Art Terms Flashcards
Artist’s proof
Print made for the artist’s own purposes, signed and not numbered
Artist’s donkey
Low stand or chair, with drawing board at one end
Ascribed or attributed to
When the artist who produced a work is not known for sure and scholars have suggested from evidence that it is the work of a specific person
Bas relief
Sculpture that projects only slightly from its background, low relief
Binder
Ingredient- oil for oil paint, gum for water colors - mixed with pigment to make the paint stick to a surface
Bistre
Brown pigment made from soot, used as a brown wash for drawings and watercolors especially in the 16th and 17th centuries
Block printing
Printing by use of carved blocks of wood or metal
Bottega
Italian for shop or workplace, adapted to mean the workshop or studio of a master artist and in particular that portion of it used by pupils and assistants
Bronze
Easily worked metal, used for sculpture by the Ancient Greeks and Romans, which then went out of favor in the Middle Ages and was revived in Italy in the 15th century, it acquires a greenish patina over time - today achieved by chemical means
Brush drawing
Drawing in ink with a fine brush
Brushstroke or brushwork
In oil painting, the marks made with brushes are like a signature, and produce an individual texture as well as an aesthetic value. Has been called “one of the painter’s most powerful tools in the creation of his own world
Bust
A sculpture, the subject matter of which is a portrait of the head and shoulders of a figure
Canvas
Coarse cloth (of heavy fabric such as linen, hemp, or cotton) on which an artist, especially an oil painter, makes a painting. Returned to favor in the 15th century. The fabric must first be stretched, then primed before use.
Cartoon
Italian for big piece of paper. A full size, exact, final stage drawing for a painting, ready for transferring to canvas or wall or tapestry - by squaring up or chalking on the back, or pouncing. Today, the work has come to mean a comic drawing.
Chalk
Soft limestone, sometimes used as a drawing material or mixed to make pastels and other crayons.
Charcoal
Soft, dark carbon substance (produced by charring willow or vine wood) used for drawing, especially preliminary drawings where easy erasing is useful
Chiaroscuro
Italian word for “light-shade”, the use and balance of light and shade in a painting, and in particular the use of strong contrasts
Crayon
Today, refers to any wax-based drawing tool in stick form, but in the past the colored drawing tool was made of dry pigment and chalk
Cross-hatching
Using parallel lines, close together, crossed at an angle with other parallel lines to create shading effects on drawings or prints
Diptych
Painting, usually an altarpiece, made up of two hinged panels
Easel
Upright stand used by artists to hold the canvas or panel, such easels range from permanent, stable studio models to portable and desk models
Egg tempera
Tempera (paint made out of powdered pigments) which is bound together with egg yolk and/or white. From the 12th century to the rise of oil painting, the most significant of all painters’ media.
Engraving
Old process, used by printmakers, of cutting lines into a wood block or metal plate in order to make many copies or impressions of a printed work. Originally, the term was only applied to intaglio (Italian for cut in - on copper plate) printing, from the mid 15th century onwards
Etching
Method of printmaking where the metal (usually copper) plate is covered with resin (resistant to acid), a line is drawn on the plate with a needle exposing the copper, and the exposed parts are the ones which print: when the print is immersed in acid. The acid eats into the exposed parts, the key factor is the control exerted by the artist over the immersion process
Facade
The front or face of a building
Fresco
Italian for fresh, painting on a wall using pigments mixed with water, applied quickly and decisively to the plaster while it is still damp - so that colors are absorbed and remain fresh. The process goes back to antiquity, but was revived in the 14th century in Southern Europe (where the climate is more helpful to frescoes in the north)
Gallery painting
Large painting, which needs to be hung in the spacious surroundings of a gallery or museum
Gesso
Absorbent ground (of chalk or gypsum) used as a base for tempera painting or some kinds of oil painting
Gilding
New application of gold leaf to the surface of a painting or other surface
Gouache
Watercolor paint mixed with white pigments, making the paint opaque and giving it more weight and body (almost like oil paint in its effect, only duller)
Graffito or sgraffito
Italian for scratching. Technique for decorating stuccoed walls, in which a layer of plaster is applied over a different colored layer, and a design then scratched through the top layer. Popular in 16th century Italy. The plural graffiti applies to the drawing or scratching of words onto the surface of public walls - an illicit activity until the 1970s when, following the invention of the aerosol spray can, graffiti moved from public walls and New York subway trains into fashionable galleries. Then, when the art public rejected both the graffiti and the spray cans, it went back onto public walls again.
