You Gotta Know

You Gotta Know These Artistic Creations

The following table lists the 40 most-frequently referenced works of visual art in NAQT questions as of November 1, 2007. 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 an earlier You Gotta Know article.

Rank	Title	Genre	Creator	Date	Freq.
1	Louvre	Building	Pierre Lescot Francis I of France (patron)	1546	137
2	Parthenon	Building	Ictinus and Callicrates Pericles (patron)	447 BC	136
3	Notre Dame Cathedral	Building	unknown	1160-1345	108
4	Mona Lisa	Painting	Leonardo da Vinci	1500	104
5	Statue of Liberty	Sculpture	Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi	1886	100
6	Guernica	Painting	Pablo Picasso (y Ruiz)	1937	89
7	Westminster Abbey	Building	Henry III of England (patron)	1245	78
8	Taj Mahal	Building	Ustad Ahmad Lahori Shah Jahan (patron)	1632	77
9	Sistine Chapel	Building	Giovanni Del Dolci Pope Sixtus IV (patron)	1473	76
10	The Birth of Venus	Painting	Sandro Botticelli	1480	76
11	Saint Paul's Cathedral	Building	Sir Christopher Wren	1708	74
12	Mount Rushmore	Sculpture	(John) Gutzon (de la Mothe) Borglum	1927-1941	74
13	Nighthawks	Painting	Edward Hopper	1942	70
14	Empire State Building	Building	(Firm of) Shreve, Lamb & Harmon	1931	68
15	St. Peter's Basilica	Building	Donato Bramante et al.	1626	66
16	The Persistence of Memory	Painting	Salvador (Felipe Jacinto) Dalí (y Domenech)	1931	65
17	Abraham Lincoln Memorial	Building	Henry Bacon	1922	64
18	The Thinker	Sculpture	(René-François-)Auguste Rodin	1900	64
19	The Shooting Company of Captain Franz Banning Cocq	Painting	Rembrandt (Harmenszoon Van Rijn)	1642	64
20	Fallingwater	Building	Frank Lloyd (Lincoln) Wright	1936	63
21	School of Athens	Painting	Raphael	1509	61
22	Last Supper	Painting	Leonardo da Vinci	1495-1498	60
23	American Gothic	Painting	Grant Wood	1930	60
24	David	Sculpture	Donatello	c. 1440	59
25	The Arnolfini Wedding	Painting	Jan van Eyck	1434	57
26	The Death of Marat	Painting	Jacques-Louis David	1793	56
27	Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum	Building	Frank Lloyd Wright	1959	56
28	Uffizi Palace	Building	Giorgio Vasari Cosimo I de' Medici (patron)	1560-1581	55
29	The Gates of Hell	Sculpture	(René-François-)Auguste Rodin	1880	55
30	The Third of May, 1808	Painting	Francisco (José) de Goya (y Lucientes)	1814	53
31	Chrysler Building	Building	William Van Alen	1930	52
32	Starry Night	Painting	Vincent (Willem) Van Gogh	1889	50
33	Arrangement in Gray and Black, No. 1: The Artist's Mother	Painting	James (Abbott) McNeill Whistler	1871	50
34	Alhambra	Building	Mahomet Ibn Al Ahmar (patron)	1354	49
35	Gateway Arch	Building	Eero Saarinen	1965	49
36	Eiffel Tower	Building	(Alexandre-)Gustave Eiffel	1889	49
37	Cathedral of Florence	Building	Filippo Brunelleschi	1420	49
38	Temple of Jerusalem	Building	Solomon (patron)	10th century BC	49
39	United States Capitol	Building	Wiliam Thornton (original) Benjamin Latrobe, Charles Bullfinch, et al. (revisions)	1793-1811 (reconstructed 1815-1826)	49
40	Las Meninas	Painting	Diego (Rodríguez de Silva y) Velázquez	1656	48

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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