An Arrangement of Nonmoving Objects That Is Subject Matter for Works of Art

A-Z Glossary of Art Terms

Brief explanation of terminology used in the theory and do of fine art.

A - B - C - D - E - F - Yard - H - I - J-L - G - Due north - O - PQ - R - S - T - U-Z

A

Aboriginal Rock Fine art
Usually refers to Australian rock painting and petroglyphs.
Abstract fine art
Ill-defined and very widely used term which in its most general sense describes any art in which class and colour are stressed at the expense, or in the absence of, a representational image. Also known equally concrete art or non-objective art.

Academic art
Literally, belonging to an Academy of art. Also: derogatory term meaning conventional, stereotyped, derivative.
Acrylic Painting
Uses a fast-drying, synthetic, water soluble paint that tin be used on near surfaces. Made from color pigments and a synthetic plastic binder, acrylic paint looks like oil and can be used in a variety of painting techniques.
Aegean Art
From various cultures around the eastern Mediterranean from c.2800 BCE to 1400 BCE, including Cycladic, Minoan (from Crete), and Mycenean.
Aeriform perspective
A way of suggesting the far distance in a landscape by using paler colours (sometimes tinged with blue), less pronounced tones, and vaguer forms in those areas that are uttermost from the viewer. By contrast objects in the foreground are painted in sharply outlined, brilliant, and warm colours, and groundwork objects are shown in muted, cooler colours.
Aesthetics
Philosophy applied to art, which attempts to formulate criteria for the understanding of the artful (rather than commonsensical) qualities of art.
African Art
Guide to classical African sculpture, religious and tribal artworks and more.
Airbrush
Instrument for spraying paint, propelled by compressed air. Invented in 1893, information technology has been much used by commercial artists, whether for fine lines, large areas, or subtle gradations of colour and tone.
Alabaster
In Antiquity, a carbonate of lime used in Egyptian sculpture, peculiarly for small-scale portable pieces. Besides: modern alabaster, a lime sulfate which tin can exist highly polished only is easily scratched, popular in 14th-century Europe for tomb effigies.
Alla prima
Technique, commonly used in painting since the 19th century, whereby an artist completes a painting in one session without having provided layers of underpainting.
Allegory
An allegory is the description of a subject in the guise of some other subject. An emblematic painting might include figures allegorical of different emotional states of mind, for instance envy or dearest, or personifying other abstract concepts, for instance sight, celebrity, or dazzler. These are called allegorical figures. The interpretation of an allegory therefore depends showtime on the identification of such figures, but even and then the meaning can remain elusive.
All-over space
Jackson Pollock was the kickoff creative person to apply all-over space in his "baste" paintings. Information technology refers to paintings where there is no focal point but where everything on the canvas has the same degree of importance.
Altarpiece
In Christian church architecture, the picture or decorated screen backside the chantry. It may consist of a unmarried painting or an elaborate group of hinged panels.
Ancient Art
Umbrella term encompassing early forms of artistic expression from ancient Mediterranean civilizations, like Sumerian, Egyptian, Minoan, Mycenean, Persian.
Animalier (Animal Artist)
Term was originally used to describe the 19th-century school of French statuary sculptors who specialized in pocket-sized brute figures. Information technology has since been extended to encompass animal painters, such every bit Sir Edwin Landseer (1802-73), best-known for his portraits of dogs.
Animal style
Type of nomad art originating with the Celts in the 7th century BCE in southern Russia and the Caucasus; it was characterized by the predominance of animal motifs (zoomorphs), oft distorted, ornamenting all kinds of portable objects including metalwork, textiles, forest and bone.
Blitheness Fine art
The creation of a movement film from a series of still drawings.
Antiquity
Greek and Roman civilization until the autumn of the Roman Empire in the fifth century Ad. Greek and Roman sculpture was admired during the Renaissance as an ideal art, and study of The Antiquarian formed the ground of the curriculum in nigh art academics.
Applied art
The designing and decorating of functional objects or materials to requite them aesthetic appeal, e.g. press type, ceramics, glass, piece of furniture, metal piece of work and textiles. The term is ofttimes used to differentiate this type of work from the fine arts (painting, drawing, sculpture) whose value is primarily aesthetic.
Applique
Cloth ornament in which cut fabric shapes are stitched to a fabric ground every bit a design.
Aquatint etching
Procedure whereby acid is immune to bite into a copper plate prepared with resin which is then inked and printed.
Arabesque
Motif based on interlaced constitute forms, found in the fine and decorative arts, in architecture, and particularly typical of Islamic blueprint.
Primitive Greek art
Greek fine art of the mid twelfth century BCE to c.480 BCE; i of four convenient divisions of Greek art, the others existence Geometric, Classical and Hellenistic.
Architecture
Science or art of building. Too: the structure or mode of what is built. See Architecture: History/Styles.
Armature
Framework or skeleton on which a sculptor molds his clay.
Armory Evidence
International exhibition of modern fine art held in New York in 1913 in the 69th Regiment Armory building. Exhibits included the piece of work of the more Avant-Garde The states artists and of the School of Paris. The exhibition was enormously popular and marked the nativity of a real interest in modernistic fine art in 20th-century America.
Fine art
A class of creative expression. For explanation, see: Definition and Meaning of Art. For forms and categories, see: Types of Art.
Art Brut
A term used to describe drawings, paintings and any other form of art done by untrained or amatuer artists. Could be applied to drawings done by children, people who are mentally ill or anyone who is does not describe themselves equally an "artist" or who are not painting commercially.
Art Critics
Commentators and analysts of the visual arts.
Art Evaluation
How to gauge the aesthetics, craftsmanship and artistic technique of a painting.
Art Schools
The term usually refers to tertiary colleges offering Bachelor of Fine Arts Degrees (BFA), Bachelor of Design Degrees (BDes), as well as BAs in practical art subjects.
Artifact (or artefact)
Any object of man workmanship. Also: (archeology) an object of prehistoric or aboriginal fine art, as distinguished from a like but naturally occurring object.
Arts and Crafts Motion
Mid-19th-century artistic movement in England, inspired by John Ruskin and William Morris; it attempted to enhance the standards of design and craftsmanship in the applied arts, and to reassert the craftsman'southward individuality in the face of increasing mechanization.
Asian Fine art
Architectures, craft from China, Nihon, Korea, SE Asia and the Indian subcontinent.
Assemblage Art
Mod class consisting of objects nerveless and assembled together; the components are pre-formed, not made by the creative person, and not intended originally as "fine art material".
Automatism in Art
Cartoon and painting method associated with Surrealism in which the artist does not consciously create but doodles, assuasive the subconscious heed and nigh uncontrolled movement of the mitt to produce an epitome.
Avant-garde
Artists whose piece of work is ahead of that of most of their contemporaries; anarchistic, experimental, innovative. Also descriptive of the piece of work produced by such artists.

