Vocabs + Themes

Question 1

Theme I

Answer 1

The aesthetics of precious materials and fine workmanship and ranges of symbolic meaning.

Question 2

Theme II

Answer 2

Images and objects of veneration as powerful, motivating forces for the production of artistic complexes, but also as a periodic focus of debate and attack/attract. Continuation change in the nature of the cult and devotional images.

Question 3

Theme III

Answer 3

Changing world views - bedevilment to bedazzlement. The decorative articulation of architectural space: changing structures and media.

Question 4

Theme IV

Answer 4

The changing role of the decorated book: function and patronage.

Question 5

Theme V

Answer 5

Art, religion and civic community - early renaissance.

Question 6

Icon

Answer 6

An image representing a sacred figure or event in the Byzantine (later the Orthodox) Church. Icons are venerated by the faithful, who believe their prayers are transmitted through them to God.

Question 7

Altarpiece

Answer 7

A painted or carved panel or ensemble of panels placed at the back of or behind and above the altar. Contains religious imagery (often specific to the place of worship for which it was made) that viewers can look at during liturgical ceremonies (especially the Eucharist) or personal devotions.

Question 8

Facade

Answer 8

The face or front wall of a building.

Question 9

Cloisonné

Answer 9

An enameling technique in which artists affix wires or strips to a metal surface to delineate designs and create compartments (cloisons) that they subsequently fill with enamel.

Question 10

Tympanum

Answer 10

In medieval and later architecture, there are over a door enclosed by an arch and a lintel, often decorated with sculpture or mosaic.

Question 11

Flying Buttress

Answer 11

A projecting support built against an external wall, usually to counteract the lateral thrust of a vault or arch within. In Gothic church architecture, a flying buttress is an arched bridge above the aisle roof that extends from the upper nave wall, where the lateral thrust of the main vault is greatest, down to a solid pier.

Question 12

Hiberno-Saxon Style

Answer 12

Insular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, is the style of art produced in the post-Roman history of the British Isles. The term derives from insula, the Latin term for “island”; in this period Great Britain and Ireland shared a largely common style different from that of the rest of Europe.

Question 13

Marginalia

Answer 13

The beginnings of naturalism in western art.

Question 14

Macabre

Answer 14

Suggesting the horror of death and decay; gruesome.

Question 15

Pilgrimage

Answer 15

A journey to a sacred place or shrine.

Question 16

Capital

Answer 16

The sculpted block that tops a column. According to the conventions of the orders, capitals include different decorative elements. A historical capital is one displaying a figural composition and/or narrative scenes.

Question 17

Annunciation

Answer 17

The announcement by the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary of her conception of Christ.

Question 18

Stained Glass

Answer 18

Glass stained with color while molten, using metallic oxides. Stained glass is most often used in windows, for which small pieces of different colors are precisely cut and assembled into a design, held together by lead cames. Additional details may be added with vitreous paint.

Question 19

Gospel Book

Answer 19

The Gospel Book, Evangelion, or Book of the Gospels is a codex or bound volume containing one or more of the four Gospels of the Christian New Testament - normally all four, describing the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and the Apostles, which is the central content of Christian revelation.

Question 20

Pietá

Answer 20

A devotional subject in Christian religious arts. After the Crucifixion the body of Jesus was laid across the lap of his grieving mother, Mary. When other mourners are present, the subject is called the Lamentation.

Question 21

Heavenly Jerusalem

Answer 21

In the book of Ezekiel, the Prophecy of New Jerusalem is Ezekiel’s prophetic vision of a city to be established to the south of the Temple Mount that will be inhabited by the twelve tribes of Israel in the Messianic era.

Question 22

Palazzo Pubblico

Answer 22

The Palazzo Pubblico is a palace in Siena, Tuscany, central Italy.

Question 23

Holy Land

Answer 23

Palestine or the Promised Land (an ancient country in southwestern Asia on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea. A place of pilgrimage for Christianity and Islam and Judaism).

Question 24

Reliquary

Answer 24

A container, often elaborate and made of precious materials, used as a repository for sacred relics.

Question 25

Eucharist

Answer 25

The central rite of the Christian Church, from the Greek word for “thanksgiving.” Also known as the Mass or Holy Communion, it reenacts Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and commemorates the Last Supper. According to traditional Catholic Christian belief, consecrated bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ; in Protestant belief, bread and wine symbolize the body and blood.

Question 26

Last Judgment - Weighing of the Soul

Answer 26

A method of divine determination of fate, which persists from the Iliad through to christian theology. For Christians, among the terrors that await at the Last Judgment is the weighing of souls.[citation needed] Sin is heavy, and sinful souls are to be consigned forever to Hell.

Question 27

Rose Window

Answer 27

A round window, often filled with stained glass set into tracery patterns in the form of wheel spokes, found in the facades of the naves and transepts or large Gothic churches.

Question 28

Oil Painting

Answer 28

A painting executed with pigments suspended in a medium of oil. Oil paint has particular properties that allow for greater ease of working: among others, a slow drying time (which allows for corrections) and a great range of relative opaqueness of paint layers (which permits a high degree of detail and luminescence).

Question 29

Book of Hours

Answer 29

A prayer book for private use, containing a calendar, services for the canonical hours and sometimes special prayers.

Question 30

Patron

Answer 30

A person who gives financial or other support to art.

Question 31

The Apocalypse - Book of Revelations

Answer 31

The last book of the New Testament. It contains visionary descriptions of heaven and of conflicts between good and evil and of the end of the world; attributed to Saint John the Apostle.

Question 32

Madonna and Child - The Virgin Mary

Answer 32

The image of the mother of Jesus and Jesus Christ.

Question 33

Crusades/Reconquest

Answer 33

A medieval military expedition, one of a series made by Europeans to recover the Holy Land from the Muslims in the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries.

Question 34

Iconoclasm

Answer 34

A banning and/or destruction of images, especially icons and religious art. Iconoclasm in 8th and 9th century Byzantium and 16th and 17th century Protestant territories arose from differing beliefs about the power, meaning, function and purpose of imagery in religion.

Question 35

Iconography

Answer 35

Identifying and studying the subject matter and conventional symbols in works of art.

Question 36

Interlace

Answer 36

A decorative element found in medieval art. In interlace, bands or portions of other motifs are looped, braided, and knotted in complex geometric patterns, often to fill a space.

Question 37

Ambulatory

Answer 37

The passage (walkway) around the apse in a church, especially a basilica, or around the central space in a central-plan building.

Question 38

Rib Vault

Answer 38

An arched masonry structure that spans an interior space. Barrel or tunnel vault: an elongated or continuous semicircular vault, shaped like a half-cylinder. Corbeled vault: a vault made by projecting courses of stone. Groin or cross vault: a vault created by the intersection of two barrel vaults of equal size which creates four side compartments of identical size and shape. Quadrant vault: a half-barrel vault. Rib vault: a groin vault with ribs (extra masonry) demarcating the junctions. Ribs may function to reinforce the groins or may be purely decorative.

Question 39

Fresco

Answer 39

A painting technique in which water-based pigments are applied to a plaster surface. If the plaster is painted when wet, the color is absorbed by the plaster, becoming a permanent part of the wall (buon fresco). Fresco secco is created by painting on dried plaster and the color may eventually flake off. Murals made by both these techniques are called frescos.

Question 40

Encaustic

Answer 40

A painting medium using pigments mixed with hot wax.