Art History B - Exam One Terms

Key Terms

• fresco - a painting done rapidly in watercolor on wet plaster on a wall or ceiling, so that the colors penetrate the plaster and become fixed as it dries.

• tempera - a method of painting with pigments dispersed in an emulsion miscible with water, typically egg yolk. The method was used in Europe for fine painting, mainly on wood panels, from the 12th or early 13th century until the 15th, when it began to give way to oils.

• gold leaf - gold that has been beaten into a very thin sheet, used in gilding.

• sgraffito - a form of decoration made by scratching through a surface to reveal a lower layer of a contrasting color, typically done in plaster or stucco on walls, or in slip on ceramics before firing.

• punch work - a design technique accomplished by indenting the gold leaf surface without breaking it.

• warp and weft - the technical terms for the two types of thread used to create a finished woven product.

• narrative cycle - a series of images or scenes that tell a story through a sequence of visual representations.

• continuous narrative - a type of narrative that illustrates multiple scenes of a narrative within a single frame.

• allegory - when the subject of the artwork, or the various elements that form the composition, is used to symbolize a deeper moral or spiritual meaning such as life, death, love, virtue, justice etc.

• iconography - a particular range or system of types of image used by an artist or artists to convey particular meanings.

• triptych - an artwork, usually a painting or photograph, formed as a trio. Typically on altarpieces.

• polyptych - A painting or other work consisting of four or more separate panels that are hinged or held together in a framework.

• illuminated manuscript - hand-written books with painted decoration that generally includes precious metals such as gold or silver.

• Renaissance - The rebirth of classical thinking.

• humanism - a cultural and intellectual movement that celebrated human potential, values, and the study of classical antiquity.

• Neoplatonism - a philosophical movement inaugurated by Plotinus (AD 204/5 - 270), which reinterpreted the ideas of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato.

• relief sculpture - sculpture that projects in varying degrees from a two-dimensional background.

• Italo-Byzantine - a style term in art history, mostly used for medieval paintings produced in Italy under heavy influence from Byzantine art.

• International Gothic style - a type of courtly painting created across Europe from the late14th to the mid15th centuries.

• Classical antiquity - the art of ancient Greece and Rome, which emphasizes proportion, balance, and humanism.

• contrapposto - a sculptural pose where a human figure stands with most of their weight on one leg, causing a subtle S-curve in the body by tilting the hips and shoulders in opposite directions, creating a more natural and dynamic stance.

• guild - an association of artists, merchants, and craftsmen who regulated the production and training of art.

• hierarchical scale - a technique that uses size to indicate importance.

• one-point linear perspective - a drawing method that shows how things appear to get smaller as they get further away, converging towards a single “vanishing point” on the horizon line.

• atmospheric perspective - how the atmosphere influences how distant objects appear.

• lost wax method -the process by which a duplicate sculpture (often a metal, such as silver, gold, brass, or bronze) is cast from an original sculpture.

• chiaroscuro - the use of light and shadow to create the illusion of light from a specific source shining on the figures and objects in the painting.

• trompe-l’oeil - an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface.

• millefleur - a type of background packed with flowering plants.

• sfumato - the 'smoky' quality which blurs contours so that figures emerge from a dark background by means of gradual tonal modulations without any harsh outlines. Leonardo da Vinci used this technique heavily.

• colossus - statue that is considerably larger than life-size.

• Protestant Reformation - a religious movement that changed art in Europe in the 16th century.

• Counter Reformation - a Catholic art style that developed in response to the Protestant Reformation.

• martyrium - a church or shrine built over the tomb of a Christian martyr.

• disegno - an Italian word that means "drawing" or "design". It can refer to the process of drawing, the design of a work of art, or the ability to invent a design.

• colore/colorito - a term usually applied to 16th-century Venetian painting in which colour is employed in a dominant manner, for sensual expressive purposes and as an important compositional element.

• Mannerism - a European art style that emphasizes complexity and artificiality over naturalism.

Architectural terms

• column - An architectural element consisting of a shaft, round or polygonal in section, used for structural support or decoration. Columns usually are placed on a base and topped by a capital. Columns that are attached to a wall are called engaged columns or half-columns.

• capital - the uppermost portion and often features distinctive architectural elements that cap the building's overall design. The word "capital" in its columnar context comes from the Latin "caput," meaning "head," indicating its position at the top of a column.

• Order - Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Composite

• architrave - the lowest section of the entablature (horizontal member), immediately above the capital of a column.

• frieze - a long, horizontal band of sculpted or painted decoration, typically found on the upper part of a wall or around a building, often featuring intricate carvings depicting scenes from mythology or historical events, most commonly associated with classical Greek and Roman architecture where it is situated between the architrave and cornice of an entablature; essentially, a decorative band used to narrate stories or symbolize important themes through imagery.

• cornice - any projecting element that crowns an architectural feature.

• entablature - a horizontal part in classical architecture that rests on the columns and consists of architrave, frieze, and cornice.

• pediment - a classical architectural element that forms the triangular gable found above the horizontal structure of the cornice or entablature, typically supported by columns.

• temple-front facade - Element of a façade resembling the front of a Classical temple, with columns or pilasters carrying an entablature and pediment, applied to an elevation, as in a Palladian composition with portico (e.g. Aldrich's Peckwater Quad, Christ Church, Oxford (1707–14) ).

• pilaster - shallow rectangular column that projects slightly beyond the wall into which it is built and conforms precisely to the order or style of the adjacent columns.

• spandrel - the roughly triangular area above and on either side of an arch, bounded by a line running horizontally through the apex of the arch, a line rising vertically from the springing of the arch, and the curved extrados, or top of the arch.

• module - a standardized unit that can be combined to create larger, more complex works.

• bay - any division of a building between vertical lines or planes, especially the entire space included between two adjacent supports.

• barrel vault - An elongated or continuous semicircular vault, shaped like a half-cylinder. Also known as tunnel vault.

• basilica plan - A large public building, rectangular in plan, normally featuring a nave flanked by aisles, and an apse.

• central plan - a plan in which the parts of a building radiate from a central point.