ART MIDTERM 101 STYLES

Fresco

A wall-painting technique executed upon freshly laid, wet lime plaster, allowing pigments to chemically fuse with the plaster as it dries.

Repoussé

A metalworking technique in which a malleable sheet of metal is shaped and detailed by hammering from the reverse side to produce low or high relief designs on the front.

Column capital

The uppermost crowning member of a column or pilaster, mediating structurally and visually between the vertical shaft and the horizontal load of the entablature above.

Humanism

A cultural, intellectual, and artistic philosophy originating in Classical Greece that emphasizes the value, rational potential, and central importance of human beings.

Doric

The earliest and simplest classical Greek architectural order, characterized by sturdy fluted columns without separate bases, plain cushion-like capitals, and a frieze of alternating triglyphs and metopes.

Ionic

A classical Greek architectural order known for slender, fluted columns resting on molded bases, topped with capitals featuring prominent spiral scroll volutes.

Corinthian

The most ornate classical architectural order, characterized by slender fluted columns and elaborate bell-shaped capitals adorned with sculpted acanthus leaves and coiled tendrils.

Frieze

A continuous horizontal architectural band situated between the architrave and the cornice in an entablature, often decorated with relief carvings or painted narratives.

Pediment

The triangular gable end of a classical building situated above the horizontal entablature, typically framed by a raking cornice and containing sculpted relief figures.

Triglyph

A vertically channeled tablet in a Doric frieze, separated by two vertical grooves and two half-grooves at the outer edges, alternating with rectangular panels.

Metope

The square or rectangular architectural space located between two triglyphs in a Doric frieze, often left plain or carved with high-relief narrative scenes.

Entasis

The subtle convex swelling applied to the shaft of a classical column designed to counteract the optical illusion of inward concave tapering when viewed from below.

Caryatids

Sculpted draped female figures that function as load-bearing architectural columns, supporting an entablature upon their heads.

Contrapposto

A naturalistic sculptural stance where weight is shifted onto a single engaged leg, causing the hips and shoulders to tilt in counterbalancing opposition and creating an organic S-curve through the spine.

Red figure

An ancient Greek ceramic technique where figures are left unpainted in the natural red shade of the fired clay while the surrounding background and fine interior anatomical lines are brushed on using black slip.

Black figure

An ancient Greek ceramic technique where figures are painted as dark silhouettes with clay slip on natural red clay, with internal details incised directly through the slip with a sharp stylus before firing.

Foreshortening

An artistic perspective method of portraying an object or human body obliquely to create the visual illusion of spatial recession and three-dimensional depth on a flat surface.

Wet drapery

A Classical Greek sculptural technique where fabric is carved to cling tightly and translucently to the body, simultaneously concealing and revealing the underlying anatomical form and movement.

Hellenistic period

The era of ancient Mediterranean history from the death of Alexander the Great in $323\,\text{BCE}$ to the rise of the Roman Empire in $31\,\text{BCE}$, distinguished in art by heightened emotionalism, dynamism, theatricality, and realistic human diversity.