Art: Content and Knowledge

Botticelli

"Birth of Venus" 1444-1510 Rebirth of Classical mythology

Rococo

"Late Baroque", is an early to late French 18th-century artistic movement and style, affecting many aspects of the arts including painting, sculpture, architecture, interior design, decoration, literature, music, and theater. The style is characterized by elaborate ornamentation, asymmetrical values, pastel color palette, and curved or serpentine lines.

Santa Maria delle Grazie

("Holy Mary of Grace") is a church and Dominican convent in Milan, northern Italy, included in the UNESCO World Heritage sites list. The church contains the mural of "The Last Supper" by Leonardo da Vinci, which is in the refectory of the convent.

Dame Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth

(10 January 1903 - 20 May 1975) was an English artist and sculptor. Her work exemplifies Modernism and in particular modern sculpture. She was one of the few female artists of her generation to achieve international prominence.

William Hogarth

(10 November 1697 - 26 October 1764) was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic, and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects". Knowledge of his work is so pervasive that satirical political illustrations in this style are often referred to as "Hogarthian".

François Auguste René Rodin

(12 November 1840 - 17 November 1917) A French sculptor. Generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past. After attending the "Petite École", he worked in the studio of the ornamentalist Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, first in Paris, then in Brussels, where his skill in handling decorative subjects fashionable in the 18th century became apparent. His discovery of Michelangelo, during a visit to Italy in 1875-76,was a decisive moment in his career. Rodin would, in turn, break new ground in sculpture, paving the way for 20th-century art, by introducing methods and techniques that were central to his own artistic aesthetics.

Filippo Brunelleschi

(1377 - April 15, 1446) was an Italian designer and a key figure in architecture, recognised to be the first modern engineer, planner and sole construction supervisor. He was one of the founding fathers of the Renaissance. He is generally well known for developing a technique for linear perspective in art and for building the dome of the Florence Cathedral. Heavily dependent on mirrors and geometry, to "reinforce Christian spiritual reality", his formulation of linear perspective governed pictorial depiction of space until the late 19th century. The Duomo of Florence.

Donatello

(1386 - 13 December 1466), was an early Renaissance sculptor from Florence. He studied classical sculpture and used this to develop a complete Renaissance style in sculpture, whose periods in Rome, Padua and Siena introduced to other parts of Italy a long and productive career. He worked with stone, bronze, wood, clay, stucco and wax, and had several assistants, with four perhaps being a typical number. Though his best-known works were mostly statues in the round, he developed a new, very shallow, type of bas-relief for small works, and a good deal of his output was larger architectural reliefs.

Leonardo Da Vinci

(15 April 1452 - 2 May 1519), more commonly as Leonardo, was an Italian Renaissance polymath whose areas of interest included invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography. He has been variously called the father of palaeontology, ichnology, and architecture, and is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time. Sometimes credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter and tank, he epitomised the Renaissance humanist ideal.

Rembrandt van Rijn

(15 July 1606 - 4 October 1669) was a Dutch draughtsman, painter, and printmaker. A prolific and versatile master across three media, he is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in the history of art and the most important in Dutch art history. Unlike most Dutch masters of the 17th century, works depict a wide range of style and subject matter, from portraits, self-portraits, to landscapes, genre scenes, allegorical and historical scenes, biblical and mythological themes as well as animal studies. His contributions to art came in a period of great wealth and cultural achievement that historians call the Dutch Golden Age. The Night Watch or The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq, 1642. Oil on canvas Chiaroscuro

Eiffel Tower

(15 March 1889) Mr.Eiffel was accused of trying to create something artistic with no regard to the principles of engineering. However, Eiffel and his team - experienced bridge builders - understood the importance of wind forces, and knew that if they were going to build the tallest structure in the world, they had to be sure it could withstand them.

Max Ernst

(2 April 1891 - 1 April 1976) was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealism. Along with other artists and friends (Marcel Duchamp and Marc Chagall) who had fled from the war and lived in New York City, Ernst helped inspire the development of Abstract expressionism.

Albrecht Durer

(21 May 1471 - 6 April 1528)was a painter, printmaker, and theorist of the German Renaissance. Born in Nuremberg, established his reputation and influence across Europe when he was still in his twenties due to his high-quality woodcut prints. He was in communication with the major Italian artists of his time, including Raphael, Giovanni Bellini and Leonardo da Vinci, and from 1512 he was patronized by emperor Maximilian I. The third and most famous woodcut from series of illustrations for The Apocalypse, the Four Horsemen presents a dramatically distilled version of the passage from the Book of Revelation (6:1-8)

Pablo Picasso

(25 October 1881 - 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and playwright who spent most of his adult life in France. Regarded as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture,the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio

(29 September 1571 - 18 July 1610) was an Italian painter active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1592 (1595?) and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on Baroque painting. Gritty naturalism.

Henry Spencer Moore

(30 July 1898 - 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. As well as sculpture, produced many drawings, including a series depicting Londoners sheltering from the Blitz during the Second World War, along with other graphic works on paper. His forms are usually abstractions of the human figure, typically depicting mother-and-child or reclining figures. His works are usually suggestive of the female body.

Michelangelo

(6 March 1475 - 18 February 1564) was a Florentine sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. Considered to be the greatest living artist during his lifetime, he has since been described as one of the greatest artists of all time. Despite making few forays beyond the arts, his versatility in the disciplines he took up was of such a high order that he is often considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with his rival and fellow Florentine Medici client, Leonardo da Vinci.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini

(7 December 1598 - 28 November 1680) was an Italian sculptor and architect. While a major figure in the world of architecture, he was the leading sculptor of his age, credited with creating the Baroque style of sculpture. As one scholar has commented, "What Shakespeare is to drama, ... may be to sculpture"

Alexander Calder

(August 22, 1898 - November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known as the originator of the mobile, a type of moving sculpture made with delicately balanced or suspended shapes that move in response to touch or air currents.Monumental stationary sculptures are called stabiles. He also produced wire figures, which are like drawings made in space, and notably a miniature circus work that was performed by the artist.

Andy Warhol

(August 6, 1928 - February 22, 1987) was an American artist, director and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture, and advertising that flourished by the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting, silkscreening, photography, film, and sculpture. Some of his best known works include the silkscreen paintings Campbell's Soup Cans (1962) and Marilyn Diptych (1962),

Masaccio

(December 21, 1401 - summer 1428), founder of Early Renaissance "Sloppy Tom". The first great Italian painter of the Quattrocento period of the Italian Renaissance. According to Vasari,... was the best painter of his generation because of his skill at imitating nature, recreating lifelike figures and movements as well as a convincing sense of three-dimensionality. Died at twenty-six and little is known about the exact circumstances of his death. Despite his brief career, he had a profound influence on other artists. He was one of the first to use linear perspective in his painting, employing techniques such as vanishing point in art for the first time. He moved away from the International Gothic style and elaborate ornamentation of artists like Gentile da Fabriano to a more naturalistic mode that employed perspective and chiaroscuro for greater realism. Brancacci Chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine.

Diego Rivera

(December 8, 1886 - November 24, 1957) was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the Mexican mural movement in Mexican art. Between 1922 and 1953, painted murals among others in Mexico City, Chapingo, Cuernavaca, San Francisco, Detroit, and New York City. In 1931, a retrospective exhibition of his works was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York...had a volatile marriage with fellow Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.

Grant Wood

(February 13, 1891 - February 13, 1942) Best known work is his 1930 painting American Gothic, which is also one of the most famous paintings in American art, and one of the few images to reach the status of widely recognised cultural icon, comparable to Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Edvard Munch's The Scream. The American movement of Regionalism that was primarily situated in the Midwest, and advanced figurative painting of rural American themes in an aggressive rejection of European abstraction.

Leon Battista Alberti

(February 14, 1404 - April 25, 1472) was an Italian humanist author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher and cryptographer; he epitomised the Renaissance Man. Although he is often characterized exclusively as an architect, as James Beck has observed, "to single out one of Leon Battista's 'fields' over others as somehow functionally independent and self-sufficient is of no help at all to any effort to characterize Alberti's extensive explorations in the fine arts." Although known mostly for being an artist, he was also a mathematician of many sorts and made great advances to this field during the 15th century.

Norman Rockwell

(February 3, 1894 - November 8, 1978) was a 20th-century American author, painter and illustrator. His works enjoy a broad popular appeal in the United States for its reflection of American culture. Most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine over nearly five decades. Among the best-known works are the Willie Gillis series, Rosie the Riveter, The Problem We All Live With, Saying Grace, and the Four Freedoms series. He also is noted for his 64-year relationship with the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), during which he produced covers for their publication Boys' Life, calendars, and other illustrations. These works include popular images that reflect the Scout Oath and Scout Law such as The Scoutmaster, A Scout is Reverent and A Guiding Hand, among many others.

F-stop

(Focal-STOP) The measurement of the aperture setting in a camera lens. This setting determines how much light is allowed to enter the lens and pass through to the film (analog) or CCD or CMOS sensor (digital)

James Whistler

(July 10, 1834- July 17, 1903) was an American artist, active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He was averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, and was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". First famous work, Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl. Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1, but usually (and incorrectly) referred to as Whistler's Mother. In 1877 sued the critic John Ruskin for libel after the critic condemned his painting Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket.

Andrew Wyeth

(July 12, 1917 - January 16, 2009) was a visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century. In his art, ... favorite subjects were the land and people around him, both in his hometown of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and at his summer home in Cushing, Maine. Often noted: "I paint my life." One of the best-known images in 20th-century American art is his painting Christina's World, currently in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. This tempera was painted in 1948, when ...was 31 years old.

Edward Hopper

(July 22, 1882 - May 15, 1967) was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While he was most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching. Both in his urban and rural scenes, his spare and finely calculated renderings reflected his personal vision of modern American life. Nighthawks has more to do with the possibility of predators in the night than with loneliness. The best-known painting, Nighthawks (1942), is one of his paintings of groups. It shows customers sitting at the counter of an all-night diner. The shapes and diagonals are carefully constructed. After Nighthawks is another urban painting, Early Sunday Morning (originally called Seventh Avenue Shops), which shows an empty street scene in sharp side light, with a fire hydrant and a barber pole as stand-ins for human figures.

