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Ackland Art Museum - Sculpture info Category: Arts > Sculpture and other art forms Date & country: 28/02/2011, USA Words: 252

Futurism
A group movement that originated in Italy in 1909. One of several movements to grow out of Cubism. Futurists added implied motion to the shifting planes and multiple observation points of the Cubists; they celebrated natural as well as mechanical motion and speed. Their glorification of danger, war, and the machine age was in keeping with the marti...

geodesic
A geometric form basic to structures using short sections of lightweight material joined into interlocking polygons. Also a structural system developed by R. Buckminster Fuller to create domes using the above principle.

gesso
A mixture of glue and either chalk or plaster of Paris applied as a ground or coating to surfaces in order to give them the correct properties to receive paint. Gesso can also be built up or molded into relief designs, or carved.

glaze
In ceramics, a vitreous or glassy coating applied to seal and decorate surfaces. Glaze may be colored, transparent, or opaque. In oil painting, a thin transparent or translucent layer brushed over another layer of paint, allowing the first layer to show through but altering its color slightly.

Gothic
Primarily an architectural style that prevailed in western Europe from the twelfth through the fifteenth centuries, characterized by pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and flying buttresses, that made it possible to create stone buildings that reached great heights.

gouache
An opaque, water-soluble paint. Watercolor to which opaque white has been added.

green belt
A strip of planned or protected open space, consisting of recreational parks, farm land, or uncultivated land, often used to define and limit the boundaries of a community and prevent urban sprawl.

ground
The background in two-dimensional works-the area around and between figures. Also, the surface onto which paint is applied.

Happening
An event conceived by artists and performed by artists and others, usually unrehearsed and without a specific script or stage.

hard-edge
A term first used in the 1950s to distinguish styles of painting in which shapes are precisely defined by sharp edges, in contrast to the usually blurred or soft edges in Abstract Expressionist paintings.

hatching
A technique used in drawing and linear forms of printmaking, in which lines are placed in parallel series to darken the value of an area. Cross-hatching is drawing one set of hatchings over another in a different direction so that the lines cross.

Hellenistic
Style of the last of three phases of ancient Greek art (300-100 B.C.), characterized by emotion, drama, and the interaction of sculptural forms with the surrounding space.

hierarchic proportion
Use of unnatural proportion to show the relative importance of figures.

high key
Exclusive use of pale or light values within a given area or surface.

horizon line
In linear perspective, the implied or actual line or edge placed on a two- dimensional surface to represent the place in nature where the sky meets the horizontal land or water plane. The horizon line matches the eye level on a two-dimensional surface. Lines or edges parallel to the ground plane and moving away from the viewer appear to converge at...

hue
That property of a color identifying a specific, named wavelength of light such as green, red, violet, and so on.

humanism
A cultural and intellectual movement during the Renaissance, following the rediscovery of the art and literature of ancient Greece and Rome. A philosophy or attitude concerned with the interests, achievements, and capabilities of human beings rather than with the abstract concepts and problems of theology or science.

icon
An image or symbolic representation often with sacred significance.

iconography
The symbolic meanings of subjects and signs used to convey ideas important to particular cultures or religions, and the conventions governing the use of such forms.

impasto
In painting, thick paint applied to a surface in a heavy manner, having the appearance and consistency of buttery paste.

Impressionism
A style of painting that originated in France about 1870. Paintings of casual subjects, executed outdoors, using divided brush strokes to capture the mood of a particular moment as defined by the transitory effects of light and color. The first Impressionist exhibit was held in 1874.

intaglio
Any printmaking technique in which lines and areas to be inked and transferred to paper are recessed below the surface of the printing plate. Etching, engraving, drypoint, and aquatint are all intaglio processes. See also print.

intensity
The relative purity or saturation of a hue (color), on a scale from bright (pure) to dull (mixed with another hue or a neutral. Also called chroma.

intermediate color
A hue between a primary and a secondary on the color wheel, such as yellow-green, a mixture of yellow and green.

International Style
An architectural style that emerged in several European countries between 1910 and 1920. Related to purism and De Stijl in painting, it joined structure and exterior design into a noneclectic form based on rectangular geometry and growing out of the basic function and structure of the building.

kiln
An oven in which pottery or ceramic ware is fired.

kinetic art
Art that incorporates actual movement as part of the design.

kore
Greek for "maiden." An Archaic Greek statue of a standing clothed young woman.

kouros
Greek for "youth." An Archaic Greek statue of a standing nude young male.

lens
The part of a camera that concentrates light and focuses the image.

linear perspective
See perspective.

lintel
See beam.

local color
The actual color as distinguished from the apparent color of objects and surfaces; true color, without shadows or reflections.

logo
Short for "logotype." Sign, name, or trademark of an institution, firm, or publication, consisting of letter forms borne on one printing plate or piece of type.

loom
A device for producing cloth by interweaving fibers at right angles.

low key
Consistent use of dark values within a given area or surface.

lumina
The use of actual light as an art medium.

