Early European and Colonial America III Vocabulary

Altarpiece

a panel, painted or sculpted, situated above and behind an altar.

Apse

a recess, usually semicircular, in the wall of a Roman basilica or at the east end of a church.

Baldacchino

a canopy on columns, frequently built over an altar.

Basilica

In Roman architecture, a ____ is a civic building for legal and other civic proceedings, rectangular in plan with an entrance usually on a long side. In Christian architecture, a church somewhat resembling the Roman ____, usually entered from one end and with an apse at the other.

Buttress

an exterior masonry structure that opposes the lateral thrust of an arch or a vault. A pier _____is a solid mass of masonry; a flying ______consists typically of an inclined member carried on an arch or a series of arches and a solid buttress to which it transmits lateral thrust.

Chiaroscuro

In drawing or painting, the treatment and use of light and dark, especially the gradations of light that produce the effect of modeling .

Codex (pl. codices)

separate pages of vellum or parchment bound together at one side; the predecessor of the modern book. The ____ superseded the rotulus. In Mesoamerica, a painted and inscribed book on long sheets of bark paper or deerskin coated with fine white plaster and folded into accordion-like pleats.

Diptych

a two-paneled painting or altarpiece; also, an ancient Roman, Early Christian, or Byzantine hinged writing tablet, often of ivory and carved on the external sides.

Engraving

The process of incising a design in hard material, often a metal plate (usually copper); also, the print or impression made from such a plate .

Etching

a kind of engraving in which the design is incised in a layer of wax or varnish on a metal plate. The parts of the plate left exposed are then etched (slightly eaten away) by the acid in which the plate is immersed after incising.

Fresco

a painting on lime plaster, either dry (dry ___or ___secco) or wet (true or buon ____). In the latter method, the pigments are mixed with water and become chemically bound to the freshly laid lime plaster.

Humanism

in the Renaissance, is an emphasis on education and on expanding knowledge (especially of classical antiquity), the exploration of individual potential and a desire to excel, and a commitment to civic responsibility and moral duty.

Parchment

lambskin prepared as a surface for painting or writing.

Woodcut

a wooden block on the surface of which those parts not intended to print are cut away to a slight depth, leaving the design raised; also, the printed impression made with such a block.