Frida Kahlo

(July 6, 1907 - July 13, 1954) Mostly painted self-portraits. Inspired by Mexican popular culture, she employed a naïve folk art style to explore questions of identity, postcolonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society. Her paintings often had strong autobiographical elements and mixed realism with fantasy.

Frank Lloyd Wright

(June 8, 1867 - April 9, 1959) was an American architect, interior designer, writer, and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures, 532 of which were completed. Believed in designing structures that were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture. This philosophy was best exemplified by Fallingwater (1935), which has been called "the best all-time work of American architecture". A leader of the Prairie School movement of architecture and developed the concept of the Usonian home in Broadacre City, his unique vision for urban planning in the United States. His creative period spanned more than 70 years. In addition to his houses, Wright designed original and innovative offices, churches, schools, skyscrapers, hotels, museums and other structures. He often designed interior elements for these buildings as well, including furniture and stained glass.

Dorothea Lange

(May 26, 1895 - October 11, 1965) was an American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Photographs humanized the consequences of the Great Depression and influenced the development of documentary photography.

Katsushika Hokusai

(October 31, 1760 - May 10, 1849) A Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period. He was influenced by Sesshū Tōyō and other styles of Chinese painting. Born in Edo (now Tokyo), Best known as author of the woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (富嶽三十六景? Fugaku Sanjūroku-kei, c. 1831) which includes the internationally iconic print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa.

Romare Bearden

(September 2, 1911 - March 12, 1988) was an Afro-American artist. He worked with many types of media including cartoons, oils and collages. Became a founding member of the Harlem-based art group known as The Spiral, formed to discuss the responsibility of the African-American artist in the struggle for civil rights. Early work focused on unity and cooperation within the African-American community. New York Times to describe ...as "the nation's foremost collagist" in his 1988 obituary.

Louise Nevelson

(September 23, 1899 - April 17, 1988) was an American sculptor known for her monumental, monochromatic, wooden wall pieces and outdoor sculptures. She was a fundamental key in the feminist art movement. Credited with triggering the examination of femininity in art, challenged the vision of what type of art women would be creating with her dark, monumental, masculine and totem-like artworks

Groin vault

(also sometimes known as a double barrel vault or cross vault) is produced by the intersection at right angles of two barrel vaults. The word "groin" refers to the edge between the intersecting vaults. Sometimes the arches are pointed instead of round.

Jan van Eyck

(before c. 1390 - 9 July 1441) A Flemish/Netherlandish painter active in Bruges. He is often considered one of the founders of Early Netherlandish painting school and one of the most significant representatives of Northern Renaissance art.

Claes Oldenburg

(born January 28, 1929) is an American sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions of everyday objects.

Judy Chicago

(born July 20, 1939) an American feminist artist, art educator, and writer known for her large collaborative art installation pieces, which examine the role of women in history and culture. By the 1970s, ... had coined the term "feminist art" and had founded the first feminist art program in the United States. Her work incorporates stereotypical women's artistic skills, such as needlework, counterbalanced with stereotypical male skills such as welding and pyrotechnics. "The Dinner Party" celebrates the accomplishments of women throughout history and is widely regarded as the first epic feminist artwork.

Faith Ringgold

(born October 8, 1930, in Harlem, New York City) is an African-American artist, best known for her narrative quilts. Artistic practice was extremely broad and diverse, and included media from painting to quilts, from sculptures and performance art to children's books. She was an educator who taught in the New York city Public school system and on the college level. In 1973, she quit teaching public school to devote herself to creating art full-time.

Renaissance

1400's began Florence spread to Rome and Venice. 1500 spread to northern Europe. Northern Renaissance. Breakthroughs, Oil on stretched canvas, Perspective, Use light and shadow, Pyramid Configuration of composition.

Lascaux Cave

15,000-13,000 B.C. The setting of a complex of caves near the village of Montignac, in the department of Dordogne in southwestern France. Over 600 parietal wall paintings decorate the interior walls and ceilings of the cave. The paintings are primarily of large animals, typical local and contemporary fauna that correspond with the fossil record of the Upper Paleolithic time. The drawings are the combined effort of many generations, and with continued debate, the paintings are estimated around 17,000 years BP

Neoclassicism

17-1820 David, Ingres La Grande Odalisque. American Stuart beginning of art in America, Copley.

Venus of Willendorf

25,000-20,000 B.C. Most likely a fertility fetish, symbolizing abundance.

Gothic Art

5th Century to 16th Century A.D. Art produced in Northern Europe from the middle ages up until the beginning of the Renaissance. Typically rooted in religious devotion, it is especially known for the distinctive arched design of its churches, its stained glass, and its illuminated manuscripts. In the late 14th century, anticipating the Renaissance, Gothic Art developed into a more secular style known as International Gothic. One of the great artists of this period is Simone Martini. Although superseded by Renaissance art, there was a Gothic Revival in the 18th and 19th centuries, largely rooted in nostalgia and romanticism.

Coatlicue

A (8.9 ft) tall andesite statue usually identified with the Aztec goddess ... ("snakes-her-skirt"). It is currently located in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. On the bottom of the statue, not normally visible, is a carving of Tlaltecuhtli ("earth-lord").

Symbolism

A 19th-century movement in which art became infused with exaggerated sensitivity and a spooky mysticism. It was a continuation of the Romantic tradition, which included such artists as John Henry Fuseli and Caspar David Friedrich. Anticipating Freud and Jung, the Symbolists mined mythology and dream imagery for a visual language of the soul. More a philosophical approach than an actual style of art, they influenced their contemporaries in the Art Nouveau movement and Les Nabis. The leading Symbolists included Gustave Moreau, Puvis de Chavannes, and Odilon Redon.

Willem Claeszoon Heda

A Dutch Golden Age artist from the city of Haarlem devoted exclusively to the painting of still life's. The term "vanitas" describes a specific type of still life picture. We may define vanitas as being: "a still life painting of symbolic objects that conveys a biblical or christian message about the transience of earthly life when compared to the permanence of Christian values". Vanitas paintings, which flourished during the period 1620-1650, became especially popular with well-to-do devoutly Protestant citizens in Holland.

Henri Matisse

A French artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter... and a group of artists now known as "Fauves" (wild beast) exhibited together in a room at the Salon d'Automne in 1905.

Bas-Relief

A French term from the Italian basso-relievo ("low relief"), a sculpture technique in which figures and/or other design elements are just barely more prominent than the (overall flat) background.

Paper Mache

A French term that means "chewed paper." A technique that involves saturating paper with an adhesive binder (glue, wallpaper paste or the flour-and-water combo every 1st-grader has had to taste) and forming it into an object. Optimum results are obtained by using something such as a balloon or chicken wire as an armature.

Bauhaus

A German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. Founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar. The German term —literally "construction house"—was understood as meaning "School of Building", but in spite of its name and the fact that its founder was an architect, the Bauhaus did not have an architecture department during its first years of existence. It was founded with the idea of creating a "total" work of art (Gesamtkunstwerk) in which all arts, including architecture, would eventually be brought together. The style later became one of the most influential currents in modern design, Modernist architecture and art, design and architectural education. A profound influence upon subsequent developments in art, architecture, graphic design, interior design, industrial design, and typography.

Francisco Goya

A Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of late 18th and early 19th centuries and throughout his long career was a commentator and chronicler of his era. Immensely successful in his lifetime, is often referred to as both the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. He was also one of the great portraitists of modern times.

Cobalt Blue

A blue pigment made by sintering/heating cobalt(II) oxide with alumina at 1200 °C. It is toxic when inhaled or ingested. Potters who fail to take adequate precautions when using it may succumb to ...poisoning.

Postmodern art

A body of art movements that sought to contradict some aspects of modernism or some aspects that emerged or developed in its aftermath. Movements such as intermedia, installation art, conceptual art and multimedia, particularly involving video are described as .... Several characteristics which lend art to being ...; these include bricolage, the use of words prominently as the central artistic element, collage, simplification, appropriation, performance art, the recycling of past styles and themes in a modern-day context, as well as the break-up of the barrier between fine and high arts and low art and popular culture.

Moviola

A brand of projection device for a motion-picture film allowing one person to see the film through a viewer and control its motion and speed, used in film editing, preparing titles, etc.

Single-lens reflex camera (SLR)

A camera that typically uses a mirror and prism system (hence "reflex" from the mirror's reflection) that permits the photographer to view through the lens and see exactly what will be captured.

The Arts and Crafts Movement

A celebration of individual design and craftsmanship, developing as a reaction against transformation of Britain due to the industrial revolution. William Morris, who spearheaded the movement, is particularly remembered as a book designer. He also produced stained glass, textiles and wallpaper, in addition to being a painter and writer.

Rivet

A classic, durable and popular way to create cold connections in jewelry designs (a "cold connection" is the joining together of metal components without using solder).

Pastel

A color having a soft, subdued shade. A kind of dried paste made of pigments ground with chalk and compounded with gum water. A chalk like crayon made from such paste. The art of drawing with such crayons.

CIELAB

A color space specified by the International Commission on Illumination (French Commission internationale de l'éclairage, hence its CIE initialism). It describes all the colors visible to the human eye and was created to serve as a device-independent model to be used as a reference.

Visual Rhythm

A combination of elements repeated, but with variations.

Linseed Oil

A common carrier used in oil paint. It can also be used as a painting medium, making oil paints more fluid, transparent and glossy. It is available in varieties such as cold pressed, alkali refined, sun bleached, sun thickened, and polymerised (stand oil). The introduction was a significant advance in the technology of oil painting.

Batch File

A computer file containing a list of instructions to be carried out in turn.

Microprocessor

A computer processor which incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit (CPU) on a single integrated circuit (IC), or at most a few integrated circuits.

