70 free Art and Literature trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
56 free art and literature trivia questions with answers. These art and literature trivia questions are the classic Trivial Pursuit brown-wedge round, done properly. Half the quiz is art: the Mona Lisa's theft, what The Starry Night looks out on, why The Night Watch was trimmed, who posed for American Gothic, how many soup cans Warhol painted, what The Thinker was thinking about and where the Venus de Milo was dug up. The other half is literature: Ahab's ship, Airstrip One, Macondo, the conch, Bloomsday, the ghost-story bet that produced Frankenstein, the pen names of the Brontës, and the first Nobel laureate who beat Tolstoy. The questions range from ones any reader or gallery-goer will get to ones that need a good memory for dates and titles. It works as a stand-alone round for a pub quiz, a school or book-club warm-up, or a test of your own general culture. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and museum or publisher records, and each question shows its citation once you have answered.
30 of 70 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Mona Lisa is painted on what surface?
A white poplar panel
The sitter is traditionally identified as the Florentine noblewoman Lisa del Giocondo.
Q 02Who stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911, claiming it belonged in Italy?
Vincenzo Peruggia
The two-year theft made the painting world famous; it was recovered in 1914.
Q 03Van Gogh painted The Starry Night in June 1889 from the window of what?
His asylum room at Saint-Rémy
The village below the swirling sky is imaginary; the painting has hung at MoMA in New York since 1941.
Q 04How many versions of The Scream did Edvard Munch create, in paint and pastel?
Four
Both painted versions have been stolen from museums and recovered; a pastel sold for a record price in 2012.
Q 05Girl with a Pearl Earring by Vermeer is what kind of painting, in Dutch 17th-century terms?
A tronie, a study of a head
It has been in the Mauritshuis in The Hague since 1902 and got its current title only in the late 20th century.
Q 06Dalí's The Persistence of Memory sold for how much when first exhibited in 1932?
$250
An anonymous donor gave it to MoMA two years later, where it has stayed ever since.
Q 07Picasso's Guernica, painted in 1937, uses which colours?
Grey, black and white only
The 3.5-metre-tall canvas hangs in the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid and shows a gored horse, a bull and screaming figures.
Q 08Leonardo's The Last Supper is a mural in the refectory of a convent in which city?
Milan
It captures the moment after Jesus announces that one of the apostles will betray him.
Q 09Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling between 1508 and 1512 at the commission of which pope?
Julius II
The chapel itself is named for Sixtus IV, who built it in the 1470s.
Q 10Michelangelo's David stands how tall?
5.17 metres (17 feet)
It was the first colossal marble statue since antiquity and was originally meant for the roofline of Florence Cathedral.
Q 11In Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, the goddess arrives at the shore standing on what?
A giant scallop shell
The painting hangs in the Uffizi in Florence and dates from the mid-1480s.
Q 12Rembrandt's The Night Watch was trimmed on all four sides in 1715. Why?
To fit a wall in Amsterdam Town Hall
Its real title is Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq; it is not even a night scene.
Q 13The two figures in Grant Wood's American Gothic were modelled on his sister and whom?
The family dentist
Q 21Velázquez's Las Meninas, one of the most analysed paintings in Western art, hangs in which museum?
The Prado, Madrid
Its title means 'The Ladies-in-waiting'; Velázquez painted it in 1656 for the court of Philip IV.
Q 22Which Monet painting of the port of Le Havre gave the Impressionist movement its name?
Impression, Sunrise
Critic Louis Leroy used the title mockingly in Le Charivari after the 1874 exhibition, and the name stuck.
Q 23Leonardo's Vitruvian Man, drawn around 1490, shows a man inscribed within which two shapes?
A circle and a square
The house behind them is a real Carpenter Gothic cottage in Eldon, Iowa.
Q 14Hokusai's The Great Wave off Kanagawa is the first print in which series?
Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji
The series' use of imported Prussian blue revolutionised Japanese printmaking.
Q 15Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans consists of how many paintings, one for each variety?
32
They were first shown at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles in July 1962.
Q 16Klimt's The Kiss, from his Golden Period, includes which materials besides oil paint?
Gold leaf, silver and platinum
It hangs in the Belvedere in Vienna and was first exhibited in 1908 as Liebespaar, the lovers.
Q 17Edward Hopper's Nighthawks shows four people late at night in what setting?
A downtown diner
The 1942 painting was sold to the Art Institute of Chicago within months of completion.
Q 18The painting popularly called Whistler's Mother is officially titled what?
Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1
The French state bought it in 1891 and it now hangs in the Musée d'Orsay.
Q 19Rodin's The Thinker was originally conceived as part of which larger commission?
The Gates of Hell
It was first called The Poet and was meant to represent Dante contemplating his Divine Comedy.
Q 20The Venus de Milo was discovered in 1820 on which Greek island?
Milos
The Parian marble statue has been in the Louvre since 1821 and is missing both arms.
It was inspired by the Roman architect Vitruvius's ideas on human proportion.
Q 24A 1978 theory holds the skeletal figure in The Scream was inspired by what, seen at the 1889 Paris Exposition?
A Peruvian mummy
Gauguin may have seen the same mummy; Munch first exhibited the work under the German title The Scream of Nature.
Q 25Jane Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice at what age?
About 21
It was her third novel written but only the second published, appearing in 1813.
Q 26In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Great Britain has been renamed what?
Airstrip One
It is a province of the superstate Oceania; the book was Orwell's ninth and final completed work.
Q 27In Moby-Dick, what is the name of Captain Ahab's whaling ship?
Pequod
The novel was a commercial failure in Melville's lifetime and only later became a classic.
Q 28Don Quixote's real name, before he decides to become a knight-errant, is what?
Alonso Quijano
Cervantes published the two parts in 1605 and 1615; it is often called the first modern novel.
Q 29Tolstoy's War and Peace is set during which conflict?
The Napoleonic Wars
An early version was serialised from 1865 before Tolstoy rewrote the whole thing.
Q 30Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird won which award a year after its 1960 publication?
The Pulitzer
Lee grew up in Monroeville, Alabama, where her childhood friend was Truman Capote.