Question - 680

What are these skeletons?

Answer: An artist's (Hyungkoo Lee) impression of the skeletons of various cartoon characters - Bugs, Roadrunner + Wile E Coyote, Donald Duck and Tom & Jerry. Arpit, Raghu, Rajesh K, Jaggi, Jamie, nice try, giantamoeba, Krithi, Matti, Mekie and Siddarth Pai got it. Well done.

Question - 673

What is about to happen?

Answer: The man is about to slit the woman's eye in Luis Bunuel's surrealistic work "Un Chien Andalou" made in collaboration with Salvador Dali. Matti, Krishna, Jamie, Barry Belmont, Ramki, arpit, anon and Siddarth Pai got it. Well done.

Question - 648

Identify the painter.

Answer: Abbott Handerson Thayer - the man who studied and wrote about protective coloration in the animal kingdom which eventually led to the concept of military camouflage being used in WWI. Siddarth Pai, Krithi, Jamie, Divya and Divya Shankar got it. Iam did not. Well done.

Question - 628

Connect an aspect of the central figure of the painting in the bottom left to the other three images. In the top left, the circled portion is relevant to the connect.

Answer: The painting is Liberty leading the people by Eugene Delacroix. Lady liberty is wearing the Phrygian cap, a cap that is similar to the one that freed slaves wore in ancient Rome. Especially after the french revolution, that cap has come to signify freedom and is also called the Liberty cap. The other 3 pictures show formations called liberty caps due to their structural similarity to the Phryigian cap. The visuals are liberty cap peak of Mt. Rainier, liberty cap mushroom and the Liberty cap dome next to Nevada falls in Yosemite (this is the reason I posted this question). Raghu, Siddharth Pai, Saket, Divya, giantamoeba, Krithi and Iam got it in varying degrees. Well done.

PS: One of the people who answered surprised me considering how that person has never been to Yosemite and how that person ditched a group of people who had all planned a trip to Yosemite solely for that person's sake.

Question - 618

Connect. (Hint: The white arrows in the left image)

Answer: I was looking for Ghibli - the local name for the Sirocco wind in Libya (left picture), famously mentioned in the Oscar-winning English Patient (top right). It lends its name to the wonderful Studio Ghibli (Hayao Miyazaki et al.) which is famous for producing many animated features including Miyazaki's Totoro (featured on Studio Ghibli's logo). Only Anonymous got it.

Question - 617

This year's winner at what famous event?

Answer: The Sapporo snow festival. Jaggi and Krithi got it. Nicely done!

Question - 614

Identify and connect.

Answer: The character Bane (left) in the upcoming Christopher Nolan movie Dark Knight Rises will be portrayed by Tom Hardy (right). Ameya, Hari, matti tapaninen, cobra 2020 fan, Kate Spartan, and Iam.

Question - 600

What began this way?

Answer: DC comics. Manasi, Saket, Riskit got it. Dinky cracked the meta connect (DC=600). matti tapaninen and Ameya came close by identifying the protagonist of the first DC comic, Jack Woods.

Question - 599

Connect.

Answer: The US State of Ohio has special days named after the three people in the picture (clockwise): Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore, and (oddly enough) the singer Shreya Ghoshal. Ameya, mekie (wrong singer), Dinesh, Kaushik, and Manasi got it. Nicely done - especially give the obscurity of this piece of trivia.

Question - 584

Who is the guy in the middle upending the table?

Question - 572

What do these painting allude to? (courtesy: Meki)

Answer: Norman Rockwell's paintings depicting the "four freedoms" espouse by Franklin D. Roosevelt: Freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Dinesh, matti tapaninen, Krithi, and Divya Shankar got it. Nice job.

Question - 541

What French expression originated from this piece of art? (Aside: the expression may resonate with many quiz/trivia aficionados)

Answer: The expression is Le Violon d'Ingres or Ingres's Violin. It refers to a hobby or pastime that one excels at. It is a reference to the French painter Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres who was also an excellent violin player. Matti Tapaninen, Vetti, tsp, Dinesh, and Hirak got it right. As Hirak points out, the expression did not really originate with this piece of art.

Question - 523

Painter and subject?

Answer: Norman Rockwell's Rosie the Riveter. tsp, Raghu, Iam, anon, Ramji, Krithi, Arvind, Matti Tapaninen, Mekie, Vetti, Anirudh Patil and Manix got it. Well done.

Question - 501

Identify the artist.

Question - 496

Identify him.

Answer: Though he does look like the generic 19th century geriatric (Walt Whitman, Darwin, Mendel and John Muir were among the guesses), there is a clue behind him. This is Claude Monet standing in his beloved gardens at Giverny. v.chandrashekar, Matti Tapaninen, Kamal Rathi, Jaggi, White Jack and Black Lagoon and an anon got it. Well done.

Question - 449

Identify.

Answer: Jackson Pollock aka Jack the Dripper. He had a rather unique painting style which has been extensively documented by photographer Hans Namuth. Rahul Trivedi, Pavan, Mitun, Arvind, Karthik, Krithi, Raghu, Matti Tapaninen, Jaggi, Rajesh K, DrDate, Mekie, Adi, Rajeev (who chose to go with Ed harris instead:)), Ramji, anon and Hirak got it. Well done.

Question - 425

The paintings are by the artist A and are titled simply as the professions of the men depicted. There is a theory that the artist used the scientist B as his model for both paintings . Both A and B were contemporaries hailing from the same small city and that has led some credence to this theory. Further, a controversial theory suggests that B produced the optical device shown in the last visual to help A in his paintings. Identify the visuals and the people involved.

Update: Several correct responses but I will let it stay one more day with a hint. Both A and B are from the city of Delft in Netherlands.

Answer: A & B are Vermeer and Leeuwenhoek (remember him from high school?). Though there is little facial resemblance, there is a theory that Vermeer used Leeuwenhoek as a model for his paintings. Also, Leeuwenhoek supposedly designed a camera obscura for Vermeer to use. This is an example of a controversial theory (Hockney-Falco thesis) that suggests that the realism in the paintings of the Old Masters could have only been made possible by means of artificial aid from optical instruments. Kaushik, Ajinkya, Iam, AJ, Schmetterling, Anand, Karthik, Shweta, Adi & Amresh got it. Well done.

Question - 387

This painting is a part of a larger painting. Identify that and the funda behind this panel.

Answer: This is a panel from Michaelangelo's terrific The Last Judgement. In this painting, Michaelangelo himself is being judged by St. Bartholomew and judging by the flayed skin, Michaelangelo didn't have high hopes for his after life. Srivats, P, Hari, Raghu, Vetti, chandra, karthik, Ramki and Iam got it. Well done.

Question - 367

Identify the duelists.

Answer: Eugene Onegin and Vladimir Lensky by Repine. Arguably the most famous duel in literature was made more ironic by the fact that Pushkin himself died in a duel.

Answered by: Arvind, Corina, Ashwin, Swapnaa, Hari, P and Mekie.

Aside: For those interested in reading the poem, try Charles Johnston's version of Eugene Onegin. Despite V. Nabokov's quibbles in accurately translating Pushkin in English verse, he does an outstanding job in translating the meaning of poem while maintaining the rhyme and meter of the Onegin stanzas. {steps off soapbox}.

Question - 359

Identify the legendary artist.

TGIF! Have a great weekend.



Answer: Alberto Vargas. He might have done more for the morale of WWII troops than anybody :)

Answered by: Corina, Iam, Jaggi and P