Design Basics Chapter 8: Shape/Volume

Distortion

A departure from an accepted perception of a form or object. Often manipulates established proportional standards.

Cubist

A form of abstraction that emphasizes planes and multiple perspectives.

Art Nouveau

A late 19th century style that emphasized organic shapes.

Abstraction

A visual representation that may have little resemblance to the real world. It can occur through a process of simplification or distortion in an attempt to communicate an essential aspect of a form or concept.

Shape

A visually perceived area created either by an enclosing line or by color and value changes defining the outer edges.

Realism

An approach to artwork based on the faithful reproduction of surface appearances with a fidelity of visual perception.

Caryatids

An architectural column in the form of a human figure.

Idealism

An artistic theory in which the world is not reproduced as it is but as it should be.

Rectilinear

Composed of straight lines.

Biomorphic

Describes shapes derived from organic or natural forms.

Anamorphic

Term used to describe an image that has been optically distorted.

Naturalism

The skillful representation of the visual image, forms, and proportions as seen in nature with an illusion of volume and three-dimensional space.

Form

When referring to objects, it is shape and structure of a thing. When referring to 2D artworks, it is the visual aspect of composition, structure, and the work as a whole.