Lecture 16 Art History

Visual Culture

The shared language of sight—-encompassing images, media, and built environments—-that shapes, reflects, and interprets our understanding of reality. It acts as a critical subset of culture, focusing on how visual experiences construct meaning, reinforce social values, and influence identity

Polytheism

Belief in or worship of more than one god

Monotheism

The doctrine or belief that there is only one God

Diaspora

The movement, migration, or scattering of a people from an established or ancestral homeland, resulting in communities living outside their original territory but maintaining cultural and social connections to it

Synagogue

Place of worship in the Jewish religion

Figural Imagery

refers to art, decoration, or other forms of visual representation that features recognizable human or animal forms

Aedicula

A miniature building or architectural frame; often a niche marked by columns and a pediment

Dry Fresco

Wall or ceiling paintings that are done on dry plaster (a secco), as opposed to on wet plaster (true or buon fresco)

Tabernacle

The temple

Akroteria (singular akroterion)

Ornamental architectural features—-statues, pedestals, or carved motifs like palmettes—-placed at the apex and lower corners of a pediment, gable, or roofline

Ark of the Covenant

The doors

Menorah

The candle

Mosaic

A medium in which small, roughly clubic pieces of colored material (usually stone or glass) are embedded in mortar to create patterns or images.

Tesserae (singular tessara)

Small pieces that make up a mosaic

Catacomb

subterranean, man-made burial chambers or passageways, often featuring intricate, stacked tombs used by ancient civilizations for burying the dead.

Christ as the Good Shepherd

Christ carrying and/or surrounded by sheep, holding a shepherd’s crook, symbolizes protective role of Christ in lives of Christians

Typology

Method of biblical interpretation in which persons, events, or institutions in the Old Testament are seen as foreshadowing or anticipating persons, events, or institutions in the New Testament

Transept

In a cruciform church, the part of the building oriented perpendicular to the nave

Cruciform

Cross-shaped

Blind Arcade

In architecture, an arcade (a series of arches carried by columns or piers) having no actual openings, applied as decoration to a wall surface

Oratory

A private place of worship for Christian individual, family, or community

Alabaster

A form of fine-grained gypsum that is white and translucent

Attribute

A symbolic object that is conventionally used to identify a person or deity in a work of art

Chi-Rho Symbol

A christogram made up of the Greek letters chi and rho, the first two letters of the Greek word for Crhist

Christogram

a monogram or combination of letters that forms an abbreviation for the name of Jesus Christ