Global Art Exam Three Vocab

Edo/Tokugawa period

Began in 1615, the military leader (shogun) had the most power over the Japanese government, confucian social hierarchy was adopted, and borders were closed except for diplomatic missions

Characteristics of Edo art

Emphasis on the mundane, anecdotal, and vernacular, often playful, inventive, humorous, and dramatic, domestic travel nourished interest in scenic places and interest in pleasure districts and foreign goods remained despite governmental pushback

Shogun

The military leader and de-facto ruler during the Edo period (as well as others)

Shogunate/bafuku

A governmental structure in which the military leaden has the most power and the emperor is a figurehead

Ukiyo-e

“pictures of the floating world”, paintings and prints that depicted the pleasures and sites of Edo, emphasized that the fleeting enjoyment of theater, teahouses, and tourism should be enjoyed while they last

Polychrome woodblock print

Prints created by carving into wood and transferring ink from the wood carving to paper

Japonisme

Increased interest in Japanese art and design in the western world

Romanticism

A movement that turned towards nature and the interior world of feeling

Characteristics of romanticism

Imagination, emotional expression, intuition, individualism, searched for new stories/symbols to express fears, hopes, and ideas of an age of transition from classical order to a faster-moving world, interest in current events, the “exotic”, and landscape

Sublime

experiences that deeply affect the viewer without being beautiful in the classical sense, inspires awe and terror in equal measure, rejects the idea that art should moralize and educate

Beiijing

Capital of China, moved there by Ming emperor Zhu Di to consolodate power

The Forbidden City

A massive complex of palaces and administrative buildings built in Beijing in the 1400s, access was highly restrictive, only members of the Imperial family and those who worked or had business with them could enter through a series of gates

Chinese emperor

The ruler of China

Fengshui

Chinese practice of arranging spaces to balance energy (qi), and promote harmony, prosperity, order, and well-being, buildings are designed following the natural flow of the landscape, North-South alignment is important as it aligns with the north star (which is visually stable, all other stars revolve around it), often principal government buildings face south with their back to enemies in the north (display of power)

Hall of Supreme Harmony

largest building in the Forbidden City, located in the central most promenant position, people lined up here for an audience with the emperor,

King Louis XIV

King of France from 1643-1715, established an absolute monarchy, centralizing power within himself, celebrating his divine right to rule, built a palace just outside of pars, which forced nobility to leave their homes— this was the Palace of Versailles

French garden

A style of garden that incorporates symmetry, orderly landscaping and plants, places for leisure, fountains, and statues, favors geometry in order to impose a rigid sense of order on nature, embraces Baroque characteristics of dynamic lines, and performative, multimedia space

Apollo

Greek deity of the sun, healing, music, and prophecy (Louis XIV aligned himself with him)

Hall of Mirrors

A large room in the Palace of Versailles that stretched the back of the palace and was bracketed by two salons, used for a waiting room and party space, one wall is windows, the other mirrors, and the styling is very Baroque (bel composto, gold, ornamentation, so many chandeliers, huge windows/mirrors, paintings on the ceilings)

Neoclassicism

A return to classicism in the 1700s, rejected over the top styles like baroque and rococo and returned to simplicity

Characteristics of neoclassicism.

clean lines, geometric shapes, idealized anatomy, lack of visible brushstrokes

Grand tour

A trip, from six months to several years, taken through Europe to study art, culture, and language, considered part of a standard classical education

French Academy

The premier art institution in France until 1793, had a monopoly on art education, exhibitions, and comissions

The Salon

An official French exhibition of art held annually or biannually, sponsored by the French government through the French academy

Hierarchy of genres

An academic system of ranking genres of painting (history, portraiture, genre, landscape, still life) according to perceived level of intellectualism and difficulty

History painting

A genre of painting depicting an event from history, mythology, literature, or religious stories

Jasperware

A fine-grained, unglazed, white stoneware ceramic developed in the 1700s by Josiah Wedgewood, often colored with metal oxides

Josiah Wedgewood

Inventor of jasperware and founding of the Wedgewood pottery factory, a ceramics manufacturer based in England that was at the forefront of Neoclasical household good production and spread of Neoclassicism

Middle passage

The middle leg of the triangular trade route that took kidnapped Africans across the ocean to the Americas to be enslaved

French revolution

A period of profound social and political upheaval that ushered in the modern era. Absolute monarchies were replaced by democratic republics, influenced by the Enlightenment and America Revolution, brough to a climax by famine, unpopular taxes, arbitrary authority of the throne/church, and wealth/power disparities between the rich and poor, Neoclassical ideals of self sacrifice and moral recititude remain strong

Napoleon Bonaparte

moved up the ranks in the French military and eventually declared himself emperor, depicted in art as larger than life and put on a pedestal next to other great leaders

Communist party of china

Ruling party of China, came into power after a civil war against Chinese nationalists in the 1940s, rejected tradition (against old culture, old customs, old habits, and old ideas)