Cindy Sherman

A contemporary master of socially critical photography. She is a key figure of the "Pictures Generation," a loose circle of American artists who came to artistic maturity and critical recognition during the early 1980s, a period notable for the rapid and widespread proliferation of mass media imagery. Sexual desire and domination, the fashioning of self identity as mass deception, these are among the unsettling subjects lying behind her extensive series of self-portraiture in various guises

Arch

A curved structure that spans a space and may or may not support weight above it. May be synonymous with vault, but a vault may be distinguished as a continuous arch forming a roof. Appeared as early as the 2nd millennium BC in Mesopotamian brick architecture, and their systematic use started with the Ancient Romans who were the first to apply the technique to a wide range of structures.

Stump

A cylindrical drawing tool, usually made of soft paper that is tightly wound into a stick and sanded to a point at both ends. It is used by artists to smudge or blend marks made with charcoal, Conté crayon, pencil or other drawing media.

Tjanting

A device used to apply melted wax to the fabric, in batik. It's usually made of brass, and has a small reservoir, with a hole on the top for filling, and a point for the wax to flow out of, like a pen.

Loom

A device used to weave cloth and tapestry. The basic purpose is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. The precise shape and its mechanics may vary, but the basic function is the same.

Pro Tools

A digital audio workstation developed and released by Avid Technology for the Microsoft Windows and OS X operating systems which can be used for a wide range of sound recording and sound production purposes.

Bitmap

A digital image composed of a matrix of dots. When viewed at 100%, each dot corresponds to an individual pixel on a display. In a standard bitmap image, each dot can be assigned a different color. Together, these dots can be used to represent any type of rectangular picture.

DSLR. (Digital Single Lens Reflex)

A digital still image camera that uses a single lens reflex (SLR) mechanism. ... Following are the two major differences between DSLRs and standard digital cameras. Removable Lenses. With a digital imaging sensor, as opposed to photographic film.

One Point 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. It is a way of drawing objects upon a flat piece of paper (or other drawing surface) so that they look three-dimensional and realistic.

White Balance

A feature many digital cameras and video cameras use to accurately balance color. It defines what the color white looks like in specific lighting conditions, which also affects the hue of all other colors.

Mono-printing

A form of printmaking that has lines or images that can only be made once, unlike most printmaking, where there are multiple originals. There are many techniques of monoprinting. Examples of standard printmaking techniques which can be used to make monoprints include lithography, woodcut, and etching. Can use water or oil based medium and allows for loose formed lines.

Analog

A format is that in which information is transmitted by modulating a continuous transmission signal, such as amplifying a signal's strength or varying its frequency to add or take away data.

Arabesques

A fundamental element of Islamic art but they develop what was already a long tradition by the coming of Islam. The past and current usage of the term in respect of European art can only be described as confused and inconsistent. Some Western arabesques derive from Islamic art, but others are closely based on Ancient Roman decorations. In the West they are essentially found in the decorative arts, but because of the generally non-figurative nature of Islamic art, ...decoration is there often a very prominent element in the most significant works, and plays a large part in the decoration of architecture. Symbolize transcendent, invisible, and infinite nature of God.

Kiln

A furnace of refractory clay bricks for firing pottery and for fusing glass.

Frit

A glaze material which is derived from flux and silica which are melted together and reground into a fine powder.

The Barbizon School

A group of landscape artists working in the area of the French town of Barbizon, south of Paris. They rejected the Academic tradition, abandoning theory in an attempt to achieve a truer representation of life in the countryside, and are part of the French Realist movement. The Barbizon School artists are often considered to have sown the seeds of Modernism with their individualism, and were the forerunners of the Impressionists, who took a similar philosophical approach to their art.

Value

A hue's lightness and darkness (a color changes when white or black is added)

Photomontage

A kind of collage that is composed primarily of photographs or fragments of photographs in order to direct the viewer's mind toward specific connections. These photographs are glued on a surface.

Gesture drawing

A laying in of the action, form, and pose of a model/figure. Typical situations involve an artist drawing a series of poses taken by a model in a short amount of time, often as little as 10 seconds, or as long as 5 minutes.

Impressionism

A light, spontaneous manner of painting which began in France as a reaction against the restrictions and conventions of the dominant Academic art. Its naturalistic and down-to-earth treatment of its subject matter, most commonly landscapes, has its roots in the French Realism of Camille Corot and others. The movement's name was derived from Monet's early work, Impression: Sunrise, which was singled out for criticism by Louis Leroy upon its exhibition. The hallmark of the style is the attempt to capture the subjective impression of light in a scene.The core of the earliest Impressionist group was made up of Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Others associated with this period were Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, and the American Mary Cassatt. This style was probably the single most successful and identifiable "movement" ever, and is still widely practiced today. But as an intellectual school it faded towards the end of the 19th century, branching out into a variety of successive movements which are generally grouped under the term Post-Impressionism.

Contour Line

A line which defines a form or an edge. It is, essentially, the outline or silhouette of a given object or figure. Additionally, can be used to show any dramatic changes of plane within the object or form.

Slip

A liquefied suspension of clay particles in water. It differs from its very close relative, slurry, in that it is generally thinner. Has more clay content than its other close relative, engobe. Usually the consistency of heavy cream. May also be used for casting clay in plaster molds.

Vehicle

A liquid, as oil, in which a paint pigment is mixed before being applied to a surface.

Earthenware

A low fired clay body. Glazed pottery is fired to a temperature of 1,830 - 2,010 degrees Fahrenheit. Available in red or also white.

Pug Mill

A machine for mixing clay and recycling clay.

Lathe

A machine for use in working wood, metal, etc., that holds the material and rotates it about a horizontal axis against a tool that shapes it.

Linear Perspective

A mathematical system for representing three-dimensional objects and space on a two-dimensional surface by means of intersecting lines that are drawn vertically and horizontally and that radiate from one point (one-point perspective) two points (two-point perspective) or several points on a horizon line as perceived by a viewer imagined in an arbitrarily fixed position.

Resolution

A measurement of the output quality of an image, usually in terms of samples, pixels, dots, or lines per inch. The terminology varies according to the intended output device. PPI (pixels per inch) refers to screen ..., DPI (dots per inch) refers to print ..., SPI (samples per inch) refers to scanning ..., and LPI (lines per inch) refers to halftone...

Flux

A melting agent causing silica to change into a glaze.

Bench Hook

A metal or wooden plate with a raised edge on each end (opposite sides) to hold a woodcut or linocut in place on a table while cutting.

Reticulation

A method of copying a painting or drawing by the help of threads stretched across a frame so as to form squares, an equal number of proportional squares being made on the canvas or paper on which the copy is to be made. (photography) the formation of a network of cracks or wrinkles in a photographic emulsion

Wedging

A method of kneading clay to make it homogenous by cutting and rolling.

Pixel

A minute area of illumination on a display screen, one of many from which an image is composed

Futurism

A modernist movement based in Italy celebrating the technological era. It was largely inspired by the development of Cubism. The core preoccupations of Futurist thought and art were machines and motion. Founded in 1909 by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, along with painters Umberto Boccioni, Giacomo Balla, Carlo Carrà, and Gino Severini. Italy, 1909-1914

Imari

A multicolored Japanese porcelain usually characterized by elaborate floral designs.

Guernica

A mural-sized oil painting on canvas by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso completed in June 1937, at his home on Rue des Grands Augustins, in Paris. The painting, which uses a palette of gray, black, and white, is regarded by many art critics as one of the most moving and powerful anti-war paintings in history. Standing at 3.49 meters (11 ft 5 in) tall and 7.76 meters (25 ft 6 in) wide, the large mural shows the suffering of people wrenched by violence and chaos. Prominent in the composition are a gored horse, a bull, and flames. The painting was created in response to the bombing of Guernica, a Basque Country village in northern Spain, by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italian warplanes at the request of the Spanish Nationalists.

Totem

A natural object or animal believed by a particular society to have spiritual significance and adopted by it as an emblem.

Giclée

A neologism coined in 1991 by printmaker Jack Duganne [3] for digital prints made on inkjet printers. It is based on the French word gicleur, which means "nozzle". Today fine art prints produced on ink-jet machines using the CcMmYK color model are generally called...

Monochromatic

A one color, color scheme.

El Greco

A painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. Art historian Max Dvořák was the first scholar to connect...art with Mannerism and Antinaturalism. ...theory as "typically Mannerist" and pinpoint its sources in the Neoplatonism of the Renaissance. Jonathan Brown believes that ...endeavored to create a sophisticated form of art; according to Nicholas Penny "once in Spain, ... was able to create a style of his own—one that disavowed most of the descriptive ambitions of painting".

Hue

A particular shade of a given color.

Iconoclast

A person who destroys religious images or opposes their veneration. A person who attacks settled beliefs or institutions.

Collagraph

A print made from an image built up with glue and sometimes other materials

Mezzotint

A printmaking process of the intaglio family, technically a drypoint method. It was the first tonal method to be used, enabling half-tones to be produced without using line- or dot-based techniques like hatching, cross-hatching or stipple.

Drypoint

A printmaking technique of the intaglio family, in which an image is incised into a plate (or "matrix") with a hard-pointed "needle" of sharp metal or diamond point. Traditionally the plate was copper, but now acetate, zinc, or plexiglas are also commonly used.

Linocut

A printmaking technique, a variant of woodcut in which a sheet of linoleum (sometimes mounted on a wooden block) is used for a relief surface.

Art Fabrication

A process or service relating to the production of large or technically difficult artworks. When a lone artist or designer is incapable or chooses not to realize the creation of his or her own design or conception, he or she may enlist the assistance of an art fabrication studio.

Lost-wax

A process, also called cire-perdue, method of metal casting in which a molten metal is poured into a mold that has been created by means of a wax model. Once the mold is made, the wax model is melted and drained.

Final Cut Pro

A professional non-linear editing software application developed by Apple Inc. Provides non-linear, non-destructive editing of any QuickTime compatible video format including DV, HDV, P2 MXF (DVCProHD), XDCAM, 2K, and IMAX film formats. Previous definition Filter. Next definition First AD.

Dynamic Symmetry

A proportioning system and natural design methodology described in Hambidge's books. The system uses dynamic rectangles, including root rectangles based on ratios such as √2, √3, √5, the golden ratio (φ = 1.618...), its square root (√φ = 1.272...), and its square (φ2 = 2.618....), and the silver ratio ( {\displaystyle \delta _{s}=2.414...} \delta_s=2.414...)

