J O H N   C H I A P P O N E

For definitions that might be on the test, see the bottom of the first page of each chapter in the book. The Study Guides will tell you exactly what to study.

DEFINITIONS OF ART
 

Abstract Expressionism
In 1946 a style of painting emerged in New York that was spontaneous, painterly, free, and energetic. Emotions were its subject matter. It was the first American movement to achieve worldwide influence, and placed New York City at the center of the art world - a role formerly filled by Paris. Its artists include: Wassily Kandinsky, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Arshile Gorky.


Balance
A basic principle in art, it refers to the way the art elements are arranged to create a feeling of equilibrium or stability in a work. Balance can be symmetrical (formal), or it can be asymmetrical (informal).


Baroque art
A seventeenth European style of art and architecture that is highly elaborate, ornamented, dramatic, and grandiose.


Chiaroscuro
Dramatic lighting and shadows.


Color
An element of art with three properties:  (1) hue, the color name, for example,  red, yellow, blue; (2) intensity, the brightness and purity of a color, for example, bright red or dull red; and (3) value, the lightness or darkness of a color


Contour line
A line that surrounds and defines the edges of an object or figure.


Contrapposto
A way of sculpting a human figure in a natural pose with the weight of one leg, the shoulder, and hips counterbalancing each other.


Contrast
A principle of art that differentiates one thing from another, differences between elements, opposites, unlikeness, or dissimilarity.


Cool Colors
Blue, violet, and green.


Cubism
A twentieth-century art movement developed by Picasso and Braque. All sides of three-dimensional objects are displayed. The subject matter is disassembled, analyzed, and reassembled. Subjects are also integrated in the background, and cannot be removed from the space, or room for example, while leaving the space intact. The first cubist painting (Les Demoiselles d’Avignon) was painted by Pablo Picasso. 


Dada
It began in Zürich Switzerland in 1916 as a reaction to World War I. They believed that “Destruction is also creation." Dada can best be defined as art without rules. It focuses on the absurdity of existence, irrationality, is countercultural, controversial, and shocking.


Dry media
Drawing or painting media that are applied dry. These include: pencil, pastels, charcoal, crayons, and chalk.


Elements of art
The elements of art can include: point, color, value, line, shape, form, texture, and space.


Emotionalism
With abstract expressionism the subjects of the painting are intense emotions and energy. With emotionalism the motive of the work is to produce intense emotions in the viewer.


Emphasis
A point of interest in a work of art.


Expressionism
(1905-20)
A twentieth-century German art movement. Its main purpose was to elicit emotions. They distorted reality, used vivid colors, and think textures. Expressionism is exhibited in many art forms, including painting, literature, theatre, film, architecture, and music. El Greco’s paintings anticipated this movement.


Fauvism
(1905–1907)
The leaders of the movement were Henri Matisse and André Derain in France.  The works emphasized painterly qualities and strong color over representational or realistic values. 


Form
Form is an element in art. These are three-dimensional shapes such as spheres or cubes. 


Gesso
A mixture of glue and plaster to create a surface for painting.
 

Gradation
A principle of art that refers to gradual changes.


Giclée (zhee-clay)
The printing process of sprayed ink. Computer printers use this technology.


Harmony
In music harmony refers simultaneously pitches or chords. It also refers to sounds that are pleasing.


In the visual arts, harmony results when the parts of a picture combine to create a sense of wholeness. This is usually achieved by similarity and repetition.


Hue
The name of a color: red, blue, yellow, green, brown etc..
 

Impressionism
This style of painting and music started in France during the 1860's. Claude Monet (1840 –1926) was a founder of the movement in painting. The name comes from the title of his painting Impression Sunrise. Characteristics of Impressionist painting include bold visible brush strokes, emphasis on light, ordinary subject matter, and unusual angles.


Intensity
It is the brightness of color, and is also called saturation.


Line
A continuous mark. Line can be two-dimensional (drawing), three-dimensional (string), implied (shapes that line up), or contour (edge or outline).


Linear perspective
When, in two-dimensional art, parallel lines converge at a distance to what we call a vanishing point, it creates the illusion of depth.


