An Art Form That Would Tend to Exemplify the Picturesque Is

A-Z Glossary of Fine art Terms

Cursory caption of terminology used in the theory and practice of art.

A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J-L - M - Northward - O - PQ - R - Southward - T - U-Z

A

Aboriginal Rock Art
Ordinarily refers to Australian rock painting and petroglyphs.
Abstruse art
Ill-defined and very widely used term which in its almost general sense describes any art in which form and color are stressed at the expense, or in the absence of, a representational image. Also known as concrete art or non-objective fine art.

Academic art
Literally, belonging to an Academy of art. Too: derogatory term meaning conventional, stereotyped, derivative.
Acrylic Painting
Uses a fast-drying, synthetic, water soluble paint that can be used on virtually surfaces. Made from colour pigments and a synthetic plastic folder, acrylic paint looks like oil and can be used in a diverseness 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.
Aerial perspective
A way of suggesting the far distance in a mural by using paler colours (sometimes tinged with blue), less pronounced tones, and vaguer forms in those areas that are farthest 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 fine art, which attempts to formulate criteria for the understanding of the aesthetic (rather than utilitarian) 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, it has been much used past 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, especially for small portable pieces. Also: mod alabaster, a lime sulfate which can be highly polished but is hands 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 clarification of a subject field in the guise of another discipline. An allegorical painting might include figures emblematic of different emotional states of mind, for case envy or love, or personifying other abstract concepts, for example sight, glory, or beauty. These are called allegorical figures. The estimation of an allegory therefore depends start on the identification of such figures, but even so the pregnant can remain elusive.
All-over space
Jackson Pollock was the first artist to use all-over infinite in his "drip" paintings. It refers to paintings where there is no focal signal but where everything on the canvas has the same caste of importance.
Altarpiece
In Christian church architecture, the picture or decorated screen backside the altar. Information technology may consist of a single painting or an elaborate grouping of hinged panels.
Ancient Art
Umbrella term encompassing early on forms of creative expression from ancient Mediterranean civilizations, like Sumerian, Egyptian, Minoan, Mycenean, Farsi.
Animalier (Creature Artist)
Term was originally used to describe the 19th-century school of French bronze sculptors who specialized in modest animal figures. It has since been extended to comprehend animate being painters, such as Sir Edwin Landseer (1802-73), best-known for his portraits of dogs.
Animal manner
Type of nomad art originating with the Celts in the 7th century BCE in southern Russia and the Caucasus; it was characterized past the predominance of animal motifs (zoomorphs), frequently distorted, ornamenting all kinds of portable objects including metalwork, textiles, woods and bone.
Animation Fine art
The cosmos of a movement motion-picture show from a series of nonetheless drawings.
Antiquity
Greek and Roman civilisation until the autumn of the Roman Empire in the 5th century Ad. Greek and Roman sculpture was admired during the Renaissance as an platonic art, and study of The Antique formed the basis of the curriculum in most fine art academics.
Applied fine art
The designing and decorating of functional objects or materials to give them aesthetic appeal, e.g. printing type, ceramics, glass, furniture, metal work and textiles. The term is frequently used to differentiate this blazon of work from the fine arts (painting, cartoon, sculpture) whose value is primarily aesthetic.
Applique
Cloth ornamentation in which cut material shapes are stitched to a fabric ground as a design.
Aquatint etching
Process whereby acid is allowed to bite into a copper plate prepared with resin which is then inked and printed.
Arabesque
Motif based on interlaced plant forms, plant in the fine and decorative arts, in architecture, and peculiarly typical of Islamic blueprint.
Archaic Greek fine art
Greek art of the mid 12th century BCE to c.480 BCE; one of four convenient divisions of Greek art, the others beingness Geometric, Classical and Hellenistic.
Architecture
Science or art of building. Also: the structure or style of what is built. See Architecture: History/Styles.
Armature
Framework or skeleton on which a sculptor molds his dirt.
Arsenal Show
International exhibition of modern fine art held in New York in 1913 in the 69th Regiment Armory building. Exhibits included the work of the more Avant-Garde US artists and of the School of Paris. The exhibition was enormously popular and marked the birth of a real interest in modern art in 20th-century America.
Art
A grade of creative expression. For explanation, see: Definition and Pregnant of Art. For forms and categories, see: Types of Art.
Art Brut
A term used to describe drawings, paintings and whatsoever other form of art done by untrained or amatuer artists. Could be applied to drawings done by children, people who are mentally sick or anyone who is does not describe themselves as an "artist" or who are not painting commercially.
Art Critics
Commentators and analysts of the visual arts.
Art Evaluation
How to estimate the aesthetics, craftsmanship and artistic technique of a painting.
Fine art Schools
The term ordinarily refers to tertiary colleges offering Available of Fine Arts Degrees (BFA), Bachelor of Pattern Degrees (BDes), too as BAs in practical art subjects.
Antiquity (or artefact)
Any object of human workmanship. Also: (archaeology) an object of prehistoric or ancient art, as distinguished from a like but naturally occurring object.
Craft Movement
Mid-19th-century artistic move in England, inspired by John Ruskin and William Morris; information technology attempted to raise the standards of blueprint and craftsmanship in the applied arts, and to reassert the craftsman's individuality in the face of increasing mechanization.
Asian Art
Architectures, craft from China, Nippon, Korea, SE Asia and the Indian subcontinent.
Aggregation Art
Modern course consisting of objects collected and assembled together; the components are pre-formed, not fabricated by the artist, and not intended originally as "art material".
Automatism in Fine art
Drawing and painting method associated with Surrealism in which the creative person does not consciously create but doodles, assuasive the subconscious heed and well-nigh uncontrolled movement of the mitt to produce an image.
Avant-garde
Artists whose work is ahead of that of most of their contemporaries; unconventional, experimental, innovative. Also descriptive of the piece of work produced by such artists.