Mannerism
A style that developed in the sixteenth century as a reaction to the classical rationality and balanced harmony of the High Renaissance; characterized by the dramatic use of space and light, exaggerated color, elongation of figures, and distortions of perspective, scale, and proportion.

mass
Three-dimensional form having physical bulk. Also, the illusion of such a form on a two-dimensional surface.

mat
Border of cardboard or similar material placed around a picture as a neutral area between the frame and the picture.

matte
A dull finish or surface, especially in painting, photography, and ceramics.

medium
(pl. media or mediums) 1. A particular material along with its accompanying technique; a specific type of artistic technique or means of expression determined by the use of particular materials. 2. In paint, the fluid in which pigment is suspended, allowing it to spread and adhere to the surface.

Minimalism
A nonrepresentational style of sculpture and painting, usually severely restricted in the use of visual elements and often consisting of simple geometric shapes or masses. The style came to prominence in the late 1960s.

mixed media
Works of art made with more than one medium.

mobile
A type of sculpture in which parts move, often activated by air currents. See also kinetic art.

modeling
1.Working pliable material such as clay or wax into three-dimensional forms. 2. In drawing or painting, the effect of light falling on a three-dimensional object so that the illusion of its mass is created and defined by value gradations.

modernism
Theory and practice in late nineteenth- and twentieth-century art, which holds that each new generation must build on past styles in new ways or break with the past in order to make the next major historical contribution. Characterized by idealism; seen as "high art," as differentiated from popular art. In painting, most clearly seen in the work of...

module
A standard unit of measure in architecture. The part of a structure used as a standard by which the rest is proportioned.

monochromatic
A color scheme limited to variations of one hue, a hue with its tints and/or shades.

montage
1.A composition made up of pictures or parts of pictures previously drawn, painted, or photographed. 2. In motion pictures, the combining of separate bits of film to portray the character of a single event through multiple views.

mosaic
An art medium in which small pieces of colored glass, stone, or ceramic tile called tessera are embedded in a background material such as plaster or mortar. Also, works made using this technique.

mural
A large wall painting, often executed in fresco.

naive art
Art made by people with no formal art training.

naturalism
Representational art in which the artist presents a subjective interpretation of visual reality while retaining something of the natural appearance or look of the objects depicted. Naturalism varies greatly from artist to artist, depending on the degree and kind of subjective interpretation.

nave
The tall central space of a church or cathedral, usually flanked by side aisles.

negative shape
A background or ground shape seen in relation to foreground or figure shapes.

neutrals
Not associated with any single hue. Blacks, whites, grays, and dull gray-browns. A neutral can be made by mixing complementary hues.

nonobjective
See nonrepresentational and abstract art.

nonrepresentational
Art without reference to anything outside itself-without representation. Also called nonobjective-without recognizable objects.

offset printing
Planographic printing by indirect image-transfer from photomechanical plates. The plate transfers ink to a rubber-covered cylinder, which "offsets" the ink to the paper. Also called photo-offset and offset lithography.

oil paint
Paint in which the pigment is held together with a binder of oil, usually linseed oil.

opaque
Impenetrable by light; not transparent or translucent.

open form
A form whose contour is irregular or broken, having a sense of growth, change, or unresolved tension; form in a state of becoming.

optical color mixture
Apparent rather than actual color mixture, produced by interspersing brush strokes or dots of color instead of physically mixing them. The implied mixing occurs in the eye of the viewer and produces a lively color sensation.

painterly
Painting characterized by openness of form, in which shapes are defined by loose brushwork in light and dark color areas rather than by outline or contour.

pastels 1.
1.Sticks of powdered pigment held together with a gum binding agent. 2. Pale colors or tints.

performance
art Dramatic presentation by visual artists (as distinguished from theater artists such as actors and dancers) before an audience, usually apart from a formal theatrical setting.

perspective rendering
A view of an architectural structure drawn in linear perspective, usually from a three-quarter view or similar vantage point that shows two sides of the proposed building.

