Which instrument has 88 keys?
The piano — 52 white and 36 black.
Arts & Letters
Books and their authors, paintings and composers, films and music — the works, and the hands that made them.
114 questions · tap a question to reveal the answer
What is the loudest instrument in a standard orchestra?
The trombone — brass carries over everything.
Which instrument has black and white keys?
Piano — 88 keys on a full one.
What are the three primary colors of paint?
Red, yellow, blue — Red, yellow and blue.
Which London theatre is an open-air reconstruction?
The Globe — Shakespeare's Globe - rebuilt in 1997 near the original site.
Who painted the Mona Lisa?
Leonardo da Vinci — in the early 1500s.
Which composer wrote the Fifth Symphony that starts da-da-da-dum?
Beethoven — Ludwig van Beethoven.
Who wrote Romeo and Juliet?
William Shakespeare
Which artist cut off part of his own ear?
Vincent van Gogh — in 1888.
Who wrote The Jungle Book?
Rudyard Kipling — in 1894.
Van Gogh painted a famous series of which flower?
Sunflowers — painted in Arles in 1888.
Who wrote Oliver Twist?
Charles Dickens — in 1838.
Which composer became deaf but kept writing music?
Beethoven — the Ninth Symphony came after.
Who painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel?
Michelangelo — between 1508 and 1512.
Which novel features the characters Aslan and Lucy?
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe — C.S. Lewis's Narnia classic.
Which artist painted The Starry Night?
Vincent van Gogh — Van Gogh, in 1889.
Which author created Sherlock Holmes?
Arthur Conan Doyle — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Which writer created Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot?
Agatha Christie
Who wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer?
Mark Twain — in 1876.
Who wrote Pride and Prejudice?
Jane Austen — published in 1813.
Who painted Girl with a Pearl Earring?
Johannes Vermeer — Vermeer, around 1665.
Which novel begins with the line 'Call me Ishmael'?
Moby-Dick — by Herman Melville.
Which composer wrote the opera The Magic Flute?
Mozart — in 1791.
Who wrote the play A Midsummer Night's Dream?
Shakespeare — William Shakespeare.
Which artist painted Water Lilies?
Claude Monet — Monet, in his garden at Giverny.
Which author wrote 1984?
George Orwell — published 1949.
Who wrote Frankenstein?
Mary Shelley — at just 20 years old.
Which composer wrote The Nutcracker?
Tchaikovsky — in 1892.
Which novel features the character Atticus Finch?
To Kill a Mockingbird — Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.
Who painted The Scream?
Edvard Munch — Munch, in 1893.
Who wrote the music for West Side Story?
Leonard Bernstein — in 1957.
Who wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude?
Gabriel Garcia Marquez — Garcia Marquez, published in 1967.
Which artist co-founded Cubism with Picasso?
Georges Braque
Who painted Guernica?
Pablo Picasso — Picasso, in 1937.
Which author created Middle-earth?
J.R.R. Tolkien — Tolkien, in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
Who wrote the play Waiting for Godot?
Samuel Beckett — Beckett, premiered 1953.
Which composer wrote the Ride of the Valkyries?
Richard Wagner — Wagner, from the opera Die Walkure.
Who wrote Crime and Punishment?
Fyodor Dostoevsky — Dostoevsky, in 1866.
Which instrument did Louis Armstrong famously play?
Trumpet
Which novel features the dystopia of soma and test-tube babies?
Brave New World — Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.
Who painted the Birth of Venus?
Sandro Botticelli — Botticelli, in the 1480s.
Which Shakespeare play features the Three Witches?
Macbeth
Who wrote the poem The Raven?
Edgar Allan Poe — Poe, in 1845 — 'Nevermore'.
Who painted American Gothic?
Grant Wood — in 1930.
Which composer's Ninth Symphony contains the Ode to Joy?
Beethoven — now the EU anthem.
Who wrote the short story collection Dubliners?
James Joyce — Joyce, published 1914.
Who painted The Night Watch?
