Art Terminology

Megan M. (United Kingdom)
Basic art terminology for quick reference. For full understanding, research is required.
49 words 58 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. intaglio
    a printing process that uses an etched or engraved plate
  2. bas relief
    sculpture that projects only slightly from the background
  3. high relief
    a sculptural relief in which forms extend out from the background to at least half their depth
  4. aquatint
    a method of etching that imitates the broad washes of a water color
  5. mezzotint
    print produced by an engraving that has been scraped to represent light or shade
  6. Abstract Expressionism
    a New York school of painting characterized by freely created abstractions; the first important school of American painting to develop independently of European styles
  7. art nouveau
    a French school of art and architecture popular in the 1890s
  8. Bauhaus
    a German style of architecture begun by Walter Gropius in 1918
  9. chiaroscuro
    the arrangement or interplay of light and dark in an artwork
  10. cubism
    an artistic movement featuring surfaces of geometric planes
  11. dadaism
    a nihilistic art movement (especially in painting) that flourished in Europe early in the 20th century; based on irrationality and negation of the accepted laws of beauty
  12. expressionism
    an art movement focused on representing inner emotions
  13. fauvism
    an art movement launched in 1905 whose work was characterized by bright and nonnatural colors and simple forms; influenced the expressionists
  14. futurism
    an artistic movement in Italy around 1910 that tried to express the energy and values of the machine age
  15. gouache
    a watercolor executed with opaque watercolors mixed with gum
  16. iconography
    the system or use of familiar images as symbols
  17. impasto
    painting that applies the pigment thickly so that brush or palette knife marks are visible
  18. Impressionism
    a school of late 19th century French painters who pictured appearances by strokes of unmixed colors to give the impression of reflected light
  19. minimalism
    an art movement in sculpture and painting that began in the 1950s and emphasized extreme simplification of form and color
  20. monochromatic
    having or appearing to have only one color
  21. montage
    the technique of splicing together different sections of film to convey an idea
  22. mosaic
    design made of small pieces of colored stone or glass
  23. mural
    a painting that is applied to a wall surface
  24. naturalistic
    representing what is real; not abstract or artificial
  25. neoclassicism
    revival of antiquity art, literature, architecture, or music
  26. op art
    a style of abstractionism popular in the 1960s
  27. polychromatic
    having or exhibiting many colors
  28. Pop Art
    a school of art that emerged in the United Kingdom in the 1950s and became prevalent in the United States and the United Kingdom in the 1960s; it imitated the techniques of commercial art (as the soup cans of Andy Warhol) and the styles of popular culture and the mass media
  29. realism
    artistic movement that represents the world accurately
  30. Renaissance
    period of European history at the close of the Middle Ages
  31. rococo
    having excessive asymmetrical ornamentation
  32. Romanesque
    an architectural style of 11th- and 12th-century Western Europe
  33. Romanticism
    a movement in literature and art during the late 18th and early 19th centuries that celebrated nature rather than civilization
  34. surrealism
    an artistic movement using fantastic and incongruous images
  35. symbolism
    artistic movement expressing ideas through the use of images
  36. triptych
    art consisting of a painting or carving on three panels
  37. trompe l'oeil
    a painting with so much detail that it looks real
  38. limn
    make a portrait of
  39. pastiche
    a work of art that imitates the style of some previous work
  40. parquet
    a floor made of a patterned wood inlay
  41. marmoreal
    of or relating to or characteristic of hard crystalline rock
  42. encaustic
    a paint consisting of pigment mixed with melted beeswax
  43. furbelow
    a strip of pleated material used as a decoration or a trim
  44. in situ
    in the original or natural place or site
  45. aureole
    the outermost region of the sun's atmosphere
  46. Coptic
    of or relating to the Copts or their church or language or art
  47. schmaltz
    excessive sappiness or sentimentality in art or music
  48. autotelism
    belief that a work of art is an end in itself or its own justification
  49. ex post facto
    affecting things past
Created on Mon Jul 08 15:31:23 EDT 2013 (updated Mon Jan 20 06:00:39 EST 2014)

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