photorealism
A style of painting that became prominent in the 1970s, based on the cool objectivity of photographs as records of subjects.

pictorial space
In a painting or other two-dimensional art, illusionary space which appears to recede backward into depth from the picture plane.

picture plane
The two-dimensional picture surface.

pigment
Any coloring agent, made from natural or synthetic substances, used in paints or drawing materials.

plan
In architecture, a scale drawing in diagrammatic form showing the basic layout of the interior and exterior spaces of a structure, as if seen in a cutaway view from above.

plastic
1.Pliable; capable of being shaped. Pertaining to the process of shaping or modeling (i.e., the plastic arts). 2. Synthetic polymer substances, such as acrylic.

pointillism
A system of painting using tiny dots or "points" of color, developed by French artist Georges Seurat in the 1880s. Seurat systematized the divided brushwork and optical color mixture of the Impressionists and called this technique divisionism.

polychromatic
Having many colors; random or intuitive use of color combinations as opposed to color selection based on a specific color scheme.

Pop Art
A style of painting and sculpture that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, in Britain and the United States; based on the visual clich

positive shape
A figure or foreground shape, as opposed to a negative ground or background shape.

post-and-beam system
(post and lintel) In architecture, a structural system that uses two or more uprights or posts to support a horizontal beam (or lintel) which spans the space between them.

Post-Impressionism
A general term applied to various personal styles of painting by French artists (or artists living in France) that developed from about 1885 to 1900 in reaction to what these artists saw as the somewhat formless and aloof quality of Impressionist painting. Post-Impressionist painters were concerned with the significance of form, symbols, expressive...

Post-Modern
An attitude or trend of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, in which artists and architects accept all that modernism rejects. In architecture, the movement away from or beyond what had become boring adaptations of the International Style, in favor of an imaginative, eclectic approach. In the other visual arts, Post-Modern is characterized by an acceptanc...

prehistoric art
Art created before written history. Often the only record of early cultures.

primary colors
Those hues that cannot be produced by mixing other hues. Pigment primaries are red, yellow, and blue; light primaries are red, green, and blue. Theoretically, pigment primaries can be mixed together to form all the other hues in the spectrum.

prime
In painting, a first layer of paint or sizing applied to a surface that is to be painted.

print
(artist's print) A multiple-original impression made from a plate, stone, wood block, or screen by an artist or made under the artist's supervision. Prints are usually made in editions, with each print numbered and signed by the artist.

proportion
The size relationship of parts to a whole and to one another.

realism
1.A type of representational art in which the artist depicts as closely as possible what the eye sees. 2. Realism. The mid-nineteenth-century style of Courbet and others, based on the idea that ordinary people and everyday activities are worthy subjects for art.

registration
In color printmaking or machine printing, the process of aligning the impressions of blocks or plates on the same sheet of paper.

reinforced concrete
(ferroconcrete) Concrete with steel mesh or bars embedded in it to increase its tensile strength.

relief printing
A printing technique in which the parts of the printing surface that carry ink are left raised, while the remaining areas are cut away. Woodcuts and linoleum prints (linocuts) are relief prints.

relief sculpture
Sculpture in which three-dimensional forms project from a flat background of which they are a part. The degree of projection can vary and is described by the terms high relief and low relief (bas-relief.)

Renaissance
Period in Europe from the late fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries, characterized by a renewed interest in human-centered classical art, literature, and learning. See also humanism.

representational art
Art in which it is the artist's intention to present again or represent a particular subject; especially pertaining to realistic portrayal of subject matter.

reproduction
A mechanically produced copy of an original work of art; not to be confused with an original print or art print.

rhythm
The regular or ordered repetition of dominant and subordinate elements or units within a design.

ribbed vault
See vault.

Rococo
From the French rocaille meaning "rock work." This late Baroque (c. 1715-1775) style used in interior decoration and painting was characteristically playful, pretty, romantic, and visually loose or soft; it used small scale and ornate decoration, pastel colors, and asymmetrical arrangement of curves. Rococo was popular in France and southern German...

Romanesque
A style of European architecture prevalent from the ninth to the twelfth centuries, with round arches and barrel vaults influenced by Roman architecture and characterized by heavy stone construction.

Romanticism
1.A literary and artistic movement of late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe, aimed at asserting the validity of subjective experience as a countermovement to the often cold formulas of Neoclassicism; characterized by intense emotional excitement and depictions of powerful forces in nature, exotic lifestyles, danger, suffering, and nostalgia....

salon
A general term for a group art exhibition in France.