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Question 1Prehistoric and ancient art

The cave whose Palaeolithic paintings were discovered in 1940 in the Dordogne region of France, and which contains the famous 'Shaft of the Dead Man' with its bird-headed figure and bison, is

  1. Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc
  2. Lascaux Correct answer.
  3. Altamira
  4. Cosquer

Explanation

Lascaux, in the Vézère valley of the Dordogne, was found in September 1940 and its paintings are dated to roughly 17,000 years ago; the 'Shaft of the Dead Man' at the bottom of a well-like pit is one of its most discussed compositions. Altamira lies in Cantabria, Spain, and its polychrome bison ceiling was recognised in 1879. Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc in the Ardèche was discovered in 1994 and is far older, around 36,000 years.

Question 2Prehistoric and ancient art

The Venus of Willendorf, an Upper Palaeolithic female figurine about 11 cm tall now in Vienna, was carved from

  1. fired clay mixed with crushed shell
  2. oolitic limestone Correct answer.
  3. reindeer antler
  4. mammoth ivory from the tundra

Explanation

The Willendorf figurine, dated to roughly 28,000–25,000 BCE, is carved from oolitic limestone, a porous sedimentary rock that does not occur locally, so the raw material was brought to the Danube site. Traces of red ochre survive on its surface. Ivory, antler and fired clay were all used for other Palaeolithic figurines, which is why those materials work as plausible distractors.

Question 3Prehistoric and ancient art

In Archaic Greek sculpture, a kouros is best described as

  1. a seated bearded deity holding a sceptre
  2. a striding warrior in helmet and greaves
  3. a nude standing male youth Correct answer.
  4. a draped standing young woman holding an offering

Explanation

Kouros denotes the Archaic type of a naked, standing or striding young man, ultimately derived from Egyptian standing figures and used both as a sanctuary dedication and as a grave marker. Its clothed female counterpart is the korē. Rigid frontal stance, left foot advanced and the so-called Archaic smile are typical, and the type runs from about 600 to 480 BCE.

Question 4Prehistoric and ancient art

Egyptian two-dimensional art shows the head in profile, the eye frontal, the shoulders frontal and the legs again in profile. Art historians call this convention

  1. chiaroscuro modelling
  2. foreshortening of the limbs
  3. contrapposto stance
  4. the composite view Correct answer.

Explanation

The composite, or 'twisted', view combines the most legible aspect of each body part so that the figure reads clearly and completely: profile head, frontal eye and shoulders, profile legs. It is a conceptual rather than an optical rendering and remained standard in Egyptian relief and painting for some three thousand years. Contrapposto, foreshortening and chiaroscuro belong to Greek, Hellenistic and later European traditions.

Question 5Prehistoric and ancient art

The Great Ziggurat of Ur, raised under king Ur-Nammu in the 21st century BCE, formed the sacred precinct of

  1. Ishtar of Nineveh
  2. Nanna, the moon god Correct answer.
  3. Marduk, patron of Babylon
  4. Enlil of Nippur

Explanation

The ziggurat at Ur, modern Tell el-Muqayyar in southern Iraq, belonged to Nanna, the Sumerian moon god also called Sin, and stood beside his temple at the foot of the terraces. Its mud-brick core was faced with baked brick laid in bitumen, and its staged terraces and monumental stairways make it the best-preserved Mesopotamian ziggurat. Babylon's Marduk, Nippur's Enlil and Nineveh's Ishtar each had their own great sanctuaries elsewhere.

Question 6Prehistoric and ancient art

Early Bronze Age Cycladic marble figurines, including the musicians from Keros, are most often characterised by

  1. fully modelled facial features with open mouths and bared teeth
  2. folded arms and a tilted-back head Correct answer.
  3. deep drill holes for attaching separately carved limbs
  4. a seated posture with both hands resting on the knees

Explanation

Most Cycladic figurines are nude females with the arms folded below the chest, the feet pointed downward and the head tilted back; the face is a plain shield with only the nose in relief, and colour, now largely lost, supplied the eyes and other details. The type is mainly associated with burials of the third millennium BCE. The seated musician figures from Keros follow the same basic conventions.

Question 7Prehistoric and ancient art

Which pharaoh moved the Egyptian capital to a new site called Akhetaten, 'Horizon of the Aten', and so gave his name to a distinctive style of art?

