Vocabulary Flashcards
Artificial channel for conducting water, in Roman times, usually built overground and supported on arches
Aqueduct
Open entrance or central hall of an ancient Roman house
Atrium
Barn-like building form, central long space flanked by side aisles
Basilica
Indian (Bengali) word for single-story house with veranda
Bungalow
A carving and relief upon a gem, stone, or shell
Cameo
Abstract monument to a person buried elsewhere: Washington Monument
Cenotaph
Painting term, the opposition of light and dark
Chiaroscuro
Gothic tracery pattern, reminiscent of a five-leaf clover
Cinquefoil
Circle of standing unhewn stones: Stonehenge
Cromlech
total rejection of established laws and institutions.
2.
anarchy, terrorism, or other revolutionary activity.
3.
total and absolute destructiveness, especially toward the world at large and including oneself: the power-mad nihilism that marked Hitler’s last years.
Nihi
pertaining to, involving, or concerned with pure emotion and sensation as opposed to pure intellectuality.
Aesthetic
Crossing sets of parallel lines to produce the effect of shading
Crosshatching
Print made by incising a design onto a copper plate, inking the plate, wiping off the excess ink, and pressing the plate onto a moistened piece of paper
Engraving
Front or principal face of the building
Façade
In drawing, painting, the object seems to recede in space and conveys the illusion of three dimensions
Foreshortening
Painting on wet plaster with watercolors, so plaster absorbs colors and the paining becomes part of the wall
Fresco
Painting on dry plaster, less durable as the paint tends to flake off over time
Fresco Secco
Roof spout in the shape of a grotesque human or animal figure, e.g. on the Notre Dame Cathedral
Gargoyle
Scenes from everyday life for their own sake, usually with no religious or symbolic significance
Genre painting
In drawing or engraving, use of parallel lines to produce the effect of shading
Hatching
Characters in the picture-writing system of ancient Egyptians
Hieroglyphs
In the style of ancient Egyptian temple architecture, Hall of many columns, e.g. Parthenon in Athens
Hypostyle
Decorating manuscripts, scrolls, with illustrations or designs of gold, silver, or bright colors
Iluminacion
Print made by drawing with a crayon on a porous stone or metal plate, applying greasy printing ink which adheres only to the lines of the drawing, and pressing the plate on a moistened piece of paper
Lithograph
Monuments made partially or wholly of giant stones
Megalithic architecture
Surface decoration in which bits of colored stone or glass are laid in cement in a design or decorative pattern
Mosaic
A tapering four- sided shaft of stone, usually monolithic, with a pyramidal apex, used as a freestanding monument, as in ancient Egypt, or as an architectural decoration
Obelisk
Representation of three-dimensional objects on a flat surface so as to produce the same impression of distance and relative size as that received by the human
Perspective
Sculpture that is not freestanding but projects from the background of which it is a part, can be high relief or low relief depending on the amount of projection; incised relief is when the background is not cut out, as in some Egyptian architecture
Relief
Method of representing light and shade by the use of dots in painting, drawing, and engraving
Stippling
Widely used in Italian panel painting before the 16th century, ground colors mixed with yolk of egg, instead of oil
Tempera
Altarpiece or devotional picture consisting of three panels joined together, frequently changed, so that the center panel is covered when the side panels are closed
Triptych
Print made by cutting a design in relief on a block of wood and printing only the raised surfaces
Woodcut
Tiered, truncated pyramid of mud brick
Ziggurat
