Art Terms Flashcards
abstract art
Abstract art - art that takes from reality only what the artist wants or that renders a visual depiction of concepts in the artist’s mind; the result is a work of art that in no way resembles the familiar world
alteration
Alteration – how the modern artist changes reality by adding to it shapes, lines, and even colors not found in nature
Chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro – Italian term denoting a way of reproducing in a work of art the interplay of light and shadow in the real world
Classicism
Classicism – the balanced, harmonious, often mathematical characteristics of art and architecture in fifth-century Athens and those aspects of Roman art that were heavily influenced by artists of that period; also used for all subsequent art and architecture created in that style.
Collage
Collage – a work of art in which a variety of materials such as newsprint, magazine pictures crepe paper, even glass and wood are glued together, forming a new whole, expressive of the artist.
Cubism
Cubism – movement in modern art, epitomized by Picasso, in which the artist breaks down the field of vision into discontinuous segments or in which the artist shows a number of visual events taking place simultaneously (as in Guernica).
Dutch school
Dutch school – group of painters producing intensely realistic art, centered in Holland during the 17th century, with Rembrandt the outstanding example.
Fresco
Fresco – artwork painted on the walls of churches and public buildings, popular in the Renaissance, in which the artist applied paint to wet plaster.
Golden section
Golden section – aesthetically pleasing relationship between the two sides of a plane (like a rectangle), such that the short is to the longer as the longer is to the sum of both. The ratio is 1 to 1.68.
Gothic
Gothic – an architectural style of the late Middle Ages featuring high pointed spires and pointed arches; coined by a critic of the style who called it barbaric “like the Goths who destroyed the Roman Empire.”
Imitation
Imitation – transference of what is experienced either outside or inside the artist to a medium of art; it can mean an idealized reproduction (as in classicism), a faithfully realistic one (as in the Dutch School), or an externalization of what exists in the artist’s mind (as in abstract art).
Impressionism
Impressionism – a mid-nineteenth-century art movement where in the attempt to be realistic is abandoned and instead the artist projects onto the canvas a subjective experience of the world as color and light. In Impressionist art, forms tend to be less sharply divided from each other than they are in, say, landscape painting.
Likeness
Likeness – the reproduction by an artist of a person or landscape with the aim of being as close to reality as possible; photography in the 19th century
Media
Media – the particular materials in which a given artist works, such as paint, acrylic, charcoal, stone, or even tires, mufflers, broken pieces of glass, etc.
Modernism
Modernism – refers less to a particular art movement than to art produced in the late 19th to 20th centuries
Performance art
Performance art – art as an event that generally exists only for the time it takes for the presentation or installation. The wrapper buildings, surrounded islands, and other installations of Christo may be kept for longer periods of time, but not indefinitely.
Perspective
Perspective – technique of rendering, on a plane or curved surface, objects as they appear to natural vision; developed and refined during the early Italian Renaissance
Pop Art
Pop Art – style of mid-20th century art influenced by comic books, movies, television, commercials, and billboard advertising; can be just plain fun or satiric.
Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism – broad term used by art historians for art of the late 19th century and early 20th centuries that resembles but is not strict Impressionism; it is neither realistic nor abstract. The work of van Gogh belongs to this category.
Postmodernism
Postmodernism – art produced from the late 20th century to the present; less a specific movement than a broad umbrella term for the many innovative techniques
Psychological realism
Psychological realism – the manner in which such artists as Leonardo and Rembrandt are able to convey the inner life of their figures
Realism
Realism – as used in this chapter, art as likeness
Renaissance
Renaissance – the period of artistic, political, and social movements that began in 14th century Italy, then spread throughout western Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries; characterized by renewed interest in the classical world, and also marking the end of medievalism and the emergence of the modern world.
Superrealism
Superrealism – modern style made famous by sculptures of Duane Hanson that are so lifelike they seem about to move; this art form also can make biting social commentary
Surrealism
Surrealism – modern style associated with work of Salvador Dali, among others, in which recognizable objects are put together in bizarre contexts that seem like visualizations of dreams.