  1. Akhenaten Correct answer.
  2. Ramesses II
  3. Tutankhamun
  4. Hatshepsut

Explanation

Akhenaten, formerly Amenhotep IV and ruler c. 1353–1336 BCE, founded Akhetaten at the site now called Tell el-Amarna and promoted the worship of the Aten, the sun disc, at the expense of the traditional gods. Amarna art is marked by elongated skulls, swollen bellies and informal scenes of family intimacy. Tutankhamun abandoned the site and restored Thebes and Amun.

Question 8Prehistoric and ancient art

The 'bull-leaping' or taureador fresco, in which figures vault over a charging bull, comes from

  1. the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi
  2. the citadel of Mycenae, on the Greek mainland
  3. Knossos, on Crete Correct answer.
  4. the palace of Mari, on the Euphrates

Explanation

The taureador panel is a Minoan fresco from the palace at Knossos, painted in true lime-plaster fresco, with the figures' skin coded by gender: dark red for the male and white for the females. It decorated the east wing of the palace and is now in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum. Mycenae, Mari and Delphi have their own distinctive painted and sculptural cycles, but nothing of this type.

Question 9Prehistoric and ancient art

In Pompeian wall painting, the style that combines framed mythological panel pictures (pinakes) with illusionistic architecture on a largely flat, pale ground is the

  1. Second Style (architectural)
  2. First Style (incrustation)
  3. Third Style (ornamental)
  4. Fourth Style Correct answer.

Explanation

The Fourth Style, current from about 60 CE to the destruction of 79 CE, mixes the two preceding manners: it keeps the framed picture panel and flat background of the Third Style while reintroducing the illusionistic architecture of the Second, often as a fantastic stage set that does not pretend to open real space. The House of the Vettii is a standard example. The First Style imitates marble masonry in stucco, the Second opens perspectival vistas, and the Third reduces architecture to thin ornament.

Question 10Prehistoric and ancient art

The 'Treasury of Atreus' at Mycenae, a tholos tomb of about 1300 BCE, is roofed by

  1. a barrel vault of wedge-shaped voussoirs
  2. a flat ceiling of cypress beams
  3. a corbelled vault Correct answer.
  4. a true dome of poured concrete

Explanation

The tholos at Mycenae, conventionally called the Treasury of Atreus, is built of carefully cut conglomerate blocks laid in horizontal courses that step inward until the opening could be closed with a single capstone: a corbelled, not a true, dome. The relieving triangle above the lintel and the long dromos approach are hallmarks of Mycenaean monumental tombs. Poured concrete domes and voussoir vaulting belong to later Roman and Greek masonry.

Question 11Prehistoric and ancient art

The painted bison on the ceiling of the cave of Altamira, among the first examples of Palaeolithic art to be accepted as genuine, are located in which region?

  1. The Vézère valley, in central France
  2. Cantabria, in northern Spain Correct answer.
  3. The Dordogne, in south-western France
  4. The Swabian Jura, in southern Germany

Explanation

Altamira lies near Santillana del Mar in Cantabria, northern Spain, and its polychrome bison were recognised as Palaeolithic after Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola argued for their antiquity in 1879–80. The Dordogne and Vézère are French cave areas (Lascaux, La Mouthe), while the Swabian Jura is known for mammoth-ivory figurines rather than painted bison.

Question 12Prehistoric and ancient art

On the Narmer Palette the king is shown twice, once wearing the white crown and once the red crown. This pairing is most often interpreted as...

  1. a depiction of the Sed-festival jubilee run performed by the king
  2. evidence that the palette belonged to a private tomb at Hierakonpolis
  3. a record of two separate campaigns, one in Nubia and one in Libya
  4. a claim that the king rules both Upper and Lower Egypt Correct answer.

Explanation

The white crown belongs to Upper Egypt and the red crown to Lower Egypt, so showing Narmer in both asserts rule over the two lands, a standard royal claim from the First Dynasty onward. The palette was found at Hierakonpolis in a temple deposit, which argues against a private-tomb function, and no source assigns the two scenes to Nubia and Libya.

Question 13Prehistoric and ancient art

In the megalithic architecture of Atlantic Europe, a pair of upright stones supporting a horizontal lintel, as seen in the outer circle at Stonehenge, is called a...

  1. tholos
  2. trilithon Correct answer.
  3. menhir
  4. dolmen

Explanation

A trilithon, literally 'three stones', consists of two uprights and a lintel laid across them, and the term is applied especially to the sarsen horseshoe at Stonehenge. A dolmen is a chamber of uprights roofed by capstones, a menhir is a single standing stone, and a tholos is a round tomb or building with a corbelled or domed roof.

