Art techniques

Question 1

a type of abstract art, usually
oil on canvas, characterized by gestural brushstrokes
and the impression of spontaneity; flourished in
New York during the 1950s and 1960s and came to
dominate art production internationally

Answer 1

Abstract Expressionism

Question 2

finely cut stone construction; either an
individual stone that has been worked until squared or
a structure built from such stones

Answer 2

ashlar masonry

Question 3

adopted from the French military term
for “advance guard;” refers to modern, forward-
looking artists who break with convention to create
innovative modes of expression that are unorthodox,
experimental, and radical

Answer 3

avante-garde

Question 4

predominant style in art, architecture, and
music in seventeenth-century Europe; characterized
by dynamism and theatricality

Answer 4

Baroque

Question 5

a kind of British porcelain imitating the
Chinese original; made by incorporating ashes from
animal bones; it was mass-produced by industrial
machines.

Answer 5

bone china

Question 6

in engraving technology, the tool used to cut lines
into a metal plate of copper or zinc; comprised of a
steel shaft with a diamond-shaped tip

Answer 6

burin

Question 7

a strong, coarse cloth made from hemp, flax,
cotton, or a similar yarn; used as a surface for oil
painting beginning in the sixteenth century

Answer 7

canvas

Question 7

from the Latin for “dark chamber,” an
optical tool that in its earliest iteration was a darkened
room with a tiny opening in one wall that acted like
a lens, focusing an upside-down image of the scene
outside onto the opposite wall, which could then be
traced by an artist

Answer 7

camera obscura

Question 8

the sunken square decorative panels on a dome
or ceiling used to lessen its weight without corrupting
its structural integrity

Answer 8

coffers

Question 9

a straight row of columns supporting a roof,
entablature, or arcade

Answer 9

colonnade

Question 10

colors that are opposite one
another on a color wheel: red and green, violet
and yellow, blue and orange; a key philosophy in
Impressionist color theory

Answer 10

complementary colors

Question 11

the first perfectly clear glass; invented
in Venice and proliferating starting in the middle of
the fifteenth century

Answer 11

cristallo glass

Question 12

a worldwide art movement that abandoned
linear perspective to break down the picture plane;
part of the larger move to abstraction in the fine arts
that responded to modern life by rejecting illusionism
and fracturing the picture plane

Answer 12

Cubism

Question 13

the world’s first publicly available
photographic process, invented by Louis Daguerre
and introduced in 1839

Answer 13

daguerreotype

Question 14

a philosophy traditionally credited to the elusive
Chinese sage Laozi that envisions a dynamic, life-
sustaining energy flowing through the universe

Answer 14

Daoism

Question 15

a traditional Chinese form of kiln used
for making ceramics and named for its long and thin
shape

Answer 15

dragon kiln

Question 16

the act of painting outdoors; French for “in
the open air”

Answer 16

en plein air

Question 17

a technique wherein an artist mixes colored
pigments with wax (usually beeswax) and applies the
colored mixture to a smooth surface

Answer 17

encasutic

Question 18

in printing technology, a technique for
embellishing metal surfaces with incised pictures that
can then be inked and printed on paper

Answer 18

engraving

Question 19

a European intellectual movement of the
late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries emphasizing
reason and individualism over tradition

Answer 19

Enlightenment

Question 20

Also called “mummy portraits,” these
naturalistic painted portraits were made in encaustic
on wood panel and attached to the mummified bodies
of upper-class citizens from Roman Fayum in Egypt.

Answer 20

Fayum portraits

Question 21

fusing one layer of colored glass onto another

Answer 21

flashing

Question 22

an arch that extends from the upper
portion of a wall to a pier in order to convey its
lateral thrust into the ground

Answer 22

flying butchress

Question 23

a painting done rapidly in watercolor on wet lime
plaster, which is applied to a wall or ceiling to become
physically integrated into the building

Answer 23

fresco

Question 24

the white paint mixture used to prime the rough
surface of a canvas before it is painted

Answer 24

gesso

Question 25

glassworkers; specifically, those who fit glass
pieces into windows and doors

Answer 25

glaziers

Question 26

the purposefully unrealistic rendering
of figures in a narrative scene to emphasize a single
figure’s prominence, commonly Christ (i.e., sizing
human figures based on status)

Answer 26

hierarchic scale

Question 27

In linear perspective,
marks the landscape’s horizon in a scene’s distant
background.

Answer 27

horizon line

Question 28

from the Italian verb impastare, meaning to
knead or to paste; refers to the technique of thickly
laying paint onto the canvas so that it stands out from
the surface

Answer 28

impasto

Question 29

a special clay used to make fine porcelain;
lauded for its purity, whiteness, translucency, and
strength; naturally occurring in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi
province, China

Answer 29

kaolin clay

Question 30

a slender, pointed window, common in
Gothic architecture

Answer 30

lancet window

Question 31

an image registered on the surface of a
photographic plate during exposure but invisible to
the naked eye before further chemical processing

Answer 31

latent image

Question 32

a method of making metal sculpture
using a clay core and wax coating placed in a mold

Answer 32

lost-wax casting

Question 33

the semi-circular shape used to describe panel
paintings or distinguish the arched aperture of a
window or domed ceiling

