Week 2: The Fundamentals Flashcards
Balance
A principle of art in which elements are used to create a symmetrical or asymmetrical sense of visual weight in an artwork.
Elements of art
The basic vocabulary of art-line, shape, form, volume, mass, texture, value, (lightness/darkness), space, color, and motion, and time.
Contrast
A drastic difference between such elements as color or value (lightness/darkness) when they are presented together.
Cubism, cubist
Twentieth-century movement and style in art, especially painting, in which perspective with a single viewpoint was abandoned and use was made of simple shapes, interlocking planes, and later, collage, the cubists were artists who formed part of the movement. “cubist” is also used to describe their style of painting.
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.
Actual line
A continuous, uninterupted line.
Color
The optical effect caused when reflected white light of the spectrum is divided into separate wavelengths.
Collage
A work of art assembled by gluing materials, often paper, onto a surface. From the French word Collar, to glue.
Automatic
Suppressing conscious control to access subconscious sources of creativity and truth.
Conceptual art
A work in which the communication of an idea are most important to the work.
Abstract Expressionism
A mid-twentieth-century artistic style characterized by its capacity to convey intense emotions using non-representational images.
Anamorphosis
The distorted representation of an object so that it appears correctly proportioned only when viewed from one particular position.
Expressionism, Expressionist
A artistic style, at its height in 1920s Europe, devoted to representing subjective emotions and experiences instead of objective or external reality.
Genre
Category of artistic subject matter, often with a strongly influential history and tradition.
Hue
General classification of a color, the distinctive characteristics of a color as seen in the visible spectrum, such as green or red.
Iconographic
The study of art by interpreting symbols, themes, and subject matter as sources of meaning.
Memento mori
The Latin phrase that means “remember that you must die”. Artworks, such as skulls, flowers, and clocks are used to represent the transient nature of life on earth.
Mixed Media
The use of a variety of materials to make a work of art.
Neutral
Color (such as blacks, whites, grays, and dull gray-browns) made by mixing complementary hues.
Palette
The range of colors used by an artist.
Pattern
An arrangement of predictably repeated elements.
Realism
the nineteenth-century artistic style that aimed to depict nature and everyday subjects in an unidealized manner. “Realism” is also used to describe a historical movement from the same period, which tried to achieve social change and equality by highlighting art and literature the predicament of the poor.
Representational
Art that depicts figures and objects so that we recognize what is represented.
Triptych
An artwork comprising three panels, normally joined together and sharing a common theme.
Emphasis
The principle of drawing attention to particular content within a work.
Monumental
having massive or impressive scale.
Primary colors
Three basic colors from which all ohers are derived.
Subordination
The opposite of emphasis, it draws our attention away from a particular area of a work.
Classical period
A period in the history of Greek art, c.480-323BCE.
Abstract
Art imagery that departs from recognizable images of the natural world.
Format
The shape of the area an artist uses for making a two-dimensional artwork.
Texture
The surface quality of a work, for example, fine/course/detailed/lacking, in detail.
Tenebrism
Dramatic use of intense darkness and light to heighten the impact of a painting.
Symbolist
Artist or Artistic style belonging to the movement in European art and literature, c.1884-1910, that conveyed meaning by the use of powerful yet ambiguous symbols.
Relative placement
The arrangement of shapes or lines to form a visual relationship to each other in a design.
Picture plane
The surface of a painting or drawing.
Perspective
The creation of the illusion of depth in a two-dimensional image by using mathematical principles.
Orthogonals
In perspective systems, imaginary sightlines extending from forms to the vanishing point.
One-point perspective
A perspective system with a single vanishing point on the horizon.
Linear perspective
A system using converging imaginary sightlines to create the illusion of depth.
Isometric perspective
A system using diagonal parallel lines to communicate depth.
Intensity
The relative clarity of color in its purest raw form, demonstrated through luminous or muted variations.
Hatching
The use of non-overlapping parallel lines to convey darkness or lightness.
Foreshortening
A perspective technique that depicts a form-often distorting or reducing it-at an angle that is not parallel to the picture plane, in order to convey the illusion of depth.
Cross-hatching
The use of overlapping parallel lines to convey lightness or darkness.
Chiaroscuro
The use of light and dark in a painting to create the impression of volume.