Question 14Prehistoric and ancient art

The Early Dynastic Sumerian votive statues from the Square Temple at Tell Asmar are recognisable chiefly by...

  1. their clasped hands and inlaid, staring eyes Correct answer.
  2. their life-size scale and carved royal inscriptions
  3. their black basalt surface and narrative relief bands
  4. their hollow cast-bronze bodies and separate arms

Explanation

The Tell Asmar figures are small gypsum or limestone statuettes with hands folded in prayer and eyes inlaid with shell and bitumen, a combination understood as perpetual worship before the deity. They are not life-size, not basalt relief, and not hollow-cast bronze.

Question 15Prehistoric and ancient art

The Akkadian Victory Stele of Naram-Sin differs from earlier Mesopotamian commemorative reliefs mainly because it...

  1. divides the whole composition into flat superimposed registers
  2. omits the king and concentrates on the defeated enemy soldiers
  3. shows the action on a mountain and uses hierarchical scale Correct answer.
  4. uses only incised outline without modelled relief carving

Explanation

On the stele Naram-Sin leads his troops up a wooded mountain, and his figure is larger than those of his soldiers and enemies, so that landscape setting and hierarchical scale reinforce his triumph. Earlier works such as the Royal Standard of Ur rely on horizontal registers instead.

Question 16Prehistoric and ancient art

The Minoan 'Snake Goddess' figurine from the palace at Knossos, with a flounced skirt and raised hands holding snakes, is made of...

  1. hammered sheet gold
  2. faience, a glazed quartz paste Correct answer.
  3. painted terracotta
  4. carved Parian marble

Explanation

The Knossos figurine is faience, a quartz-based paste coated with a vitreous glaze and fired, which gives its glossy blue-green and white surfaces. Marble, gold and terracotta were used for other Aegean objects, but not for this figure.

Question 17Prehistoric and ancient art

At the top of the stele of Hammurabi, the king stands before a seated deity who holds a rod and ring; the deity is conventionally identified as...

  1. Marduk, patron of Babylon
  2. Enlil, god of the air
  3. Shamash, god of justice Correct answer.
  4. Anu, sky god of Uruk

Explanation

The seated figure is usually read as Shamash, the sun god who oversees justice, shown with the rod-and-ring symbol and rays from his shoulders, and the laws below derive their authority from him. Marduk was Babylon's city god, while Anu and Enlil are senior Mesopotamian deities, but the iconography of this relief points to Shamash.

Question 18Prehistoric and ancient art

In Egyptian two-dimensional art, the standing human figure was laid out on a proportional grid that, in the New Kingdom canon, divided the body height into...

  1. sixteen squares measured from the sole to the crown
  2. eighteen squares from sole to hairline Correct answer.
  3. twenty-four squares, with the navel at the twelfth
  4. twelve equal squares from foot to hairline

Explanation

The New Kingdom canon divided the figure from the soles of the feet to the hairline into eighteen squares, with fixed points for knees, navel, shoulders and brow. The earlier Middle Kingdom grid used a different total, and the figures of twelve, sixteen and twenty-four squares do not match the standard Egyptian scheme.

Question 19Prehistoric and ancient art

In Athenian black-figure vase painting, the painter worked by...

  1. scratching the design through a white slip to the dark clay
  2. reserving figures in the clay ground and drawing with a fine brush
  3. applying opaque enamel colours after the vase had cooled
  4. filling silhouettes with slip and adding details by incision Correct answer.

Explanation

Black-figure painters covered the figures with a slip that fired black, then cut internal lines and added red and white pigments before firing. Red-figure reversed this by reserving the figures in the lighter ground and painting the background black.

Question 20Prehistoric and ancient art

The Etruscan Sarcophagus of the Spouses from Cerveteri, now in Rome's Villa Giulia, is notable as...

  1. a bronze urn topped by a portrait bust of the deceased
  2. a stone chest with one reclining male figure on its lid
  3. a terracotta coffin with two reclining banqueters Correct answer.
  4. a painted wooden bier with standing mourners around it

Explanation

The Cerveteri sarcophagus is made of terracotta and carries two life-size figures, a man and a woman, reclining together on a banqueting couch in the manner of Etruscan funerary banquets. The affectionate gesture of the pair is characteristic of Etruscan tomb art and differs from single-figure stone sarcophagi of later Roman practice.

