Study by subject
Art history
In art history you learn movements, artists, famous works and their dates by heart. Lumi asks for the name, the period or the movement until you can place them without the image in front of you.
How to turn this subject into cards
Make one card per work with three fields, the artist, the movement and the period, plus one card per movement with its recognisable traits. That way you keep attributions and dates apart. The trap is learning images by recognition without being able to say who, when and why. Hide the name and the date, look at the description, then produce them from memory. Actively recalling fixes things better than rereading (Karpicke and Roediger, 2008). Compare two neighbouring movements, such as Baroque and Classicism, on the same card so you stop mixing them up. Return to your cards at spaced intervals rather than the night before the exam.
What you need to know by heart
- The major movements in order, from Romanesque to contemporary art.
- The key artists of each movement.
- Famous works with their title, artist and date.
- The traits that identify a style, light, perspective, brushwork.
- The museums and places where you can see these works.
How Lumi helps you remember it
You teach your cards to Lumi, movements, artists, works, dates. It forgets over time, like you do, then quizzes you right before you would forget. As the deadline approaches, the Mist settles over what you know less well and Lumi asks that first. You arrive able to say who, when and why, not only to recognise the image.
Example cards
Three cards the way you would write them, with the answer Lumi expects.
Who painted The Starry Night?
Vincent van Gogh.
Who painted Las Meninas?
Diego Velázquez.
Which Renaissance sculptor made the David in Florence?
Michelangelo.
Example card
Try it, Lumi turns it into fill in the blank questions in your browser.
Art history · teach this card to Lumi
The Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo da Vinci. The word Impressionism comes from a painting by Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise. Guernica is a painting by Pablo Picasso. The Thinker is a sculpture by Auguste Rodin.
Lumi’s question
The Mona Lisa was painted by _____.
Pick the missing word
Answer right to light Lumi up
Its lamp fades when a fact slips away.
Frequently asked questions
- How do I remember the dates of works?
- Tie each date to a movement and a fact you can tell. Lumi asks the date back at spaced intervals, which makes you remember longer (Cepeda et al., 2006).
- Do I need to learn the images?
- If your course asks for it, write a precise description of the work on the card, then the title, artist and date. Lumi asks for the answer starting from that description.
- How do I stop mixing up two movements?
- Make one card per movement with three traits that set it apart, then compare two neighbouring movements. Lumi asks them back in alternation.
Read next
Sources
- Karpicke, Roediger (2008). The critical importance of retrieval for learning. Science, 319(5865). doi.org/10.1126/science.1152408
- Cepeda, Pashler, Vul, Wixted, Rohrer (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks. A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3). doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.3.354
Teach this to Lumi
Give Lumi your art history notes, it gives them back as questions at the right moment.