AP Art History Unit 10 Renaissance Art - Chapter 15 Early Renaissance in Italy: Fifteenth Century

Chapter house

a building next to a church used for meetings

Humanism

An intellectual movement in the Renaissance that emphasized the secular alongside the religious. Humanists were greatly attracted to the achievements of the classical past, and stressed the study of classical literature, philosophy, and art

Madonna

the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus Christ

Mullion

a central post or column that is a support element in a window or a door

Neoplatonism

a school of ancient Greek philosophy that was revived by Italian humanists of the Renaissance

Orthogonal

lines that appear to recede toward a vanishing point in a painting with linear perspective

linear perspective

Objects shown in this way achieve a three-dimensionality in the two-dimensional world of the picture plane

vanishing point

a common point revealed by orthogonals

atmospheric or aerial perspective

A technique used in landscapes to give the illusion of distance

Pietra serena

a dark-gray stone used for columns, arches, and trim details in Renaissance buildings

Pilaster

a flattened column attach to a wall with a capital, a shaft, and a base

Trompe l'oeil

French, meaning "fools the eye;" a form of painting that attempts to represent an object as existing in three dimensions, and therefore resembles the real thing