Lithography
A printing method invented by Alois Senefelder in 1796. A drawing using oil-based crayons is done on a smooth flat stone or plate. When the plate is washed, the grease drawing attracts the ink to be printed, and the water repels the ink. 

By contrast the intaglio printing plate is engraved, etched, or stippled to make cavities to contain the ink, and in woodblock printing ink is applied to raised surfaces of letters or images.


Mannerism
(1520 - 1600)
A period of European art that emerged from the High Renaissance in Italy. It is focused on the human form, uses distorted elongated figures, uses exaggerated colors and proportions, and is more emotional. It was replaced by the Baroque style. Michelangelo and Raphael are both mannerists.


Medium
The materials used in an artwork.


Mobile
Invented by American artist Alexander Calder, these kinetic sculptures hang objects off of arms that are balanced and suspended from the ceiling. 


Monochromatic
One color


Mosaic
Mosaic is the art of creating images with small pieces of colored glass, stone, tiles, or fragments of pottery.


Movement
A principle of art, is a way of combining elements to produce the look of action or to cause the viewer's eye to sweep over the work in a certain manner.


A movement is a style of art, architecture, or literature that has a shared philosophy, goals, and a following of artists. In music it is more common to speak about genres and styles.


Movement also refers to how the artwork causes the eye to travel around the work.


Mural
A mural is a painting on a wall, ceiling, or other large permanent surface.


Neoclassicism
(1750-1880)
A French revival of earlier classical Greek and Roman art. It was a reaction against the Baroque era.


Nonobjective
Abstract art that is without reference to objects from reality.


Painterly
A painting is painterly when there are visible brush strokes, rough textures, a spontaneous, and free use of paint. The Impressionists and Abstract Expressionists are examples of painterly movements.


The opposite of painterly is linear. Pop Art and photo-realism are examples of linear syyles. They emphasize flatness, smooth, and subdued brushstrokes. The Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein rejected painterliness by created images of brush strokes, rendered with comic book style colors, and Ben-day dots.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben-Day_dots


Parable
A parable is a brief, succinct story, in prose or verse, that illustrates a moral or religious lesson. It differs from a fable in that fables use animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as characters, while parables generally feature human characters.


Pastel
Pastel is an art medium in the form of a stick. It consists of powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are the same as those used to produce all colored art media - including oil paints.


Perspective
The illusion of depth or distance in two-dimensional artwork. There are three types of perspective: linear, atmospheric, and shifting.
 

With linear perspective parallel lines appear to converge at a distance. The point where they converge is called the vanishing point.


Atmospheric perspective, also called aerial perspective, creates the illusion of depth by making the background or distant objects less detailed. As an object recedes into the background, the atmosphere defuses the light; its contrast with the background is reduced; its color fades, and it becomes bluer.


Shifting perspective appears in Chinese landscapes. The foreground of the painting is separate from the background. The foreground is detailed, and stretches to the middle ground – where a vast space appears.
 

Photo-Realism
Art the is rendered so realistically that it appears to be a photograph.


Pigment
Powders, called pigments, are used in paint. They absorb certain wavelengths of light, and reflect other wavelengths. The wavelengths that are reflected give the paint its color. Black absorbs all the wavelengths while white reflects all visible wavelengths of light.


Plane
Same as surface.


Pop Art
Pop art is a visual art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1960s in the United States. Pop art rejected traditional art - especially abstract expressionism, and   presented mass-produced products from popular culture as acceptable objects of Fine Art since it removes the objects from their context, and isolates them for contemplation. It featured images from comic strips, magazine ads, and supermarket products. Pop artists include: Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, David Hockney, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, and George Segal.


Portrait
A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and mood of the person.
 

Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Post-Impressionists extended Impressionism while rejecting its limitations: they continued using vivid colours, thick application of paint, distinctive brushstrokes and real-life subject matter, but they were more inclined to emphasize geometric forms, to distort form for expressive effect, and to use unnatural or arbitrary color.


Primary colors
Red, yellow, and blue are the primary colors. From them you can make all other colors.