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B

Bacchanal
Mythological scene popular in paintings of the Renaissance and 17th century depicting the revels of Bacchus, Roman god of vino.
Groundwork
Scene in painting which provides setting for main figures or design; sometimes used synonymously with basis.
Bamboccianti
Group of painters who specialized in bambocciate (Fr. bambochades): low-life and peasant scenes, pop in the netherlands and Italia in the 17th century. The name derives from Pieter van Laer (1592-1642), a Dutch painter nicknamed "Il Bamboccio" ("Big Baby").
Banketjea or banquet piece
Banketjea is a Dutch give-and-take which means "trivial banquet". A Banketjea is the name given to a still life painting which features a range of luxury foods and expensive serving pieces.
Bizarre classicism
classical mode - exemplified in the paintings of Nicolas Poussin and the compages of Carlo Fontana which flourished during the Baroque period.
Bas-relief
Form of sculpting characterized by but a slight projection 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 design, founded by 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 ii years: see: Best Gimmicky Fine art Festivals.
Biscuit
Unglazed white porcelain, pop in Europe from the mid 17th century.
Black-figure technique
Manner of decoration of ancient Greek ceramics, importantly of sixth-century BCE Corinth. Designs were painted on the object in blackness metal oxide pigment and then incised through to the ruddy clay.
Blocking in
Before starting a painting, an artist may 'block-in' the composition of the painting using rough outlines or geometric shapes to show him how everything fits on the sail. Nigh all portrait painters use this 'blocking in' method.
Body Fine art
A blazon of contemporary art in which the artist'due south body is the "canvas".
Body colour
Watercolour made opaque by mixing with white. Also: term used in painting to describe solid, definitive areas of colour which are so completed or modified with scumbles and glazes.
Torso Painting
Ancient art of decorating the body.
Bronze
Alloy of copper and tin can, used for cast sculpture. Bronze sculpture is made from this alloy. Hence bronzist, a maker of bronze sculpture, plaques, etc.
Brush
Implement for applying paint, usually of hog or sable hair set in a wooden handle.
Brush stroke
The individual mark made by each application of paint with a BRUSH, ordinarily retaining the mark of the separate castor hairs.
Brushwork
Full general term for manner or style in which pigment is practical, and frequently considered by fine art historians as an identifying characteristic of a detail artist'due south work.
Buon fresco, see: fresco.
Burin
Metallic tool used for engraving.
Bust
Portrait sculpture showing the sitter's head and shoulders merely. Meet Portrait Busts.
Byzantine Art
Of the eastern Roman Empire centred on Constantinople, formerly Byzantium, from the 4th century AD. At various times information technology embraced both Classical Greek realism and stylized, hieratic, Oriental art.

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C

Cabinet motion-picture show
small or medium-sized painting executed at an easel, and designed for collectors, especially popular from the 17th century; come across Easel Picture.
Calligraphy
The Oriental fine art of drawing/writing.
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. Popular with artists from the Renaissance to the 18th century.
Canvas
The fabric support used for an oil or acrylic painting, usually made of linen or cotton, stretched tightly and tacked onto a wooden frame. Linen is regarded equally superior to heavy cotton in a sheet.
Caravaggism
Tendency to follow the way of Caravaggio (1571-1610), exhibited by the Caravaggisti (17th-century painters working in Rome), who made particularly dramatic apply of chiaroscuro.
Caricature
Painting or drawing, usually a portrait, that exaggerates features for humorous or satirical effect.
Carolingian art
European fine art of the menstruation covered by the reign of Charlemagne (CE 768-814) and his successors until CE 900; commonly regarded as the foundation of medieval art.
Carpet page
In manuscript illumination, a folio totally filled with decorative design.
Cartoon
Full-sized cartoon for transferring design to painting, mural, or tapestry. Besides: comic drawing; caricature.
Casting
The duplication of a model in metal or plaster past means of a mold; the model thus formed is a cast.
Cosmic Art
Usually refers to the manner of Cosmic Counter-Reformation Art (c.1560-1700) which followed the Protestant Reformation.
Celadon
Chinese porcelain or stoneware with a distinctive greyness-green glaze.
Celtic Art
Hallstatt and La Tene styles of metalwork, and abstruse 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 mutual name for calcium carbonate, which is institute as a natural deposit all over the world, and is composed of the remains of tiny crustaceans. Traditionally used in painting and drawing.
Champleve enamel
Busy metallic, usually 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
Form of carbon used for drawing.
Chiaroscuro
The contrasting use of low-cal and shadow. artists who are famed for the use of chiaroscuro include Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio and Rembrandt. Leonardo used chiaroscuro to enhance the three-dimensionality of his figures, Caravaggio used information technology for drama, and Rembrandt for both reasons.
Chinese Art
1 of the most ancient artistic traditions, noted for its calligraphic, ink-and-wash, ceramic and bronze artworks. See: Chinese Pottery.
Chinoiserie
Term for a European style of art applied to article of furniture, ceramics, interior design, based on imaginary pseudo-Chinese motifs.
Chip carving
Early primitive carved decoration of Northern European oak furniture, executed with a chisel and gouge, until about the 16th century.
Chi-Rho
A monogram (the Sacred Monogram) formed by the first two messages - X and P (chi and rho) - of the Greek discussion for Christ. In religious art information technology may refer to the Resurrection of Christ.
Christian Art
Church building architecture, painting, sculpture or decorative fine art associated with a Christian bulletin.
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 cartoon of city scenery.
Classicism
The quality of classic or classical art. The term is applied in detail to the type of art that was the antithesis of Romanticism during the 18th and 19th centuries, when it was held to stand for the virtues of restraint and harmony, in contrast to dramatic individual expression.
Cloisonne enamel
Decorated metallic in which a blueprint of metallic strips is practical and the compartments (cloisons) formed are filled with coloured drinking glass pastes. (Compare Champleve enamel.)
Collage Art ("pasting")
Technique originating with Cubism in which paper, photographs, and other everyday materials were pasted on to a back up, and sometimes also painted.
Colonial Art of America
17th/18th century portraiture, miniatures, compages, 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 practical to diverse periods of painting, e.g. 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 colour.
Colour
For a general guide, run across: Colour in Painting.
Colour bicycle
A diagrammatic chart showing the placement of colors in relationship to each other. For more details, see: Color Theory in Painting.
Composition, of a painting
Composition describes the complete work of art, and in particular the way that all its elements unite in an overall effect. Compositional elements in a painting might include: size of canvas, subject area thing, focal points of the movie (if any), colour scheme, tonal warmth and contrasts, draughtsmanship, representation and meaning, amidst others.
Computer Art
Visual images either computer-generated or figurer-controlled using software or hardware tools. Also referred to equally Digital art.
Conceptualism/Conceptual Art
Form in which the concepts and ideas are more important than tangible, concrete works of art.
Concrete Fine art
Term coined in 1930 when Theo van Doesburg became editor of the magazine fine art Concret; it is sometimes used as a synonym for abstract art, though the emphasis is not just on geometric or abstract course, but on structure and arrangement in both blueprint and execution.
Conte crayon
Proprietary manufactured chalk.
Gimmicky fine art
A rather loose term, used by museums to describe post-war art, and by art critics to refer to fine art since 1970.
Content, of a painting
This traditionally refers to the message contained and communicated by the work of art, embracing its emotional, intellectual, symbolic, and narrative content.
Contrapposto ("reverse", "anti-thesis", "placed against")
word used in sculpture, referring to the posing of human class so that head and shoulders are twisted in a dissimilar direction from hips and legs.
Crafts
A category embracing virtually decorative arts.
Curvilinear
Design or patternwork (eg. Etruscan/Celtic interlace) based on design of curved lines; sinuous.
Cycladic art
type of Aegean fine art from the Cyclades - a grouping of Greek islands - c.2800 BCE to 1100 BCE.