Lacquer

A protective coating consisting of a resin, cellulose ester, or both, dissolved in a volatile solvent, sometimes with pigment added. Any of various resinous varnishes, especially a resinous varnish obtained from a Japanese tree, Rhus verniciflua, used to produce a highly polished, lustrous surface on wood or the like. Also called lacquer ware, lacquerware. ware, especially of wood, coated with such a varnish, and often inlaid.

Dada

A protest by a group of European artists against World War I, bourgeois society, and the conservativism of traditional thought. Its followers used absurdities and non sequiturs to create artworks and performances which defied any intellectual analysis. They also included random "found" objects in sculptures and installations. The founders included the French artist Jean Arp and the writers Hugo Ball and Tristan Tzara. Francis Picabia and Marcel Duchamp were also key contributors. The Dada movement evolved into Surrealism in the 1920's.

Baren

A round, smooth pad, either flat or slightly convex, used to press paper against an inked wood or linoleum block to lift an impression from the block.

Pinhole Camera

A simple camera without a lens but with a tiny aperture, a hole- effectively a light-proof box with a small hole in one side. Light from a scene passes through the aperture and projects an inverted image on the opposite side of the box, which is known as the camera obscura effect. Johannes Vermeer

Squeegee

A small rubber blade device or a small rubber roller with handle used by a photographer or lithographer

Brayer

A small, hand-held rubber roller used to spread printing ink evenly on a surface before printing.

Expressionism

A style in which the intention is not to reproduce a subject accurately, but instead to portray it in such a way as to express the inner state of the artist. The movement is especially associated with Germany, and was influenced by such emotionally-charged styles as Symbolism, Fauvism, and Cubism. There are several different and somewhat overlapping groups of Expressionist artists, including Der Blaue Reiter ("The Blue Rider"), Die Brücke ("The Bridge"), Die Neue Sachlichkeit ("The New Objectivity") and the Bauhaus School. Leading Expressionists included Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, George Grosz and Amadeo Modigliani. In the mid-20th century, Abstract Expressionism (in which there is no subject at all, but instead pure abstract form) developed into an extremely influential style in the United States. Edvard Munch

Pop Art

A style of art which explores the everyday imagery that is so much a part of contemporary consumer culture. Common sources of imagery include advertisements, consumer product packaging, celebrity photographs, and comic strips. Leading Pop artists include Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Roy Lichtenstein.1950's to 1960's

Trompe l'oeil

A style of painting in which objects are depicted with photographically realistic detail; also the use of similar technique in interior decorating. A painting or effect

Material Safety Data Sheet

A technical document which provides detailed and. comprehensive information on a controlled product related to: • health effects of exposure to the product. • hazard evaluation related to the product's handling, storage or use.

Frottage

A technique in the visual arts of obtaining textural effects or images by rubbing lead, chalk, charcoal, etc., over paper laid on a granular or relief-like surface. Compare rubbing.

Fresco

A technique of mural painting executed upon freshly-laid, or wet lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the painting becomes an integral part of the wall.

Tempera

A technique of painting in which an emulsion consisting of water and pure egg yolk or a mixture of egg and oil is used as a binder or medium, characterized by its lean film-forming properties and rapid drying rate. a painting executed in this technique. A water paint used in this technique in which the egg-water or egg-oil emulsion is used as a binder.

Batik

A technique of wax-resist dyeing applied to whole cloth, or cloth made using this technique. Cloth is blocked out by brushing or drawing hot wax over them, and the cloth is then dyed. The parts covered in wax resist the dye and remain the original colour. This process of waxing and dyeing can be repeated to create more elaborate and colourful designs. After the final dyeing the wax is removed and the cloth is ready for wearing or showing.

Celadon

A term for pottery denoting both wares glazed in the jade green ... color, also known as greenware (the term specialists now tend to use) and a type of transparent glaze, often with small cracks, that was first used on greenware, but later used on other porcelains. Originated in China.

Glaze

A thin coating of glass. An impervious silicate coating, which is developed in clay ware by the fusion under heat of inorganic materials.

Extruder

A tool that passes clay through a tube to form coils, which are used for handles on jugs, cups, teapots and for applied decorating. There are different types that can be hand-held or attached to a wall or table. They use dies which are metal disks with spaces cut out to extrude different shaped coils.

Coaxial Cable

A transmission line that consists of a tube of electrically conducting material surrounding a central conductor held in place by insulators and that is used to transmit telegraph, telephone, television, and Internet signals —called also coax cable.

Cone

A triangular piece of material in a kiln that indicates by bending or melting that a certain temperature has been reached.

Raku ware

A type of Japanese pottery traditionally used in Japanese tea ceremonies, most often in the form of chawan tea bowls.

Radial Symmetry

A type of balance in which the parts of an object or picture are regularly arranged and radiate from a central point.

Polymer clay

A type of hardenable modeling clay based on (PVC). It typically contains no clay minerals, but like mineral clay a liquid is added to dry particles until it achieves gel-like working properties, and similarly, the part is put into an oven to harden, hence its colloquial designation as clay. Clay is generally used for making arts and craft items, and is also used in commercial applications to make decorative parts. Art made from ...can now be found in major museums

Oil Paint

A type of paint made with natural oils such as linseed, walnut, or poppy, as the medium to bind the pigment. Dry slowly, allowing an artist time to rework and blend colors. Most ...painters use solvents to dilute... paint, speed up drying time, and clean their brushes.

Worm's Eye View

A view of an object from below, as though the observer were a worm; the opposite of a bird's-eye view. A view used commonly for third perspective, with one vanishing point on top, one on the left, and one on the right.

Turpentine

A volatile pungent oil distilled from gum turpentine or pine wood, used in mixing paints and varnishes and in liniment. Wear gloves when using.

Plaster of Paris

A white powdery slightly hydrated calcium sulfate CaSO4·1⁄2H2O or 2CaSO4·H2O made by calcining gypsum and used chiefly for casts and molds in the form of a quick-setting paste with water.

Baroque

After Renaissance Carravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi first woman painter, Bernini St.Peter's, Borromini. Flemish Van Dyck, Rubens. Dutch Heda, Frans Hals, Rembrant, Vermeer. English, Hogarth, Gainsborough, Reynolds. St.Paul Cathedral London. Spanish, Velazquez. French, Poussin, Lorrain, LaTour, Versailles. Rococo to follow

Stoneware

All ceramic wear fired between 2,100 and 2,300 degrees.

Atmospheric Perspective

Also called aerial perspective method of creating the illusion of depth, or recession, in a painting or drawing by modulating color to simulate changes effected by the atmosphere on the colors of things seen at a distance.

Ribbon Tool

Also called loop tools are called as such because they are made out of flattened metal ribbons with sharpened edges. They are used mainly to trim the bases of thrown pots, but also to hollow out handmade shapes, especially sculptural forms. Available in a variety of shapes and sizes for all types of clay work.

Barrel vault

Also known as a tunnel vault or a wagon vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a pointed barrel vault) along a given distance. The curves are typically circular in shape, lending a semi-cylindrical appearance to the total design.

BMP

Also known as bitmap image file or device independent bitmap (DIB) file format or simply a bitmap, is a raster graphics image file format used to store bitmap digital images, independently of the display device (such as a graphics adapter), especially on Microsoft Windows[1] and OS/2[2] operating systems.

Wheat Paste

Also known as flour paste, or simply paste is a gel or liquid adhesive made from wheat flour or starch and water. It has been used since antiquity for various arts and crafts such as book binding, découpage, collage, papier-mâché, and adhering paper posters and notices to walls.

Encaustic painting

Also known as hot wax painting, involves using heated beeswax to which colored pigments are added. The liquid or paste is then applied to a surface—usually prepared wood, though canvas and other materials are often used.

S-Video

Also known as separate video and Y/C is a signaling standard for standard definition video, typically 480i or 576i. By separating the black-and-white and coloring signals, it achieves better image quality than composite video, but has lower color resolution than component video.

Clay

Alumina + silica + water.

Georgia O'Keeffe

An American artist. She was best known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been recognized as the "Mother of American modernism".

Chiaroscuro

An Italian artistic term used to describe the dramatic effect of contrasting areas of light and dark in an artwork, particularly paintings. It comes from the combination of the Italian words for "light" and "dark." It's one of the classic techniques used in the works of artists like Rembrandt, da Vinci, and Caravaggio. It refers to 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.

Contrapposto

An Italian term that means counter-pose. It is used in the visual arts to describe a human figure standing with most of its weight on one foot so that its shoulders and arms twist off-axis from the hips and legs.

RYB

An abbreviation of red-yellow-blue is a historical set of colors used in subtractive color mixing and is one commonly used set of primary colors. It is primarily used in art and design education, particularly painting.

Rubber Cement

An adhesive made from elastic polymers (typically latex) mixed in a solvent such as acetone, hexane, heptane or toluene to keep them fluid enough to be used. Hazardous material label.

Pentimento

An alteration in a painting, evidenced by traces of previous work, showing that the artist has changed his or her mind as to the composition during the process of painting.

The Pont du Gard

An ancient Roman aqueduct that crosses the Gardon River near the town of Vers-Pont-du-Gard in southern France. The highest of all elevated Roman aqueducts, and, along with the Aqueduct of Segovia, one of the best preserved. It was added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1985 because of its historical importance. 50-kilometre (31 mi) system

Dadaism

An art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centers in Zürich, Switzerland at the Cabaret Voltaire (circa 1916); New York began circa 1915, and after 1920 ... flourished in Paris. Developed in reaction to World War I, the ... movement consisted of artists who rejected the logic, reason, and aestheticism of modern capitalist society, instead expressing nonsense, irrationality, and anti-bourgeois protest in their works.vThe art of the movement spanned visual, literary, and sound media, including collage, sound poetry, cut-up writing, and sculpture. Artists expressed their discontent with violence, war, and nationalism, and maintained political affinities with the radical left.

AP

An artist's proof is, at least in theory, an impression of a print taken in the printmaking process to see the current printing state of a plate while the plate (or stone, or woodblock) is being worked on by the artist. Working or trial proof.

Assemblage

An artistic form or medium usually created on a defined substrate that consists of three-dimensional elements projecting out of or from the substrate. It is similar to collage, a two-dimensional medium.

