Early Europe and Colonial America II Vocab

Altarpiece

a panel, painted or sculpted, situated above and behind an altar.

Ambulatory

a covered walkway, outdoors (as in a church cloister) or indoors; especially the passageway around the apse and the choir of a church. In Buddhist architecture, the passageway leading around the stupa is an ______

Apse

a recess, usually semicircular, in the wall of a Roman basilica or at the east end of a church.

Archivolt

the continuous molding framing an arch. In Romanesque or Gothic architecture, one of the series of concentric bands framing the tympanum.

Atrium

the court of a Roman house that is partly open to the sky. Also the open, colonnaded court in front of and attached to a Christian basilica.

Baldacchino

a canopy on columns, frequently built over an altar.

Baptistery

In Christian architecture, the building used for baptism, usually situated next to a church is known as a _______

Basilica

In Roman architecture, a _____is a civic building for legal and other civic proceedings, rectangular in plan with an entrance usually on a long side. In Christian architecture, a church somewhat resembling the Roman _______, usually entered from one end and with an apse at the other.

Buttress

exterior masonry structure that opposes the lateral thrust of an arch or a vault. A pier ______is a solid mass of masonry; a flying _______consists typically of an inclined member carried on an arch or a series of arches and a solid _______to which it transmits lateral thrust.

Chevet

The east, or apsidal, end of a Gothic church, including choir, ambulatory, and radiating chapels is known as the________

Chiaroscuro

In drawing or painting, the treatment and use of light and dark, especially the gradations of light that produce the effect of modeling is ________

Choir

the space reserved for the clergy and singers in the church, usually east of the transept but, in some instances, extending into the nave.

Codex

separate pages of vellum or parchment bound together at one side; the predecessor of the modern book. The ______superseded the rotulus. In Mesoamerica, a painted and inscribed book on long sheets of bark paper or deerskin coated with fine white plaster and folded into accordion-like pleats.

Crossing

The space in a cruciform church formed by the intersection of the nave and the transept is the ________

Crossing Square

The area in a church formed by the intersection (crossing) of a nave and a transept of equal width, often used as a standard module of interior proportion is the _______

Crossing Tower

The tower over the crossing of a church is the________

Cruciform

________ refers to cross-shaped building plans.

Diptych

a two-paneled painting or altarpiece; also, an ancient Roman, Early Christian, or Byzantine hinged writing tablet, often of ivory and carved on the external sides.

Engraving

The process of incising a design in hard material, often a metal plate (usually copper); also, the print or impression made from such a plate is an _______

Etching

a kind of engraving in which the design is incised in a layer of wax or varnish on a metal plate. The parts of the plate left exposed are then etched (slightly eaten away) by the acid in which the plate is immersed after incising.

Fresco

a painting on lime plaster, either dry (dry ____or ______secco) or wet (true or buon ____). In the latter method, the pigments are mixed with water and become chemically bound to the freshly laid lime plaster.

Humanism

in the Renaissance, is an emphasis on education and on expanding knowledge (especially of classical antiquity), the exploration of individual potential and a desire to excel, and a commitment to civic responsibility and moral duty.

Icon

a portrait or image; especially in Byzantine art, a panel with a painting of sacred personages that are objects of veneration. In the visual arts, a painting, a piece of sculpture, or even a building regarded as an object of veneration.

Iconoclasm

the destruction of images. In Byzantium, the period from 726 to 843 when there was an imperial ban on images. The destroyers of images were known as iconoclasts. Those who opposed such a ban were known as iconophiles or iconodules.

Illuminated Manuscript

luxurious handmade book with painted illustrations and decorations.

International Style

a style of 14th- and 15th-century painting begun by Simone Martini, who adapted the French Gothic manner to Sienese art fused with influences from the North. This style appealed to the aristocracy because of its brilliant color, lavish costume, intricate ornament, and themes involving splendid processions of knights and ladies.

Lunette

a semicircular area (with the flat side down) in a wall over a door, niche, or window; also, a painting or relief with a semicircular frame.

Qibla

indicates the direction (toward Mecca) Muslims face when praying.

Pantocrator

an image of Christ as ruler and judge of heaven and earth.

Pendentive

a concave, triangular section of a hemisphere, four of which provide the transition from a square area to the circular base of a covering dome. Although ______ appear to be hanging (pendant) from the dome, they in fact support it.

Narthex

the porch or vestibule of a church, generally colonnaded or arcaded and preceding the nave.

Nave

the central area of an ancient Roman basilica or of a church, demarcated from aisles by piers or columns.

Nimbus

a halo or aureole appearing around the head of a holy figure to signify divinity.

Parchment

lambskin prepared as a surface for painting or writing.

Rib

the relatively slender, molded masonry arch that projects from a surface. In Gothic architecture, the ____form the framework of the vaulting. A diagonal rib is one of the ribs that form the "X" of a groin vault. A transverse rib crosses the nave or aisle at a 90-degree angle.

Tracery

the ornamental stonework for holding stained glass in place, characteristic of Gothic cathedrals. In plate ____, the glass fills only the “punched holes” in the heavy ornamental stonework. In bar tracery, the stained-glass windows fill almost the entire opening, and the stonework is unobtrusive.

Transept

part of a church with an axis that crosses the nave at a right angle.

Vellum

calfskin prepared as a surface for writing or painting.

Woodcut

a wooden block on the surface of which those parts not intended to print are cut away to a slight depth, leaving the design raised; also, the printed impression made with such a block.