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B

Bacchanal
Mythological scene pop in paintings of the Renaissance and 17th century depicting the revels of Bacchus, Roman god of wine.
Background
Scene in painting which provides setting for main figures or design; sometimes used synonymously with ground.
Bamboccianti
Grouping of painters who specialized in bambocciate (Fr. bambochades): low-life and peasant scenes, pop in the Netherlands and Italy in the 17th century. The name derives from Pieter van Laer (1592-1642), a Dutch painter nicknamed "Il Bamboccio" ("Large Baby").
Banketjea or banquet piece
Banketjea is a Dutch word which means "petty banquet". A Banketjea is the name given to a nonetheless life painting which features a range of luxury foods and expensive serving pieces.
Bizarre classicism
classical style - exemplified in the paintings of Nicolas Poussin and the architecture of Carlo Fontana which flourished during the Baroque flow.
Bas-relief
Form of sculpting characterized by only a slight project from the surrounding surface.
Batik
An artform which employs wax resistant designs on dyed textile fabrics.
Bauhaus
A highly influential school (1919-33) of avant-garde blueprint, founded past Walter Gropius (1883-1969) in Weimar. Synonymous with modernist architecture and arts & crafts.
Bayeux Tapestry
Anglo-Saxon embroidery depicting the Norman Conquest in 1066.
Biennale (Europe), Biennial (America)
Arts events held every 2 years: see: Best Contemporary Art Festivals.
Biscuit
Unglazed white porcelain, popular in Europe from the mid 17th century.
Black-figure technique
Style of decoration of ancient Greek ceramics, chiefly of 6th-century BCE Corinth. Designs were painted on the object in blackness metal oxide paint and so incised through to the reddish clay.
Blocking in
Before starting a painting, an creative person may 'block-in' the composition of the painting using rough outlines or geometric shapes to prove him how everything fits on the canvas. Virtually all portrait painters use this 'blocking in' method.
Body Fine art
A type of gimmicky fine art in which the artist's body is the "canvas".
Body colour
Watercolour made opaque by mixing with white. As well: term used in painting to draw solid, definitive areas of colour which are then completed or modified with scumbles and glazes.
Torso Painting
Ancient fine art of decorating the trunk.
Statuary
Blend of copper and tin, used for cast sculpture. Bronze sculpture is made from this alloy. Hence bronzist, a maker of statuary sculpture, plaques, etc.
Brush
Implement for applying paint, usually of squealer or sable hair prepare in a wooden handle.
Castor stroke
The individual marker made by each application of paint with a Brush, usually retaining the marker of the separate brush hairs.
Brushwork
General term for manner or style in which pigment is applied, and ofttimes considered past art historians as an identifying characteristic of a particular creative person'southward piece of work.
Buon fresco, see: fresco.
Burin
Metallic tool used for engraving.
Bosom
Portrait sculpture showing the sitter's head and shoulders only. Come across Portrait Busts.
Byzantine Fine art
Of the eastern Roman Empire centred on Constantinople, formerly Byzantium, from the 4th century AD. At diverse times it embraced both Classical Greek realism and stylized, hieratic, Oriental fine art.

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C

Cabinet pic
small-scale or medium-sized painting executed at an easel, and designed for collectors, especially popular from the 17th century; see Easel Picture.
Calligraphy
The Oriental fine art of drawing/writing.
Photographic camera obscura (camera ottica)
device that uses a lens to project a reduced epitome of an object on to a flat surface so that the outline may be traced. Pop with artists from the Renaissance to the 18th century.
Canvas
The fabric support used for an oil or acrylic painting, unremarkably fabricated of linen or cotton fiber, stretched tightly and tacked onto a wooden frame. Linen is regarded equally superior to heavy cotton fiber in a canvas.
Caravaggism
Tendency to follow the manner of Caravaggio (1571-1610), exhibited past the Caravaggisti (17th-century painters working in Rome), who made specially dramatic use of chiaroscuro.
Extravaganza
Painting or cartoon, usually a portrait, that exaggerates features for humorous or satirical effect.
Carolingian fine art
European art of the menses covered past the reign of Charlemagne (CE 768-814) and his successors until CE 900; usually regarded as the foundation of medieval art.
Rug folio
In manuscript illumination, a page totally filled with decorative design.
Cartoon
Total-sized drawing for transferring blueprint to painting, mural, or tapestry. Also: comic drawing; caricature.
Casting
The duplication of a model in metallic or plaster by means of a mold; the model thus formed is a cast.
Catholic Art
Usually refers to the style of Catholic Counter-Reformation Art (c.1560-1700) which followed the Protestant Reformation.
Celadon
Chinese porcelain or stoneware with a distinctive gray-green glaze.
Celtic Art
Hallstatt and La Tene styles of metalwork, and abstract designs characterized by knots, spirals and interlace patterns.
Ceramics
The full general term used since the 19th century for pottery and porcelain, i.e. fired clay.
Chalk
The common proper noun for calcium carbonate, which is found every bit a natural deposit all over the world, and is equanimous of the remains of tiny crustaceans. Traditionally used in painting and cartoon.
Champleve enamel
Busy metallic, normally copper, especially popular in Europe from the 11th century to the 14th; a hollowed-out pattern in the metal was filled with coloured glass pastes and the whole object fired, thus fusing glass to metallic. (Compare Cloisonne enamel.)
Charcoal
Class of carbon used for drawing.
Chiaroscuro
The contrasting apply of light and shadow. artists who are famed for the employ of chiaroscuro include Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio and Rembrandt. Leonardo used chiaroscuro to heighten the 3-dimensionality of his figures, Caravaggio used it for drama, and Rembrandt for both reasons.
Chinese Art
One of the most ancient artistic traditions, noted for its calligraphic, ink-and-wash, ceramic and statuary artworks. See: Chinese Pottery.
Chinoiserie
Term for a European style of art applied to article of furniture, ceramics, interior pattern, based on imaginary pseudo-Chinese motifs.
Chip carving
Early primitive carved ornamentation of Northern European oak article of furniture, executed with a chisel and gouge, until about the 16th century.
Chi-Rho
A monogram (the Sacred Monogram) formed by the first 2 letters - 10 and P (chi and rho) - of the Greek give-and-take for Christ. In religious art information technology may refer to the Resurrection of Christ.
Christian Fine art
Church architecture, painting, sculpture or decorative art associated with a Christian message.
Cinquecento
Italian for the 16th century. Traditionally refers to Italian fine art (1500-1600).
Cire perdue (Fr."lost wax")
Casting process used in bronze sculpture.
Cityscape
Painting or drawing of city scenery.
Classicism
The quality of classic or classical art. The term is applied in particular to the type of art that was the antithesis of Romanticism during the 18th and 19th centuries, when it was held to represent the virtues of restraint and harmony, in contrast to dramatic private expression.
Cloisonne enamel
Decorated metal in which a design of metal strips is applied and the compartments (cloisons) formed are filled with coloured glass pastes. (Compare Champleve enamel.)
Collage Fine art ("pasting")
Technique originating with Cubism in which newspaper, photographs, and other everyday materials were pasted on to a back up, and sometimes also painted.
Colonial Fine art of America
17th/18th century portraiture, miniatures, architecture, furniture-making and crafts in America. For a comparison, see: Australian Colonial Painting (c.1780-1880).
Colorito
Renaissance term for colouring - mastery of colour in painting.
Colourism
Term applied to various periods of painting, e.chiliad. 16th-century Venetian, in which colour was emphasized, rather than drawing. "colourist" is an artist who specializes in, or is famed for, his/her use of color.
Color
For a full general guide, encounter: Colour in Painting.
Color wheel
A diagrammatic chart showing the placement of colors in relationship to each other. For more details, encounter: Colour Theory in Painting.
Limerick, of a painting
Composition describes the complete piece of work of art, and in particular the mode that all its elements unite in an overall upshot. Compositional elements in a painting might include: size of canvas, bailiwick thing, focal points of the picture (if any), colour scheme, tonal warmth and contrasts, draughtsmanship, representation and meaning, among others.
Computer Fine art
Visual images either figurer-generated or calculator-controlled using software or hardware tools. Also referred to every bit Digital art.
Conceptualism/Conceptual Art
Form in which the concepts and ideas are more important than tangible, concrete works of art.
Concrete Art
Term coined in 1930 when Theo van Doesburg became editor of the magazine art Concret; it is sometimes used as a synonym for abstract art, though the emphasis is not only on geometric or abstract form, but on construction and arrangement in both blueprint and execution.
Conte crayon
Proprietary manufactured chalk.
Contemporary art
A rather loose term, used by museums to depict mail service-state of war art, and by art critics to refer to fine art since 1970.
Content, of a painting
This traditionally refers to the bulletin contained and communicated past the piece of work of fine art, embracing its emotional, intellectual, symbolic, and narrative content.
Contrapposto ("opposite", "anti-thesis", "placed confronting")
give-and-take used in sculpture, referring to the posing of human form so that caput and shoulders are twisted in a dissimilar management from hips and legs.
Crafts
A category embracing most decorative arts.
Curvilinear
Design or patternwork (eg. Etruscan/Celtic interlace) based on design of curved lines; sinuous.
Cycladic fine art
type of Aegean art from the Cyclades - a grouping of Greek islands - c.2800 BCE to 1100 BCE.

