You Gotta Know
You Gotta Know These Artistic Creations
The following table lists the 30 most-frequently referenced works of visual art in NAQT questions as of October 1, 2005. While you really gotta know their creators, these are also some of the works about which more substantive questions are written, so teams should be prepared for questions on their materials, design, technique, depicted action, and circumstances of creation.
This is an update of the September 2001 You Gotta Know article.
| Rank | Title | Genre | Creator | Date | Freq. |
| 1 | Mona Lisa | Painting | Leonardo da Vinci | 1500 | 42 |
| 2 | The Birth of Venus | Painting | Sandro Botticelli | 1480 | 39 |
| 3 | The Arnolfini Wedding | Painting | Jan van Eyck | 1434 | 38 |
| 4 | The Thinker | Sculpture | (René-François-)Auguste Rodin | 1900 | 37 |
| 5 | Nighthawks | Painting | Edward Hopper | 1942 | 36 |
| 6 | The Persistence of Memory | Painting | Salvador (Felipe Jacinto) Dalí (y Domenech) | 1931 | 34 |
| 7 | Guernica | Painting | Pablo Picasso (y Ruiz) | 1937 | 34 |
| 8 | David | Sculpture | Michelangelo (Buonarotti) | 1504 | 32 |
| 9 | The Third of May, 1808 | Painting | Francisco de Goya (y Lucientes) | 1814 | 31 |
| 10 | Last Supper | Painting | Leonardo da Vinci | 1495-1498 | 31 |
| 11 | Starry Night | Painting | Vincent (Willem) Van Gogh | 1889 | 29 |
| 12 | The Shooting Company of Captain Franz Banning Cocq | Painting | Rembrandt (Harmenszoon Van Rijn) | 1640-1642 | 29 |
| 13 | The Gates of Hell | Sculpture | (René-François-)Auguste Rodin | 1880 | 29 |
| 14 | The Kiss | Sculpture | (René-François-)Auguste Rodin | 1886 | 28 |
| 15 | Perseus With the Head Of Medusa | Sculpture | Benvenuto Cellini | 1563 | 28 |
| 16 | School of Athens | Painting | Raphael | 1509 | 28 |
| 17 | The Death of Marat | Painting | Jacques-Louis David | 1793 | 27 |
| 18 | Bird in Space | Sculpture | Constantin Brancusi | 1919 | 27 |
| 19 | The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa | Sculpture | Gian Lorenzo Bernini | 1646 | 26 |
| 20 | Las Meninas | Painting | Diego (Rodríguez de Silva y) Velázquez | 1656 | 26 |
| 21 | American Gothic | Painting | Grant Wood | 1930 | 25 |
| 22 | Venus of Urbino | Painting | Titian | 1538 | 24 |
| 23 | Liberty Leading the People | Painting | (Ferdinand Victor) Eugène Delacroix | 1830 | 23 |
| 24 | Christina's World | Painting | Andrew (Newell) Wyeth | 1948 | 23 |
| 25 | Liberty Enlightening the World | Sculpture | Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi | 1886 | 23 |
| 26 | Pietá | Sculpture | Michelangelo (Buonarotti) | 1499 | 22 |
| 27 | Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 | Painting | Marcel Duchamp | 1912 | 21 |
| 28 | Garden of Earthly Delights | Painting | Hieronymus Bosch | 1500 | 21 |
| 29 | Luncheon on the Grass | Painting | Édouard Manet | 1863 | 21 |
| 30 | Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist's Mother | Painting | James (Abbott) McNeill Whistler | 1871 | 20 |
NAQT has complete lists of the works of literature, non-fiction, art, and music that have been mentioned in its questions, sorted by frequency, available for purchase by coaches or teams for use as study guides.
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