Art History Final Flashcards Set

Potlatch

A gift giving ceremony practiced by Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast of Canada and the United States.

Mosque

An Islamic place of worship and a center for education and information, usually incorporating a prayer hall, a minaret, and a mihrab, and is often doomed.

Mihrab

A niche in the wall of a mosque indicates the direction of Mecca for prayer. which Muslims should face when at prayer. It was often ornately decorated and designed to give the impression of an arched doorway

Mosaic

The technique of making pictures or patterns from small pieces of colored stone or glass set into cement or plaster. Mosaic tilework has been used as a form of architectural decoration for interior walls, ceiling, floors and exterior facades.

Tesserae

Small cubes of marble, pottery, brick, glass, tile, or stone set in mortar to form a mosaic.

Kiln

An oven used to bake or fire ceramics.

Calligraphy

The art of beautiful handwriting is especially significant as an art form in parts of East Asia and in the Islamic world.

Arabesque

An ornamental design of intertwined flowing lines, originally found in Arabic or Moorish decoration.

Stupa

A dome-shaped Buddhist shrine.

Torana

A gateway near a stupa with elaborately carved upright posts and lintels. a gateway near a stupa that has two upright posts and three horizontal lintels, that are usually elaborately carved

Circumambulation

The act of walking around a sacred object.

Mudra

A symbolic hand gesture in Buddhist and Hindu art.

Darshan

In Hinduism, the ability of a worshipper to see a deity and the deity to see a worshipper.

Puja

A Hindu devotional ritual.

Neoclassicism

The classicizing style in European art from the late 18th to early 19th centuries, reacting against Rococo. Rococo, originally referring to the art of Jacques-Louis David and his school. It was based on the study of antique art, which was to be imitated but not slavishly copied, and thus embodied what were perceived to be the general and permanent principles of the visual arts as formulated by the ancients.

Enlightenment

A European intellectual movement of the late 17th and 18th centuries emphasizing reason and individualism rather than tradition and the pursuit of knowledge through science and philosophy. It influenced various fields including politics, ethics, and art.

History painting

A painting genre based on classical, mythological, or biblical history, is regarded as the highest form. not only the skill of eye and hand, but also his mastery of often complex and erudite subject-matter.

French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture

The premier art institution in Paris during the 18th century overseeing artist training and artistic standards. set official, artistic standards for France.

Salon

Competitive exhibitions in Paris from 1667 onwards, showcasing selected art open to the public. The works were selected by jury, prizes were awarded, and the exhibitions were the first to be open to a mass public

Hierarchy of Genres

A formal ranking of painting genres by prestige, with history painting at the top.

Planarity

lying in one plane; being flat or level.

Frieze-like Composition

A painting composition where figures are arranged along one plane, imitating ancient sculptural friezes.

Contour lines

Lines forming the outline of an object.

Disegno vs colore

A debate in 16th-century Italian painting regarding the primacy of design versus color.

Romanticism

An artistic reaction against Enlightenment rationality, emphasizing spontaneity, originality, and emotional expression. against the reason of the Enlightenment and the order of Neoclassicism. more about emotional self-expression.

Impressionism

A mid to late 19th-century French painting movement focusing on light and modern life through bright palettes and broken brushwork.

en plein air

A French term meaning 'in the open air', referring to outdoor landscape painting. referring to the act of painting landscapes completely out-of-doors, as opposed to in the studio. This technique was first promoted by the Impressionists.

avant-garde

An artistic term for innovative and forward-thinking art at the forefront of development.

Post-Impressionism

An art term describing developments after Impressionism, focusing on specific artists like Cezanne, Gauguin, Seurat, and Van Gogh.

Japonisme

A term for 19th-century European artists' fascination with Japanese art, culture and aesthetics influencing movements like Impressionism and post impressionism.

Woodblock Prints

A printing technique involving carving a design onto a wooden block to create printed images.

Ukiyo-e

Pictures of the floating world, refer to transient everyday life. Typical early subjects included theatre scenes with actors in well-known roles, erotica, and views of the night-life of Edo, but Hokusai revolutionized the genre by depicting the turbulent forces of nature. 

Reliquary

 A receptacle to hold the relics of a saint or ancestor, such as bones, pieces of clothing, or other objects associated with the person.

Masquerade

Performances involving individuals wearing masks.

Primitivism

a problematic tendency found across many Western art movements in the early 20^th century, which celebrated so-called “primitive art” - generally understood to mean the art of Africa and the Pacific Islands. Western Artists incorporated these influences into their own work, contributing greatly to the development of abstract art in Europe.

Abstract art

Art that is non-representational and does not depict recognizable subjects.

Cubism

A significant 20th-century art movement developed by Braque and Picasso, exploring multiple viewpoints. It abandoned the traditional fixed viewpoint which had dominated western painting since the Renaissance, and instead explored a multiplicity of viewpoints in space over time to develop an accumulated idea of the subject.

Surrealism

A 20th-century art movement influenced by Freudian psychoanalysis, focusing on dreams and the subconscious.  It attempted to harness the power of dreams and the subconscious mind in order to revolutionize not only art but also life.