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D

Dark Ages
period of the Middle Ages from c.fifth century CE to 10th century, considered a phase in which philosophy and the arts were ignored or actively hindered.
Decalcomania (decalcomanie)
American term for lithography.
Decorative art
Commonage name for art forms like ceramics, tapestries, enamelling, stained glass, metalwork, paper art, textiles, and others, which are accounted to be ornamental or decorative, rather than intellectual or spiritual. Run into also: French Decorative Arts (c.1640-1792).
Decoupage
Victorian craft which involves the cut out of motifs from paper, gluing them to a surface and layering with varnish to give a completely smooth terminate.
Degenerate fine art ("Entartete Kunst")
Nazi propaganda term used from c.1937 for works of mod art disapproved of past the party.
Design (artistic)
The plan involved in making something co-ordinate to a set of aesthetics.
Diptych
Pair of painted or sculptured panels hinged or joined together; especially popular for devotional pictures in the Center Ages; run across altarpiece.
Direct carving
Method of stone sculpture where form is carved immediately out of the block, and not transferred from a model.
Disegno
Literally, "drawing" or "design", just which during the Renaissance acquired a broader meaning of overall concept.
Dome
Architectural feature plant on top of building similar the Pantheon in Rome, the Cathedral in Florence (Brunelleschi), Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome (Michelangelo and others), St Paul'south Cathedral in London (Christopher Wren) and the Pantheon in Paris, designed past Jacques-Germain Soufflot (1713-80).
Drawing
Refers to the monochrome use of pencil, charcoal, pen, ink, or similar mediums on paper, card or other support, producing linework or a linear quality rather than mass. When used of a painting, it refers more specifically to the artist's method of representing form past these means, rather than by the use of colour and paint.
Drypoint
Copper engraving technique.

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Eastward
Earthenware
pottery made from red or white clay, fired in a kiln at less than 1200 degrees Cent.
Easel
An upright support (typically a tripod) employed for holding an creative person's canvas while information technology is existence painted.
Easel painting (or motion picture)
modest or medium-sized painting executed at an easel. These were normally intended for collectors and conoisseurs, although the term may also be used generally for whatsoever portable painting, as opposed to mural painting.
Ecce human (Latin, "Behold the man")
the pictorial representation of Christ's presentation to the people past Pontius Pilate before the Crucifixion.
Emboss
to mould, stamp, or carve a surface to produce a blueprint in relief.
Enamelling
the process of fusing a vitreous substance (usually lead/potash glass) to metallic at high temperature (virtually 800 degrees Cent) - equally used in decorative metalwork and goldsmithing; see Cloisonne and Champleve.
Encaustic Painting
ancient technique of painting with wax and pigments fused by heat.
Engraving
the technique of incising lines on woods, metal etc. Likewise: the impression fabricated from the engraved block.
Etching
process in which the pattern is drawn on a metal plate through a wax footing; the blueprint is cut into the plate with acid, and printed. Also: a print produced by this method.
Ethnographic art
art inspired by a item racial culture, especially of the primitive blazon.
Extender
inert pigment used to bulk a paint or to lower the tinctorial strength of some other paint.

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F

Fabergé Easter Eggs
Objects of precious jewellery made by Russian business firm of fin de siecle goldsmiths and jewellers.
Faience
type of tin-glazed earthenware, frequently used for architectural purposes. Also: archeological term for a blazon of ancient pottery in Egypt, comprising wares of glazed powdered quartz.
Figurative art
synonym for representational fine art.
Figure cartoon (and figure painting)
Drawing or painting in which the human being figure predominates, ordinarily full length.
Figurine
small model or sculpture of the human figure, similar prehistoric Venus Figurines, such as Venus of Willendorf.
Fine art
art whose value is considered to be artful rather than functional, i.e. compages, sculpture, painting and drawing, and the graphic arts. Compare applied fine art and decorative art.
Bloom painting
still-life painting of flowers, associated chiefly with Oriental art and the Dutch painters of the 17th century.
Folk fine art
Traditional fine art of peasant societies, which includes utilitarian, decorative and applied arts and crafts.
Foreground
Refers to the area of the picture space closest to the viewer, immediately behind the picture plane. The next distant area is the middleground; the most distant is the groundwork.
Foreshortening
the utilize of the laws of perspective in art to make an individual grade appear three dimensional.
Course
Describes the elements in a piece of work of fine art which are independent of the emotional or interpretative significance of the piece of work: for example, the medium, calibration, shape, colour, dimensions, line, mass, texture, and their mutual relationships.
Formalism
the tendency to adhere to conventional forms at the expense of the subject field matter.
Found Objects
items that are found, non made past the artist, and and then defined and displayed as a work of art - besides known as an "objets trouves" - and associated with Surrealism and Dada.
Fresco Painting
Landscape painting on fresh plaster; sometimes called buon fresco ("true fresco") to distinguish it from painting "a secco", on dried plaster.
Fresco Secco
misleading term synonymous with painting "a secco".
Frottage (Fr. "rubbing") the technique of placing paper over textured objects or surfaces and rubbing with a wax crayon or graphite, to produce an prototype. Invented by Max Ernst.
Functionalism
the artistic theory that form should be adamant past function, specially in architecture and the decorative arts, and that this will automatically produce objects that are aesthetically pleasing.