Installation Art

An artistic genre of three-dimensional works that often are site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space.

Burnt Sienna

An earth pigment containing iron oxide and manganese oxide. In its natural state, it is yellow-brown and is called raw sienna. When heated, it becomes a reddish brown and is called burnt sienna. It takes its name from the city-state of Siena, where it was produced during the Renaissance. Along with ochre and umber, it was one of the first pigments to be used by humans, and is found in many cave paintings. Since the Renaissance, it has been one of the brown pigments most widely used by artists.

Motif

An element of an image. May be repeated in a pattern or design, often many times, or may just occur once in a work.

Space

An element of art by which positive and negative areas are defined or a sense of depth achieved in a work of art .

Color

An element of art made up of three properties: hue, value, and intensity.

Form

An element of art that is three-dimensional and encloses volume; includes height, width AND depth (as in a cube, a sphere, a pyramid, or a cylinder). May also be free flowing.

Texture

An element of art that refers to the way things feel, or look as if they might feel if touched.

Bird's Eye View

An elevated view of an object from above, with a perspective as though the observer were a bird, used commonly for third perspective, with one vanishing point on the bottom, one on the left, and one on the right.

Bayeux Tapestry

An embroidered cloth nearly 70 metres (230 ft) long and 50 centimetres (20 in) tall, which depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England concerning William, Duke of Normandy, and Harold, Earl of Wessex, later King of England, and culminating in the Battle of Hastings. The Bayeux tapestry is one of the supreme achievements of the Norman Romanesque .... Its survival almost intact over nine centuries is little short of miraculous ... Its exceptional length, the harmony and freshness of its colors, its exquisite workmanship, and the genius of its guiding spirit combine to make it endlessly fascinating

Shape

An enclosed space, the boundaries of which are defined by other elements of art (i.e.: lines, colors, values, textures, etc.) Are limited to two dimensions: length and width.

Spray Booth

An enclosure containing a flammable or combustible spraying operation and confining and limiting the escape of paint, vapor and residue by means of a powered exhaust system.

Flying buttress

An external, arched support for the wall of a church or other building. Were used in many Gothic cathedrals; they enabled builders to put up very tall but comparatively thin stone walls, so that much of the wall space could be filled with stained-glass windows.

The Book of Kells

An illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. It was created in a Columban monastery in Ireland or may have had contributions from various Columban institutions from both Britain and Ireland. It is believed to have been created c. 800 AD. The text of the Gospels is largely drawn from the Vulgate, although it also includes several passages drawn from the earlier versions of the Bible known as the Vetus Latina. It is a masterwork of Western calligraphy and represents the pinnacle of Insular illumination. It is also widely regarded as Ireland's finest national treasure.

Ceramic glaze

An impervious layer or coating of a vitreous substance which has been fused to a ceramic body through firing. Can serve to color, decorate or waterproof an item.Renders earthenware vessels suitable for holding liquids, sealing the inherent porosity of unglazed biscuit earthenware. It also gives a tougher surface. Also used on stoneware and porcelain.

Glass Tesserae

An individual tile, usually formed in the shape of a cube, used in creating a mosaic. The Byzantines used ... with gold leaf, in which case the glass pieces were flatter, with two glass pieces sandwiching the gold. This produced a golden reflection emanating from in between the ... as well as their front, causing a far richer and more luminous effect than even plain gold leaf would create.

Aquatint

An intaglio printmaking technique, a variant of etching. In intaglio printmaking, the artist makes marks on the plate (in the case of ..., a copper or zinc plate) that are capable of holding ink.

Art Noveau

An international style of art, architecture and applied art, especially the decorative arts, that was most popular between 1890 and 1910. A reaction to the academic art of the 19th century, it was inspired by natural forms and structures, particularly the curved lines of plants and flowers. Considered a "total" art style, embracing architecture, graphic art, interior design, and most of the decorative arts including jewelry, furniture, textiles, household silver and other utensils, and lighting, as well as the fine arts. According to the philosophy of the style, art should be a way of life.

Romanticism

Anticlassicism. A reaction against Neoclassicism, it is a deeply-felt style which is individualistic, exotic, beautiful and emotionally wrought. Although .... and Neoclassicism were philosophically opposed, they were the dominant European styles for generations, and many artists were affected to a lesser or greater degree by both. Artists might work in both styles at different times or even combine elements, creating an intellectually Romantic work using a Neoclassical visual style, for example. Great artists closely associated with Romanticism include Caspar David Friedrich, John Constable, J.M.W. Turner and William Blake.

Rule of Thirds

Applied by aligning a subject with the guide lines and their intersection points, placing the horizon on the top or bottom line, or allowing linear features in the image to flow from section to section.

Romanesque

Art frescoes, stylized sculpture, Architecture barrel-vaulted church, St. Sernin, 1080 A.D., Toulose, France

Byzantine

Art mosaics, icons, Architecture central dome church, Hagia Sophia, 532-537 A.D., Constantinople, Turkey Mediterranean

Gothic

Art stained glass, more natural sculpture, Architecure pointed-arch cathedral, Chartres, 1194-1260 A.D. Chartres ,France.

Principles of Art

Balance, emphasis, movement, proportion, rhythm, unity, and variety; the means an artist uses to organize elements within a work of art. by the careful placement of repeated elements in a work of art to cause a visual tempo or beat.

Dynamic Balance

Balancing elements of particular visual mass with areas of the frame that exert particular pull to achieve a sense of balance. The Rule of Visual Energy: The greater the visual mass of the element, and the HIGHER it is placed within the frame, the greater its visual energy.

Foot

Base of a ceramic form

Egyptology

Began 1799 when Napoleon invaded Egypt. He brought scholars, linguists, and artists. He brought back relics and the Rosetta Stone to France. Jean-Francois Champollion cracked the code. In the beginning tombs plundered then preserved and relics replaced.

Non-recyclable clay stages

Bisqueware and Earthenware

Gothic architecture

Building designs, as first pioneered in Western Europe in the Middle Ages. It began in France in the 12th century. The ...style grew out of Romanesque architecture. It lasted until the 16th century. The characteristics are stone structures, large expanses of glass, clustered columns, sharply pointed spires, intricate sculptures, ribbed vaults, and flying buttresses. One of their main characteristics is the ogival, or pointed arch.

Abstract Expressionism

Centered in New York City, 1946 to 1960's. A type of art in which the artist expresses himself purely through the use of form and color. It non-representational, or non-objective, art, which means that there are no actual objects represented. Now considered to be the first American artistic movement of international importance, the term was originally used to describe the work of Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and Arshile Gorky.

Nave

Central and principal part of a Christian church, extending from the entrance (the narthex) to the transepts (transverse aisle crossing the ...in front of the sanctuary in a cruciform church) or, in the absence of transepts, to the chancel (area around the altar).

Lens

Changes shape to bring objects into focus.

Color-Field Painting

Characterized primarily by large fields of flat, solid color spread across or stained into the canvas creating areas of unbroken surface and a flat picture plane. The movement places less emphasis on gesture, brushstrokes and action in favor of an overall consistency of form and process. In color field painting "color is freed from objective context and becomes the subject in itself." A style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. Related to Abstract Expressionism.

I.M. Pei

Chinese architect that designed Pyramide du Louvre.

Roman Buildings

Civic buildings to honor the Empire, Concrete ornamental walls, Form circles, curved lines, Rounded arch, vaults support, Corinthian column style, Paintings realistic with perspective, Sculpture realistic and idealized officials, Subject of art civic leaders, military triumphs.

Macro Lens

Classically a lens capable of reproduction ratios of at least 1:1, although it often refers to any lens with a large reproduction ratio, despite rarely exceeding 1:1 Used for extreme close-up photography, usually of very small subjects and living organisms like insects, in which the size of the subject in the photograph is greater than life size.

Englobe

Colored clay slip used to decorate Greenwear or leather hard pieces before bisque firing. Clay and oxide and water.

Complementary Colors

Colors located directly opposite one another on the color wheel that has the greatest chromatic contrast.

Analogous Colors

Colors that are adjacent to each other on the color wheel.

Egyptian Tomb

Common Things In An ...Tomb 1. A mummy in a sarcophagus 2. Four canopic jars 3. Protective amulets 4. The Book of the Dead 5. Household goods 6. Food 7. Ushabti "helpers 8. Wall paintings 9. Inscribed curses 10. Statues of Egyptian gods

Non-Representational Art

Compositions which do not rely on representation to any extent. Abstract art, non-figurative art, nonobjective art, are related terms that indicate a departure from reality in the depiction of imagery in art.

"Ecstasy of Saint Teresa"

Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome. It was designed and completed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the leading sculptor of his day, who also designed the setting of the Chapel in marble, stucco and paint. It is generally considered to be one of the sculptural masterpieces of the High Roman Baroque.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Created in 1848 by seven artists: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, John Everett Millais, Frederic George Stephens, Thomas Woolner and William Holman Hunt. Their goal was to develop a naturalistic style of art, throwing away the rules and conventions that were drilled into students' heads at the Academies. Raphael was the artist they considered to have achieved the highest degree of perfection, so much so that students were encouraged to draw from his examples rather than from nature itself; thus they became the "...". The group popularized a theatrically romantic style, marked by great beauty, an intricate realism, and a fondness for Arthurian and Greek legend. The movement itself did not last past the 1850s.

High Renaissance

Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian

Renaissance

Derived from the French word, ..., and the Italian word rinascità, both meaning 'rebirth', was a period when scholars and artists began to investigate what they believed to be a revival of classical learning, literature and art. Emerged in Italy in the late 14th century; it reached its zenith in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, in the work of Italian masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael.

Sfumato

Derived from the Italian word fumo, meaning "smoke") refers to the technique of oil painting which colors or tones are blended in such a subtle manner that they melt into one another without perceptible transitions, lines or edges. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) became the most prominent practitioner of ..- his famous painting of the Mona Lisa exhibits the technique. Leonardo da Vinci described ...as "without lines or borders, in the manner of smoke or beyond the focus plane".

Calligraphic Line

Describes a line that has rich variation from thick to thin, light to dark.

