How much do the French know about art history? The state found out with a quiz

A state quiz to find out how much citizens know about art history-that’s the idea France had. Launched in 2018 by the Ministry of Culture’s Department of Studies and Statistics, the quiz was offered to a sample of 2,300 people representative of the French population (aged 18 to 79), and the results were released at the end of May this year.

It is a multiple-choice quiz, which is not so obvious (those who want to try their hand at it can download it from the website of the Ministry of Culture of France): there are photographs of buildings whose style (Renaissance, medieval, art deco, etc.), photographs of sculptures and paintings to which one has to assign the author, works to be put in chronological order, monuments for which one has to enter the city in which they are located, “find the intruder” style questions, and so on.

What emerged from the study? For example, that artistic knowledge goes hand in hand with age, that sex differences are much more pronounced among the younger generation (and particularly in the younger generation it is females who know more than males), that the social distribution of artistic knowledge is unequal (people from the upper social classes know much more), and that knowledge progresses with the level of education attained. And again, technicians from the Department of Studies and Statistics note that “success in the quiz is particularly related to the development of wealth luck, reading books, and using the Internet on art topics.” Another finding that emerges is that success in answering the questions is correlated with museum attendance, and this regardless of the level of studies people have achieved.

Going into more detail, by averaging the results and putting them on a scale of 1 to 20, the result obtained by the French was 12 (in short, they got a passing grade), with 50 percent of people scoring between 8.4 and 15. Only 9 percent scored below 4, while as many as one in four French people managed to score above 15. Getting more specific about the age field, 32% of those over 55 belong to the “connoisseur” group (i.e., the 25% who scored above 15), a percentage that drops to 25% for the 35-54 age group and only 13% for the 18-34 age group. Conversely, knowledge progresses with age: 39% of those under the age of 25 belong to the “novice” group (the 25% who scored less than 9), and the percentage drops to 29% for the 25-34 year old group. According to the study, the lower knowledge by young people could also be due to “a weakening of classical culture in the younger generations, erosion perceptible starting with those born in the 1980s, due to the lowering of students’ skills.” In addition, it could also be an attitude problem: “the artistic themes proposed [by the quiz] might seem to young people to be distant from their cultural universes and the current world,” a tendency evidenced by the high number of “don’t know” answers in the lower age groups.

On sexual differences, there is substantial parity, less pronounced, however, among young people (among those under 35, 37 percent of men belong to the novice group compared to 28 percent of women), and that reappears as age progresses (indeed, it was found that, among those over 55, 35 percent of men belong to the “knower” group compared to 28 percent of women). If, on the other hand, we take the population as a whole, 50% of women and 49% of men line up above the 12-point average: there is qunidi parity across the population as a whole. On the geographical distribution, those who know the most about art are Parisians, immediately followed by residents of large cities.

As anticipated, an unequal distribution was found on educational level and social class. Taking the total population into consideration, 52 percent of college graduates, 44 percent of high school graduates, and 35 percent of those with less than a high school diploma exceed the 12-point average. As for social class, 37 percent of the “working class” categories, 58 percent of the middle class and 73 percent of the “upper class” categories exceed the 12-point average. As for family type, it is the childless couples who know the most (57 percent exceed the average), followed by 54 percent of singles, 45 percent of couples with children, 40 percent of “complex families with more than one person,” and 38 percent of single-parent families, which close the ranking. Income also affects, progressively: 71 percent of those earning more than 2,500 euros per month exceed the average by 12 points, followed by 56 percent of incomes between 1,650 and 2,500, 42 percent of incomes between 1,200 and 1,650, and 35 percent of those earning less than 1,200 euros per month.

As for attending cultural events, the vast majority of “connoisseurs” (73%) attend at least five cultural events a year: on the opposite side of the graph, 47% of “novices” do not visit any cultural events a year. “The lack of visits to museums and exhibitions over a lifetime,” the report says, “is accompanied by a set of indicators that testify to a more difficult life conduct in individuals in this group than in the other categories: less sociability, less good health, financial difficulties. These individuals actually present a less favored sociodemographic profile and a lower level of education.” These are people who are mostly in the higher age groups and, vice versa, in the younger age groups.

On knowledge it almost seems, from the graphs, that the Internet and books act positively, television negatively. As for books, 47 percent of those who never read during the year are part of the “novices,” and, conversely, those who read at least one book a month are at 54 percent in the “connoisseurs” group. The same is true for the internet: in the novice group, 39% never log on for art-related reasons, while 36% of connoisseurs make regular use of the net to research art topics. The opposite is true for TV: 39% of those who watch it more than four hours a day are part of the “novices” (compared to 16% of those who never watch it), while among the connoisseurs, 18% of the group watch TV at least four hours a day, compared to 36% who never watch it. Comparing all metrics, however, the study shows that “more than level of study, it is visiting museums, habitual or occasional, along with regular reading of books, that are most correlated with success in the quiz.”

And to answer the more curious -- how did the French perform in their answers? Let’s look at some examples: 9 out of 10 know that the Statue of Liberty is in New York, but the percentage drops to 80% when it comes to pointing out the city of Manneken-Pis in Brussels, and 72% of those who were able to point out the Millau Viaduct. Still 7 out of 10 French people know that the Water Lilies are by Monet and the Thinker is by Rodin, but only 47% were able to recognize the work attributable to Suprematism (and even only 43% assigned his masterpiece Impression, soleil levant to Monet). On the three “recognize the intruder” questions, 79 percent correctly identified Holbein’s painting among those by Signac, 36 percent identified Signac’s painting among those by Van Gogh, but only 4 percent found Matisse’s work among those by Picasso.

In conclusion, the report says, “the artistic knowledge of the French detects a relatively unprecedented trend marked by an exploratory dimension, which needs new investigations. Nonetheless, it provides an initial breakdown marked by a strong concentration of results, by half the population, around the median result.” The survey then finds several extremes: on the one hand, less knowledge, which is very homogeneous, in the lowest scoring 25 percent of the population, while on the other hand, greater eclecticism of knowledge in the quarter of the population that is in the highest range of results. Finally, the Department of Studies and Statistics plans to initiate new surveys to better study the correlations that emerged from the study, but it also stresses theimportance of cultural policies in smoothing out social differences, since the strongest imbalances were registered precisely in relation to cultural habit and class.

How much do the French know about art history? The state found out with a quiz

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