Question 21Prehistoric and ancient art

The Löwenmensch (Lion-Man) figurine from Hohlenstein-Stadel, an Upper Palaeolithic composite figure with a human body and a lion's head, was carved from which material?

  1. mammoth ivory Correct answer.
  2. carved limestone
  3. deer antler
  4. fired clay

Explanation

The Löwenmensch was carved from a mammoth tusk during the Upper Palaeolithic, not from stone, clay or antler. Its composite human-lion form is one of the earliest known figurative sculptures and shows that mammoth ivory was a preferred material for portable art in the Swabian Jura.

Question 22Prehistoric and ancient art

The Step Pyramid at Saqqara, regarded as the earliest monumental stone pyramid in Egypt, was designed for King Djoser by which architect?

  1. Hemiunu
  2. Senenmut
  3. Imhotep Correct answer.
  4. Ineni

Explanation

Imhotep served as architect to Djoser and is credited with the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, the first large-scale stone monument in Egypt. Its six stepped tiers mark a transition from earlier flat-roofed mastabas toward the true pyramid form.

Question 23Prehistoric and ancient art

Etruscan tomb chambers such as the Tomb of the Leopards at Tarquinia are best known for frescoes that most characteristically depict which subject?

  1. scenes of Greek athletic contests
  2. maps of the Etruscan underworld
  3. banqueting, music and dancing Correct answer.
  4. portraits of Roman magistrates

Explanation

Etruscan tomb chambers at Tarquinia were decorated with frescoes of banquets, dancers and musicians, often understood as images of aristocratic funeral celebration or an idealised afterlife. The Tomb of the Leopards is a well-known example of this repertoire.

Question 24Prehistoric and ancient art

At Neolithic Jericho, several human skulls were covered with plaster and had shells set into the eye sockets. This practice is generally interpreted as evidence of what?

  1. a marker of trade routes
  2. ancestor veneration and ritual memory Correct answer.
  3. a method of preserving food
  4. a form of writing practice

Explanation

Neolithic Jericho produced skulls with plaster faces and shell eyes, and archaeologists usually interpret them as ritual treatment of ancestors rather than as practical storage or writing. The careful modelling of facial features suggests that the dead were remembered and venerated by the community.

Question 25Prehistoric and ancient art

The Standard of Ur, a Sumerian object from the Royal Cemetery at Ur, is decorated on its two principal sides with what kind of imagery?

  1. registers of war and peace Correct answer.
  2. a single continuous hunt
  3. a map of the city
  4. geometric patterns only

Explanation

The Standard of Ur is decorated on its two principal sides with narrative scenes conventionally called War and Peace, arranged in horizontal registers. These registers show soldiers, chariots, captives and a banquet, reflecting Early Dynastic Sumerian conventions of commemorative narrative.

Question 26Prehistoric and ancient art

The Lion Gate at Mycenae is crowned by a triangular opening filled with a relief slab showing two lions flanking a central column. In Mycenaean architecture this triangular opening is called the what?

  1. tholos
  2. pediment
  3. lintel
  4. relieving triangle Correct answer.

Explanation

The triangular gap above the lintel of the Lion Gate is a relieving triangle, a corbelled opening that directs the weight of the masonry around the lintel rather than onto it. The relief slab with two lions flanking a column fills this opening.

Question 27Prehistoric and ancient art

In Athenian red-figure pottery of the late sixth century BCE, how did the painter typically render the figures?

  1. painted as black silhouettes with incised internal details
  2. stamped with repeated geometric motifs
  3. covered entirely with white slip and added pigments
  4. reserved in the orange clay colour against a black ground Correct answer.

Explanation

In red-figure pottery the painter covered the background with black glaze and left the figures in the orange colour of the clay, then drew internal details with a fine diluted glaze. This reversed the black-figure method and allowed greater flexibility in drawing.

Question 28Prehistoric and ancient art

The cuirass of the Augustus of Prima Porta shows the return of the Roman standards by the Parthians. The statue's pose and idealised body most directly appropriate which artistic tradition?

  1. Egyptian royal statuary
  2. Classical Greek sculpture Correct answer.
  3. Archaic Greek kouroi
  4. Etruscan bronze portraiture

Explanation

The Prima Porta Augustus adopts the contrapposto stance and muscular ideal of Classical Greek sculpture, especially Polykleitos' Doryphoros, to present the emperor as a permanent, victorious figure. The cuirass narrative of the Parthian standards adds a specific political message.

