terminology Flashcards
A stepped pyramid with a temple on top.
Ziggurat
A print made by cutting the end-grain of a piece of wood, capable of rendering finer lines than the lengthwise grain used for woodcuts.
Wood engraving
A print made by carving away areas of a wood block and inking the remaining relief surfaces.
Woodcut
A method of creating forms of clay by centering a mass of clay on a circular slab and then pulling the sides up from it with the hands as this wheel is turned.
Wheel Throwing
A transparent water-soluble painting medium consisting of pigments bound with gum.
Watercolour
The wedgeshaped stones in an arch.
Voussoirs
The apparent heaviness of an area of design.
Visual Weight
The color frequencies that humans can see.
Visible Spectrum
A thin surface layer, such as a fine wood placed over other woods.
Veneer
A fine parchment prepared from the skin of a calf, kid, or lamb.
Vellum
Degree of dark or light.
Value
Referring to canvas that has not been treated with a glaze or filler, leaving it porous to paint.
Unsized
Visual coherence in a work of art; also used sometimes to refer to repetition of similar motifs in a design, in contrast to variety.
Unity
The initial layers of paint in indirect painting.
Underpainting
The art of designing, sizing, and combining letterforms on a printed page.
Typography
In linear perspective drawings, the representation f a three dimensional form viewed from an angle, so that the lines formed by its horizontal edge will appear to diminish.
Two-point Perspective
In architecture, a framework of wood or metal beams, usually based on triangles, used to support a roof or a bridge.
Truss
Work that “decieves the eye” into believing it sees something other than the reality of a surface. Such as architectural forms on what is actually a flat wall or ceiling.
Trompe l’oeil
The use of three hues lying at equal distances from each other on the color wheel.
Triad color scheme
The abrupt or gradual change from one portion of equal design to another.
Transition
The degree to which a work (particularly a photograph) approaches the full range of values from black through grays to white.
Tonal Range
In a traditional Japanese home, an alcove devoted to contemplation of a single scroll painting, perhaps accompanied by a flower arrangement.
Tokonoma
The small cubes of colored glass, ceramic, or stone used in mosaics.
Tesserae
Hues that are a mixture of a primary and a secondary hue lying next to each other on the color wheel.
Tertiary Hues
A measure of the ability of a material to be stretched without breaking.
Tensile Strength
A painting medium in which pigments are mixed in water with a glutinous material such as egg yolk, usually weilding a fast drying, matt finish that cannot be mixed.
Tempera
A heavy, handwoven textile with pictures woven into the surface of the fabric, usually used as a wall hanging.
Tapestry
Liquid media in which industrially created chemicals, such as acrylic emulsion, are used to carry the pigments.
Synthetic Media
A system of optical color mixing in which new hues are created in the space between colored figures.
Synergistic color mixing
Distribution of equal forces around central point or axis, also called formal balance.
Symmetrical Balance
Art based on dreamlike images from the subconscious, appearing as a recognized movement beginning in the 1920s.
Surrealism
The solid material base on which a 2D work of art is executed. such as canvas or panel in the case of a painting.
Support
That which is created by the provess of carving away material to reveal the desired form.
Subtractive sculpture
The combination of reflected colours.
Subtractive color mixing
In classical Greek architecture, the flat base on which a series of columns rests.
Stylobate
Referring to distortion of representational images in accordance with certain artistic conventions or to emphasize certain design qualities.
Stylized
Cermaics made from clays that become very hard when fired at high temperatures.
Stonewere
Use of dots in a drawing or engraving to develop areas of a particular value, usually to suggest three dimensional form.
Stippling
A 2D representation of a group of inanimate objects such as fruit flowers and vessels.
Still-life
A mass that appears inert
Static Form
One of the stages of an etching, if printed separately.
State
A structural spanning the corner of a tower to help support a superstructure such as a dome.
Squinch
The area occupied, activated, or suggested by a work of art.
Space
In 2D work ,blending of hues where they meet, so that no hard line forms a boundary between them.
Soft-edged
A mixture of clay and water.
Slip
The process of building a foprm of clay by attaching flat shapes to each other.
Slab Building
In early Greek theaters, the building at the back of the performance area from which actors entered and exited, also used a s a changing room and as a backdrop for the action.
Skene
A coating or glue or resin to make a surface such as canvas less porous so that paint will not sink into it.
Sizing
The illusion that an image would feel a certain way if touched, in contrast to the reality of its actual texture.
Simulated texture
A drawing medium in which a finely pointed rod of silver encased in a holders is used to make marks on a slightly abrasive surface; the minute deposit of metal darkens by oxidation.
Silverpoint
A printmaking process in which link is pressed through a fine screen in areas that are not masked by a stencil or other material; also called serigraph.
Silkscreen
The darkening of an area in a 2D work to suggest curving of a 3D form away from a light source.
Shading.