History painting
The depiction of scenes from history (especially ancient, mythological or Christian history) to embody intellectual concepts or moral lessons
Horizon line
The horizontal line - sometimes where sky and earth appear to meet - which may be drawn across the pictorial space and corresponds to the artist’s eye level. The vanishing point is on the line
Impasto
Italian for mixture, thick color … Paint applied thickly to a canvas or panel, sometimes with a palette knife. This leaves distinctive marks in the paint
Masterpiece
Originally, the piece of work with which an apprentice of the guild becomes a master - by showing all-round competence, today, the term is applied to am artist’s finest work, or even more generally, to any fine work
Medium
Liquid added to paint in order to make it flow more easily. Also, the material/process used by an artist (such as oils or watercolors). Also, liquid with which pigments in powder form are mixed to make paint.
Miniature painting
Very small painting, usually a portrait, made on ivory, parchment or vellum, and in the 16th century - worn by courtiers as a momento of loved ones
Modello or modelletto
Italian for sketch, or rather for a small, sometimes finished, version of a larger picture, to be shown to a patron
Mosaic
Decoration of walls or floors, from the Ancient Greeks and Romans onwards, made of small pieces of colored glass, stone, marble or ceramic set in a form of cement
Mural
Painting either on a wall, attached to the surface of a wall or made on panel which are to become a wall
Oil Paint
Paint made by mixing grund pigment with oil (usually linseed) as a binding agent. The earliest paintings to be made exclusively with oil paint were produced jn the early 15th century when the medium was improved and popularized by Jan Van Eyck. Oil had in fact been used in paints for a very long time before it became a standard medium.
Panel
Rigid painting surface of wood or metal, the support for most paintings before the rise of canvas in the early 15th century
Pastiche
French for imitation, an artwork in the style of, or using assorted visual ideas from, another artist - the ideas are recombined as a work which could have been made by the original artist. Distinct from a forgery, more like a parallel or borrowed artwork
Pediment
In classical and some Renaissance architecture, the triangular area immediately under the roof of a building - often embellished with sculpture. Also, similar triangular area over doors and windows.
Perspective
Visual systems by which an illusion of depth is created by either linear or aerial atmospheric means, on a two dimensional surface, and usually organized from a single point of view. Perspective becomes considerably more complicated when it involves more than one vanishing point, more than one eye level. It has been, in the words of one commentator, “one of the chief areas of study and a criterion of excellence in Western art for many centuries” in particular since its laws were codified during the Renaissance
Predella
Base or lower tier of a large church altarpiece, which was often decorated with paintings or carvings
Impression made by pressing an incised block or plate, or coated screen, which has been inked, onto a suitably receptive surface such as paper. Proof: print made by an artist or printer to study, to make sure the process is working satisfactorily
Proportion
The relation or ration of one part to another or to the whole - often associated in the history of art since Renaissance times with the search for “ideal beauty” and harmony in a work of art.
Putto plural Putti
Italian for small boy, chubby, dimpled, often nude child who tends to have sprouted wings to fly around religious or allegorical paintings from the Renaissance onwards. Sometimes called a cherub, he seems at times to be related to Cupid.
Relief
Image or motif which sticks out from a fixed background in carved or molded sculpture and is therefore not free standing.
School
Group of artists whose work is thought to have resemblances - through country of origin, education apprenticeship, membership of a movement or shared influence
Sculpture
Three-dimensional artwork created by carving, modeling or (more recently) constructing or arranging material
Sfumato
Italian for evaporate or blend, the transitions of tone from light to dark in a painting by gradual stages, as if seen through smoke or mist. Leonardo promoted the technique, as a way of achieving visually the effect of relief.