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D

Dark Ages
menstruum of the Middle Ages from c.5th 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
Collective name for art forms like ceramics, tapestries, enamelling, stained glass, metalwork, paper art, textiles, and others, which are deemed to be ornamental or decorative, rather than intellectual or spiritual. See 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 shine finish.
Degenerate art ("Entartete Kunst")
Nazi propaganda term used from c.1937 for works of modern art disapproved of by the party.
Design (artistic)
The plan involved in making something according to a set of aesthetics.
Diptych
Pair of painted or sculptured panels hinged or joined together; particularly pop for devotional pictures in the Centre Ages; see altarpiece.
Direct carving
Method of stone sculpture where form is carved immediately out of the cake, and not transferred from a model.
Disegno
Literally, "cartoon" or "design", only which during the Renaissance acquired a broader significant of overall concept.
Dome
Architectural characteristic plant on height of building like the Pantheon in Rome, the Cathedral in Florence (Brunelleschi), Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome (Michelangelo and others), St Paul'southward Cathedral in London (Christopher Wren) and the Pantheon in Paris, designed by Jacques-Germain Soufflot (1713-80).
Drawing
Refers to the monochrome use of pencil, charcoal, pen, ink, or similar mediums on paper, carte or other back up, 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 by these means, rather than by the use of color 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 back up (typically a tripod) employed for holding an artist'south canvas while it is being painted.
Easel painting (or picture)
small-scale or medium-sized painting executed at an easel. These were commonly intended for collectors and conoisseurs, although the term may likewise be used generally for whatsoever portable painting, every bit opposed to mural painting.
Ecce homo (Latin, "Behold the homo")
the pictorial representation of Christ'southward presentation to the people by Pontius Pilate before the Crucifixion.
Emboss
to mould, stamp, or carve a surface to produce a pattern in relief.
Enamelling
the process of fusing a vitreous substance (usually lead/potash glass) to metal at high temperature (nearly 800 degrees Cent) - as used in decorative metalwork and goldsmithing; see Cloisonne and Champleve.
Encaustic Painting
aboriginal technique of painting with wax and pigments fused by estrus.
Engraving
the technique of incising lines on wood, metal etc. Also: the impression made from the engraved cake.
Etching
procedure in which the design is fatigued on a metal plate through a wax ground; the design is cut into the plate with acid, and printed. Also: a print produced by this method.
Ethnographic art
art inspired by a particular racial culture, especially of the primitive type.
Extender
inert pigment used to majority a paint or to lower the tinctorial force of some other pigment.

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F

Fabergé Easter Eggs
Objects of precious jewellery fabricated past Russian firm of fin de siecle goldsmiths and jewellers.
Faience
type of tin-glazed earthenware, ofttimes used for architectural purposes. Too: archeological term for a type of aboriginal pottery in Arab republic of egypt, comprising wares of glazed powdered quartz.
Figurative fine art
synonym for representational art.
Effigy drawing (and figure painting)
Drawing or painting in which the human effigy predominates, usually total length.
Figurine
pocket-sized model or sculpture of the human figure, like prehistoric Venus Figurines, such as Venus of Willendorf.
Fine art
art whose value is considered to be aesthetic rather than functional, i.due east. architecture, sculpture, painting and drawing, and the graphic arts. Compare applied art and decorative fine art.
Flower painting
still-life painting of flowers, associated chiefly with Oriental art and the Dutch painters of the 17th century.
Folk art
Traditional art of peasant societies, which includes utilitarian, decorative and practical 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 background.
Foreshortening
the utilize of the laws of perspective in art to make an individual form appear three dimensional.
Form
Describes the elements in a work of art which are contained of the emotional or interpretative significance of the piece of work: for example, the medium, scale, shape, colour, dimensions, line, mass, texture, and their mutual relationships.
Formalism
the tendency to adhere to conventional forms at the expense of the subject thing.
Plant Objects
items that are plant, non made past the creative person, and then defined and displayed every bit a work of art - as well known as an "objets trouves" - and associated with Surrealism and Dada.
Fresco Painting
Mural 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 image. Invented by Max Ernst.
Functionalism
the artistic theory that form should be adamant by function, especially in compages and the decorative arts, and that this will automatically produce objects that are aesthetically pleasing.