Cultural Revolution

A period of time in which fanatic followers of the communist emperor Mao Zedong prosecuted people who were too middle class/bourgeoisie/intellectual, meant to purify the communist party and consolidate his power, involved sending people to “re-education” where they were banned from reading and subjected to hard labor

Calotype

An early photographic technique developed by William Henry Fox Talbot, used paper and can make multiples, had a brown tint, but was the flimsier technique and produced fuzzier images

Daguerreotype

An early photographic technique developed by Louis Daguerre, used metal— more durable but could only make one detailed image— was successfully patented first and was free to use everywhere but England (where William Henry Fox Talbot was from)

Wet plate process

A photographic process using a glass plate coated with collodin mixed with light sensitive chemicals, allows for multiple copies of a photograph to be printed, revolutionized photography

Negative

A version of an image where the colors are reversed

Impressionism

A style of painting developed by artists in Paris in the late 1860s, typically without extensive preparatory work capturing momentary effects of light, atmosphere, and color

Characteristics of impressionism

bright colors and broken brushwork, abstracted forms, central subjects are landscapes and scenes of everyday life, captured as a fleeting moment of perception

Salon de Refuses

Cited as a turning point in the evolution of modern art, in 1863 the Salon rejected a lot more art than usual, and at the outcry Napoleon authorized an alternative exhibition for the rejected art, although lots of people didn’t like what they saw, it attracted a lot of people, undermining the French Academy’s monopoly over public access to art and introducing emerging forms of art to the public

Avant-garde

An emphasis in modern art on artistic innovation, which challenged accepted values, traditions, and techniques

Belle Epoche

A period of western European history, primarily in France, spanning from the late 1800s to the early 1900s, characterized by peace, optimism, and rapid technological innovation

Plein air

The act of painting landscapes of subjects outdoors to capture the immediate affects of light, atmosphere, and color

Local color

The basic color of an object seen in daylight without shadow, reflected light, or unusual illumination

Michel Eugene Chevruel

A french chemist whose work contributed greatly to color theory, identified the law of simultaneous color contrast

The law of simultaneous color contrast

a law that states colors look different in different contexts, and complimentary colors look brighter next to each other.

Complementary colors

Pairs of colors situated opposite each other on the color wheel

Divisionism

The painting method that formed the basis of Neo-Impressionism, following color theory of the era, using contrasting dots of color that were placed side by side, so that the eye perceived them as one unified glowing color

Post-Impressionism

Not a unified group, but placed together later due to similarities in style, the development of Impressionistic ideas as artists trained in the style broke away from it, rejecting naturalistic images for emotional expression, symbolic color, and structured form, created a new stereotype of the suffering, mentally ill, starving artist only recognized after their death

Primitivism

Modern artists unsure if modernity represented progress led them to look for inspiration in art the imagined to be a more direct, authentic expression on instinctual creativity, ascribing naive beliefs and behaviors to the inhabitants of unindustrialized societies, characterizing them as “primitives” that represented an early stage of human development

Cubism

An art style that simplified people, places, and things as flat geometric shapes, often seen from multiple points of view

Characteristics of cubism

Flat color and shapes, geometric line/shape, multiple angles of vision, intellectual analysis of objects and spatial relationships, abandons mimesis, negative space as an active element, collage

Surrealism

A style that embraced chance and non-rational thinking, with a goal of expressing in conscious life the psychic states and operations of the unconscious, unrestricted b societal or artistic restraints

Characteristics of surrealism

Optimism, extreme emotions, dream states, fantasy, parallel worlds that defy logic and physics, juxtaposition, collage/mixed media, erotic aspects (common)

Caravaggisti

Followers of Caravaggio who embraced and imitated his used of dramatic composition and tenebrism

Judith

A Jewish widow who seduced and slayed the Assyrian General, allowing the Israelites to defeat the Assyrians

Holofernes

The Assyrian general slain by Judith

Great Depression

A global economic downturn in the wake of the prosperous 1920s, triggered by a stock market crash, world trade shrank, forcing industries and farms into bankruptcy, Nazis took over Europe, the Spanish Republic fell to dictatorship, and World War Two began in 1939

Great Migration

A time period during and after WW1 in which African Americans began migrating from rural southern states to urban northern states, to escape Jim Crow laws, racism, violence, and poverty, looking for educational and financial opportunity and to make better lives for their families

Jim Crow laws

Laws that restricted the rights of Black Americans or otherwise disenfranchised and discriminated against them

Harlem Renaissance

A cultural, literary, artistic movement centered in Harlem NYC, focused on the arts as forums of expression of Black identity and forces for political liberation, and demonstrating the continuity of culture from African past to present day America, despite enslavement and discrimination, crafting a Black identity based on pride and resistance to racism, a vibrant creative culture of music, theater, art, fiction, poetry, and dance

Mass media

Communication designed to reach large audiences- radio, TV, cinema, the press

Pop Art

Art that incorporation imagery from mass media and pop culture, blurring the distinction between '“high” and “low” art, took off worldwide but garnered the most attention in New York

Appropriation

Borrowing images, objects, or ideas and inserting them into another context

Silkscreen printing

A printing method that pushes ink through a silk screen to create an image on the surface below