Question 29Prehistoric and ancient art

Polykleitos' Doryphoros is cited as a demonstration of his treatise the Kanon mainly because the statue does what?

  1. it commemorates a victory over the Persians
  2. it retains the Archaic smile and frontal stance
  3. it embodies a mathematical canon of proportions and contrapposto Correct answer.
  4. it was cast in one piece by the lost-wax method

Explanation

Polykleitos wrote a treatise called the Kanon and made the Doryphoros as a visible demonstration of its system of commensurable proportions and balanced contrapposto. The preserved statue is a Roman marble copy of a lost bronze original.

Question 30Prehistoric and ancient art

The Neolithic passage tomb of Newgrange in Ireland is famous for an opening above its entrance that allows the rising sun to illuminate the inner chamber at which time of year?

  1. spring equinox
  2. winter solstice Correct answer.
  3. summer solstice
  4. autumn equinox

Explanation

At Newgrange a roof-box above the entrance admits the rising sun at the winter solstice, when its light travels along the passage to the chamber. This alignment indicates that the tomb's builders incorporated astronomical observation into funerary architecture.

Question 31Prehistoric and ancient art

The Upper Palaeolithic figurine known as the Venus of Willendorf is carved from a yellowish oolitic limestone. Which feature is most characteristic of this figure?

  1. A naturalistic portrait head on a slender body
  2. A seated male figure with folded arms
  3. A human body combined with a lion's head
  4. Exaggerated female anatomy and a faceless head Correct answer.

Explanation

The Willendorf figure is a small limestone statuette with greatly enlarged breasts, abdomen, and hips, while the head is a faceless knob. Such emphasis on female reproductive anatomy is common in Upper Palaeolithic figurines, and no naturalistic portrait or animal hybrid is present.

Question 32Prehistoric and ancient art

The cave of Lascaux in France is especially celebrated for Upper Palaeolithic paintings in which the dominant animals include...

  1. Aurochs, horses, and stags Correct answer.
  2. Fish and marine mammals
  3. Lions and elephants only
  4. Camels and domesticated cattle

Explanation

Lascaux's painted chambers are dominated by aurochs, horses, and stags, with some ibex and other animals. The images were made by Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers, and domesticated cattle, camels, and marine subjects do not belong to this repertoire.

Question 33Prehistoric and ancient art

The outer sarsen circle at Stonehenge consists of upright stones joined at the top by continuous lintels. These lintels are held in place by...

  1. Mortise-and-tenon joints cut into the stone Correct answer.
  2. A dry-stone wall core behind the uprights
  3. Bronze clamps poured between the blocks
  4. Timber beams pegged into the uprights

Explanation

The sarsen lintels were fitted over tenons left on the tops of the uprights, with mortise holes cut into the lintels themselves. This stone joinery locked the lintels in place without mortar or metal clamps.

Question 34Prehistoric and ancient art

Early Cycladic marble figurines of the third millennium BCE, such as the folded-arm figures from the Cyclades, are most often...

  1. Animals with incised harnesses
  2. Seated rulers holding sceptres
  3. Warriors wearing helmets and greaves
  4. Standing females with folded arms Correct answer.

Explanation

Most Early Cycladic figurines are standing nude females with the arms folded tightly across the abdomen. Facial features are minimal and were often supplied in paint, and the type is associated with burial and ritual rather than rulers or warriors.

Question 35Prehistoric and ancient art

The Great Ziggurat at Ur, built under King Ur-Nammu, functioned primarily as...

  1. A stepped platform for a temple to Nanna Correct answer.
  2. A royal necropolis for successive kings
  3. A fortified palace for the city ruler
  4. A granary and market hall for the city

Explanation

The Great Ziggurat at Ur was a stepped mud-brick platform dedicated to Nanna, the moon god, with a temple at its summit. It formed part of a sacred precinct rather than serving as a palace, necropolis, or market.

Question 36Prehistoric and ancient art

The surviving statues of Gudea, ruler of Lagash, are carved mostly in hard diorite and typically show him...