Barcelona Chair

Designer Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich 1929 Chrome on steel frame. Leather cushions filled with foam Style Modernist Many architects and furniture designers of the Bauhaus era were intent on providing well-designed homes and impeccably manufactured furnishings for the "common man," the ...chair was an exception. It was designed for the Spanish Royalty to oversee the opening ceremonies of the exhibition and described by Time magazine as inhabiting "his sumptuous German pavilion."The form is thought to be extrapolated from Roman folding chairs known as the Curule chair - upholstered stools used by Roman aristocracy. According to Knoll Inc., despite its industrial appearance the ...chair requires much hand craftsmanship.

Cubism

Developed between about 1908 and 1912 in a collaboration between Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. Their main influences are said to have been Tribal Art (although Braque later disputed this) and the work of Paul Cezanne. The movement itself was not long-lived or widespread, but it began an immense creative explosion which resonated through all of 20th century art. The key concept underlying ... is that the essence of an object can only be captured by showing it from multiple points of view simultaneously. ...had run its course by the end of World War I, but among the movements directly influenced by it were Orphism, Precisionism, Futurism, Purism, Constructivism, and, to some degree, Expressionism.

Contrast

Difference in lightness and darkness of two colors.

Gouache

Differs from watercolor in that the particles are typically larger, the ratio of pigment to binder is much higher, and an additional white filler such as chalk, a "body", may be part of the paint. This makes it heavier and more opaque, with greater reflective qualities. Generally dries to a different value than it appears when wet (lighter tones generally dry darker and darker tones tend to dry lighter), which can make it difficult to match colors over multiple painting sessions. Its quick coverage and total hiding power mean that it lends itself to more direct painting techniques than watercolor. "En plein air" paintings take advantage of this, as do the works of J.M.W. Turner and Victor Lensner.

DV

Digital video (MIME) is a file extension for a digital video file format used by some home and professional camcorders. Files use intraframe compression to simplify editing. The ...specification also defines the tape format equivalent MiniDV and the connection standard FireWire for upload to editing systems.

Works Progress Administration

During its years of operation, the government-funded Federal Art Project of the WPA hired hundreds of artists who collectively created more than 100,000 paintings and murals and over 18,000 sculptures. The Project was part of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal during the Great Depression (1929-1943). Some of the 20th century's greatest visual artists were employed by the Project under the auspices of the WPA, before going on to create Abstract Expressionist artworks in the post-World War II era. Some of those artists were Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Mark Rothko, Arshile Gorky, Philip Guston, Thomas Hart Benton and Stuart Davis.

ESP

Encapsulated Postscript Vector graphics (Adobe Illustrator) ...a file extension for a graphics file format used in vector-based images in Adobe Illustrator. Stands for Encapsulated PostScript. An...file can contain text as well as graphics

The Hudson River School

Encompasses two generations of painters inspired by Thomas Cole's, awesomely Romantic images of America's wilderness - in the Hudson River Valley and also in the newly opened West. The particular use of light effects, to lend an exaggerated drama to such elements as mist and sunsets, developed into a sub-specialty known as Luminism.

Vertical Axis

Equal visual weight on both sides of a dividing line.

Horizon line

Eye level refer to a physical/visual boundary where sky separates from land or water. It is the actual height of the viewer's eyes when looking at an object, interior scene, or an exterior scene.

Middle Ages

Falls between Classical Period and Renaissance.

Pointillism

France, 1880's. A form of painting in which tiny dots of primary-colors are used to generate secondary colors. It is an offshoot of Impressionism, and is usually categorized as a form of Post-Impressionism. It is very similar to Divisionism, except that where Divisionism is concerned with color theory, ... is more focused on the specific style of brushwork used to apply the paint. The term was first used with respect to the work of Georges Seurat, and he is the artist most closely associated with the movement. The relatively few artists who worked in this style also included Paul Signac and Henri-Edmond Cross. Is considered to have been an influence on Fauvism.

Lithography

From Ancient Greek λίθος, lithos, meaning 'stone', and γράφειν, graphein, meaning 'to write') is a method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface.

Decalcomania

From the French ..., is a decorative technique by which engravings and prints may be transferred to pottery or other materials. Today, the shortened version is "Decal".

Pencils

Graded on the European system using a continuum from H (commonly interpreted as "hardness") to B (commonly "blackness"), as well as F (usually taken to mean "fineness", although F are no more fine or more easily sharpened than any other grade). The standard writing pencil is graded HB.

ISO

In Digital Photography ...measures the sensitivity of the image sensor. The same principles apply as in film photography - the lower the number the less sensitive your camera is to light and the finer the grain. Higher ..settings are generally used in darker situations to get faster shutter speeds.

Post and Lintel

In architecture, ... (also called prop and lintel or a trabeated system) is a building system where strong horizontal elements are held up by strong vertical elements with large spaces between them. Stonehenge

Registration

In color printing the method of correlating overlapping colors on one single image. There are many different styles and types of ..., many of which employ the alignment of specific marks.

Depth of Field

In optics, particularly as it relates to film and photography, (DOF), also called focus range or effective focus range, is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image.

Weft

In weaving, the term for the thread or yarn which is drawn through, inserted over-and-under, the lengthwise warp yarns that are held in tension on a frame or loom to create cloth. A thread or yarn usually made of spun fibre. The original fibres used were wool, flax and cotton. It is threaded through the warp using a "shuttle."

Downdraft Vent

Installed underneath of your electric kiln and the floor upon which it rests. A metal fixture creates a seal between your kiln and the tubing that guides the heat and fumes to an exterior location; very much like a dryer vent.

Grid Method

Involves drawing a grid over your reference photo, and then drawing a grid of equal ratio on your work surface (paper, canvas, wood panel, etc). To use this method, you need to have a ruler, a paper copy of your reference image, and a pencil to draw lines on the image.

Papermaking

Involves making a dilute suspension of fibres in water, called "furnish", and forcing this suspension to drain through a screen, to produce a mat of interwoven fibres. Water is removed from this mat of fibres using a press

Song Jin (宋锦 Song embroidery) in Suzhou, Yun Jin (云锦 Cloud embroidery) in Nanjing and Shu Jin (蜀锦 Shu embroidery) in Sichuan.

It is oldest known embroidery style in Chinese embroidery history. Its raw materials are satin and colored silk, its craftsmanship painstaking and refined. The emphasis is on even stitching, delicate coloration, and local flavor.

Line

It is one-dimensional and can vary in width, direction, and length. Often define the edges of a form. Can be horizontal, vertical, or diagonal, straight or curved, thick or thin.

Daguerreotype

It was the first commercially successful photographic process (1839-1860) in the history of photography. Named after the inventor, Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, each daguerreotype is a unique image on a silvered copper plate. The ... is accurate, detailed and sharp. It has a mirror-like surface and is very fragile.

Prepare Ceramic for Firing

Knead the clay no air, homogenous, hollow the piece, keep walls appropriate thickness, store safely...no knocks or chipping.

Screenprinting

Known as "silkscreen", or "serigraphy" creates prints by using a fabric stencil technique; ink is simply pushed through the stencil against the surface of the paper, most often with the aid of a squeegee. The technique uses a natural or synthetic 'mesh' fabric stretched tightly across a rectangular 'frame,' much like a stretched canvas. The fabric can be silk, nylon monofilament, multifilament polyester, or even stainless steel.

Recyclable clay stages

Leather-hard and Greenware

Elements of Art

Line, shape, form, color, value, texture, space.

Three Point Perspective

Linear perspective in which parallel lines along the width of an object meet at two separate points on the horizon and vertical lines on the object meet at a point on the perpendicular bisector of the horizon line.

Acrylic Medium

Made with a water soluble Propylene glycol. It is a colorless and innocuous liquid found in hand lotions, soap and hundreds of other products safely used by humans. (Not to be confused with Ethylene glycol which is used in car antifreeze and is poisonous). When it is used in a paint medium, it allows paint to stay open or workable for a longer period of time.

Score

Making marks or hatched on clay before slip is added to join two pieces.

Pinch

Manipulate clay with you fingers in your palm to a hollow shape. Pinch pots are a popular beginners project.

Late Renaissance

Mannerism El Greco Tintoretto

Drafting the Weave

Means the number of heald shafts used to produce a given design and the order is which warp ends are threaded through the heald eyes of the heald shaft. The principle of drafting is that ends which work in different order require separate heald shafts.

Gauge

Measuring the diameter of wire.

Ziggurat

Mesopotamian pyramid

Bas-Relief Sculpture

Mesopotamian with wedge shaped cuneiform writing and military exploits. "The Dying Lioness" 650 B.C.

Silver clay

Metal clay is a crafting medium consisting of very small particles of metal such as silver, gold, bronze, or copper mixed with an organic binder and water for use in making jewelry, beads and small sculptures. Originating in Japan in 1990, metal clay can be shaped just like any soft clay, by hand or using molds.

Greek Sculpture

Modern scholarship identifies three major stages. Frequent subjects were the battles, mythology, and rulers of the area. Geometric-It is commonly thought that the earliest incarnation of ... sculpture was in the form of wooden cult statues. Archaic- Kleobis and Biton, kouroi of the Archaic period, c. 580 BCE. Held at the Delphi Archaeological Museum. Inspired by the monumental stone sculpture of Egypt and Mesopotamia, the ... began again to carve in stone. Free-standing figures share the solidity and frontal stance characteristic of Eastern models, but their forms are more dynamic than those of Egyptian sculpture. The Classical period- saw a revolution of ... sculpture, sometimes associated by historians with the popular culture surrounding the introduction of democracy and the end of the aristocratic culture associated with the kouroi. The Classical period saw changes in the style and function of sculpture, along with a dramatic increase in the technical skill of Greek sculptors in depicting realistic human forms. Poses also became more naturalistic, notably during the beginning of the period. Hellenistic- During this period, sculpture again experienced a shift towards increasing naturalism. Common people, women, children, animals, and domestic scenes became acceptable subjects for sculpture, which was commissioned by wealthy families for the adornment of their homes and gardens. Realistic figures of men and women of all ages were produced, and sculptors no longer felt obliged to depict people as ideals of beauty or physical perfection. No difference in Gods bodies and humans.