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1000

Genre-Painting
Type of picture featuring an everyday scene containing human subjects.
Geometric Style
Greek way of decoration, flourishing from c.900 to c.725 BCE, based on linear and angular shapes.
Georgian art
refers to the styles prevalent through the reigns of the four King Georges in Britain from 1714 to 1830. Usually refers to architecture, furniture, silverish and the like, rather than painting.
Gesso
generally used for any mixture of an inert white pigment with mucilage, used as a basis 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 footing layer in medieval Italian console paintings. Gesso sottile is fine crystalline gypsum, made by slaking plaster of Paris in excess water. Gesso tin can too exist congenital up or molded into relief designs, or carved.
Gestural painting
a term that originally came into employ 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 paint in gratis sweeping gestures with the castor.
Giclee Prints
Fine fine art printing process using inkjet printers.
Giornata
the expanse of piece of work in mural or mosaic that could be finished in i twenty-four hour period. In fresco painting, it refers to the area of intonaco applied each solar day. In true fresco, the joins of the giornate are usually visible.
Glass Painting
technique of decorating glass, not very conspicuously distinguished from drinking glass enameling, although it may be more than transparent and smoother. Early glass painting was not fired, and therefore non permanent.
Glaze
transparent layer of paint applied over some other; light passes through and is reflected dorsum, modifying or intensifying the underlayer. Also: vitreous layer made from silica, practical to pottery as decoration or to brand information technology h2o-tight.
Goldsmithing (Goldsmithery)
The applied fine art or arts and crafts of metalworking in gold and silver.
Gouache
opaque watercolour paint. Also: a piece of work executed in gouache medium.
Graffiti Art
a contemporary artform which first appeared in Philadelphia and New York during the belatedly 1960s/early1970s.
Chiliad Tour
A cultural trip around Europe, taking in the painting, sculpture and architecture of Paris, Florence, Venice, Rome, Naples, Vienna and other of import centres of classical, Renaissance and Baroque fine art.
Graphic pattern
Derived from the German word graphik. Describes the practical fine art of formulating/arranging paradigm/text to communicate a message. It can be applied in any media, such as print, digital media, animation, packaging, and signs. Run into also: Graphic Fine 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 nether-layer.
Greek Fine art
The foundation of Western painting and sculpture in 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 different sizes, used for different purposes, most of which were often decorated if not painted. The 2 main styles were blackness-figure and red-figure techniques.
Grisaille
technique of monochrome painting in shades of gray, used as underpainting or to imitate the event of relief.
Ground
layer of training on a support to receive paint. Likewise: in etching, the acid-resistant material spread over the metal plate before the design is etched. Besides: in pottery, the clay forming the body of a vessel on which a design is executed.

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H

Hallstatt
The first identifiable continental culture and fine art-style of the Celts (c.600-450 BCE). Followed by La Tene Celtic culture.
Paw Stencils
Prehistoric negative images of hands (made by spray-painting through a tube): c.f. positive handprints.
Happenings
Blazon of Performance art. Spontaneous artistic event or brandish.
Hatching
drawing technique that uses closely spaced parallel lines to indicate toned areas. When crossed by other lines in the reverse direction information technology is known as cross-hatching.
Haut-relief (Alto-rilievo, high relief)
Form of sculptural relief characterized past a prominent project from the surrounding surface.
Hellenic
Greek culture of the 11th century BCE to 323 BCE.
Hellenistic
Greek civilisation after Alexander the Great (from 323 BCE) to the late 1st century BCE.
Hierarchy of the Genres
The ranking arrangement promulgated by the fine arts academies which comprised five painting-genres. (1) History painting ("istoria", narrative compositions); (ii) Portraiture (private, group of cocky-portraits); (3) Genre-Painting (everyday scenes featuring man subjects); (4) Landscape Painting (scenic view is paramount: human content, merely illustrative); (5) Even so Life (arrangements of domestic objects).
Hellenistic Fine art
describes Greek art from the expiry of Alexander the Cracking (323 BCE) to Rome's defeat of Greece (c.27 BCE).
Hieratic
way in which sure fixed types, often sacred, are repeated, eastward.g. in Egyptian or Byzantine art. It may also exist applied to any art that uses severe, rigid figures rather than naturalistic ones.
Hieroglyphs
pictorial form of writing, equally used past the Egyptians.
High art
art that strives to attain the highest artful and moral qualities in both content and expression.
Historiated
architecture or sculpture decorated 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 list of dates near the evolution of painting, sculpture and pottery.
History Painting
painting whose subject is some significant historical event, preferably Classical, mythological, bodily or literary. From the 16th century to the 19th, history painting was more than highly esteemed than other forms of painting, peculiarly by the academies.
Holocaust Fine art
Includes Nazi propaganda works, images created by victims and postwar concentration military camp memorials of the Shoah.
How to Capeesh Paintings
Explains how to analyse painterly skills and narrative content.

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I

Water ice Sculpture
a contemporary form of plastic art which uses blocks of ice as material.
Icons (Icon Painting) (Greek, "image", "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 fine art.
Platonic fine art
Painting of various periods that is based on the artist's conception rather than visual perception, e.g. the fine art of the Loftier Renaissance, or of 17th-century classicism.
Illumination
The ornament of manuscript texts which may accept started from the simple addition of minium to the script, the general part being written in black. From this grew quite boggling elaboration, fantastic interwoven strap patterns, decorative motifes, zoomorphic imagery, plant forms. miniature portraits of religious figures. It was one of the most important arts of the Middle Ages. Wherever there were monasteries the art seems to take been practised. The monastic scribe worked about six hours a twenty-four hour period. Afterwards he had finished the work was proof-read. And so 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 command. The oldest known illumination is an Egyptian papyrus, the 'Book of the Expressionless'. The Greeks and Romans produced some work, but very piddling survives. The Byzantine manuscripts contain some perfect examples. Fourteenth-century Persian editions of the Koran, exquisite delicate designs. Among the famed European manuscripts are the 'Book of Hours' of the Duc de Drupe produced past the Limbourg brothers (1410-thirteen), and 'The Book of Kells', 8th century, now in Trinity College Library, Dublin. The manuscripts were worked on vellum, using not just colours, just also gold-leafage and other metals, tiny fragments of precious and semi-precious stones and raising paste.
Illuminated Manuscripts
Handwritten book on vellum or parchment, commonly medieval, decorated with miniature painting, borders, and decorative capital letters; hence illumination. Exemplars: Book of Kells, Lindisfarne Gospels, Volume of Durrow.
Illusionism
The use of optical and perspectival principles to create the illusion of painted objects beingness three dimensional; hence illusionist, illusionistic.
Illustration
A method of enhancing written text by providing an illustration (pictorial caption) of the written words.
Impasto
Thick mass of paint or pastel; hence impasted, or impastoed.
India Ink
In fine fine art, a cartoon ink made from a black pigment consisting of lampblack and mucilage.
Ink and Wash Painting
Japanese and Chinese painting technique, using ink in the same way as watercolour.
Installation Art
This typically employs mixed media (eg. sculpture and video), which typically fills an entire space, such equally a room or gallery. Information technology is commonly site-specific.
Intaglio
ornamentation produced by cutting into a surface, used in engraving, etching, gem carving.
Intarsia
the decoration of wood with inlay piece of work, especially in 15th-century Italia.
Interiors
a mode of genre-painting perfected by Dutch Realists of the later 17th century; later taken upwardly by Danish artists like Peter Vilhelm Ilsted (1861-33) and Vilhelm Hammershoi (1864-1916).
International Gothic
since the 19th century, used to describe the fashion of art prevalent from c.1375 to 1425, counterbalanced midway between naturalistic and idealistic values and characterized by delicate and rich colouring.
Intonaco
the smooth layer of lime plaster that receives the paint in fresco painting.
Irish Schoolhouse
For details, see: Irish Painting and Irish Sculpture.
Islamic Art
Includes compages, pottery, faience mosaics, lustre-ware, relief sculpture, drawing, painting, calligraphy, manuscript illumination, cloth blueprint, metalwork, gemstone carving, and other crafts.
Italianate style
in an Italian manner. Also: in compages, the adaptation of Italian Renaissance palace styles, especially then in America c.1840-65.
Italian Primitives
artists and their works in Italia prior to 1400.
Ivory Etching
Form of sculpture made using animal tusks and teeth, notably from elephants, whales and walruses.