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Thou

Genre-Painting
Blazon of picture featuring an everyday scene containing human being subjects.
Geometric Mode
Greek style of ornament, flourishing from c.900 to c.725 BCE, based on linear and angular shapes.
Georgian fine art
refers to the styles prevalent through the reigns of the four King Georges in Britain from 1714 to 1830. Normally refers to architecture, piece of furniture, silverish and the similar, rather than painting.
Gesso
by and large used for whatever mixture of an inert white pigment with gum, used as a footing for painting; strictly, a mixture in which the inert pigment is calcium sulfate. Gesso grosso is coarse gesso made from sifted plaster of Paris, used for the preliminary ground layer in medieval Italian console paintings. Gesso sottile is fine crystalline gypsum, made past slaking plaster of Paris in backlog water. Gesso can also be built upwardly or molded into relief designs, or carved.
Gestural painting
a term that originally came into use to describe the painting of the abstract Expressionist artists Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, Hans Hofmann and others. What they had in common was the application of pigment in free sweeping gestures with the brush.
Giclee Prints
Fine fine art printing process using inkjet printers.
Giornata
the area of work in mural or mosaic that could be finished in i 24-hour interval. In fresco painting, it refers to the area of intonaco applied each twenty-four hour period. In true fresco, the joins of the giornate are usually visible.
Drinking glass Painting
technique of decorating glass, not very clearly distinguished from drinking glass enameling, although information technology may be more transparent and smoother. Early glass painting was not fired, and therefore not permanent.
Coat
transparent layer of pigment applied over some other; lite passes through and is reflected dorsum, modifying or intensifying the underlayer. Likewise: vitreous layer made from silica, practical to pottery as ornamentation or to make it water-tight.
Goldsmithing (Goldsmithery)
The applied art or craft of metalworking in gold and argent.
Gouache
opaque watercolour pigment. Also: a work executed in gouache medium.
Graffiti Art
a gimmicky artform which outset appeared in Philadelphia and New York during the late 1960s/early1970s.
Grand Bout
A cultural trip effectually Europe, taking in the painting, sculpture and architecture of Paris, Florence, Venice, Rome, Naples, Vienna and other important centres of classical, Renaissance and Baroque art.
Graphic design
Derived from the High german word graphik. Describes the applied fine art of formulating/arranging image/text to communicate a message. It tin can be applied in whatever media, such as print, digital media, blitheness, packaging, and signs. See also: Graphic Art.
Grattage ("scraping")
Technique used by 20th-century artists, like Max Ernst (1891-1976), in which an upper layer of paint is partially scraped away to reveal the contrasting under-layer.
Greek Fine art
The foundation of Western painting and sculpture in full general and Renaissance art in particular.
Greek Sculpture
Sculptors from ancient Hellenic republic pioneered the development of statues and reliefs.
Greek vases
range of pots of dissimilar sizes, used for different purposes, most of which were often decorated if not painted. The two main styles were blackness-effigy and red-figure techniques.
Grisaille
technique of monochrome painting in shades of gray, used as underpainting or to imitate the effect of relief.
Basis
layer of preparation on a support to receive paint. Likewise: in etching, the acrid-resistant material spread over the metal plate earlier the design is etched. As well: in pottery, the dirt forming the body of a vessel on which a blueprint is executed.

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H

Hallstatt
The showtime identifiable continental civilization and art-way of the Celts (c.600-450 BCE). Followed past La Tene Celtic civilisation.
Hand Stencils
Prehistoric negative images of hands (fabricated by spray-painting through a tube): c.f. positive handprints.
Happenings
Blazon of Performance art. Spontaneous artistic event or display.
Hatching
cartoon technique that uses closely spaced parallel lines to bespeak toned areas. When crossed by other lines in the contrary management it is known as cantankerous-hatching.
Haut-relief (Alto-rilievo, high relief)
Form of sculptural relief characterized by a prominent project from the surrounding surface.
Hellenic
Greek civilization of the 11th century BCE to 323 BCE.
Hellenistic
Greek culture after Alexander the Corking (from 323 BCE) to the late 1st century BCE.
Bureaucracy of the Genres
The ranking arrangement promulgated by the fine arts academies which comprised 5 painting-genres. (1) History painting ("istoria", narrative compositions); (2) Portraiture (individual, group of self-portraits); (3) Genre-Painting (everyday scenes featuring human subjects); (4) Mural Painting (scenic view is paramount: human content, merely illustrative); (5) However Life (arrangements of domestic objects).
Hellenistic Art
describes Greek art from the death of Alexander the Not bad (323 BCE) to Rome'south defeat of Greece (c.27 BCE).
Hieratic
mode in which sure stock-still types, frequently sacred, are repeated, e.k. in Egyptian or Byzantine art. It may also exist applied to whatsoever art that uses severe, rigid figures rather than naturalistic ones.
Hieroglyphs
pictorial grade of writing, equally used by the Egyptians.
High art
art that strives to accomplish the highest aesthetic and moral qualities in both content and expression.
Historiated
architecture or sculpture busy with narrative subjects. A historiated initial is an initial in an illuminated manuscript containing a narrative scene.
History of Art
Guide to the origins, evolution and development of the fine and visual arts.
History of Art Timeline
Chronological listing of dates most the evolution of painting, sculpture and pottery.
History Painting
painting whose discipline is some significant historical event, preferably Classical, mythological, actual or literary. From the 16th century to the 19th, history painting was more highly esteemed than other forms of painting, particularly by the academies.
Holocaust Art
Includes Nazi propaganda works, images created by victims and postwar concentration camp memorials of the Shoah.
How to Appreciate Paintings
Explains how to analyse painterly skills and narrative content.

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I

Ice Sculpture
a contemporary form of plastic fine art which uses blocks of water ice as fabric.
Icons (Icon Painting) (Greek, "epitome", "portrait")
in Byzantine, Greek and Russian Orthodox church art, the representation of Christ or the Virgin, or saints, in mosaic or painting; tending to be stereotyped or hieratic; hence iconic.
Iconography
recognizable emblematic motifs and symbols in works of art.
Platonic art
Painting of diverse periods that is based on the artist'due south conception rather than visual perception, e.g. the art of the High Renaissance, or of 17th-century classicism.
Illumination
The decoration of manuscript texts which may accept started from the uncomplicated addition of minium to the script, the general part beingness written in black. From this grew quite extraordinary elaboration, fantastic interwoven strap patterns, decorative motifes, zoomorphic imagery, plant forms. miniature portraits of religious figures. It was i of the most of import arts of the Center Ages. Wherever in that location were monasteries the art seems to take been practised. The monastic scribe worked almost six hours a 24-hour interval. Later he had finished the piece of work was proof-read. Then the sheets went to a rubricator who put in titles and headlines, and so to the illuminator. The terminal worked miracles of miniature presentation with the materials at his control. The oldest known illumination is an Egyptian papyrus, the 'Volume of the Dead'. The Greeks and Romans produced some work, but very lilliputian survives. The Byzantine manuscripts contain some perfect examples. Fourteenth-century Persian editions of the Koran, exquisite frail designs. Among the famed European manuscripts are the 'Book of Hours' of the Duc de Berry produced by the Limbourg brothers (1410-13), and 'The Volume of Kells', 8th century, now in Trinity College Library, Dublin. The manuscripts were worked on vellum, using not only colours, but also gold-foliage and other metals, tiny fragments of precious and semi-precious stones and raising paste.
Illuminated Manuscripts
Handwritten book on vellum or parchment, ordinarily medieval, busy with miniature painting, borders, and decorative capital letters; hence illumination. Exemplars: Book of Kells, Lindisfarne Gospels, Book of Durrow.
Illusionism
The use of optical and perspectival principles to create the illusion of painted objects being three dimensional; hence illusionist, illusionistic.
Illustration
A method of enhancing written text by providing an illustration (pictorial explanation) of the written words.
Impasto
Thick mass of paint or pastel; hence impasted, or impastoed.
India Ink
In fine art, a drawing ink made from a black pigment consisting of lampblack and glue.
Ink and Launder Painting
Japanese and Chinese painting technique, using ink in the aforementioned way equally watercolour.
Installation Art
This typically employs mixed media (eg. sculpture and video), which typically fills an entire space, such as a room or gallery. Information technology is commonly site-specific.
Intaglio
decoration produced by cutting into a surface, used in engraving, carving, gem etching.
Intarsia
the decoration of wood with inlay piece of work, particularly in 15th-century Italy.
Interiors
a style of genre-painting perfected past Dutch Realists of the afterwards 17th century; afterward taken up by Danish artists like Peter Vilhelm Ilsted (1861-33) and Vilhelm Hammershoi (1864-1916).
International Gothic
since the 19th century, used to describe the style of art prevalent from c.1375 to 1425, balanced midway between naturalistic and idealistic values and characterized by frail and rich colouring.
Intonaco
the smooth layer of lime plaster that receives the paint in fresco painting.
Irish School
For details, see: Irish Painting and Irish Sculpture.
Islamic Fine art
Includes architecture, pottery, faience mosaics, lustre-ware, relief sculpture, drawing, painting, calligraphy, manuscript illumination, material design, metalwork, gemstone carving, and other crafts.
Italianate mode
in an Italian manner. Also: in architecture, the accommodation of Italian Renaissance palace styles, especially so in America c.1840-65.
Italian Primitives
artists and their works in Italy prior to 1400.
Ivory Carving
Form of sculpture fabricated using fauna tusks and teeth, notably from elephants, whales and walruses.