Softly graded tones in an oil painting, giving a hazy atmospheric effect, highly developed in the work of Leonardo da Vinci.
Sfumato
Froms developped across the surface of a larger form.
Secondary Contours
In oil painting, the technique of brushing one layer of paint on top of another in a way that reveals some of the undercolor.
Scrumbling
Difference in size of objects, used in paintings to suggest 3D depth in space, with the nearest ones being largest.
Scale Change
The relative brightness or dullness of a color, also called chroma or intensisty.
Saturation
Referring to a typeface that has no fine lines finishing the major strokes.
Sans Serif
An arch formed by a semicircle, an innovation introduced by Roman architecture and much used in Romanesque architecture.
Round Arch
A circular building or room, especially one with a dome.
Rotunda
The tendency to emphasize emotion and imagination rather than logic, ocurring at many times in the history of Western Art, including the first half of the 19th century. Traditionally contrasted with classicism.
Romanticism
A style of European art from about the eleventh century to the beginning of the Gothic period, most notable for its architecture of round arches, thick walls and columns, and stone relief carvings.
Romanesque
The late Baroque period, particulary in France, Southern Germany, and Austria, characterized by extrremely ornate, curvilinear forms in architectural decoration and delicay and looseness in painting.
Rococo
In architecture, a masonry ceiling in which arched diagonal ribs from a framework that is filled with lighter stone.
Ribbed Vault
The waxy, acid-resistant substance used to coat the metal plate used for etching, into which the lines of the image are drawn.
Resist
Referring to artworks that aim to present likenesses of known objects.
Representational
The working of a sheet of metal from the back to create designs in relief on the front.
Repousse
A movement beginning in the 15th century Italy to recapture the harmony, symmetry, and rationality of Classical works, with an elaboration of linear perspective.
Renaissance
A sculptured work in which an image is developed outward or inward from a 2D surface.
Reliefs
A color relief print in which portions of a single block are cut away in stages, with each stage overprinted in another color, rather than creating a series of registered blocks for the various colours.
Reduction Print
The attempt in art to capture the appearance of life as it is, as opposed to stylized or romanticized portrayals. In mid 19th century France, the artisitic movement of this name concentrated on subjects from everyday, and often working class, life.
Realism
In metal working, to hammer a flat sheet over a stake to bring up the sides of a vessel and work them inward.
Raise
Symmetric arrangement of design elements around the center of a circle.
Radial Balance
Chubby nude male babies often depicted in Italian art from the 15th century onward.
Putti
The arch that frames the stage, hiding the mechanics.
Proscenium arch
Highly selective use of only a few colours.
Limited palette.
A print made by cutting lines into a plate of metal, forcing ink into them, and printing the cut lines.
Line engraving
The illusion of deep space in a 2D work through convergence of lines perpendicular to the picture plane toward a vanishing point in the distance.
Linear Perspective
A print made by gouging away areas of a linoleum block that are not to be linked and printed.
Linocut
A fluid base used to carry pigments for painting or drawing, such as ink, oil, or acrylic emulsion.
Liquid medium
A printmaking technique in which a flat stone or metal or plastic plate is drawn on with a greasy substance that retains ink when the wettened plate is inked for printing.
Lithography
The color usually associated with an object, as seen from nearby under normal daylight without shadows or reflections.
Local Color
The degree of light or darkness seen on an actual surface.
Local value
A casting process in which was is used to coat the insides of molds and then melted away when the molds are assembled, leaving an empty space into which molton metal is poured; also called cire perdue.
Lost-wax
Sculpture in which figures exist on almost the same plane as the background.
Low relief
A circular symbolic spiritual pattern.
Mandala
An artisitc style in Italy from approximately 1525 to 1600 in which artists developed a more subjective, emotional, theatrical approach than in the high preceding High Renaissance period.
Mannerism
A small model used for planning and guiding the creation of a sculpture.
Maquette
An intaglio printmaking technique in whjich an overall burr is raised on the surface of the metal plate and then smoothed in places, creating various tones and textures.
Mezzotint
A work of art done on a much smaller scale than the object being represented.
Miniature
Use of highly simplified form devoid of representation or expressive content.
Minimalism
Combined use of several different techniques-such as drawing, painting, and printmaking- in a single work of art.
Multi-media
In a 2D art, the depiction of 3D form, usually through indications of light and shadow.
Modeling
Having colour scheme based on values of a single hue, perhaps with accents of another colour or neutral colors.
Monochromatic
A printmaking process in which an image is painted directly onto a sheet of metal or glass and then transferred onto paper. The process can be repeated with some repainting of the plate, but this is basically a means of creating relatively few prints of an image.
Monotype
A recurring pattern in a work of art.
Motif
That which is created by artists with no formal training.
Naive art
Referring to art that seeks to represent and faithfully the actual appearances of things.
Naturalism
In church architecture, the central hall.
Nave