Principals of art

The principles of art are rules that help us judge a work.  The principles are movement, unity, variety, balance, emphasis, contrast, proportion, and pattern.
 

Proportion
Proportion is the principle of art concerned with the size of  objects in relationship to other objects. The drawing by Leonardo da Vinci shows the proportions of the human face.


Realism
A mid-nineteenth-century style of art in which subjects are depicted as they appear in everyday life.


In theatre realism is a movement towards depicting real life.


Regionalism
Regionalism is an American realist movement that was popular during the depression of the 1930s. They shunned city life and technological advances, and depicted scenes of rural life. Some regionalist artists are: Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, and John Steuart Curry.


Renaissance
A revival or rebirth of cultural awareness and learning that took place during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, particularly in Italy


Renaissance Man

A Renaissance Man, or polymath, is well educated in a wide variety of subjects or fields. The basic tenets of Renaissance Humanism considered man empowered, limitless in capacities for development, and led to the notion that people should embrace all knowledge, and develop their capacities as fully as possible. Thus people of the Renaissance sought to develop skills in all areas of knowledge, physical development, and the arts.


Repetition
A principle of art, also known as pattern or rhythm, repetition is consistency, the repeating of elements and patterns that bring movement to the work.


Rhythm
Pattern and rhythm (also known as repetition) is consistency with colors and lines. Putting a red spiral at the bottom left and top right, for example will cause the eye to move from one spiral to the other. It is indicating movement by the repetition of elements. Rhythm makes an artwork seem active.


Rococo art
An eighteenth-century style of art in Europe. It succeeded the Baroque style, but is also very elaborate.


Romanticism
Romanticism is a complex artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe. It was a revolt against aristocratic norms. It stressed emotions as a source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as trepidation, horror and awe.


Screen printing
A printing process that pushes ink through a screen.


Secondary colors
Secondary colors are made by mixing two primary colors together. The secondary colors are:


Orange - made by mixing red and yellow
Green - made by mixing blue and yellow
Violet - made by mixing blue and red

Shape
Shape is an element of art. It is two-dimensional with height, width, and an outline. Forms are three-dimensional.


Sketch
A hurried rough drawing.


Solvent
A chemical used to dilute paint.


Space
An element of art. Positive space is the space occupied by objects. Negative space is the distance between objects. Nothing exists without it. Space can be thought of as the distance or area around, between, above, below or within places. In art, space can be described as either two-dimensional or three-dimensional.


Still life
A painting, drawing, or sculpture of a setting of food, plants, and other ordinary objects.


Style
The common characteristics of an artist's own original work or a group’s work.


Surrealism
The surrealism movement began in the 1920s, and was concentrated in Paris. It stresses subject matter taken from the subconscious mind, dreams, and creative fantasies. Surrealist works also feature the element of surprise and unexpected juxtapositions. It is a revolutionary movement - developed out of Dadaism of World War I. The movement spread worldwide, and influenced the visual arts, literature, film, and music.


Symmetry
A balanced mirrored image.


Tempera
A paint that is mage by mixing pigments with egg yolks or whites.


Texture
Texture can be either real or perceived. Tactile texture is how an artwork actually feels while implied texture is how an artwork appears to feel.
 

Unity
A principle of art, unity or harmony is the quality of wholeness that is achieved through the effective use of the elements and principles of art. It is the arrangement of elements and principles to create a feeling of completeness.


Value
The lightness or darkness of color. 


Vanishing point
With linear perspective parallel lines appear to converge at a distance. The point where they converge is called the vanishing point.


Variety
Variety is the quality of having different forms or types. The differences give a design visual and conceptual interest: notably use of contrast, emphasis, difference in size and color.


Volume
The space inside a three-dimensional form. 


Warm colors
Warm colors are the different shades of red, yellow and orange. They convey the feeling of warmth.

Wet media
Media that are applied wet. This includes paint and ink.

Woodcut  or Woodblock printing
The negative image is engraved in wood; Ink is applied to the raised surfaces, and the block is pressed onto paper.

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