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J

Jade Carving
sculpture of extremely hard stone, which may be blue, green, white, or brown; highly prized in Chinese art.
Japanese Art
Yamato-due east, and Ukiyo-due east painting, Buddhist Temple art and Zen ink-painting.
Japonism
the craze for Japonaiserie - Japanese imports due east.g. prints and furniture, brought to Europe in the mid 19th century - and its upshot on European painting and decorative fine art.
Jasper Ware
blazon of stoneware pottery introduced by Josiah Wedgewood in 1774. Originally pure white but sometimes stained with cobalt oxide to produce "Wedgewood blue".
Jewellery Art
decorative art typically crafted from precious metal (gilt, silverish, platinum etc.) and gemstones like diamonds, sapphires, rubies, pearls and the similar.
Junk Art
A sub-species of "found fine art", typically sculpture or assemblage, sometimes also called "funk art" or "trash fine art".

K

Kaolin
also known equally China clay; used in the manufacture of hand-paste porcelain and sometimes in the GROUNDS of paintings. Chemically it is hydrated silicate of aluminium.
Central design
geometrical pattern of repeated horizontal and vertical straight lines, plant in ancient Greek and Celtic fine art.
Kinetic fine art
most commonly sculptures (eg. mobiles, stabiles) designed to move and thus produce optical furnishings; first made in the 1920s, but about popular from 1950 onwards.
Kitsch
mass-produced vulgar craftwork articles of the kind manufactured for souvenirs; the word has at present become a pejorative term for whatever is thought to exist in flamboyant bad taste.
Kouros
Archaic Greek statue of continuing youth (pl. kouroi).
Krater
ancient Greek storage vessel; unlike shapes were used for water and wine.
Kufic script
angular, square type of Standard arabic script (the more flowing script is NASHKI); sometimes found in decorative Romanesque and Gothic art.

L

Lacquerware
Objects (wood, bamboo, metal and other materials) coated in resinous decorative cease. Speciality of Chinese art.
Land Art (earthworks, environmental fine art)
A grade of contemporary fine art dating from the 1960s and 70s created in the mural, either by using natural forms, or by enhancing natural forms with human-made materials. Famous pioneer ecology artists include Robert Smithson, and Christo and Jeanne-Claude.
Landscape painting
Composition in which the scenery is the principal field of study. As well: scenic areas of a painting or cartoon.
Lapis Lazuli
deep-blue semiprecious rock, used for jewellery, and from which the pigment ultramarine is extracted.
La Tene Style
style of decorative art that appeared c.5th century BCE in Europe and was fully developed in Celtic fine art of the pre-Roman period; the proper name is derived from a site in Switzerland where metal objects and weapons in this manner have been institute.
Life cartoon
drawing from a live human being model.
Linear
artistic fashion that emphasizes lines and contours; hence linearity and linearism.
Linear perspective
method of indicating spatial recession in a picture by placing objects in a series of receding planes; parallel lines receding from the onlooker's view-indicate will appear to meet at a vanishing point. Pioneers included Renaissance painters Masaccio and Andrea Mantegna.
Line engraving
the art or process of mitt-engraving in Intaglio and copper plate, using a Burin. Too: a print taken from such a plate.
Lino cut
print produced past carving a blueprint into a block of linoleum.
Lithography
printing method in which a design is drawn on stone with a greasy crayon so inked.
Lost Wax Method, see: Cire Perdue.
Luminism
Style of light-related 19th century American landscape painting.

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M

Maniera
according to the writings of Georgio Vasari (1511-74), the "stylishness" associated with the art of 16th-century Italy, epitomized in the piece of work of Raphael and Michelangelo. Known equally Mannerism.
Maquette
model made on a minor scale by a sculptor or a stage-designer as a preliminary three-dimensional "sketch'" for the final work.
Marble Sculpture
Made from limestone. It occurs in various colours, from pure white to blackness, often veined.
Marine art
painting or drawing of a bounding main subject.
Masterpiece
originally a test piece of work done by the medieval apprentice in order to authorize as a Master of his Order. The term is now used more than freely to mean a work of outstanding importance or quality.
Medieval art
church architecture, illuminated manuscripts, stone sculpture, murals, metalwork and goldsmithery from the period of the Heart Ages (c.450-1450).
Medium
the means or fabric with which an artist expresses himself. In painting, the medium is the liquid in which paint is mixed and thinned, e.k. linseed oil.
Metalwork
Decorative precious metals art developed in Sumer, Egypt and Crete, earlier being refined past Celtic, Byzantine and Romanesque artists in Belgium.
Mezzotint
method of copper engraving, Too: a print produced by this method.
Mimesis
is a term which describes the artistic imitation of nature, rather than its estimation: in order words, the showing of things every bit opposed to the telling of things (diegesis).
Miniature Painting
very small piece of piece of work, such as a Medieval Manuscript Illumination. During the Renaissance and the 18th and 19th centuries, the term was more specifically applied to modest portraits painted on ivory.
Minimalist art
modern fine art that rejects texture, subject, temper, etc and reduces forms and colours to the simplest.
Mixed Media
the combination of unlike materials in the same work, sometimes including operation.
Mobile
Kinetic sculpture probably originated by Alexander Calder in 1932; the sculpture is hung from wires so that it is moved by air currents.
Mobiliary Art
Prehistoric portable artworks.
Modeling
three-dimensional representation of objects.
Modernism
the theory of modernist art that rejects past styles, and promotes contemporary art every bit the true reflection of the age, hence modernist.
Modern Fine art
Traditionally starts with Impressionism, from about 1874 onwards, until the early mail service-globe war II catamenia. Tardily Pop-art and so ushers in contemporary or post-modern art.
Monotype
printing process that takes an impression from a metallic or glass plate, producing only one impress of each design, which must then be redrawn.
Monumental
connected with, or serving equally, a monument. Also: used figuratively of paintings and other fine art forms to mean imposing or massive.
Mosaic Fine art
designs formed from minor pieces of stone, drinking glass, marble, etc.
Motif
a repeated distinctive feature in a pattern.
Mughal art
art and architecture of the courts of the Muslim rulers in India, 1526-1707, as exemplified by Mughal painting and by the Taj Mahal in Agra, Uttar Pradesh.
Mural Painting
pictures painted on walls or ceilings, traditionally in fresco.
Mythological painting
Pictures of subjects called from Greek and Roman Classical mythology, popular from the 15th century to the 19th. Also called History Painting.