Megapixel

One million pixels. It is commonly used to describe the resolution of digital cameras. For example, a 7.2 ...camera is capable of capturing roughly 7,200,000 pixels. The higher the ...number, the more detail the camera can capture.

Oil Stick

Or oil bar is an art medium. It is produced in a stick form similar to that of a crayon or oil pastel. It is distinguished from oil pastel, to which it may appear similar, in that the oil used is comparatively volatile, causing a skin to develop on exposed surfaces.

Secondary Colors

Orange, Green,and Purple a color resulting from the mixing of two primary colors.

Enamel

Paint that air dries to a hard, usually glossy, finish, used for coating surfaces that are outdoors or otherwise subject to hard wear or variations in temperature; it should not be confused with decorated objects in "painted enamel", where vitreous enamel is applied with brushes and fired in a kiln.

Cross-contour Line

Parallel lines that curve over an object's surface in a vertical or horizontal manner (or both) and reveal the item's surface characteristics. Lines that are similar to wire framing used in 3D design.

Bezel

Part of a ring is a wider and usually thicker section of the hoop, which may contain a flat surface, usually with an engraved design, as in a signet ring, or a gem

Ka

Pharaoh's immortal spirit. The need for mummy and tombs filled with goods.

Polarizing Filter

Placed in front of the camera lens in photography in order to darken skies, manage reflections, or suppress glare from the surface of lakes or the sea

Juxtaposition

Placing things side-by-side. In art this usually is done with the intention of bringing out a specific quality or creating an effect, particularly when two contrasting or opposing elements are used.

PNG

Portable Network Graphics is a raster graphics file format that supports lossless data compression. Was created as an improved, non-patented replacement for Graphics Interchange Format (GIF), and is the most widely used lossless image compression format on the Internet.

Bisque

Pottery which has been fired once, without glaze, to a temperature just before vitrification.

Slab

Pressed or rolled flat sections of clay used in hand building.

Throwing a pot

Put clay in the center of wheel head, center the clay using both hands, open the clay, compress the bottom, raise the walls, even out the top, remove from the wheel.

Color Palette

Range of colors used to express subject matter or mood.

Primary Colors

Red, Blue, and Yellow Base colors that cannot be created by mixing.

RGB

Red, green, and blue refers to a system for representing the colors to be used on a computer display. Red, green, and blue can be combined in various proportions to obtain any color in the visible spectrum. Levels range from 0 to 100 percent of full intensity.

Saturation

Referred to as "intensity" and "chroma." It refers to the dominance of hue in the color. On the outer edge of the hue wheel are the 'pure' hues. As you move into the center of the wheel, the hue we are using to describe the color dominates less and less.

Art Deco

Referred to as..., is a style of visual arts, architecture and design that first appeared in France just before World War I. Influenced the design of buildings, furniture, jewellery, fashion, cars, movie theatres, trains, ocean liners, and everyday objects such as radios and vacuum cleaners. It took its name, short for ..., from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes (International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts) held in Paris in 1925. It combined modernist styles with fine craftsmanship and rich materials. During its heyday, represented luxury, glamour, exuberance, and faith in social and technological progress.

Pyrometer

Refers to a mechanical device used for determining the temperature in a kiln. It is associated with the measurement of temperature at which pyrometric cones bend in a kiln. Also refers to a kind of remote sensing thermometer which is used to calculate temperature. Different forms of...have existed in the past.

Repetition

Refers to one object or shape repeated; pattern is a combination of elements or shapes repeated in a recurring and regular arrangement; rhythm--is a combination of elements repeated, but with variations.

Solvent

Refers to the ability of a substance to dissolve another. It is also used in a process of art technique known as transfer print.

Fat Over Lean

Refers to the principle in oil painting of applying paint with a higher oil to pigment ratio over paint with a lower oil to pigment ratio to ensure a stable paint film, since it is believed that the paint with the higher oil content remains more flexible.

Cloisonné

Relating to, or being a style of enamel decoration in which the enamel is applied and fired in raised cells (as of soldered wires) on a usually metal background — compare champlevé

Proportion

Relation of one part to another; balance.

Robert Adam

Scottish architect and predominant in introducing the neoclassical style to Great Britain. The ...style, as it became known, adopted the motifs of antiquity even if it remained somewhat rococo in its emphasis on surface ornamentation and refinement of scale. He envisaged his designs as a whole, creating interiors and furnishings befitting a classical building, using color and pattern reminiscent of the newly discovered Roman wall paintings. Manufacturers such as Josiah Wedgwood and Matthew Boulton were quick to realize the commercial opportunities that ...designs offered by creating wares suited to these neo-classical interiors.

Kinetic Art

Sculptural constructions, having movable parts activated by motor, wind, hand pressure, or other direct means and often having additional variable elements, as shifting lights. Alexander Calder

Positive Space

Shapes or spaces in an image that represent solid objects, forms, subject of artwork.

USB

Short for Universal Serial Bus, is an industry standard that defines cables, connectors and communications protocols for connection, communication, and power supply between computers and devices.

Glaze Components

Silica-base material, Aluminum oxide-stiffening, Flux-lowers melting point, Colorants-added for hue.

Serigraphy

Silkscreen printing. A combination of the Latin word for "silk", seri, and the Greek word for "to write", graphos... This ancient method of duplicating an original painting is one of the oldest forms of printing. It is created when paint is 'pushed' through a silkscreen onto paper or canvas. A different screen is used for each color in the print, and this results in a print with great color density and many qualities of the original piece in terms of color saturation.

Salvador Dalí

Spanish Surrealist painter and printmaker, influential for his explorations of subconscious imagery. It was not until the late 1920s, however, that two events brought about the development of his mature artistic style: his discovery of Sigmund Freud's writings on the erotic significance of subconscious imagery and his affiliation with the Paris Surrealists, a group of artists and writers who sought to establish the "greater reality" of the human subconscious over reason. To bring up images from his subconscious mind,

Leather Hard

Stage of the clay between plastic and bone dry. Clay is still damp enough to join it to other pieces using slip. For example, this is the stage handles are applied to mugs.

Greek Buildings

Temples to the Gods, Cut stone block walls, Form rectangular, Post and lintel support, Doric, Ionic column style, Painting stylized figures floating, Sculpture idealized the Gods, Subject of art mythology.

Ravenna's Church of San Vitale

The "Basilica of San Vitale" is a church in Ravenna, Italy, and one of the most important examples of early Christian Byzantine art and architecture in Europe. The church has an octagonal plan. The building combines Roman elements: the dome, shape of doorways, and stepped towers; with Byzantine elements: polygonal apse, capitals, narrow bricks, and an early example of flying buttresses. The church is most famous for its wealth of Byzantine mosaics, the largest and best preserved outside of Constantinople. The church is of extreme importance in Byzantine art.

Chinoiserie

The European interpretation and imitation of Chinese and East Asian artistic traditions, especially in the decorative arts, garden design, architecture, literature, theater, and music. 17th century, this trend was popularized in the 18th century due to the rise in trade with China and East Asia. As a style, is related to the Rococo style.

Burnishing

The ancient rubbing process of burnishing polishes the outside skin of a clay pot while greatly reducing its porosity. This finishing is done by hand, using a stone or a metal piece which is usually embedded in a wad of wet clay that perfectly fits the burnisher's hand.

Foreground

The area of space in a perspective picture, depicted as nearest the viewer.

Typography

The art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable, and appealing when displayed.

Romanesque

The art of Europe from approximately 1000 AD to the rise of the Gothic style in the 13th century, or later, depending on region. The preceding period is known as the Pre-Romanesque period. Architecture is an architectural style of medieval Europe characterized by semi-circular arches.

Mannerism

The artistic style which gained popularity in the period following the High Renaissance, takes as its ideals the work of Raphael and Michelangelo Buonarroti. It is considered to be a period of technical accomplishment but also of formulaic, theatrical and overly stylized work. El Greco Characterized by a complex composition, with muscular and elongated figures in complex poses. Discussing Michelangelo in his journal, Eugène Delacroix gives as good a description as any of the limitations of Mannerism:

Couch Sheet

The board or felt blanket on which wet pulp is laid for drying into paper sheets.

The Great Mosque of Córdoba

The building is most notable for its arcaded hypostyle hall, with 856 columns of jasper, onyx, marble, and granite. Made from pieces of the Roman temple which had occupied the site previously, as well as other destroyed Roman buildings, such as the Mérida amphitheatre. The double arches were a new introduction to architecture, permitting higher ceilings than would otherwise be possible with relatively low columns. The double arches consist of a lower horseshoe arch and an upper semi-circular arch

Indigo

The color is named after the indigo dye derived from the plant Indigofera tinctoria and related species. The first known recorded use of indigo as a color name in English was in 1289. Species of Indigofera were cultivated in Peru, India, East Asia and Egypt in antiquity. The earliest direct evidence for the use of indigo dates to around 4000 BCE and comes from Huaca Prieta, in contemporary Peru.

CMYK

The color model (process color, four color) is a subtractive color model, used in color printing, and is also used to describe the printing process itself. Refers to the four inks used in some color printing: cyan, magenta, yellow, and key (black).

Font

The combination of typeface and other qualities, such as size, pitch, and spacing. For example, Times Roman is a typeface that defines the shape of each character. Within Times Roman, however, there are many fonts to choose from -- different sizes, italic, bold, and so on.

Crazing

The cracking of a glaze on a fired pot. It is the result of the glaze shrinking more than the clay body in cooling process.

Stippling

The creation of a pattern simulating varying degrees of solidity or shading by using small dots. Such a pattern may occur in nature and these effects are frequently emulated by artists.

Negative Space

The empty or open space around an object that defines it.

Renaissance Architecture

The four R's. Rome, Rules, Reason, Arithmetic

Bracketing

The general technique of taking several shots of the same subject using different camera settings. Is useful and often recommended in situations that make it difficult to obtain a satisfactory image with a single shot, especially when a small variation in exposure parameters has a comparatively large effect on the resulting image.

Underpainting

The initial or lowest layers of paint put down in a painting, before the details of the painting are put down. Some artists use underpainting to establish tonal values in a painting, effectively painting a monochrome version of the final painting to get all the tones right before adding color. Others use to establish areas of color as a first step in building up colors through glazes.

