistic tradition, and to each other's radical new visions of artistic truth and beauty."
Pablo Picasso - Answer-• Called "the twentieth century's most versatile and influential artist."
• Key Work: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
Primitivism - Answer--"The influence of arts from supposedly 'primitive' tribal cultures in Africa"
Cubism - Answer--"a style that analyzed natural forms into planes, angles, and geometric shapes."
- Two key phases: "analytical" and "synthetic"
Georges Braque - Answer-• Alongside Picasso, the chief innovator of cubism
• Develops collage technique associated with
"synthetic" cubism
• Key Works: The Portuguese and Le Courrier
Futurists - Answer-"an aggressively modernist group that touted the automobile and modern war as the
salvation of the world."
, Abstraction - Answer-the seeking of the "form or abstract idea" inherent in a shape or object
Expressionism - Answer--work marked by the pursuit of an art of "pure expression— communicating
feelings and states of mind directly and intensely"
-Work sometimes associated with the Fauves (meaning "the wild ones")
Matisse - Answer--"Expression to my way of thinking does not consist of the passion mirrored upon a
human face or betrayed by a violent gesture. The whole arrangement of my picture is expressive. The
place occupied by figures or objects, the empty space around them, the proportions, everything plays a
part."
-Key Work: The Joy of Life
Dada - Answer--The "most radical of the early modernists' redefinition of art"
- The group of international artists dedicated to "undermining art and questioning the value of reason
and logic."
- Participated in "manifestations": "raucously improvised performances of nonsense poetry, theater, and
anti-war protest."
Marcel Duchamp - Answer-"the most radical figure within dada."
- Previously a well-known painter, he develops the "readymade":
"works that presented ordinary objects as art"
- His work called a "creative nihilism," an attempt to describe his work as creative anti-art.
- Key works: Nude Descending a Staircase, L.H.O.O.Q., and The Fountain
Sigmund Freud - Answer--responsible for re-framing the ways "humans saw themselves
-Key Works: The Interpretation of Dreams, Totem and Taboo, and Civilization and Its Discontents