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Blast Art
A form of body painting.
Naive
The work, fashion, or art of untaught artists, usually crudely naturalistic.
Nashki
The flowing class of Arabic calligrahic script (compare Kufic).
Naturalism
Authentic, detailed representation of objects or scenes every bit they appear, whether attractive or otherwise. (compare Realism).
Nazi Art
Generally architecture, film, photography, sculpture and poster art serving Nazi' propagandist needs.
Non-objective art
A 20th century term practical to visual fine art which is non based on existing, appreciable forms, but rather on abstruse or arcadian forms, such as geometric, mathematical, imaginary, etc. An early pioneer of non-abstraction is Piet Mondrian.
Non-representational art
Besides called non-objective, this way consisted of works which had no reference to anything outside themselves. In practice, information technology was mainly geometrically abstract.
Nude genre
For a cursory survey of nudity in painting and sculpture, meet: Female Nudes in Art History (Top 20). See also Male person Nudes in Fine art History (Top 10).

O

Objet trouve, see: Establish Object.
Oceanic art
From the South Pacific, including Australasia.
Oeuvre
the total output of an artist. As well: a piece of work of fine art.
Offset litho
lithographic technique in which ink is transferred from a plate to a rubber roller, then onto the paper.
Oil painting
A medium where pigments are mixed with drying oils, such as linseed, walnut, or poppyseed, which establish great favour due to its brilliance of detail, its rich colour, and its wider tonal range. Popularized during the 15th century in Northern Europe (whose climate did non favour fresco works), foremost pioneers of oil paint techniques included (in Holland) Hubert and Jan Van Eyck, and (in Italy) Leonardo Da Vinci.
Oils
There are diverse types of oil which are used as binders and drying agents (oil plus pigment dries by a procedure of oxidation by absorbing oxygen from the air) past oil painters. Linseed oil, made from flax seeds, adds gloss and transparency to paints and dries very thoroughly (within three-5 days), making information technology ideal for underpainting. Stand oil is a thicker type of linseed oil, with a slower drying time (7-14 days), which is often diluted with (eg) turpentine, and used for glazing to produce a polish, enamel-similar end with minimal traces of brushmarks. Poppyseed oil, much paler, more transparent and less likely to yellow than linseed, is frequently employed for white or lighter colours. Poppyseed oil takes longer to dry than linseed oil (v-7 days), so information technology is perfect for working wet on moisture. Walnut oil is a thin, pale yellowish-brown oil (dries in 4-5 days) which is usually used to make oil paint more fluid.
Orders of Compages
the five Classic orders, each equanimous of a cavalcade, having a base, shaft, capital letter, and entablature with architrave frieze, and cornice. There are three orders of Greek architecture: Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. These were adapted by the Romans, who added Tuscan and Composite.
Origami newspaper folding
Reputedly invented in Nihon around 1600, the Chinese version known as "zhezhi" may be older.
Ottonian fine art
Murals, illuminated manuscripts and architectural sculpture of the period 919 to early 11th century, nether the Ottonian emperors.
Outsider art
Refers to works by those exterior of mainstream club. Outsider art broadly includes folk fine art and ethnic art likewise as by prisoners, the mentally ill and others neither trained in fine art nor making their works to sell them.
Overpainting
The final layer of pigment that is applied over the under painting or under layer after information technology has dried. The thought behind layers of painting is that the under painting is used to define the basic shapes and design so that the overpainting can be used to fill up in the details of the piece.