Rembrandt — in 1642.
Who wrote The Master and Margarita?
Mikhail Bulgakov — Bulgakov, published long after his death.
Who composed the opera Madama Butterfly?
Giacomo Puccini — Puccini, premiered 1904.
Which novel features the whaling ship Pequod's captain?
Captain Ahab — Ahab, hunting the white whale.
Which poet wrote 'Do not go gentle into that good night'?
Dylan Thomas — for his dying father.
Which Spanish court had a formal role for dwarfs, painted with dignity by Velazquez?
The Habsburg court in Madrid — Philip IV's - and Velazquez painted them as individuals, not curiosities.
Which playwright wrote A Streetcar Named Desire?
Tennessee Williams — Williams, in 1947.
Who wrote the philosophical work Thus Spoke Zarathustra?
Friedrich Nietzsche — Nietzsche, in the 1880s.
What did Pepys do after buying Micrographia in 1665?
Sat up reading until 2am — Called it the most ingenious book he had ever read.
Which artist created the sculpture The Thinker?
Auguste Rodin — Rodin, cast in 1904.
What is Velazquez doing in his own painting Las Meninas?
Standing at a huge canvas, looking out — He painted himself painting - and we cannot see what he is painting.
Who wrote the novel Things Fall Apart?
Chinua Achebe — Achebe, in 1958.
Who wrote Invisible Man (1952)?
Ralph Ellison
Which epic poem tells of Aeneas fleeing Troy?
The Aeneid — Virgil's Aeneid.
Which author created the detective Philip Marlowe?
Raymond Chandler — Chandler, in The Big Sleep.
Who painted Nighthawks, the lonely diner scene?
Edward Hopper — Hopper, in 1942.
Who wrote the sonnet beginning 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day'?
Shakespeare — Sonnet 18.
Who wrote Don Quixote?
Miguel de Cervantes — Cervantes — part one in 1605.
Who wrote the twelve-volume novel cycle In Search of Lost Time?
Marcel Proust — Proust — famously begun with a madeleine.
Who painted The Garden of Earthly Delights?
Hieronymus Bosch — Bosch, around 1500.
Which Roman historian wrote the Annals covering Tiberius to Nero?
Tacitus
Which philosopher wrote Leviathan in 1651?
Thomas Hobbes — Hobbes — life outside the state is 'nasty, brutish, and short'.
Which author wrote the novella The Metamorphosis?
Franz Kafka — Kafka — Gregor Samsa wakes as an insect.
Which English poet wrote Paradise Lost while blind?
John Milton — Milton, dictating it in the 1660s.
Who wrote the poem The Waste Land?
T.S. Eliot — Eliot, in 1922, edited by Pound.
Which Russian composer wrote Pictures at an Exhibition?
Modest Mussorgsky — Mussorgsky, in 1874.
Who painted the Arnolfini Portrait?
Jan van Eyck — Van Eyck, in 1434.
Who wrote the Divine Comedy?
Dante Alighieri — Dante, finished around 1320.
Which opera by Bizet features the Toreador Song?
Carmen — premiered 1875.
Who composed the opera Don Giovanni?
Mozart — premiered in Prague, 1787.
Which composer's 'unfinished' symphony has only two movements?
Schubert — 's Eighth.
Which artist painted The Persistence of Memory, with melting clocks?
Salvador Dali — Dali, in 1931.
Which playwright wrote The Cherry Orchard?
Anton Chekhov — Chekhov, his last play, 1904.
Which author's Foundation series shaped science fiction?
Isaac Asimov — Asimov, beginning 1942.
Which Anglo-Saxon epic poem features Grendel?
Beowulf
Who painted the Sistine Madonna, with its two famous cherubs?
Raphael — around 1512.
Which 1516 book coined the word for an ideal society?
Utopia — Thomas More's Utopia — 'no place'.
Which Russian author wrote Dead Souls?
Nikolai Gogol — Gogol, in 1842.
Who wrote the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead?