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J

Jade Carving
sculpture of extremely hard rock, which may be blueish, green, white, or brownish; highly prized in Chinese art.
Japanese Fine art
Yamato-e, and Ukiyo-e painting, Buddhist Temple art and Zen ink-painting.
Japonism
the craze for Japonaiserie - Japanese imports eastward.thou. prints and furniture, brought to Europe in the mid 19th century - and its effect on European painting and decorative art.
Jasper Ware
type of stoneware pottery introduced past Josiah Wedgewood in 1774. Originally pure white but sometimes stained with cobalt oxide to produce "Wedgewood blueish".
Jewellery Art
decorative art typically crafted from precious metallic (gilt, silver, platinum etc.) and gemstones like diamonds, sapphires, rubies, pearls and the similar.
Junk Art
A sub-species of "found art", typically sculpture or assemblage, sometimes also called "funk art" or "trash art".

One thousand

Kaolin
also known as China clay; used in the manufacture of hand-paste porcelain and sometimes in the GROUNDS of paintings. Chemically it is hydrated silicate of aluminium.
Key design
geometrical pattern of repeated horizontal and vertical straight lines, establish in aboriginal Greek and Celtic fine art.
Kinetic fine art
most commonly sculptures (eg. mobiles, stabiles) designed to move and thus produce optical effects; first fabricated in the 1920s, simply most popular from 1950 onwards.
Kitsch
mass-produced vulgar craftwork articles of the kind manufactured for souvenirs; the word has now go a debasing term for whatsoever is thought to be in flamboyant bad gustatory modality.
Kouros
Primitive Greek statue of standing youth (pl. kouroi).
Krater
ancient Greek storage vessel; different shapes were used for water and wine.
Kufic script
angular, square blazon of Arabic script (the more flowing script is NASHKI); sometimes plant in decorative Romanesque and Gothic art.

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Lacquerware
Objects (forest, bamboo, metallic and other materials) coated in resinous decorative finish. Speciality of Chinese art.
State Art (excavation, environmental art)
A grade of contemporary art dating from the 1960s and 70s created in the landscape, either by using natural forms, or by enhancing natural forms with human being-made materials. Famous pioneer environmental artists include Robert Smithson, and Christo and Jeanne-Claude.
Landscape painting
Composition in which the scenery is the principal field of study. Also: breathtaking areas of a painting or drawing.
Lapis Lazuli
deep-blue semiprecious stone, 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 art of the pre-Roman period; the proper noun is derived from a site in Switzerland where metal objects and weapons in this style have been constitute.
Life drawing
drawing from a live human model.
Linear
artistic mode 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'due south view-point volition appear to encounter at a vanishing betoken. Pioneers included Renaissance painters Masaccio and Andrea Mantegna.
Line engraving
the art or procedure of hand-engraving in Intaglio and copper plate, using a Burin. Also: a print taken from such a plate.
Lino cut
print produced past carving a design into a cake of linoleum.
Lithography
printing method in which a design is drawn on stone with a greasy crayon and then inked.
Lost Wax Method, run into: Cire Perdue.
Luminism
Fashion of low-cal-related 19th century American landscape painting.

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Thou

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 every bit Mannerism.
Maquette
model made on a small scale past a sculptor or a stage-designer as a preliminary iii-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 sea field of study.
Masterpiece
originally a examination slice of work washed past the medieval amateur in order to qualify every bit a Master of his Gild. The term is at present used more freely to mean a work of outstanding importance or quality.
Medieval art
church architecture, illuminated manuscripts, stone sculpture, murals, metalwork and goldsmithery from the menstruation of the Eye Ages (c.450-1450).
Medium
the ways or fabric with which an artist expresses himself. In painting, the medium is the liquid in which pigment is mixed and thinned, east.g. linseed oil.
Metalwork
Decorative precious metals art adult in Sumer, Egypt and Crete, before being refined by Celtic, Byzantine and Romanesque artists in Belgium.
Mezzotint
method of copper engraving, Also: a print produced past this method.
Mimesis
is a term which describes the artistic imitation of nature, rather than its interpretation: in order words, the showing of things as opposed to the telling of things (diegesis).
Miniature Painting
very small slice of work, such as a Medieval Manuscript Illumination. During the Renaissance and the 18th and 19th centuries, the term was more specifically practical to small portraits painted on ivory.
Minimalist fine art
modern fine art that rejects texture, subject, temper, etc and reduces forms and colours to the simplest.
Mixed Media
the combination of different materials in the aforementioned work, sometimes including operation.
Mobile
Kinetic sculpture probably originated by Alexander Calder in 1932; the sculpture is hung from wires so that information technology is moved by air currents.
Mobiliary Art
Prehistoric portable artworks.
Modeling
iii-dimensional representation of objects.
Modernism
the theory of modernist art that rejects past styles, and promotes contemporary art as the true reflection of the age, hence modernist.
Modernistic Fine art
Traditionally starts with Impressionism, from about 1874 onwards, until the early on post-world state of war 2 period. Late Pop-fine art then ushers in gimmicky or post-modern fine art.
Monotype
printing procedure that takes an impression from a metallic or drinking glass plate, producing only one print of each design, which must so exist redrawn.
Awe-inspiring
connected with, or serving as, a monument. Also: used figuratively of paintings and other art forms to mean imposing or massive.
Mosaic Art
designs formed from small pieces of stone, glass, marble, etc.
Motif
a repeated distinctive feature in a blueprint.
Mughal art
art and architecture of the courts of the Muslim rulers in Bharat, 1526-1707, equally exemplified by Mughal painting and by the Taj Mahal in Agra, Uttar Pradesh.
Landscape Painting
pictures painted on walls or ceilings, traditionally in fresco.
Mythological painting
Pictures of subjects chosen from Greek and Roman Classical mythology, popular from the 15th century to the 19th. Besides called History Painting.

