Final Exam Flashcards
Media/Medium
The material on or from which an artist chooses to make a work of art, for example canvas and oil paint, marble, engraving, video, or architecture.
Drawing
A form of visual art in which an artist uses instruments to mark paper or other two-dimensional surfaces. Drawing instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, various kinds of paints, inked brushes, colored pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, erasers, markers, styluses, and metals.
Silverpoint/Metal Point
A piece of silver wire set in some type of holder, usually wood, to make the wire easier to grasp and control. The artist hones the end of the wire to a sharp point to create finely detailed drawings, typically on wood primed with a thin coating of bone.
Charcoal
Smudges easily, creates lines that can be easily shaped and altered, usually has strong dark value, and is soft compared to metal-based drawing material. Artists choose charcoal when they want to express strong dark tones, add interest to a surface, and make something look solid rather than linear; Two common types: Vine and compressed.
Graphite
Looks and writes like lead just without the weight. Has different degrees of hardness, longevity, and darkness.
Pastel
A powdered pigment mixed with gum and used in stick form for drawing.
Wash
A wash is a term for a visual arts technique resulting in a semi-transparent layer of colour.
Ink
An ancient writing and drawing medium in liquid or paste form, traditionally black or brown – though it can also contain colored dyes or pigments; Different types of drawing inks: carbon or gall; Painting inks are slightly different from drawing inks because they have a binder, usually gum arabic, rather than simply being suspended in water.
Paper
Invented in China around the end of the first century by someone who manufactured it out of pounded plant fibers and can be classified by surface texture and weight.
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface.
Pigment
The colored material used in paints. Often made from finely ground minerals.
Gesso
A substance similar to white acrylic paint, used to make the surface smooth for painting.
Support
The material on which a painting is executed.
Binder
A substance that makes pigments adhere to a surface.
Glaze
The illusion of translucent color is achieved by several thin layers called glazes; In oil painting, adding a transparent layer of paint to achieve a richness in texture, volume, and form.
Impasto
Paint applied in thick layers.
Tempera
A fast-drying painting medium made from pigment combined with water and egg yolk.
Encaustic
A painting medium that primarily uses wax, usually beeswax, (and a damar resin binder) as the binding agent.
Fresco
Frescos are a form of wall painting using wet plaster; Piment plus lime water and wet plaster. From the Italian word “fresco,” meaning fresh.
Watercolor
Suspended pigment in water with a sticky binder, usually gum arabic, which helps the pigment adhere to the surface of the paper when dry. Watercolor is transparent and usually used on paper.
Acrylic
A liquid polymer, or plastic, which is used as a binder for pigment in acrylic paint.
Mixed-Media
The use of a variety of materials to make a work of art.
Printmaking
Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces.
Matrix
An origination point such as woodblock, from which a print is derived.
Edition
All the copies of a print are made from a single printing.
Relief Printmaking
A print process where the inked image is higher than the non-printing areas
Intaglio Printmaking
Any print process where the inked image is lower than the surface of the printing plate; from the Itialian for “cut into.”
Lithography
A print process executed on a flat, unmarred surface, such as stone, in which the image is created using oil-based ink with resistance to water.
Planographic
A print process–lithography and silkscreen printing– where the inked image area and non-inked area are at the same height.
Serigraphy
Printing that is achieved by creating a solid stencil in a porous screen and forcing ink through the screen onto the printing surface.
Sculpture
Sculptures allow for a different viewing experience; One of the oldest forms of art; Can experience sculptures by looking at them, walking around them, entering them, or being immersed in an environment; All sculptures exist in 3-D space.
Low Relief/Bas Relief
This is a shallow form of relief. The raised areas of the sculpture stick out from the surface but not very deep; Shallow depth.
Subtractive Process
A sculptor begins with a mass of material larger than the finished work and removes the material, subtracting from that mass until the piece is finished.
Additive Process
The sculptor builds the work, adding material as the work progresses, until the piece is complete.
Armature
A framework or skeleton used to support a sculpture.
Casting
Involves using a liquid or pliable material to create a mold that can repeat forms
Contrapposto
A shift in body weight- Usually shown in hips. Depending on the distribution of weight, one leg is straight (load bearing) and the other is bent; Has to do with sculpting and how the body works.
Patina
A color of something. Basically, a color coating that protects the metal. The patina can be thick, thin, applied on parts, or the entire piece. Artists can use a wide variety of colors and finishes.
Architecture
“Three-dimensional art and design that surrounds and influences us.” Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings or other structures.
Readymade
Artists in the early 20th century innovated the use of artifacts that already existed as raw materials; Objects found or already existing outside the context of art.
Monumental
Having massive or impressive scale.
Column
A freestanding pillar, usually circular in section.
Shaft
The main vertical part of a column.