Tom Stoppard — Stoppard, in 1966.
Which French novelist wrote Madame Bovary?
Gustave Flaubert — Flaubert, tried for obscenity in 1857.
Which composer wrote the Symphonie fantastique about an artist's opium dream?
Hector Berlioz — Berlioz, in 1830.
Which artist's Black Square of 1915 founded Suprematism?
Kazimir Malevich — Malevich.
Who wrote Doctor Zhivago?
Boris Pasternak — Pasternak — forced to refuse the 1958 Nobel.
Who wrote the Decameron during the Black Death?
Giovanni Boccaccio — Boccaccio — 100 tales told in quarantine.
Which economist wrote The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money?
John Maynard Keynes — Keynes, in 1936.
Which Norwegian playwright wrote A Doll's House?
Henrik Ibsen — Ibsen — Nora's door slam shook 1879.
Which Spanish artist painted the Black Paintings on his own walls?
Francisco Goya — Goya, in his final dark years.
Which Bronte sister wrote The Tenant of Wildfell Hall?
Anne — Bronte, the youngest.
Which composer wrote the Hungarian Rhapsodies?
Franz Liszt — Liszt, virtuoso showpieces.
Which Persian poet wrote the Shahnameh, the Book of Kings?
Ferdowsi — 50,000 couplets over 30 years.
Abolqasem Mansour bin Hassan Tusi (940–1025), better known by his pen name Ferdowsi, was a Persian poet who is notable for being the author of the Shahnameh, which is one of the world's longest epic poems created by a single poet, and the greatest epic of Persian-speaking countries. Ferdowsi is celebrated as one of the most influential…
Wikipedia · FerdowsiWhich Flemish polyphonist was called the 'Prince of Music' by contemporaries?
Josquin des Prez — around 1500.
Josquin Lebloitte dit des Prez was a composer of Renaissance music, who is variously described as French or Franco-Flemish. Considered one of the greatest composers of the Renaissance, he was a central figure of the Franco-Flemish School and had a profound influence on the music of 16th-century Europe. Building on the work of his…
Wikipedia · Josquin des PrezWho painted Las Hilanderas (The Spinners)?
Velazquez — myth hidden in a workshop scene.
Velázquez, also Velazquez, Velásquez or Velasquez, is a surname from Spain. It is a patronymic name, meaning "son of Velasco".
Wikipedia · VelazquezWhich Byzantine empress, a former actress, co-ruled with Justinian?
Theodora — she stopped his flight in the Nika riots.
Theodora was a Byzantine empress and the wife of the emperor Justinian I in the sixth century. One of the most influential women of her age, she helped steady the throne during the Nika riots, championed the rights of women, and is venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Which Tang poet is often ranked China's greatest, the 'Poet Immortal'?
Li Bai — Du Fu is the 'Poet Sage'.
Li Bai, also known by his courtesy name of Taibai, was a Chinese poet acclaimed as one of the best and most important poets of the Tang dynasty, and even in the whole of Chinese poetry. He and his friends such as Du Fu (712–770) were among the prominent figures in the flourishing of Chinese poetry of the Tang dynasty, often called the…
Wikipedia · Li BaiWhich novel by Junichiro Tanizaki praises Japanese aesthetics of shadow?
In Praise of Shadows — his 1933 essay.
In Praise of Shadows is an essay by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki about Japanese aesthetics. Tanizaki's observations include cultural notes on customs and tradition, people, historical places and buildings, discussion of various materials and craft techniques, as well as food and even unusual recipes as seen through the author's metaphorical lens…
Wikipedia · In Praise of ShadowsWhich opera by Alban Berg was left unfinished at his death?
Lulu — completed by others decades later.
Lulu is an opera in three acts by Alban Berg. Berg adapted the libretto from Frank Wedekind's two Lulu plays, Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora. Berg died before completing the third and final act, and the opera was typically performed as a "torso" until Friedrich Cerha's 1979 orchestration of the act 3 sketches, which is now…
Wikipedia · Lulu (opera)Which composer's Vespers of 1610 revolutionized sacred music?