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Nail Fine art
A course of torso painting.
Naive
The work, style, or fine art of untaught artists, usually crudely naturalistic.
Nashki
The flowing form of Standard arabic calligrahic script (compare Kufic).
Naturalism
Authentic, detailed representation of objects or scenes as they appear, whether attractive or otherwise. (compare Realism).
Nazi Art
Mostly architecture, flick, photography, sculpture and affiche art serving Nazi' propagandist needs.
Not-objective art
A 20th century term practical to visual fine art which is not based on existing, observable forms, but rather on abstruse or idealized forms, such as geometric, mathematical, imaginary, etc. An early pioneer of not-brainchild is Piet Mondrian.
Non-representational art
Likewise called non-objective, this style consisted of works which had no reference to anything outside themselves. In do, it was mainly geometrically abstract.
Nude genre
For a brief survey of nudity in painting and sculpture, meet: Female Nudes in Art History (Peak 20). Encounter likewise Male Nudes in Art History (Top 10).

O

Objet trouve, see: Constitute Object.
Oceanic art
From the South Pacific, including Australasia.
Oeuvre
the full output of an artist. Also: a piece of work of art.
Starting time litho
lithographic technique in which ink is transferred from a plate to a rubber roller, and then onto the newspaper.
Oil painting
A medium where pigments are mixed with drying oils, such as linseed, walnut, or poppyseed, which plant bully favour due to its luminescence of detail, its rich color, and its wider tonal range. Popularized during the 15th century in Northern Europe (whose climate did non favour fresco works), foremost pioneers of oil pigment techniques included (in Kingdom of the netherlands) Hubert and Jan Van Eyck, and (in Italy) Leonardo Da Vinci.
Oils
There are various types of oil which are used every bit binders and drying agents (oil plus pigment dries past a process of oxidation past absorbing oxygen from the air) by oil painters. Linseed oil, made from flax seeds, adds gloss and transparency to paints and dries very thoroughly (inside 3-five days), making it ideal for underpainting. Stand oil is a thicker type of linseed oil, with a slower drying time (vii-14 days), which is often diluted with (eg) turpentine, and used for glazing to produce a smooth, enamel-like finish with minimal traces of brushmarks. Poppyseed oil, much paler, more than 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 (5-7 days), and so it is perfect for working wet on wet. Walnut oil is a thin, pale yellow-brown oil (dries in 4-5 days) which is commonly used to brand oil paint more fluid.
Orders of Architecture
the five Classic orders, each composed of a column, having a base, shaft, capital, and entablature with architrave frieze, and cornice. At that place are three orders of Greek compages: Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. These were adapted by the Romans, who added Tuscan and Composite.
Origami paper folding
Reputedly invented in Nihon effectually 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, under the Ottonian emperors.
Outsider art
Refers to works past those outside of mainstream society. Outsider art broadly includes folk art and ethnic art as well as by prisoners, the mentally ill and others neither trained in art nor making their works to sell them.
Overpainting
The final layer of paint that is practical over the nether painting or under layer later it has dried. The idea behind layers of painting is that the under painting is used to define the basic shapes and design and so that the overpainting can be used to fill in the details of the piece.

