| A | B |
|---|
| medium/media | a particular material, along with its accompanying technique. Artists select media to suit the ideas and feelings they want to represent |
| mixed media | art made with a combination of different materials |
| perception | the action of being aware through the senses, particularly sight and sound |
| aesthetics | the awareness of beauty or that quality in a work of art or other manmade or natural from which evokes a sense of elevated awareness in the viewer. some equate this with taste |
| untrained/folk artists | those with little or no formal art education who make objects commonly recognized as art |
| naive/outside artists | untrained artists made by people unaware of art history/not people working within a tradition/personal expression |
| folk art | art by artists who are part of established traditions of style, theme, and craftsmanship. Most are untrained in Western art skills. Create from inner desire to communicate. |
| trained artists | in the past apprentices who gained skills from knowledge of art traditions; now train at art schools or in college |
| representational/objective/figurative art | depicts the appearance of things, presents objects from everyday world |
| subjects | objects that representational art depicts |
| trompe l'oeill | French for "fool the eye"--art painted in a style that is illusionistic, meant to impress us by looking so "real" |
| abstract art | extracts the essence of an idea: either has no reference to natural objects or depicts natural objects in simplified, distorted, or exaggerated ways (we will use it in this definition) |
| nonprepresentational/nonobjective/non figurative art | presents visual forms with no specific references to anything outside themselves; we respond to this kind of art like the way we respond to music |
| form | total effect of combined visual qualities within work including materials, color, shape, line, and design. It is also what we see; content is the meaning we get from what we see |
| content | the message or meaning of a work of art; what the artist expresses or communicates to the viewer. Content determines form, but form expresses content. |
| iconography | the symbolic meaning of signs, subjects, and images. |
| iconographic interpretation | The identification and specific significance of subjects, motifs, forms, colors and positions. |
| picture plane | the two-dimensional picture surface |
| line | an extension of a point; records of the energy left by moving points |
| actual line | a line you can see |
| implied line | suggests visual connections |
| shape | a two-dimensional or implied two-dimensional area defined by line or changes in value and/or color |
| geometric shapes | tend to be precise and regular; examples circles, triangles, squares |
| organic shape | irregular, often rounded or curved, seem more relaxed and informal than geometric shapes |
| figures or positive shapes | the dominant shape in a picture; what you see first |
| ground or negative shapes | the shape of the picture background |
| mass | a three-dimensional area |
| closed form | a self-contained or explicitly limited form; having a resolved balance of tensions; a sense of calm completeness implying a totality within itself |
| open form | a form whose contour is irregular and broken, having a sense of growth, change, or unresolved tension; form in a state of becoming |
| implied mass | the appearance of mass in a two-dimensional medium created by lines, shading etc. |
| space | the indefinable, general receptacle of all things--continuous, infinite, ever-present |
| implied depth | the illusion of a third dimension |
| clues to spatial depth | overlap, diminishing size, vertical placement, diminishing detail, diminishing intensity of color |
| perspective | a system for creating an illusion of depth or three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface |
| linear perspective | parallel lines or edges appear to converge and objects appear smaller as the distance between them and the viewer increases |
| vanishing point | the point on the horizon line at which lines or edges that are parallel appear to converge |
| vantage point | the position from which the viewer looks at an object or visual field; also called "observation point" or "viewpoint" |
| one-point perspective | one vanishing point; example, parallel sides of a road appear to converge |
| two-point perspective | two sets of parallel lines appear to converge at two points on the horizon line |
| atmospheric or aerial perspective | a non-linear means for giving an illusion of depth; created by changing color, value, or detail |
| isometric perspective | parallel lines remain parallel; they do not converge as they recede; instead, rectangular planes that turn away from the viewer are drawn as parallelograms |
| time | the nonspatial continuum; the fourth dimension in which events happen in succession |
| implied motion | the way artists create a sense of motion by actual or implied changes in position |
| actual motion | using the forces of wind and water to create an art object in motion |
| light | radiant energy from natural or artificial sources; can be directed, reflected, refracted, or diffused |
