ART 1009 Quiz #1

Fine Art

Painting, drawing, sculpture, sometimes print. It's usually made with skill and creative imagination and is pleasing or beautiful to look at and is aimed towards a smaller audience.

Time and Motion in Photography

Photographers move around the subject and are concerned with motion and time.

Geometric

Predictable and mathematical.

Background

The part of a work depicted furthest from the viewer's space, often behind the main subject matter.

Vanishing Point

The point in a work of art at which imaginary sight lines appear to converge, suggesting depth.

Rhythm

The regular or ordered repetition of elements in the work.

Positive-negative

The relationship between contrasting opposites.

Proportion

The relationship in size between a work's individual parts and whole. It enhances expressive and descriptive characteristics of a work.

Scale

The size of an object or artwork relative to another object or artwork, or to a system of measurement. Artists make conscious choices about scale, depending on the message being presented

Volume

The space filled or enclosed by a three-dimensional figure or object.

Texture

The surface quality of a work, for example fine/coarse, detailed/lacking in detail.

Principles

The ways the elements of art are constructed in a work of art - contrast, balance, unity, variety, rhythm, emphasis, pattern, scale, proportion, and focal point. "the grammar"

Psychological Analysis

This type of analysis investigates artwork through consideration of the state of the artist's mind. Sometimes such interpretations make use of important psychological studies, such as those of Sigmund Freud or Carl Jung.

Geometric Form

Three-dimensional form composed of regular planes and curves. Readily expressible in math or words. Example: cubes, spheres, pyramids

The Attributes of Time

Time-based arts, such as film, embody six basic attributes of time: duration, tempo, intensity, scope, setting, and chronology.

Actual Line

A continuous, uninterrupted line.

Contrast

A drastic difference between such elements as color or value when they are presented together. Example: Positive and negative shapes.

Logo

A graphic image used to identify an idea or entity. Example of communicative lines.

Balance

A principle of art in which the elements are used to create a symmetrical or asymmetrical sense of visual weight in an artwork.

Engraving

A printmaking technique where the artist gouges or scratches the image into the surface of the printing plate.

Positive Shape

A shape defined by its surrounding empty space.

Who Makes Art?

A single individual or many people; basically anyone.

Op Art

A style of art that exploits the physiology of seeing in order to create illusory optical effects.

Linear Perspective

A system using converging imaginary sight lines to create the illusion of depth.

Shape

A two-dimensional area the boundaries of which are defined by lines or suggested by changes in color or value.

Mass

A volume that has, or gives the illusion of having weigh, density, and bulk.

Conceptual Art

A work in which the communication of an idea or group of ideas are most important to the work.

Visual Culture

All images we encounter. Art reflects visual culture in which it was created, not just the creative achievement of its maker.

Highlight

An area of lightest value in a work.

Implied Motion

When artists imply motion, they give us clues that a static work of art portrays a scene in which motion is occurring or has just occurred. We don't actually see the motion happening.

Stroboscopic Motion

When we see two or more repeated images in quick succession, they tend to visually fuse together.

Gender Studies Analysis

Expands the considerations raised by feminist analysis to explore ways in which the work reflects experience based on a person's gender. It can also reflect the intentions of an artist, the perspective of a viewer, the interpretation of a critic, or all three.

Feminist Analysis

Inspired by feminism. It considers the role of women in an artwork as its subjects, creators, patrons, and viewers. It can reflect the intentions of an artist, the perspective of a viewer, the interpretation of a critic, or a combination of two or three of these.

Formal Analysis

Involves looking closely and in detail at the work in order to consider how the formal elements and principles of art are used to create it and convey meaning

Contextual Analysis -Religious Analysis -Historical Analysis -Biographical Analysis

Looks at the making and viewing of the work in its context: it studies the atmosphere and ideas, often from a particular time or culture, which the artwork itself includes and reflects. Various aspects of context can be considered; for example, religious, historical, and biographical analysis are all types of contextual analysis.

Regular and Irregular Lines

Most works have both.

Two-Dimensional

having height and width (shape)

Three-Dimensional

having height, width, and length (form, volume, mass, texture)

Organic Form

Three-dimensional form made up of unpredictable, irregular planes that suggest the natural world.

Implied Line

A line not actually drawn but suggested by elements in the work.

Etching

A printmaking process that uses acid to bite (or etch) the engraved design into the printing surface.

Style

A characteristic way in which an artist or group of artists uses visual language to give a work an identifiable form of expression.

Foreground

The part of a work depicted as nearest to the viewer.

Surrealism, Surrealist

An artistic movement in the 1920s and later; its works were inspired by dreams and the subconscious

Triptych

An artwork comprising three painted or carved panels, normally joined together and sharing a common theme.

Negative Shape

An empty space given shape by its surround, for example the right-pointing arrow between E and x in FedEx.

Negative Space

An empty space given shape by its surround. (FedEx)

Form

An object that can be defined in three dimensions (h, w, l).

Facade

Any side of a building, usually the front or entrance.

What is Art?

Art has many purposes. It can be made from almost anything and communicates sensations, ideas, and emotions by visual means. It's a form of language and can help us see the world in new ways.

Abstract

Art imagery that departs from recognizable images from the natural world.

The Visual World

Art is part of a wider context of things we experience.

The Influence of Las Meninas

Artists often study and copy the work of those they truly admire. At the age of 76, Picasso set his skills against earlier Spanish master Velazquez. Thomas Struth used photography to create his view of the work.

Art and Creativity

Artists, trained and untrained, share a creative impulse. People naturally respond to images and seek to express themselves visually.

Graphic Arts

Books, posters, advertising, social media, television, computer screens, etc. Those made by a method that enables reproduction of many copies of the same thing. Considered less important and perhaps less accomplished than fine arts. Geared towards a larger audience. Communication is essential.

Iconographic Analysis

Iconography - "image writing" or "writing with images" - refers to the visual images and symbols used in a work of art as well as the interpretation of the work's meaning. Iconographic analysis identifies objects and figures in an artwork as signs or symbols that can reflect religious or historical contexts, and the meaning of which was often directly understood at a particular time by a specific culture, but may now be less apparent to us.

Stylistic Analysis

Style in art is the particular combination of characteristics that make a work (or works) of art distinctive. Stylistic analysis focuses on these characteristics in a way that clearly identifies how they typify the work of an individual, are shared by a group of artists to create a movement, or are concentrated in a particular place or time period.

Automatic

Suppressing conscious control to access subconscious sources of creativity and truth. (lines to express freedom and passion ~ irregular)

Elements

The basic vocabulary of art - line, form, shape, volume, mass, color, texture, space, time and motion, and value (lightness/darkness).

Focal Point

The center of interest or activity in a work of art, often drawing the viewer's attention to the most important element

Perspective

The creation of the illusion of depth in a two-dimensional image by using mathematical principles.

Depth

The degree of recession in perspective.

Anamorphosis

The distorted representation of an objects so that it appears correctly proportioned only when viewed from one particular position.

Motion

The effect of changing placement in time.

Value

The lightness or darkness of a plane or area.

Content

The meaning, message, or feeling expressed in a work of art.

Line

The most fundamental element. It connects two points and can direct the viewer's eye. It also conveys a sense of movement.

Contour Line

The outer edge or profile of an object. They can suggest volume in space by giving us clues about the changing character of a surface. Example: Henri Matisse's Themes and Variations, series P, Woman Seated in an Armchair.

Outline

The outermost line or implied of an object or figure, by which it is defined or bounded.