Claudio Monteverdi — Monteverdi.
Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi was an Italian composer, choirmaster and string player. A composer of both secular and sacred music, and a pioneer in the development of opera, he is considered a crucial transitional figure between the Renaissance and Baroque periods of music history.
Wikipedia · Claudio MonteverdiWho wrote The Leopard, the novel of Sicily's fading nobility?
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa — Lampedusa — published after his death.
Giuseppe Tomasi, 11th Prince of Lampedusa, 12th Duke of Palma, GE, known as Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, was a Sicilian writer, as well as the last generation of Tomasi Princes of Lampedusa before the family's and their titles' extinction.
Wikipedia · Giuseppe Tomasi di LampedusaWhich novel of 1899 scandalized readers with Edna Pontellier's awakening?
The Awakening — Kate Chopin's The Awakening.
The Awakening is a novel by Kate Chopin, first published on 22 April 1899. Set in New Orleans and on the Louisiana Gulf coast at the end of the 19th century, the plot centers on Edna Pontellier and her struggle between her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the prevailing social attitudes of the…
Wikipedia · The Awakening (Chopin novel)Which composer wrote the microtonal-leaning Concord Sonata?
Charles Ives — Ives, honoring the Transcendentalists.
Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer, actuary and businessman. Ives was among the earliest renowned American composers to achieve recognition on a global scale. His music was largely ignored during his early career, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Later in life, the quality of his music was…
Wikipedia · Charles IvesWhich Portuguese poet wrote under dozens of 'heteronyms'?
Fernando Pessoa — Pessoa — Caeiro, Campos, Reis and more.
Fernando António Nogueira de Seabra Pessoa was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, and publisher. He has been described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese literature. He also wrote in and translated from English and French.
Wikipedia · Fernando PessoaWhich author's 'A House for Mr Biswas' drew on Trinidad?
V.S. Naipaul — Naipaul, published 1961.
Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul was a Trinidad and Tobago-born British writer renowned for his works of fiction and nonfiction in English. He is known for his comic early novels set in Trinidad, his bleaker novels of alienation in the wider world, and his vigilant chronicles of life and travels. He wrote in prose that was widely…
Wikipedia · V. S. NaipaulWhich novel narrated by Death is set in Nazi Germany?
The Book Thief — Markus Zusak's The Book Thief.
The Book Thief is a historical fiction novel by the Australian author Markus Zusak, set in Nazi Germany during World War II. Published in 2005, The Book Thief became an international bestseller and was translated into 63 languages and sold 17 million copies. It was adapted into the 2013 feature film, The Book Thief.
Wikipedia · The Book ThiefWho wrote the philosophical treatise Being and Time?
Martin Heidegger — published in 1927.
Existentialism is a family of philosophical views and inquiry that explore the human individual's struggle to lead an authentic life despite the apparent absurdity or incomprehensibility of existence. In examining meaning, purpose, and value, existentialist thought often includes concepts such as existential crises, angst, courage, and freedom.
Wikipedia · ExistentialismWhich composer wrote the Goldberg Variations?
Johann Sebastian Bach — published in 1741.
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his prolific output across a variety of instruments and forms, including the orchestral Brandenburg Concertos; solo instrumental works such as the Cello Suites and Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin; keyboard works such as the Goldberg…
Wikipedia · Johann Sebastian BachIn music theory, how many semitones make up an octave?
12 — semitones in the standard chromatic scale.
In music theory, a scale is "any consecutive series of notes that form a progression between one note and its octave", typically by order of pitch or fundamental frequency.
Wikipedia · Scale (music)Which composer's Fourth Symphony was withdrawn after a Soviet denunciation and hidden for 25 years?
Shostakovich — pulled in rehearsal in 1936.
Which Japanese poet reshaped haiku while walking the northern provinces on foot?
Basho — the Narrow Road to the Deep North, 1689.