1 In this course, criticism means
Correct. Criticism can be positive, negative, or neither. What defines it is disciplined attention and informed statements.
In the humanities, criticism does not mean faultfinding. It means careful attention plus an informed statement about the work.
2 Descriptive criticism focuses on
Correct. Descriptive criticism asks what is there: line, color, rhythm, structure. It deliberately holds back meaning and judgment.
Description is the first step. It reports what is actually in the work without yet saying what it means or how good it is.
3 Interpretive criticism centers on
Correct. The formula in this unit is that interpretation explains how form transforms subject matter into content.
Interpretation moves from what is there to what it means. It should always be grounded in specific observations.
4 Evaluative criticism centers on
Correct. Evaluation asks how good a work is. It relies on description and interpretation first, which is why the order matters.
Evaluation is about merit: how good a work is and why. It is the third step, after description and interpretation.
5 Which set lists the three standards for evaluation presented in this unit?
Correct. A strong work is unified (perfection), reveals something meaningful about human experience (insight), and rewards repeated attention (inexhaustibility).
The three standards are perfection (everything contributes), insight (it reveals something meaningful), and inexhaustibility (it rewards return visits).
6 Leonardo's Last Supper is organized around a single vanishing point behind Christ's head, with the apostles in four groups of three. What kind of relationship is this?
Correct. The vanishing point and the four groups are not small details or one region; they are the structure that organizes the whole composition.
Descriptive criticism has three levels: detail, regional, and structural. The organizing principle for the whole painting is structural.
7 The statement that Picasso's Guernica is a better painting than Munch's The Scream is
Correct. Saying one work is better than another is a judgment of merit. Evaluation needs a stated standard to be convincing.
Notice the word better. It judges merit, and judging merit is the job of evaluative criticism.
8 The statement that the bull in Guernica symbolizes the cruelty and indifference of the regime that ordered the bombing is
Correct. It says what a detail of the painting stands for. Good interpretations point to specific details and explain how the form creates the meaning.
The statement explains what something stands for, not just what is there or how good it is. That is interpretation.
9 Noticing that the sky in Munch's The Scream is painted in long, swirling bands of orange that echo the curves of the figure's body is
Correct. It reports formal elements and the relationships between them without saying what they mean or whether they succeed.
The statement reports what is there (swirling bands, echoing curves). It does not say what they mean or whether they are good, so it is descriptive.
10 Klimt's The Kiss rewards repeated looking: you keep finding the contrast of geometric and organic patterns or the danger of the cliff edge. Which evaluative standard does this illustrate?
Correct. A work that keeps revealing something new each time you return to it is inexhaustible, and that is a mark of a strong work.
The key phrase is keeps revealing something new. That is the standard of inexhaustibility, the quality of resisting becoming stale.