Rib vault

The intersection of two to three barrel vaults produces a ...vault when they are edged with an armature of piped masonry often carved in decorative patterns; compare groin vault, an older form of vault construction.

Warp

The lengthwise or longitudinal thread in a roll. Yarns that are held in tension on a frame or loom to create cloth. Traditional fibres for warping are wool, linen, alpaca, and silk. Yarn must be strong, yarn for ... ends is usually spun and plied fibre.

Egg Tempera

The main method of applying paint to panel throughout the early renaissance. As the title suggests the pigment is mixed with egg, using the white of the egg or the yolk results in different effects, the mixture is fast drying and permanent.

Kwakiutl Masks

The masks are highly valued by the ..., serving as potent manifestations of ancestral spirits and supernatural beings and offering these supernatural entities temporary embodiment and communication through dance and other kinds of performance. Northwest Coastal tribes.

Kouros

The modern term given to free-standing ancient Greek sculptures which first appear in the Archaic period in Greece and represent nude male youths. In Ancient Greek means "youth, boy, especially of noble rank".

Neoclassicism

The name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theater, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome. Neoclassicism was born in Rome in the mid-18th century, but its popularity spread all over Europe. Its rigidity was a reaction to the overbred Rococo style and the emotional charged Baroque style. The rise was part of a general revival of interest in classical thought, which was of some importance in the American and French revolutions.

Intaglio printing

The opposite of relief printing, in that the printing is done from ink that is below the surface of the plate. The design is cut, scratched, or etched into the printing surface or plate, which can be copper, zinc, aluminum, magnesium, plastics, or even coated paper.

Academic Art

The painting and sculpture produced under the influence of the Academies in Europe and especially France, where many artists received their formal training. It is characterized by its highly polished style, its use of mythological or historical subject matter, and its moralistic tone. Neoclassical Art was also closely associated with the Academies. The term is associated particularly with the French Academy and the 19th century salons at which art was submitted for display and prizes were awarded. Artists such as Jean-Leon Gerome and Bouguereau epitomize this style.

Darkroom Process for Black/White Photo

The paper that has been exposed is processed, first by immersion in photographic developer, halting development with a stop bath,and fixing the image in a photographic fixer. The print is then washed in water to remove processing chemical. Then hung to dry.

Genre painting

The pictorial representation in any of various media of scenes or events from everyday life, such as markets, domestic settings, interiors, parties, inn scenes, and street scenes. Such representations (also called genre works, genre scenes, or genre views) may be realistic, imagined, or romanticized by the artist.

Modeling

The process of producing sculptured form with some plastic material, as clay. The technique of rendering the illusion of volume on a two-dimensional surface by shading.

Impasto

The process or technique of laying on paint or pigment thickly so that it stands out from a surface. Paint applied thickly.

Intensity

The quality of brightness and purity (high= color is strong and bright; low= color is faint and dull).

Sainte-Chapelle

The royal chapel is a prime example of the phase of Gothic architectural style called "Rayonnant", marked by its sense of weightlessness and strong vertical emphasis. It stands squarely upon a lower chapel, which served as parish church for all the inhabitants of the palace, which was the seat of government. The finest of their type in the world, are the great stained glass windows, for whose benefit the stone wall surface is reduced to little more than a delicate framework. Fifteen huge mid-13th-century windows fill the nave and apse, while a large rose window with Flamboyant tracery (added to the upper chapel c. 1490) dominates the western wall.

Iconography

The science of identification, description, classification, and interpretation of symbols, themes, and subject matter in the visual arts. The term can also refer to the artist's use of this imagery in a particular work.

Soldering

The small piece of alloyed metal that is melted in order to fuse two other pieces of metal together. The place where the metals are fused by ... is called a joint. The metal is of a lower melting temperature than the two pieces it's fusing. Comes in three types: hard, medium, and easy. All three types have different melting temperatures. Used in jewelry and stained glass fabrication.

Roman Sculpture

The strengths of ...sculpture are in portraiture, where they were less concerned with the ideal than the Greeks or Ancient Egyptians, and produced very characterful works, and in narrative relief scenes. Examples of ... sculpture are abundantly preserved, in total contrast to ...painting, which was very widely practiced but has almost all been lost. Latin and some Greek authors, particularly Pliny the Elder in Book 34 of his Natural History, describe statues, and a few of these descriptions match extant works. While a great deal of ..., especially in stone, survives more or less intact, it is often damaged or fragmentary; life-size bronze statues are much more rare as most have been recycled for their metal. Most statues were actually far more lifelike and often brightly colored when originally created; the raw stone surfaces found today is due to the pigment being lost over the centuries.

Tooth

The surface feel of paper. The more a paper has, the rougher it feels. The "texture," or "smoothness" of the paper. Cold press paper has lots of ...; there are many tiny bumps and grooves that retain water and pigment (Charcoal/Watercolor). The smoothest paper is hot press paper (Pen and Ink/Pencil).

Painterly

The term used to describe a painting done in a style that embraces, shows, and celebrates the paint medium that it is created in (be it oil paint, acrylics, pastels, gouache, watercolor, etc.), rather than a style that tries to hide the act of creation. It is a loose and expressive approach to the process of painting in which the brushstrokes are visible, rather than one that is controlled and rational, and tries to hide the brushstrokes.

Chacmool

The term used to refer to a particular form of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican sculpture depicting a reclining figure with its head facing 90 degrees from the front, supporting itself on its elbows and supporting a bowl or a disk upon its stomach. Found at Tula, home of the Toltec civilization near present day Mexico City, and Chichen Itza,

Aperture

The unit of measurement that defines the size of the opening in the lens that can be adjusted to control the amount of light reaching the film or digital sensor.

Shutter Speed

The unit of measurement which determines how long shutter remains open as the picture is taken. The slower the shutter speed, the longer the exposure time. The shutter speed and aperture together control the total amount of light reaching the sensor. Shutter speeds are expressed in seconds or fractions of a second. For example 2, 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250, 1/500, 1/1000, 1/2000, 1/4000, 1/8000. Each speed increment halves the amount of light.

Hatching

The use of non-overlapping parallel lines to convey darkness or lightness

Institutionalism

The view championed by George Dickie in 1974, following on work by Arthur Danto, that art institutions such as museums and galleries, and specific agents working within them, have the power to dictate what is art and what is not. There is no property of being a work of art other than being deemed to be such by authorized members of the art world. Like other social constructivist views, the theory has some difficulty understanding what the experts go on when they themselves debate whether something should be counted as art.

Foreshortening

The visual effect or optical illusion that causes an object or distance to appear shorter than it actually is because it is angled toward the viewer. Additionally, an object is often not scaled evenly: a circle often appears as an ellipse and a square can appear as a trapezoid.

Deckle

The wooden frame used in papermaking. The ...leaves the edges of the paper slightly irregular and wavy, called "... edges."

Minoan

This civilization flourished in the middle Bronze Age on the Mediterranean island of Crete from ca. 2000 BCE until ca. 1500 BCE and, with their unique art and architecture, made a significant contribution to the development of Western European civilization as it is known today.The most famous image of bull-leaping is probably the Bull-Leaping Fresco from the palace at Knossos, Crete, Greece. The fresco was painted around 1400 BCE, and depicts a young man performing what appears to be a handspring or flip over a charging bull.

Baroque

This style is characterized by exaggerated motion and clear detail used to produce drama, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, architecture, literature, dance, and music. Painters like Poussin and Dutch genre painters such as Vermeer are also covered by the term, at least in English. Bernini

Fire

To heat a clay object in a kiln to a specific temperature. Firebrick - An insulation brick used to hold the heat in the kiln and withstand high temperatures.

Etching

Traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. ... The plate is then dipped in a bath of acid, technically called the mordant (French for "biting") or etchant, or has acid washed over it.

Greenware

Unfired pottery. Ready to be bisque fired.

Terracotta

Unglazed, typically brownish-red earthenware, used chiefly as an ornamental building material and in modeling.

Mirrors

Used by artists to create works and hone their craft: Filippo Brunelleschi discovered linear perspective with the help of this. Leonardo da Vinci called this the "master of painters". He recommended, "When you wish to see whether your whole picture accords with what you have portrayed from nature take a mirror and reflect the actual object in it. Compare what is reflected with your painting and carefully consider whether both likenesses of the subject correspond, particularly in regard to the..." Many self-portraits are made possible through the use of this: ... Without this the great self-portraits by Dürer, Frida Kahlo, Rembrandt, and Van Gogh could not have been painted. M. C. Escher used special shapes of... in order to achieve a much more complete view of his surroundings than by direct observation in Hand with Reflecting Sphere (also known as Self-Portrait in Spherical Mirror).

Composite cables

Used for standard definition connections. There are three separate colored wires in a ...: Red and white for left audio and right audio. Yellow for video.

The High Renaissance

Was the culmination of the artistic developments of the Early Renaissance, and one of the great explosions of creative genius in history. It is notable for three of the greatest artists in history: Michelangelo Buonarroti, Raphael Sanzio and Leonardo da Vinci. Also active at this time were such masters as Giorgione, Titian and Giovanni Bellini. By about the 1520s, ... art had become exaggerated into the style known as Mannerism.

Overlapping

When objects that are closer to the viewer prevent the view of objects that are behind them.

Intaglio

Where ink is applied beneath the original surface of the matrix. Techniques include engraving, etching, mezzotint, aquatint.

Relief

Where ink is applied to the original surface of the matrix. Techniques include woodcut or woodblock as the Asian forms are usually known, wood engraving, linocut and metalcut.

Stencil

Where ink or paint is pressed through a prepared screen, including screenprinting and pochoir.

Planographic

Where the matrix retains its original surface, but is specially prepared and/or inked to allow for the transfer of the image. Techniques include lithography, monotyping, and digital techniques

Porcelain

White stoneware, made from clay prepared from feldspar, china clay, flint and whiting.

Tertiary Colors

yellow-orange, red-orange, red-violet, blue-violet, blue-green, yellow-green Primary color mixed with adjacent secondary color on the color wheel.