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P

Paintbrush
Beard may derive from a variety of animals including boar, wolf, squirrel and annoy likewise as synthetic. Crimson sable pilus is considered the finest. Dissimilar shapes are employed for different types of painting tasks: larger, more indistinct areas of painting such as the heaven in landscapes were typically done with flat or round-tipped hogs hair brushes, while specific detail was painted with fine pointed sable brushes. In add-on, feathers were sometimes employed to smooth out areas of paint to remove visible brushwork. Badger Brushes were used to blend side by side areas of different tones.
Painterly
a term coined past the art historian Heinrich Wolfflin to describe one of ii contrasting styles in painting: linear, which emphasizes contours; painterly, which emphasizes colour and tone; hence painterliness.
Painting
process of applying paint. Also: object produced by applying paint to a flat support, e.grand. a wall or canvas.
For history and famous painters, run across Fine Art Painting.
Palette
slab of forest, metal or glass used by the artist for mixing pigment. Also: figuratively: the range of colours used by the artist. Encounter: Color Mixing Tips.
Palette knife
spatula-shaped knife for mixing or applying thick, bodied paint.
Console painting
refers to the use of wooden panels, as support: a exercise which was widespread until the appearance of sheet during the 15th century. In Flanders, Holland, France and England, oak panels were about pop; in Frg and Austria oak, beech, lime, anecdote, and cherrywood was used; while in Italy poplar was also employed. Dry out seasoned planks were primed with several coats of "size" - a glue derived from animal skins - and gesso, a combination of powdered calcium sulfate (gypsum) and animal glue. One advantage of panels, was their extremely smooth surface, which made them ideal for painting fine detail.
Panorama
painting of a view or landscape; especially large-scale painting effectually a room, or rolled on a cylinder.
Papier Colle ("pasted newspaper")
collage of paper/card, starting time used in 1912 by Georges Braque.
Parietal Art
Prehistoric paintings, engravings or relief sculptures on cave walls and ceilings.
Pastel
Crayon made from pigment mixed with gum and water and pressed into a stick-shaped class, or work executed in this medium. Because pastel tends to be light and chalky in tone, the discussion is also used to draw stake, lite colours.
Pastoral
idealized mural painting or country scene.
Pensieri
small-scale models fabricated as preliminaries to larger models, when making sculpture.
Performance Fine art
Contemporary class; run across besides Happenings.
Perspective
A term which refers to the "depth" of a picture - that is, the illusion of iii-dimensional space on the picture's two-dimensional surface - whereby forms in the groundwork announced smaller than those in the foreground. The "single betoken" or linear perspective system was pioneered past Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) in Florence in relation to his architecture. Mathematically synthetic so that all receding parallel lines seem to converge towards each other, somewhen meeting at a single point (the vanishing point), this method of perspective was employed past artists from the early 15th century onwards. Curiously, Dutch and Flemish painters of the early 15th century adult their own independent method of perspective.
Petroglyphs
Primitive stone carvings and engravings.
Phalerae
metallic boss or disc, worn as an ornament or decorating a horse's harness. Usually seen in Hallstatt and La Tene way Celtic art.
Photography
Now a fine arts medium.
Photomontage
picture combining juxtaposed photographic images.
Photorealism
a hyper-realistic style of painting in which an image is created in such particular that it resembles a photograph.
Pictographs (Prehistoric)
Also called pictograms, they are images typically on rock faces which express an idea or information.
Picturesque
quaint, mannerly. From the 18th century onwards "The Picturesque" acquired a more specific pregnant, peculiarly in connection with mural painting, and architecture; it suggested a deliberate roughness or rusticity of design, and was to some extent transitional between Classicism and Romanticism.
Pieta
representation of the Virgin Mary holding the dead body of Christ.
Pigment
the color element in paint. Pigments can consist of a wide diverseness of ingredients, including minerals, natural/artificial dyestuffs, and other synthetic compounds. Run into: Colour Pigments: Types, History.
Plains Fine art
describes the native American Indian art practised by the Sioux, Commanche and Blackfeet tribes, on the Western Plains of the United States.
Plastic
used in fine art to describe anything that tin be molded or modeled; the contrary of Glyptic.
Plastic fine art
3-dimensional forms of fine art such as sculpture, pottery, and architecture.
Plein air painting
refers to the spontaneous outdoor method of painting from nature - commonly landscapes - equally perfected by Claude Monet among others.
Pochade
sketch, especially 1 fabricated outdoors.
Polymorphic painting
multiform painting, produced by some modern kinetic artists. The advent of the work changes according to the position of the observer.
Pop Art
Sixties motility led by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. Run into: Andy Warhol'southward Pop Art.
Polyptych
painted work (usually an altarpiece) of more than three panels; come across as well Diptych, Triptych.
Porcelain
hard, refined ceramic stoneware, invented by the Chinese in the seventh century. Encounter Chinese Porcelain.
Portrait Art
Drawn or painted prototype of a person, usually naturalistic and identifiable; hence portraiture, portraitist. Come across likewise Bust.
Poster Art
Either advert lithographic designs, propaganda posters or reproductions of famous paintings. For more than details, see: History of Poster Art.
Potter's cycle
Horizontal revolving disk used to shape dirt by the ceramicist.
Pottery
A form of ceramic art, in which wet clay is shaped, dried, glazed and fired in a kiln to create a variety of vessels, and ornaments. For history and styles of Antiquity, come across: Greek Pottery.
Poussinist
adherent of the French belatedly 17th-century theory of poussinism: the supremacy of line (draftsmanship) over colour.
Prehistoric art
Creative expression of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods of the Stone Age. For a chronological dateline, see: Prehistoric Fine art Timeline.
Primary colours
red, blue, and yellowish; the colours that tin be mixed to produce other colours, but cannot themselves be produced from mixtures.
Primitivism/Primitive fine art
Paintings and drawings by people exterior the influence of traditional Western styles. Also: works by intuitive painters or sculptors with a "naive" way unremarkably due to their lack of formal arts training.
Print
any image, pattern, or lettering produced on fabric or paper by a diverseness of graphic processes. Also: (verb) to make an impression or epitome by such a procedure. Usually means alphabetic character-printing; printmaking involves producing an prototype that is aesthetically pleasing, or illustrative.
Printmaking
A term which applies to fine art printing processes, such as etching, engraving, lithography, woodcut, and silkscreen, in which multiple images are replicated from the same metallic plate, stone, woods or linoleum block, or silkscreen, with monochrome or colour press inks.
Proportion
in painting, sculpture and architecture, this describes the ratio between the respective parts and the whole work, equally annunciated (for instance) in the Canon of Proportion, a mathematical formula establishing ideal proportions of the diverse parts of the man body.
Protestant Reformation Art
A less overt, more humble, smaller-scale type of religious fine art, triggered past Luther'due south revolt (1517) and exemplified by the work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Rembrandt and Jan Vermeer.
Provenance
A term meaning the origins of a work of fine art, specifically its history of ownership since its creation. Museum curators and art research experts at auctioneers like Christie's and Sotheby's study a work's provenance to constitute its actuality.
Public Art
A loose term which, in practice, means artworks financed out of the public bag. Can besides hateful works (usually sculpture) sited in public places, such as the Chicago Picasso.

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Q

Quadratura
Trompe 50'oeil ceiling mural paintings that seem to extend the architectural features across the actual space of the room.
Quattrocento (It.)
Italian for the 15th century. Traditionally refers to Italian fine art (1400-1500).

R

Raku
Japanese pottery used for the tea anniversary; molded, non thrown on a wheel.
Readymades
Name given by Dadaist Marcel Duchamp to prefabricated objects exhibited as works of art.
Realism
style of painting dating from the 19th century, typified by Courbet, that makes a deliberate pick of everyday subject area matter (Realisme). Also: the opposite of abstract or distorted (similar to naturalism). Also: in Greek Classical sculpture. piece of work that is not stylized or arcadian.
Red-figure technique
The technique of the finest ancient Greek vase-painting in which figures were fatigued in black and the dorsum-footing blocked in in blackness and then that the figure stood out in the red.
Relief sculpture
carving, etc in which forms project and depth is hollowed out; the type of relief is determined by the degree to which the design stands out; thus alto rilievo (high relief) and bas relief (depression relief), in which the projection is slight.
Religious Art
Typically compages, sculpture, painting or crafts or artifacts with a religious theme.
Renaissance ("rebirth")
The menstruum of Renaissance art runs from c.1400 to 1600, divided into Early Renaissance (c.1400-xc), High Renaissance (c.1490-1530), and Mannerism (c. 1530-1600); equally a whole it was characterized by greater emphasis on realism, a mastery of linear perspective, Humanism (a belief in the primacy of man) and the rediscovery of Classical art. North of the Alps, the move is known as the Northern Renaissance.
Repousse
Technique of metalwork art, where metal is decorated by hammering from the side not seen, then that the design stands out in relief.
Repoussoir
A method of creating or enhancing perspective in a painting, for instance by placing a large figure/object in the foreground. Such repoussoir figures were common features of Dutch figure painting of the seventeenth-century. Dutch Realist landscape artists often exploited the dramatic consequence of repoussoir to enliven their pictures of the flat and featureless Dutch countryside.
Representational art
art that attempts to show objects as they really appear, or at least in some easily recognizable form.
Rock Art
Petroglyphs, pictographs and other forms of rock engraving or cave painting.