  1. As a victorious king trampling enemies
  2. Seated or standing with hands clasped in devotion Correct answer.
  3. As a winged protector holding a staff
  4. Wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt

Explanation

Gudea's diorite statues present him as a pious ruler, usually seated or standing with hands clasped and wearing a woollen cap. Inscriptions on the statues record temple building and devotion, and the king is not shown as a conquering warrior or a deity.

Question 37Prehistoric and ancient art

Royal portraiture of the Amarna period under Akhenaten is distinctive within Egyptian art because it...

  1. Depicts the king as a falcon-headed deity
  2. Shows the king only in profile with no facial detail
  3. Introduces elongated features and a swollen belly Correct answer.
  4. Returns to the strict proportions of the Old Kingdom

Explanation

Amarna royal portraits break with earlier Egyptian idealism by giving Akhenaten an elongated face and neck, narrow shoulders, a swollen abdomen, and a less formal posture. The style is tied to the religious and political changes of his reign, not to a return to Old Kingdom proportions.

Question 38Prehistoric and ancient art

The monumental Geometric amphora from the Dipylon cemetery in Athens is generally understood to have served as...

  1. A container for perfumed oil used in symposia
  2. A storage jar for grain in a palace magazine
  3. A grave marker over an aristocratic burial Correct answer.
  4. A voting urn for the Athenian assembly

Explanation

The Dipylon amphora is a monumental Geometric vessel that marked an aristocratic grave and carried a prothesis scene of mourning. Its scale and funerary imagery identify it as a grave marker rather than a symposium vessel, ballot urn, or palace storage jar.

Question 39Prehistoric and ancient art

In Roman wall painting, the so-called Second Style is distinguished chiefly by...

  1. Small narrative scenes framed like pictures on a plain ground
  2. Heavy stucco relief modelling of real figures
  3. Illusionistic architectural vistas opening beyond the wall Correct answer.
  4. Flat panels of solid colour imitating marble veneer

Explanation

Second Style Roman wall painting creates the illusion of architectural forms and vistas extending beyond the real wall, often with columns, ledges, and distant buildings. It is distinguished from the First Style's imitation marble and later styles' framed panel pictures.

Question 40Prehistoric and ancient art

The continuous Ionic frieze that runs around the cella of the Parthenon is generally interpreted as...

  1. The battle of the gods and giants
  2. The labours of Herakles
  3. The sack of Troy by the Greeks
  4. The Panathenaic procession bringing the peplos Correct answer.

Explanation

The Parthenon's continuous frieze is generally read as the Panathenaic procession, including riders, sacrificial animals, and the presentation of the peplos to Athena. The Gigantomachy, Trojan War, and Herakles labours appear in other parts of the building's sculptural programme.

Question 41Medieval art (Early Christian, Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic)

In the standard Early Christian basilica, the apse is best described as the

  1. walled forecourt with a central fountain used for ritual washing
  2. semicircular projection at the east end that frames the altar Correct answer.
  3. longitudinal congregational hall lit by a row of high clerestory windows
  4. transverse arm that separates the nave from the entrance porch

Explanation

The apse is the curved termination of the nave, normally placed at the east end, where the altar and the bishop's throne stood beneath a half-dome. The forecourt with the fountain is the atrium, and the transverse arm crossing the nave is the transept.

Question 42Medieval art (Early Christian, Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic)

Hagia Sophia in Constantinople carries its vast central dome on four spherical-triangle supports. These supports are called

  1. pendentives, which transfer the dome's weight to massive piers Correct answer.
  2. corbels projecting inwards course by course to close the angle
  3. diaphragm arches stiffening a timber roof
  4. squinches bridging the corners of a square room with small arches

Explanation

A pendentive is a spherical triangle that converts the circular base of a dome into the square space below, so that the dome rests on four great piers. Squinches, used in other traditions, close the corner with a small arch or niche instead of a curved triangle.

Question 43Medieval art (Early Christian, Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic)

In Romanesque pilgrimage churches such as Santiago de Compostela, the ambulatory with radiating chapels was introduced mainly to

  1. let pilgrims circulate past relics without crossing the choir Correct answer.
  2. screen the cloister walk from the noise of the nave
  3. provide overnight lodging for pilgrims arriving after dark
  4. transfer the thrust of the apse vault to external flying buttresses

Explanation

The aisle is continued around the apse as an ambulatory, with small chapels opening off it, so that crowds could reach reliquaries and side altars without disturbing the monks or canons singing in the choir. This continuous circulation route is one of the defining features of the pilgrimage church plan.