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P

Paintbrush
Bristles may derive from a variety of animals including boar, wolf, squirrel and badger as well as constructed. Blood-red sable pilus is considered the finest. Different shapes are employed for different types of painting tasks: larger, more indistinct areas of painting such every bit the heaven in landscapes were typically done with flat or circular-tipped hogs hair brushes, while specific detail was painted with fine pointed sable brushes. In addition, feathers were sometimes employed to smooth out areas of pigment to remove visible brushwork. Badger Brushes were used to blend adjacent areas of different tones.
Painterly
a term coined by 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
procedure of applying paint. Also: object produced past applying pigment to a flat back up, due east.g. a wall or sheet.
For history and famous painters, see Fine Art Painting.
Palette
slab of wood, metallic or glass used past the artist for mixing paint. Likewise: figuratively: the range of colours used by the artist. See: Colour Mixing Tips.
Palette knife
spatula-shaped knife for mixing or applying thick, bodied paint.
Panel painting
refers to the employ of wooden panels, equally support: a practise which was widespread until the appearance of canvas during the 15th century. In Flanders, Holland, France and England, oak panels were most popular; in Deutschland and Republic of austria oak, beech, lime, chestnut, and cherrywood was used; while in Italy poplar was besides employed. Dry seasoned planks were primed with several coats of "size" - a gum 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; specially large-scale painting around a room, or rolled on a cylinder.
Papier Colle ("pasted paper")
collage of paper/card, first used in 1912 past Georges Braque.
Parietal Fine art
Prehistoric paintings, engravings or relief sculptures on cavern walls and ceilings.
Pastel
Crayon fabricated from pigment mixed with gum and water and pressed into a stick-shaped class, or piece of work executed in this medium. Because pastel tends to exist light and chalky in tone, the word is likewise used to draw pale, lite colours.
Pastoral
idealized landscape painting or country scene.
Pensieri
small models made as preliminaries to larger models, when making sculpture.
Performance Art
Contemporary course; meet also Happenings.
Perspective
A term which refers to the "depth" of a film - that is, the illusion of three-dimensional infinite on the picture's two-dimensional surface - whereby forms in the background appear smaller than those in the foreground. The "unmarried point" or linear perspective system was pioneered by Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) in Florence in relation to his architecture. Mathematically constructed then that all receding parallel lines seem to converge towards each other, eventually meeting at a unmarried point (the vanishing point), this method of perspective was employed by 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 rock carvings and engravings.
Phalerae
metallic boss or disc, worn every bit an decoration or decorating a horse's harness. Usually seen in Hallstatt and La Tene style Celtic art.
Photography
Now a fine arts medium.
Photomontage
picture combining juxtaposed photographic images.
Photorealism
a hyper-realistic fashion of painting in which an image is created in such detail that it resembles a photograph.
Pictographs (Prehistoric)
Also called pictograms, they are images typically on stone faces which express an idea or information.
Picturesque
quaint, charming. From the 18th century onwards "The Picturesque" acquired a more than specific pregnant, particularly in connection with landscape 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 belongings the expressionless trunk of Christ.
Paint
the color element in pigment. Pigments can consist of a broad variety of ingredients, including minerals, natural/bogus dyestuffs, and other synthetic compounds. See: Colour Pigments: Types, History.
Plains Fine art
describes the native American Indian fine art practised past the Sioux, Commanche and Blackfeet tribes, on the Western Plains of the U.s.a..
Plastic
used in art to draw anything that tin can be molded or modeled; the opposite of Glyptic.
Plastic art
3-dimensional forms of fine art such equally sculpture, pottery, and architecture.
Plein air painting
refers to the spontaneous outdoor method of painting from nature - usually landscapes - as perfected by Claude Monet among others.
Pochade
sketch, especially one fabricated outdoors.
Polymorphic painting
multiform painting, produced by some modern kinetic artists. The appearance of the work changes according to the position of the observer.
Popular Art
Sixties movement led by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. Run into: Andy Warhol's Pop Art.
Polyptych
painted work (usually an altarpiece) of more three panels; come across besides Diptych, Triptych.
Porcelain
difficult, refined ceramic stoneware, invented by the Chinese in the 7th century. Meet Chinese Porcelain.
Portrait Art
Drawn or painted image of a person, ordinarily naturalistic and identifiable; hence portraiture, portraitist. Run across as well Bust.
Affiche Art
Either advert lithographic designs, propaganda posters or reproductions of famous paintings. For more details, see: History of Poster Art.
Potter's wheel
Horizontal revolving disk used to shape clay by the ceramicist.
Pottery
A form of ceramic art, in which wet dirt is shaped, stale, glazed and fired in a kiln to create a variety of vessels, and ornaments. For history and styles of Artifact, see: Greek Pottery.
Poussinist
adherent of the French late 17th-century theory of poussinism: the supremacy of line (draftsmanship) over color.
Prehistoric art
Creative expression of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods of the Stone Age. For a chronological dateline, run into: Prehistoric Art Timeline.
Master colours
red, blue, and yellow; the colours that tin can be mixed to produce other colours, but cannot themselves be produced from mixtures.
Primitivism/Primitive fine art
Paintings and drawings past people outside the influence of traditional Western styles. Also: works by intuitive painters or sculptors with a "naive" style commonly due to their lack of formal arts training.
Print
any image, pattern, or lettering produced on textile or paper by a variety of graphic processes. Also: (verb) to make an impression or image by such a procedure. Usually means letter-printing; printmaking involves producing an paradigm 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 metal plate, stone, wood or linoleum block, or silkscreen, with monochrome or colour printing inks.
Proportion
in painting, sculpture and architecture, this describes the ratio between the respective parts and the whole work, as annunciated (for instance) in the Canon of Proportion, a mathematical formula establishing ideal proportions of the various parts of the human body.
Protestant Reformation Art
A less overt, more humble, smaller-scale type of religious art, triggered by Luther's defection (1517) and exemplified by the piece of work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Rembrandt and January Vermeer.
Provenance
A term meaning the origins of a piece of work of art, specifically its history of ownership since its cosmos. Museum curators and fine art research experts at auctioneers like Christie'due south and Sotheby's written report a work'due south provenance to establish its authenticity.
Public Art
A loose term which, in exercise, means artworks financed out of the public handbag. Can besides hateful works (unremarkably sculpture) sited in public places, such equally the Chicago Picasso.

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Q

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

R

Raku
Japanese pottery used for the tea ceremony; molded, not thrown on a wheel.
Readymades
Name given past Dadaist Marcel Duchamp to prefabricated objects exhibited equally works of art.
Realism
style of painting dating from the 19th century, typified by Courbet, that makes a deliberate selection of everyday subject matter (Realisme). Also: the opposite of abstract or distorted (similar to naturalism). Also: in Greek Classical sculpture. work that is not stylized or idealized.
Cherry-red-figure technique
The technique of the finest ancient Greek vase-painting in which figures were fatigued in blackness and the back-basis blocked in in black so that the figure stood out in the red.
Relief sculpture
carving, etc in which forms project and depth is hollowed out; the blazon of relief is determined by the degree to which the design stands out; thus alto rilievo (loftier relief) and bas relief (low relief), in which the projection is slight.
Religious Art
Typically architecture, sculpture, painting or crafts or artifacts with a religious theme.
Renaissance ("rebirth")
The period of Renaissance art runs from c.1400 to 1600, divided into Early Renaissance (c.1400-90), Loftier Renaissance (c.1490-1530), and Mannerism (c. 1530-1600); as a whole it was characterized by greater emphasis on realism, a mastery of linear perspective, Humanism (a belief in the primacy of human) and the rediscovery of Classical art. North of the Alps, the movement is known every bit the Northern Renaissance.
Repousse
Technique of metalwork art, where metal is decorated by hammering from the side not seen, so that the blueprint stands out in relief.
Repoussoir
A method of creating or enhancing perspective in a painting, for instance by placing a large effigy/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 effect of repoussoir to enliven their pictures of the apartment and characterless Dutch countryside.
Representational art
art that attempts to testify objects equally they really announced, or at to the lowest degree in some hands recognizable class.
Stone Fine art
Petroglyphs, pictographs and other forms of stone engraving or cavern painting.

