MIDTERM 1- art history 40b definitions

catacomb

• subterranean cave/gallery built by early Christians outside city walls of Rome to bury their dead and celebrate central ritual

• originated late 2nd to early 3rd century and were used bc Christian believed in bodily resurrection

• art historical impt- contain earliest examples of Christian art (Christ represented allegorically as Good Shepard, a motif adapted from classical Greek sources

  • EX: Catacomb of Callisto, 3rd c., Rome OR Catacombs of SS. Peter and Marcellinus

• Visual details: Paintings of Christ as shepherd tending his flock, loculi (cupboards for bones) and cubiculae (small ritual chapels)

icon

• from greek word “image”

• representation of sacred personages or events

• art historical impt-

  • EX:

• Visual details:

iconoclasm

• any destruction of images

• art historical impt-

  • EX:

• Visual details:

Byzantine Empire

acheiropoietic

• not made with human hands, referring to icons (Acheiropoieta) believed to have been created by divine intervention and not artists

• art historical impt-

  • EX:

• Visual details:

relic (primary, contact, tertiary)

• relic means left behind

• primary- body or body parts (bones, hair, teeth)

• contact- objects touched the live/dead sacred body (sandals, shrouds, staffs)

• tertiary- things that had contact with a relic

reliquary

• container for relics

• intended to represent or make visible the relic’s power, holiness, distinctiveness, and preciousness to the ordinary eye

furta sacra

• holy theft

martyrium/mausoleum

martyrium- honors specifically a Christian martyr

mausoleum-

basilica/ latin-cross

theocracy

Gothic

Scriptorium

• workshops for the production of manuscripts that were part of libraries

• monks working in scriptoria acted as scribes, copied text, develop illuminations (decorated mostly Christian texts with paintings)

• EX: plan of St. Gall, Switzerland, c. 820

historiated initial

marginalia

babuini

• humanoid creatures that appear in marginal art

Chi Rho

• One of the earliest signs for Christ. Composed of the Greek letters chi (X) and rho (P), the first two letters in the Greek word for Christ

Repoussé

Altarpiece

pilgrimage

• journey that is undertaken to see and interact w/ holy sites and relics in order to accrue credits in the afterlife

apse

nave

barrel vault

tympanum

• semi-cicular space

ribbed groin vault

• weight of structure is born by innovative intersecting groins both in the ambulatories down below and in the roof above

• allows structure to support many more Windows

• Saint Denis

choir

• area between nave and alter occupied by clergy during liturgical services

• Saint Denis

flying buttress

external architectural support that braces against the outward thrust of side aisle walls, piers, and vaults

Rayonnant architecture

• a phase of Gothic architecture that developed in France during the mid-13th century

lux nova

• new light of Christ

• created by Abbot Suger

  • called the resulting colored light from stained glass lux nova

sacred kingship

• a religious and political concept by which a ruler is seen as an incarnation, manifestation, mediator, or agent of the sacred or holy

Romanesque

• first “style” identified by art historians to emerge in Medieval architecture.

• Historical period of the Romanesque: from about 1000 to 1137

• certain construction features

  • roman round arches

  • barrel vaults

  • groin vaults

Illumination

• manuscripts that contain artistic decoration

• from Latin word “illuminare” meaning to adorn or brighten

complex interlace

• Highly intricate, symmetric patterns of woven lines.

• ireland, england, scotland

  • insular tradition (Hiberno-Saxon art)

gloss

• marginal images that provide commentary to the text

carpet page

• full-page illumination in a manuscript that is purely ornamental, resembling a textile

• ex: Lindisfarne Gospel, ca. 721, Northumbria, England

Book of Hours

Lost-wax bronze casting