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S

Salon
French annual exhibition in Paris (held from 17th century onwards) of painting and sculpture by members of the Academy, traditionally hostile to innovation.
Salon d'Automne
Rival exhibition held in Paris by the Societe du Salon d'Automne.
Salon des Independants
exhibition of the Societe des Artistes Independents of 1884, including Seurat and Signac. The society had no pick jury.
Salon des Refuses
exhibition of 1863 promoted past Napoleon III to show works rejected by the official Paris Salon.
Sand Art
Practised for centuries by Navajo Indians, Australian aborigines, Oceanic natives and Tibetan Buddhists, it has been given a new lease of life by contemporary artists around the earth.
Scholar-painter
the Japanese equivalent of Wen-jen hua (or "literary men'southward painting") in Chinese art; a literary-minded apprentice who painted for pleasure.
Scroll
scroll of newspaper or silk, pop in Oriental art. A hand ringlet is nigh 30cm (12 in) broad and up to 30m (100 ft) long, and unrolls from right to left to give a continuous moving picture, viewed section by section. A hanging curl, as the name implies, is hung like a painting. Both are commonly painted in ink or watercolour.
Sculpture
Object carved or modeled in wood, stone, etc or bandage in metal for an artful, nonfunctional purpose; or the procedure of producing it; hence sculptor. "Sculptural" is used to describe fine art (including painting and drawing) that has pronounced 3-dimensional qualities.
Scumble
an opaque or semiopaque layer of paint applied over some other so that the first is partially obliterated, producing a slightly broken consequence.
Seascape
painting or drawing of the sea and shipping.
Self-Portraiture
Self-portraits were created as early as the Amarna Period (c.1365 BCE) in Aboriginal Arab republic of egypt, although the genre wasn't properly exploited until the time of Albrecht Durer in late 15th century Germany. Since then, other important pioneers of self-portrait painting have included Rembrandt, Vincent Van Gogh and Egon Schiele.
Sfumato
a painting technique developed by Leonardo da Vinci, in which transitions from light to dark are then gradual they are almost ephemeral; sfumato blurs lines and creates a soft-focus outcome.
Sgraffito
A term pregnant scratched; in painting, i colour is laid over another, and scratched with a tool so that the underlying colour is revealed.
Silverpoint
A drawing method using a piece of metal, usually silver wire, drawn on a ground prepared with Chinese white, sometimes with pigment added.
Site-specific fine art
Any work of art (typically murals, or sculpture) created for a specific place, which cannot exist separated or exhibited outside its intended surround.
Sketching
Typically a sketch is a rapidly executed or coincidental portrayal of a subject, in pencil, charcoal, pen and ink or other portable medium, oftentimes produced every bit a preliminary work in preparation for something more detailed.
Skyscraper
a type of high-rising building design pioneered by American architects in the Chicago School of Architecture (c.1880-1910).
Stabile
A fashion of 20th century sculpture consisting of a stationary object, stock-still to a base of some clarification. Contrasts with a mobile, the gratis-hanging sculptural invention of American sculptor Alexander Calder (1898-1976), stabiles were besides created by Calder.
Stained Glass Art
Attained its apogee during the era of Gothic Architecture.
Statue
Freestanding sculpture; life-size, representational art.
Stencil fine art
An image created past applying ink or paint through a cut-out surface.
Still Life painting
ane of the major genres of Western art, it describes a type of painting featuring inanimate everyday objects. There are four types: (one) bloom pieces, (two) breakfast or feast pieces, (3) brute pieces, (4) Symbolic Still Lifes.
Stippling
a cartoon technique which employs many small dots or flecks to construct the image, or shading.
Stoneware
hard pottery fabricated from dirt plus a fusible stone (commonly feldspar) and fired at 1200-1400°C so that the stone is vitrified.
Stone Sculpture
Includes carvings from metamorphic, sedementary and igneous rocks.
Back up
Canvas, paper, console, wall, etc on which a painting or drawing is executed.

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T

Tapestry
wall hanging of silk or wool with a nonrepeating design or narrative design woven in past manus, during industry. For details and history, come across: Tapestry Art.
Tempera
a method of painting in which pigments are combined with an emulsion of water and egg yolks or whole eggs (plus sometimes mucilage or milk). Widely used in Italian art in the 14th and 15th centuries, both for panel painting and fresco, was then superceded by oil paint.
Tenebrism
mode of 17th-century painting associated with Caravaggio making much employ of strong Chiaroscuro.
Terracotta (Latin: "baked earth")
hard, fired hut unglazed, brown-red dirt used for pottery, and building. Run across: Terra cotta Sculpture.
Tondo
circular picture or relief.
Trecento
Italian for the 14th century. Traditionally refers to Italian fine art (1300-1400).
Tribal Fine art
Also chosen Primitive Native Art, it embraces the traditional art of tribal societies in the Americas, Africa, Republic of india, the South Pacific, and Australasia.
Triptych
moving picture or carving in three parts; a class of polyptych common for altarpieces.
Trompe fifty'oeil
painting that "deceives the centre"; type of illusionistic painting characterized by its very precise naturalism.

U-Z

Ukiyo-e (woodblock prints)
Japanese, meaning "pictures of the floating world". Genre painting, and later Woodblock prints, whose subjects were actors, domestic scenes, and courtesans.
Vanishing bespeak
point at which the receding parallel lines in a painting appear to meet; run across Linear perspective.
Vanitas Painting
Still Life paintings, popular in 17rh century Kingdom of the netherlands, which incorporate objects equally reminders of the impermanence of temporal life and of mortality.
Victorian Fine art
British compages, arts and crafts produced during the reign of Queen Victoria (c.1840-1900).
Video Art
Contemporary form pioneered by artists like Andy Warhol (1928-87) and Pecker Viola (b.1951). Tin be either stand-alone or combined with other media in an installation.
Viking Art
Norse art mainly embraces portable metalwork and carvings.
Visual art
A wide category of creative disciplines, encompassing the fine arts, some of the applied arts and certain mod fine art forms.
Watercolour Painting
Uses a water-soluble painting medium. Watercolours are usually applied with brushes, only several other tools may also employed. The almost common painting techniques are known as wet-on-dry and wet-on-wet, plus the dry brush techniques dry out-on-dry and dry-on-wet. Watercolours can be removed while still moisture, past blotting. When watercolour are fabricated thicker, opaque and mixed with white, it is more often than not referred to as gouache. Thomas Girtin and JMW Turner were two not bad pioneers of the art form.
Woodblock
Print produced from a design on a wooden block. Encounter also Woodcut prints.
Wood Etching
Reached its apogee in Late Gothic Frg, at the hands of principal woods-carvers similar Veit Stoss (1450-1533) and Tilman Riemenschneider (1460-1531).
Give-and-take Art
Includes any text-based word painting, sculpture or graphic art. Exponents include Barbara Kruger (b.1945), Christopher Wool (b.1955) and On Kawara (1932-2014).
Xylography
Early form of wood engraving, first seen in China in the 1st century CE. Xylography is the oldest known engraving technique.
Yamato-e
the School of Japanese painting from the 10th to the 15th century that preserved the native traditions.
Yellowish Book
influential quarterly magazine published from 1894, of which Aubrey Beardsley (1872-98) was art editor.
Ziggurat
ancient Babylonian and Assyrian pyramid-shaped construction. See: Assyrian Art (c.1500-612 BCE).
Zoomorphic
motifs based on animate being forms.

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More Fine art Glossaries

• For oils, watercolours, acrylics and other moving picture-making materials, run into: Painting Glossary.
• For camera terms, including digital jargon, run into: Art Photography Glossary.
• For architectural terms, see: Architecture Glossary.
• For engraving, carving, lithography and woodcut, see: Printmaking Glossary.
• For art colours, pigments and lakes, see: Colour in Art Glossary.
• For styles, schools and periods of painting, sculpture and architecture, see: Art Movements Glossary.

• For more information about decorative and fine arts, see: Homepage.

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