Answer 33

lunette

Question 34

bracelets produced in the Low Countries
(modern Holland) during the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, traded throughout West Africa as a kind of
currency, and melted down by the brass workers of
Benin to make many panels that today constitute the
“Benin bronzes”

Answer 34

manillas

Question 35

in printing technology, the slab of wood or metal
that is carved with a design, rolled with ink, and
transferred to paper or cloth to make multiple copies
of the same image

Answer 35

matrix

Question 36

the embalming and wrapping of a body
for preservation

Answer 36

mummification

Question 37

in photography, an image on transparent glass
or plastic film wherein the colors are reversed; used
to make a positive, which is most commonly printed
on paper

Answer 37

negative

Question 38

the circular opening at the apex of a dome; means
“eye” in Latin

Answer 38

oculus

Question 39

a paste made with ground pigment for color
and a drying oil such as linseed oil; used by artists to
create glossy and layered images of great complexity

Answer 39

oil paint

Question 40

in linear perspective, the diagonal lines
drawn from the edges of the picture to the vanishing
point to create a structural grid organizing the image
and determining the size of objects within the image’s
illusionistic space

Answer 40

orthogonals

Question 41

an instrument for copying a drawing or
plan at a different scale by a system of hinged and
joined rods

Answer 41

panograph

Question 42

a type of colored chalk that is applied to textured
paper to achieve a delicate, filmy image

Answer 42

pastel

Question 43

these gables, usually triangular in shape, are
placed above the horizontal lintel of a doorframe

Answer 43

pediments

Question 44

an artwork created through actions
executed by the artist or other participants; may be
witnessed live or through documentation

Answer 44

performance art

Question 45

a pseudoscience involving the measurement
of bumps on the skull to predict a person’s traits

Answer 45

phrenology

Question 46

a mechanized contraption that copied
a sitter’s traced profile onto white paper to produce
a silhouette in miniature; the term derives from the
machine’s action (to trace) and the subject it reproduced
(physiognomy, i.e., a person’s facial features or
expression)

Answer 46

physiognotrace

Question 47

a ceramic material made by heating clay in
a kiln to temperatures between 2,200 and 2,600 °F;
mastered by craftspeople in China some two thousand
years ago; can be modeled into intricate forms and
painted

Answer 47

porcelain

Question 48

a porch leading to the entrance of a building
with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by
columns

Answer 48

portico

Question 49

in photography, an image made from a negative
in which the tones are re-reversed and thereby
corrected

Answer 49

positive

Question 50

among the first modernist art movements
to be developed in the United States; contributed to the
rise of American Modernism following World War;
borrowing from Cubism, Precisionism celebrated the
new American landscape of skyscrapers, bridges,
and factories in their most essential geometric forms,
focusing on mechanical forms.

Answer 50

Precisionism

Question 51

From the Latin relevo, “to raise,” relief is a
sculptural method in which molded pieces are bonded
to a solid, planar background made of the same
material

Answer 51

relief

Question 52

indicates forms that emerge to
a significant degree from the background

Answer 52

high relief

Question 53

indicates forms that are shallower and do not emerge
with as much definition from the background plane.

Answer 53

low relief

Question 54

the process of returning a thing or a person
to its country of origin

Answer 54

repatriation

Question 55

in architecture, a facing of impact-resistant
material such as stone or concrete that covers the
surface of a structure to protect it against wear

Answer 55

reventment

Question 56

an elaborately ornamental late Baroque style of
decoration prevalent in eighteenth-century Europe;
notable for excess, sinuous lines, pastel colors, and
gilt furniture

Answer 56

Rococo

Question 57

decorated circular stained-glass window
favored by architects during the High Gothic period;
notable for rich decorative motifs formed by the
window’s dividing segments

Answer 57

Rose window

Question 58

a building with a circular ground plan, often
covered by a dome

Answer 58

rotunda

Question 59

in printing technology, a design made
by a series of small dots engraved on the metal surface
of the matrix

Answer 59

stipple engraving

Question 60

strong use of contrasting light and dark in a
painting’s palette; a hallmark of the Baroque style in
painting

Answer 60

tenebrism

Question 61

in ceramics, the process wherein
pigment (historically usually cobalt) is painted directly
onto the surface of an unfired porcelain vessel before a
thick clear glaze is applied over the top and the vessel
is fired

Answer 61

underglaze painting

Question 62

in linear perspective, at the center of the horizon line; it determines
the center point for the radiating orthogonal lines.

Answer 62

vanishing point

Question 63

In photography, photograph allowed unlimited paper prints (the
positive) to be made from a single exposure (the
negative, the product of the wet-plate process)

Answer 63

wet-plate process

Question 64

a relief printing technique wherein a design is
carved into the surface of a block of wood, inked, and
printed on paper or cloth; it is the oldest of all printing
technologies.

Answer 64

woodcut

Question 65

a lantern designed by Eadweard
Muybridge that projected images from photographs
printed on a rotating glass disc onto a screen in rapid
succession; when projected via light at a high speed,
the images created the illusion of a continuously
moving picture.

Answer 65

zoopraxiscope