HISTORY OF ART

ENTRANCE EXAMINATION 2017

INSTRUCTIONS:

You have 40 minutes to complete the exam.

You must answer the question from section A and only ONE of the
TWO questions in section B.

Write your answers in the space provided on the question paper – if you
require additional sheets of paper for your answer then please ask.

Candidate Number:

Full Name (PRINT below): Total Marks:

 Section A: Compare and contrast the three images below [10 marks]

Map of Venice, Jacopo de’Barbari, Woodcut print, 1500, 1345 x 2818cm

Procession in the main square, Venice, Gentile Bellini, Tempera on Canvas, 1496, 347 x 770cm

Venice, Looking East, JMW Turner, Watercolour, 1819, 220 x 280cm

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________
 SECTION B: answer either question 2 OR question 3

2) How effective is state commissioned art as a means of social or political expression? Do

reference the article below, and any other art you feel is relevant. [10 marks]

Thumbs up for Trafalgar Square's latest sculpture - by Alison Cole

[image: Really Good by David Shrigley, on the 4th Plinth, Trafalgar Square, London]

It was inevitable that David Shrigley's breezy new

sculpture for Trafalgar Square – part of the popular
Fourth Plinth Programme – would be appropriated
for political purposes. As the giant seven-metre-high
thumbs-up Really Good was unveiled by Mayor Sadiq
Khan it was greeted with a sudden downpour, but
exuded a defiant post-Brexit cheery optimism.
"London is open to the world," declared Khan to the
sodden onlookers, welcoming immigrants, EU
citizens, people of all ages and backgrounds.

Shrigley is equally aware that Really Good could be co-

opted by a grinning Nigel Farage – but he is a fan of
Khan's and recently created a poster for the Mayor's
"London Is Open" campaign. When Shrigley won the
Fourth Plinth commission in 2013, during Boris
Johnson’s reign, it was a very different time. He
triumphed on the basis of an ironic submission
written, as he said in a recent interview, as if he were
a character from [BBC political satire] The Thick of It.
"There seems to be a worrying trend for things being
bad: the economy, the weather, society etc.," he wrote,
and this trend "needs to be reversed." He wanted his work, therefore, to be seen as a force for positivity, and
become – as it were – a self-fulfilling prophecy.

He had no inkling, though, that it would be seen in a Brexit context. But that’s fine, he said. “It is such an
ambiguous thing which you can quite easily project your own meaning on to, it could endorse something I
didn’t want to endorse…It is an interesting thing and a scary thing. There is still time. There is potential for
the meaning to change.”

The cartoonish thumbs up, with the thumb hugely elongated for emphasis (the title is Really Good, not Quite
Good), looks uncannily like the elongated finger of ET. Through skilful modelling, the cast bronze has been
given the same plastic quality as plasticine – no wonder a group of assembled schoolchildren instantly gave
it a thumbs-up of their own. The passengers on a passing tourist bus seemed slightly more bemused; Really
Good has been given the same dark patina as the other heroic symbols of nationhood in the square, a
"blackened" look which also gives it a graphic satirical quality. Shrigley's initial approach may have been
ironic in its commentary on modern Britain (it has a distinctive phallic quality), but he has – by his own
admission – become infected by his own optimism. It is difficult – even on this greyest of London days – not
to be buoyed up by it.

3) What did you learn from a recent gallery or exhibition you visited? [10 marks]
___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

END OF TEST