| value (tone) | the relative lightness or darkness of surfaces from white through various greys to black |
| implied light | the perception of light created by shading, colored paper, etc. |
| color | the effect on our eyes of light waves of differing wavelengths or frequencies |
| visible spectrum | white light, the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Individual colors are components of white light |
| local color/object color | the color that appears to our eyes as that of the object; when light illuminates an object, some is absorbed by the surface and some reflected |
| hue | a particular wavelength of spectral color to which we give a name--e.g. yellow or green |
| value | the relative lightness or darkness from white through greys to black |
| intensity | also called saturation; refers to the purity of a hue or color |
| subtractive color mixture | pigment mixtures; when pigments of different hues are mixed together, the mixture appears duller and darker because pigments absorb more and more light as their absorptive qualities combine |
| additive color mixtures | the 3 light primaries (red-orange, green, and blue-violet); actual electric light colors that produce white light when combined |
| warm colors | colors that appear to expand and advance; the red-orange side of the color wheel |
| cool colors | colors that appear to contract and recede; the blue-green side of the color wheel |
| the color wheel | a concept first developed by Sir Isaac Newton who discovered the spectrum; he found that both ends could be combined into the hue red-violet; our color wheel divided into 12 pure hues |
| primary hues | the primary colors--red, yellow, and blue; cannot be produced by intermixing of other hues |
| secondary hues | orange, green, and violet; mixture of two primaries produces secondary hue; secondaries placed on color wheel between two primaries of which they are composed |
| intermediate hues | red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, blue-violet, and red-violet; each intermediate is located between the primary and secondary of which it is composed |
| complementary colors | emphasize two hues directly opposite each other on the color wheel, such as red and green |
| optical color mixture | vibrant color sensations produced when dots of pure color are placed together so that they blend in the eye and the mind |
| pointillism | a system of painting using tiny dots or "points" of color, developed by French artist Geoges Seurat in the 1880s; he called his technique Divisionism |
| color schemes | color groupings that provide distinct color harmonies |
| monochromatic color scheme | are based on variations in the value and intensity of a single hue; a pure hue is used alone with black/white or mixed with black/white |
| analogous color scheme | a color scheme based on colors adjacent to each other in the color wheel, each containing the same pure hue, such as a color scheme of yellow-green, green, and blue-green |
| complementary color scheme | a color scheme that emphasizes two hues directly opposite one another on the color wheel, such as red and green |
| texture | the tactile qualities of surfaces or the visual representation of those qualities |
| actual texture | textures we can feel by touching, such as polished marble, wood, or sand |
| simulated or implied texture | textures created to look like something other than paint on a flat surface (looks like fur, for example) |
| unity | the appearance and condition of oneness; the feeling that all elements of a work belong together |
| variety | counters unity; adds diversity to a work of art |
| balance | the achievement of equillibrium, in which acting influences are held in check by opposing forces |
| symmetrical or formal balance | the near or exact matching of left and right sides of a three-dimensional form or a two-dimensional composition |
| asymmetrical or informal balance | left and right sides are not the same; instead various elements are balanced--according to their size and meaning--around a felt or implied center of gravity |
| emphasis | used to draw our attention to an area or areas; position, contrast, color, intensity, and sized can be used to create emphasis |
| subordination | neutral areas of lesser emphasis keep us from being distracted by areas of emphasis |
| focal point | a specific spot or figure that is an area of emphasis |
| directional forces | "paths" for the eye to follow created by actual or implied lines |
| contrast | the juxtaposition of strongly dissimilar elements |
| repetition | repeating visual elements to give a composition unity, continuity, flow, and emphasis |
| rhythm | created through the regular recurrence of elements with related variations; refers to any kind of movement or structure of dominant and subordinate elements in sequence |
| scale | the size relation of one thing to another |
| proportion | the size relation of parts to the whole |
| hierarchical scale | the use of unnatural proportions to show the relative importance of figures (rulers appear larger than servants or captives) |
| impasto | the application of thick layers of pigment on a canvass |
