ART Chapter 17 Terms
humanism
A cultural and intellectual movement during the Renaissance, following the rediscovery of the art and literature of ancient Greece and Rome.
still life
A painting of inanimate objects, such as flowers, fruit, other food items, and domestic utensils.
Mannerism
A style that arose in central Italy in the mid-sixteenth century, characterized by stylized and mannered expressions, often revolting against the balanced Classicism of the High Renaissance.
Rococo
A style used in interior decoration and painting in France and southern Germany in the eighteenth century, characterized by small-scale and ornate decoration, pastel colors, and organic arrangement of curves.
genre painting
A type of art that takes as its subject everyday life, rather than civic leaders, religious figures, or mythological heroes.
contrapposto
Italian for "counterpose;" the counterpositioning of parts of the human figure about a central vertical axis, as when the weight is placed on one foot causing the hip and shoulder lines to counterbalance each other - often in a graceful S-curve.
chiaroscuro
Italian word meaning "light dark;" the gradations of light and dark values in two-dimensional imagery, especially the illusion of rounded, three-dimensional form created through gradations of light and shade rather than line.
Renaissance
The period in Europe from the late fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries, characterized by a renewed interest in human-centered classical art, literature, and learning.
foreshortening
The representation of forms on a two-dimensional surface by shortening the length in such a way that the long axis appears to project toward or recede away from the viewer.
Baroque
The seventeenth-century period in Europe characterized in the visual arts by dramatic light and shade, turbulent composition, and pronounced emotional expression.
linear perspective
Used to create an illusion of depth or three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface, it is based on the fact that parallel lines or edges appear to converge and objects appear smaller as the distance between them and the viewer increases.