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S

Salon
French almanac exhibition in Paris (held from 17th century onwards) of painting and sculpture past 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 club had no selection jury.
Salon des Refuses
exhibition of 1863 promoted by Napoleon Iii to evidence works rejected by the official Paris Salon.
Sand Fine art
Practised for centuries past Navajo Indians, Australian aborigines, Oceanic natives and Tibetan Buddhists, it has been given a new lease of life by contemporary artists around the world.
Scholar-painter
the Japanese equivalent of Wen-jen hua (or "literary men'south painting") in Chinese art; a literary-minded amateur who painted for pleasure.
Scroll
scroll of paper or silk, popular in Oriental art. A mitt coil is about 30cm (12 in) wide and up to 30m (100 ft) long, and unrolls from right to left to requite a continuous picture, viewed department by section. A hanging curl, every bit the proper name implies, is hung like a painting. Both are usually painted in ink or watercolour.
Sculpture
Object carved or modeled in wood, rock, etc or cast in metallic for an aesthetic, nonfunctional purpose; or the process of producing information technology; hence sculptor. "Sculptural" is used to describe fine art (including painting and cartoon) that has pronounced three-dimensional qualities.
Scumble
an opaque or semiopaque layer of pigment applied over another then that the first is partially obliterated, producing a slightly broken result.
Seascape
painting or drawing of the sea and shipping.
Self-Portraiture
Self-portraits were created every bit early as the Amarna Period (c.1365 BCE) in Ancient Arab republic of egypt, although the genre wasn't properly exploited until the time of Albrecht Durer in belatedly 15th century Germany. Since then, other important pioneers of cocky-portrait painting accept included Rembrandt, Vincent Van Gogh and Egon Schiele.
Sfumato
a painting technique developed by Leonardo da Vinci, in which transitions from lite to dark are and then gradual they are most imperceptible; sfumato blurs lines and creates a soft-focus result.
Sgraffito
A term meaning scratched; in painting, one colour is laid over another, and scratched with a tool and then 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 art
Any work of art (typically murals, or sculpture) created for a specific identify, which cannot be separated or exhibited exterior its intended environment.
Sketching
Typically a sketch is a rapidly executed or coincidental portrayal of a subject, in pencil, charcoal, pen and ink or other portable medium, often produced equally a preliminary work in preparation for something more detailed.
Skyscraper
a blazon of high-rise building design pioneered by American architects in the Chicago School of Architecture (c.1880-1910).
Stabile
A style of 20th century sculpture consisting of a stationary object, fixed to a base of some description. Contrasts with a mobile, the free-hanging sculptural invention of American sculptor Alexander Calder (1898-1976), stabiles were also created past Calder.
Stained Drinking glass Fine art
Attained its apogee during the era of Gothic Architecture.
Statue
Freestanding sculpture; life-size, representational art.
Stencil art
An epitome created by applying ink or pigment through a cutting-out surface.
Even so Life painting
1 of the major genres of Western fine art, it describes a type of painting featuring inanimate everyday objects. There are four types: (1) flower pieces, (2) breakfast or banquet pieces, (3) animal pieces, (4) Symbolic Still Lifes.
Stippling
a drawing technique which employs many small dots or flecks to construct the image, or shading.
Stoneware
hard pottery made from clay plus a fusible rock (normally feldspar) and fired at 1200-1400°C so that the rock is vitrified.
Stone Sculpture
Includes carvings from metamorphic, sedementary and igneous rocks.
Support
Canvas, paper, panel, 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 pattern or narrative design woven in past mitt, during manufacture. For details and history, run 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 gum or milk). Widely used in Italian fine art in the 14th and 15th centuries, both for panel painting and fresco, was then superceded by oil paint.
Tenebrism
style of 17th-century painting associated with Caravaggio making much utilize of strong Chiaroscuro.
Terra cotta (Latin: "baked earth")
hard, fired hut unglazed, brown-red clay used for pottery, and building. See: Terracotta Sculpture.
Tondo
circular picture or relief.
Trecento
Italian for the 14th century. Traditionally refers to Italian art (1300-1400).
Tribal Art
Also called Archaic Native Fine art, it embraces the traditional fine art of tribal societies in the Americas, Africa, Bharat, the S Pacific, and Australasia.
Triptych
picture or carving in 3 parts; a class of polyptych common for altarpieces.
Trompe l'oeil
painting that "deceives the eye"; type of illusionistic painting characterized by its very precise naturalism.

U-Z

Ukiyo-e (woodblock prints)
Japanese, meaning "pictures of the floating earth". Genre painting, and afterwards Woodblock prints, whose subjects were actors, domestic scenes, and courtesans.
Vanishing betoken
indicate at which the receding parallel lines in a painting announced to meet; see Linear perspective.
Vanitas Painting
Nevertheless Life paintings, popular in 17rh century Holland, which comprise objects as reminders of the impermanence of temporal life and of mortality.
Victorian Art
British architecture, craft produced during the reign of Queen Victoria (c.1840-1900).
Video Art
Gimmicky course pioneered past artists similar Andy Warhol (1928-87) and Neb Viola (b.1951). Can be either stand up-lone or combined with other media in an installation.
Viking Art
Norse art mainly embraces portable metalwork and carvings.
Visual art
A broad category of artistic disciplines, encompassing the fine arts, some of the practical arts and certain modern art forms.
Watercolour Painting
Uses a h2o-soluble painting medium. Watercolours are ordinarily applied with brushes, simply several other tools may also employed. The most common painting techniques are known as wet-on-dry and wet-on-wet, plus the dry castor techniques dry out-on-dry and dry-on-moisture. Watercolours tin exist removed while still wet, by blotting. When watercolour are fabricated thicker, opaque and mixed with white, it is more often than not referred to equally gouache. Thomas Girtin and JMW Turner were two great pioneers of the art class.
Woodblock
Print produced from a pattern on a wooden block. See also Woodcut prints.
Wood Carving
Reached its apogee in Late Gothic Deutschland, at the hands of main forest-carvers like Veit Stoss (1450-1533) and Tilman Riemenschneider (1460-1531).
Word Art
Includes whatever text-based give-and-take 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 Red 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.
Xanthous 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 animal forms.

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More Fine art Glossaries

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

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

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF Fine art
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