Unity
The appearance of oneness or harmony in a work of art all of the elements appearing to be part of a cohesive whole.
Negative
A reversed image, in which light areas are dark and dark areas are light (opposite of a positive).
Proportion
The relationship in size between a work’s individual parts and the whole.
Golden Section
A unique ratio of a line divided into two segments so that the sum of both segments (A+B) is to the longer segment (A) as the longer segment (A) is to the shorter segment (B). The result is 11,618
Hierarchical Scale
The use of size to denote the relative importance of subjects in an artwork.
Woodcut
A relief print made from a design cut into a lock of wood.
Surrealism, Surrealist
An artistic movement in the 1920s and later, its works were inspired by dreams and the subconscious.
Relief
A raised form on a largely flat background. For example, the design on a coin is a “relief”.
Organic world
Three-dimensional form made up unpredictable, irregular planes that suggest the natural world.
Negative Space
An unoccupied or empty space that s created after positive shapes are positioned in a work of art.
Mass
A volume that has, or gives the illusion of having, weight, density, and bulk.
In the round
A freestanding sculpted work that can be viewed from all sides.
High relief
A carved panel where the figures project with a great deal of depth from the background.
Geometric Form
Three-dimensional form composed of predictable and mathematically derived planes and curves.
Freestanding
Any sculpture that stands separate from walls or other surfaces so that it can be viewed from a 360 degree range.
Facade
Any side of a building, usualy the front or enterance.
Bas-relief (low relief)
A sculpture carved with very little depth: the carved subjects rise only slightly above the surface of the work.
Axis
An imaginary line showing the center of a shape, volume, or composition.
Motif
A design or color repeated as a unit in a pattern.
Mandala
A sacred diagram of the universe, often involving a square and a circle.
Grid
A network of horizontal and vertical lines, in an artworks composition, the lines are implied.
Gestalt
Complete order and indivisible unity of all aspects of an artwork’s design.
Found image or object
An image or art object found b an artist and presented, with little or alteration, as part of a work or s a finished work of art.
Three-point perspective
A perspective system with two vanishing points on the horizon and one not on the horizon.
Synesthesia
when one of the five senses perceives something that was stimulated by a trigger from one of the other senses.
Two-Dimensional
Having height and width.
Three-dimensional
Having weight, width, and depth.
Style
A charactrustic way in which an artist or group of artists uses visual language to give a work an identifiable form of visual expression.
Space
The distance between identifiable points or planes.
Silhouette
A portrait or figure represented in outline and solidly colored in.
Shape
A two-dimensional area, the boundaries of which are defined by lines or suggested by changes in color or value.
Series
A group of related artworks that are created as a set.
Rhythm
The regular or ordered repetition of elements in the work.
Principes
The principles or “grammar” of art-contrast, unity, variety, balance, scale, proportion, focal point, emphasis, pattern, and rhythm-describes the ways the elements are arranged in an artwork.
Plane
A flat two-dimensional surface on which an artist can create a drawing or painting. planes can also be implied in a composition by that face toward, parrel to, or away from a light source.
Pattern
An arrangement of predictably relocated elements.
Outline
The outermost line or line or implied line of an object or figure, by which is defined or bounded.
Negative space
An unoccupied or empty space that created after positive shapes are positioned in a work of art.
Monochromatic
Having one or more values of one color.
Logo
A graphic image used to identify an idea or entity.
Line
A mark, or implied mark, between two end points.
Highlight
An area of lightest value in a work.
Figure-ground reversal
The reversal of the relationship between one shape (the figure) and its background (the ground), so that the figure becomes background and ground becomes the figure.
Abstract
Art imagery that departs from recognizable images of the natural world.
3-D modeling
A computer-generated illusion that emulates an object in three dimensions, it can be modified to show visual movement.
Volume
The space filled or enclosed by a three-dimensional figure or object.
Volume
The brightness or darkness of a plane or an area.
Variety
The diversity of different ideas, media, and elements in a work.
Unity
The appearance of oneness or harmony in a work of art all of the elements appearing to be part of a cohesive whole.
Symmetrical balance
An image or shape that looks exactly (or nearly exactly) the same on both sides when cut in half.
Still life
A scene of inanimate objects, such as fruits, flowers, or dead animals.
Performance art
A work involving the human body, usually including the artist, for an audience.
