AP Art History VOCABULARY (Unit 3: Early Europe and Colonial Americas 200-1750 CE)

Ambulatory

A passageway around the apse or altar of a church.

Apse

the endpoint of a church where the altar is located

Catacomb

an underground cemetery of connecting passageways with recesses for tombs

Clerestory

The third, or window, story of a church

Coffer

in architecture, a sunken panel in a ceiling

Cubicula

small underground rooms in catacombs serving as mortuary chapels

Lunette

a crescent-shaped space, sometimes over a doorway, that contains sculpture or painting

Nave

the central part of a church building, intended to accommodate most of the congregation

Orant Figure

a figure with its hands raised in prayer

Spolia

the re-use of earlier building material or decorative sculpture on new monuments

Catherdral

a large, important Christian church

Chalice

a cup containing wine, used during a Christian service

Codex

an ancient manuscript text in book form.

Eucharist

A Christian sacrament commemorating the Last Supper by consecrating bread and wine.

Icon

(n.) a representation or image of a sacred personage, often considered sacred itself; an image or picture; a symbol; a graphic symbol on a computer monitor display; an object of blind devotion

Iconoclastic Controversy

a dispute over the use of religious images (icons) in the Byzantine Empire in the 8th and 9th centuries. (destruction of many)

Mosaic

Art consisting of a design made of small pieces of colored stone or glass

Animal Style

a medieval art form in which animals are depicted in a stylized and often complicated pattern, usually seen fighting with one another

Chasing

to ornament metal by indenting into a surface with a hammer

Horror Vacui

a type of artwork in which the entire surface is filled with objects, people, designs, and ornaments in a crowded, sometimes congested way (fear of empty space)

Parchment

a stiff, flat, thin material made from the prepared skin of an animal and used as a durable writing surface in ancient and medieval times.

Zoomorphic

having or representing animal forms or gods of animal form

Abbey

a monastery for monks, or a convent for nuns, and the church that is connected to it

Campanile

an Italian bell tower, especially a freestanding one.

Embroidery

a woven product in which the design is stitched into a premade fabric

Last Judgment

The judgment on the living and the dead at the second coming of Christ, at which time those who died before the second coming and have gone through the Particular Judgment will have their bodies reunited with their souls. - Very commonly used in art.

Reliquary

a vessel for holding a sacred relic. Often reliquaries took the shape of the objects they held. Precious metals and stones were the common material

Tapestry

a wall hanging of heavy handwoven fabric with pictorial designs

Apocalypse

a prophetic revelation, especially one concerning the end of the world

Chevet

the east or apsidal, end of a Gothic church, including the choir, ambulatory and radiating chapels.

Flying Buttress

a buttress slanting from a separate pier, typically forming an arch with the wall it supports to protect it from wind shear

Hammerbeam

a type of roof in English Gothic architecture, in which timber braces curve out from walls and meet high over the middle of the floor

Lancet

In Gothic architecture, a tall narrow window ending in a pointed arch, usually filled with stained glass.

Pieta

A painted or sculpted representation of the Virgin Mary mourning over the body of the dead Christ.

Rib Vault

A vault in which the diagonal and transverse ribs compose a structural skeleton that partially supports the masonry web between them.

Rose Window

a circular stained-glass window

Lamentation

scenes that show Jesus followers mourning his death.

Maniera Greca

Italian, "Greek manner." The Italo-Byzantine painting style of the 13th century.

Tempera

A technique of painting using pigment mixed with egg yolk, glue, or casein; also, the medium itself.

Donor

a patron of a work of art, who is often seen in that work

Engraving

Art form in which an artist etches a design on a metal plate with acid and then uses the plate to make multiple prints

Etching

an intaglio printmaking technique in which a metal plate is covered with an acid-resistant ground and worked with an etching needle to create an image.

Oil Paint

paint made of pigment floating in oil

Polyptych

many-paneled altarpiece

Woodcut

a print of a type made from a design cut in a block of wood, formerly widely used for illustrations in books.

Bottega

the studio of an Italian artist

Humanism

A Renaissance intellectual movement in which thinkers studied classical texts and focused on human potential and achievements

Madonna

A painted or sculptured representation of the Virgin, usually with the infant Jesus.

Neoplatonism

A school of ancient Greek philosophy that was revived by Italian Humanists of the Renaissance.

trompe l'oeil (fool the eye)

a painting so real you want to touch the objects, French for "fool the eye." A two-dimensional representation that is so naturalistic that it looks actual or real (or three-dimensional).

Canvas

a piece of cloth on which an artist paints

Chiaroscurro

(Italian for light-dark) a method of applying value to a 2-D work of art to create the illusion of a 3-D solid form

Glazes

thin transparent layers put over a painting to alter the color and build up a rich sonorous effect

Ignudi

nude corner figures on the Sistine Chapel ceiling

Last Supper

A Passover meal which literally became the last meal taken by Christ with his apostles, the night before his Passion. Through this meal, Christ instituted the Holy Eucharist and the priesthood.

Sfumato

the technique of allowing tones and colors to shade gradually into one another, producing softened outlines or hazy forms.

Still Life

a picture depicting an arrangement of inanimate objects

Renaissance

"rebirth"; following the Middle Ages, a movement that centered on the revival of interest in the classical learning of Greece and Rome

Baroque

An artistic style of the seventeenth century characterized by complex forms, bold ornamentation, and contrasting elements

Di sotto in su

Italian, "from below upwards." A technique of representing perspective in ceiling paintings.

Vanitas

a still-life painting of a 17th-century Dutch genre containing symbols of death or change as a reminder of their inevitability.

Biombos

folding free-standing screens

Casta Paintings

paintings from New Spain showing people of mixed races

Mestizo

A person of mixed Spanish and Native American ancestry.

Viceroy

a governor who ruled as a representative of a monarch

Academy

Any institution where the higher branches of learning are taught.

Exemplum Virtutis

a painting that tells a moral tale for the viewer

Pastel

A colored chalk that when mixed with other ingredients produces a medium that has a soft and delicate hue

Salon

Informal social gatherings at which writers, artists, philosophes, and others exchanged ideas

pendentive

a triangle shaped piece

of masonry w/dome resting on one

long side, & the other 2 sides

channeling the weight down on a pier

below

squinches

variation of a pendentive;

transitioning the weight of a dome onto

a flat rather than a rounded wall