Base
The projecting series of blocks between the shaft of a column and its plinth.
Flying Buttress
(ON EXAM) The structures built around the exterior of the cathedral that connect around the edges. They relieve some of the weight from the roof and walls of the cathedral.
Capital
The architectural feature that crowns a column.
Ionic
ON EXAM (Column) More graceful and associated with the feminine- More slim and decorative Capital. Has a scroll type thing on the top.
Doric
ON EXAM (Column) Was developed first, in ancient times-very basic and heavy- No stylobate
Cantilever
A long beam or lintel that projects out from a structure beyond a support.
Corinthian
ON EXAM (Column) More decorative and organic capital and stylobate.
Post and Lintel
An architectural construction method consists of two uprights and a crossbeam.
Vault
A type of arch created by the Romans to open space overhead.
Transept
(MAYBE ON EXAM) The side wings that cross through the nave
Nave
(ON EXAM) The large central space/central isle of a Romanesque or Gothic cathedral/church
Tensile Strength
The ability of a building material to span horizontal gaps without support and without buckling in the middle.
Facade
Any side of a building, usually the front or entrance.
Photography
Photography derives from two Greek words together meaning “writing/drawing with light.”
Aperture (Will be on the exam)
The small hole that lets light into the camera
Cyanotype
A cameraless image. Put something on top of a light-sensitive piece of paper and expose it to the sun. Wherever the sun hits turns blue.
Photomantage
A single photographic image that combines (digitally or using multiple film exposures) several separate images.
Zoetrope
An antique, European toy; contains a rotating cylinder with a sequence of images on the inside that creates the impression of a single action in a continuous motion when spun.
Composition
The overall design or organization of a work.
Stop-Motion Animation
Figures photographed in a pose, moved very slightly, photographed again. The process repeated until all movements have been recorded.
Cel-Animation
The most common technique for making animated films; Individual drawings called cels.
Alternative Media and Processes
Breaks down the traditional boundaries between art and life. They tend to draw our attention to actions or ideas rather than to only a physical product.
Conceptual Art
A work in which the ideas are most important to the work.
Performance Art
A work involving the human body, usually including the artist, in front of an audience.
Installation
Originally referring to the hanging of pictures and arrangement of objects in an exhibition, installation may also refer to an intentional environment created as a completed artwork.
Tableau
(ON EXAM) A stationary scene arranged for artistic impact.
Patron
An organization or individual who sponsors the creation of works of art.
Mural
A painting applied directly to a wall, usually large and in a public space.
Pyramid
A pyramid is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single step at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense.
Ziggurat
Constructed in places like Mesopotamia; These large structures are temples built to imitate the foothills that lead to the mountains; The Sumerians believed that the mountains were the dwelling places of the gods.
Idealized
Represented as perfect in form or character, corresponding to an ideal.
Propaganda
Art that promotes an ideology or a cause.
Mosaic
A picture or pattern created by fixing together small pieces of stone, glass, tile, etc.
Stela
(ON EXAM) A large upright stone slab decorated with inscriptions or pictorial relief carvings.
Basilica
An early Christian church, either converted from or built to resemble a type of Roman civic building.
Icon
A religious image venerated by believers; a small, often portable, religious image venerated by Christian believers first used by the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Shaman
A priest or priestess regarded as having the ability to communicate directly with the spiritual world.
Syncretism
(ON EXAM) The blending of multiple religious or philosophical beliefs or types of art is repurposed for propaganda.
Hierarchical Scale
The use of size to denote the relative importance of subjects in an artwork.
High-Relief
The sculptural figure/subjects project forward from their base by at least 1/2 their depth; Designed to be viewed from one side.
Sculpture in the round
Viewers are able to experience the sculpture from all angles.
Photojournalism
A form of journalism which tells a news story through powerful photography.
Vouissier
A wedge-shaped stone that is used to construct an arch.
Woodblock
A relief print process where the image is carved into a block of wood.
Linocut
A relief print produced like a woodcut but uses linoleum as the surface from which the design is cut and printed.
Engraving
A printmaking technique where the artist gouges or scratches the image into the surface of the printing plate.
Etching
An intaglio printmaking process that uses acid to bite (or etch) the engraved design into the printing surface.
Drypoint
An intaglio printmaking process where the artist raises a burr when gouging the printing plate.
Silk Screen
A method of printmaking using a stencil and paint pushed through a screen
Screen Printing
A method of duplicating an image or design by passing ink through a mesh onto a surface like fabric, paper, metal, wood, or plastic.
Camera Obscura
A dark room with a hole drilled in the wall. The light from the outside comes rushing in and shows the image of the outside on the wall.
Film
A thin, flexible material with light-sensitive emulsion exposed in a camera to produce photographs or motion pictures.
Video
A recording of moving images usually made digitally or on videotape.