Question 44Medieval art (Early Christian, Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic)

Which combination of structural devices allowed High Gothic builders to raise very tall naves with thin walls and large windows?

  1. ribbed pointed vaults braced by flying buttresses Correct answer.
  2. pendentive domes standing on a circular drum
  3. timber roof trusses resting on classical columns
  4. solid barrel vaults of tufa carried on massive perimeter walls

Explanation

The pointed arch lowers the lateral thrust of the vault, the ribs gather its load onto a small number of piers, and flying buttresses carry the remaining thrust across the aisle to external supports. The wall is thereby released for glazing, which is why vault, buttress and window are designed as a single system.

Question 45Medieval art (Early Christian, Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic)

In the decorative programme of a Middle Byzantine church, the Pantocrator in the crown of the dome represents

  1. the Virgin Orans with uplifted arms between two angels
  2. the Hospitality of Abraham above the sanctuary
  3. Christ as ruler of all, in the dome apex Correct answer.
  4. the Last Judgement spread across the whole west wall of the nave

Explanation

Middle Byzantine domes are normally crowned by a bust of Christ Pantocrator, the all-ruler, who blesses and holds a Gospel book. The Virgin Orans belongs in the apse, while the Last Judgement is placed on the west wall or in the narthex.

Question 46Medieval art (Early Christian, Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic)

The church of San Vitale in Ravenna, famous for its mosaics of Justinian and Theodora, has the form of

  1. a Latin-cross basilica with a timber-trussed nave
  2. an octagonal central-plan building with a domed core Correct answer.
  3. a rotunda attached to a Constantinian basilica as a dynastic mausoleum
  4. a Greek-cross church with four equal domed arms

Explanation

San Vitale is a double-shelled octagon: an ambulatory and gallery wrap a domed central space, and the imperial mosaics stand in the sanctuary below the apse mosaic. The trussed Latin-cross basilica describes the older Ravennate cathedral type, while the dynastic rotunda describes Santa Costanza in Rome.

Question 47Medieval art (Early Christian, Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic)

On the west portal of a Romanesque church, the tympanum is the

  1. series of recessed arches framing the entrance
  2. carved figure standing against the jamb of the doorway
  3. horizontal lintel carried by the central trumeau
  4. semicircular field between the lintel and the arch above Correct answer.

Explanation

The tympanum is the lunette-shaped panel enclosed by the lintel below and the inner arch above, and it carries the portal's principal sculpture, usually Christ in Majesty or the Last Judgement. Jamb figures flank the opening, and the trumeau is the pier between the two door leaves.

Question 48Medieval art (Early Christian, Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic)

Louis IX built the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris chiefly in order to

  1. act as the chapel of the University of Paris
  2. house the Crown of Thorns and other Passion relics Correct answer.
  3. serve as the coronation church where French kings were anointed
  4. provide a burial church for the Capetian dynasty

Explanation

The Sainte-Chapelle was conceived as a monumental reliquary for the Crown of Thorns, acquired by Louis IX in the 1230s and displayed on the upper level behind the apse. Its walls are almost entirely glazing, so that the interior reads as a casket of coloured light around the relics.

Question 49Medieval art (Early Christian, Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic)

The Second Council of Nicaea (787), which closed the first period of Byzantine Iconoclasm, ruled that

  1. all figural mosaics in monastic churches were to be destroyed throughout the empire
  2. religious images were to be forbidden while the cross alone was retained
  3. icons could be venerated but not worshipped with the adoration due to God Correct answer.
  4. images were permissible only in imperial foundations, not in monasteries

Explanation

The council distinguished the relative veneration (proskynesis) given to icons from the worship (latria) owed to God alone, and on that basis defended the making and honouring of images. Iconoclasm returned in 815 and was finally ended by the restoration of images in 843.

Question 50Medieval art (Early Christian, Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic)

A Gothic window whose tracery is built of thin stone bars curving into flame-like S-shapes belongs to

  1. Ottonian basilicas with alternating piers
  2. Byzantine churches built after the end of Iconoclasm
  3. Romanesque churches on the pilgrimage roads
  4. French Flamboyant Gothic of the fifteenth century Correct answer.

Explanation

Flamboyant is the late Gothic manner named for the flame-like, flowing curves of its window tracery, current in France from the late fourteenth century onwards. Earlier Rayonnant tracery, by contrast, radiates geometrically from the centre in a more rose-like pattern.