art history unit 2

Elements of Art: the lines, shapes, forms, values, colors, space, and textures of a piece.

Principles of Design: the balance, movement, rhythm, contrast, emphasis, pattern, and unity a piece conveys.

Line: a continuous un-interrupted stroke.

  • Vertical lines: static lines that imply stability and formality.

  • Horizontal lines: static lines that imply stability and calm.

  • Diagonal lines: lines that look like a rise and fall, implying instability, excitement, and tension.

  • Zig-zag lines: intersecting lines that convey confusion and nervousness.

  • Curved lines: conveys movement, calm, or activity depending on the angle and coil of the curve.

  • Contour lines: edges and boundaries of an object, usually without internal details.

Gestural lines: sketched quickly and freely to indicate the interior details

Shape: a defined two-dimensional form with boundaries.

  • Geometric shapes: mathematical proportional shapes that don't usually appear in nature.

  • Organic shapes: irregular and abnormal shapes that frequently naturally appear in nature.

Form: a defined three-dimensional object that appears to have weight, mass, depth, and a physical presence.

Value: darkness and light of a color.

  • Tinting: adding white to a color to lighten it.

  • Toning: adding black to a color to darken it.

  • Chiaroscuro: an Italian Renaissance dramatic lighting method to define objects' forms. Shading and modeling: varying the levels of darkness and light on an object to indicate a depth of perception.

  • Hatching: drawing parallel lines that appear darker when closer together.

Cross-hatching: drawing intercepting parallel lines that appear darker when more heavily crossing and crowded.

Color: The reflection of light off a surface based on wavelength, organized by size of wavelength on the color wheel.

  • Hue: the name of a color.

  • Primary colors: ones that cannot be made through a combination of other colors, consisting of red, yellow, and blue.

  • Secondary colors: products of combining the primary colors, consisting of orange, purple, and green.

  • Tertiary colors: products of combining primary and secondary colors, such as red-orange and blue-green, named as the primary color and then the secondary color.

  • Tints: versions of a color produced by tinting, adding white.

  • Shades: versions of a color produced by toning, adding black.

  • Analogous colors: colors that are next to each other on the color wheel.

  • Complementary colors: colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel, pairs of primary and secondary colors.

  • Warm colors: colors that establish a tone relating to physical warm temperatures.

  • Cool colors: colors that establish a tone relating to physical cool temperatures.

Space: the distance between objects. Positive space: space filled with an object's physical presence.

  • Negative space: empty space.

  • Atmospheric Perspective: suggesting distance by lacking details in objects meant to be further away.

  • Linear perspective: suggesting distance by showing parallel lines visually converging as it nears the vanishing point.

    • Vanishing point: the point where converging lines meet on the horizon in Linear Perspective.

    • One-Point Perspective: a perspective that indicates implied space by converging lines at a single vanishing point.

    • Two-Point Perspective: a perspective that indicates implied space by converging lines at two different vanishing points.

Texture: the way a surface feels.

  • Actual Texture: the shaping of three-dimensional sculptures to indicate texture.

  • Implied or Visual Texture: the application of techniques such as patterns, light, and impasto to visually suggest the way an object would feel.

  • Impasto: the layering of paint to create a real texture on a paint canvas, often used to draw attention to the brush's stroke.