MEDIUM: By medium is meant the material means with wchich the artist gives the various media are so fundamental a part of a work of art that the artist will usually have the medium to be used in view when the idea is conceived, and certainly will bear the limitations of his medium in mind with executing the work. No painter would use oils, for example, to render an effect more naturally obtained by water-color, nor would a sculptor attempt, while modeling in clay, to give his work qualities characteristic of carved stone.
MINIATURE PAINTING: The word ‘miniature’ originally applied to the small illustrations in illuminated manuscripts and later to the large initial letters with their pictorial embellishments. In more recent times the word has been more exclusively applied to small portrait painting on ivory or enamel.
MONOCHROME: The art of painting in one colour (usually black or dark brown) and white, so that the tonal nature only of the subject is portrayed.
MOSAIC: A method of decoration executed by inlaying cubes of colored stone, metal, glass or enamel on a ground of stucco or mastic. In Roman times the method was used to decorate pavements, but is more usually associated with Early Christian Art, and it is the recognized form of mural decoration in Byzantine Architecture, particularly in the churches at Ravenna.
MURAL PAINTING: The decoration of walls by painting using such techniques as fresco oil, tempera, etc., where the painting is made directly onto the wall.
NARRATIVE ART: An extreme form of descriptive or literary art which serves to tell a story or illustrate an incident, as for example, in much late 19th century painting in England.
NATURALISM: In art aims at achieving a complete resemblance to the object or scene depicted, as opposed to Realism (q.v.) which is concerned with revealing the underlying structure.
NEO-CLASSICAL SCHOOL, THE: A French school of painting and sculpture of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the founding of which is usually ascribed to David who revolted against the sensual and romantic art of Watteau and Greuze and the realism of Chardin. |
PERCEPTION: The artistic faculty for recognizing the aesthetic significance of aspects of the visual world which can be conveyed to the spectator by an act of creation.
PERPENDICULAR STYLE: The last phase of Gothic architecture which prevailed mainly during the 15th century, in which the vertical tendency of Gothic is emphasized and ornamentation is elaborated.
PERSPECTIVE: The third dimension may be represented in a drawing or painting by the application of the principles of perspective which are based on the commonly observed phenomena that objects tend to appear smaller as they recede from the eye of the observer, and that receding lines appear to converge upon one or two common vanishing points.
PICTOGRAPHY: The art of conveying ideas by means of pictures, signs or symbols suggestive of an object or an idea. This primitive form of writing is the basis of the Egyptian hieroglyphics, and a more undeveloped form is found in the picture writing of the North American Indians.
PICTURESQUE: The representation of nature in a painting in an exaggeratedly sentimental or romantic style.
PIGMENT: The coloring matter used by the painter, which usually exists as a powder and is prepared for use by binding with a vehicle such as oil, gum or emulsion.
PLANES: The interrelation of planes (or two-dimensional areas) is one of the fundamental problems of composition. The surfaces of objects may be regarded as so many more or less simple planes which, according to their position (vertical, horizontal or oblique) in relation to the source of illumination, reflect light in varying degrees, thus modifying color and tone values. Observation of this phenomenon assists the artist in accurately representing three-dimensional space.
POTTERY: Pottery has been described as the most abstract of the arts, and it must be allowed that its freedom from the necessity of representation allied to the most elementary functional requirements permits full expression of purely formal qualities. In the primitive method of manufacture, pottery was built up of coils of clay, and in more recent and commercialized times it has been molded and cast. But no method can better express the intimate relation between artist and material than the traditional use of the potter’s wheel, upon which the work is ‘thrown’. After the vessel is formed, it is hardened by ‘firing’ or baking in a kiln, and the two |
NEO-IMPRESSIONISM: A development of Impressionism (q.v.) founded by the French painters Seurat and Signac in the 1880’s who devised the method of painting known as Pointillism (q.v.) which was not, however, the most important feature of the movement. In contrast with the objectivity of the Impressionists, Seurat and his followers re-introduced a more personal attitude to the subject and stressed the use of line, form and colour.
poin·til·lism [ pwntee ìzzəm ] 
- style of 19C painting: a late 19th-century style of painting in which a picture is constructed from dots of pure color that blend, at a distance, into recognizable shapes and various color tones.
- musical composition technique: a technique of musical composition using sparse isolated notes in widely varying registers
NEO-ROMANTICISM: Much of the work of the contemporary British school of painting, although owing a great deal to the influence of the intellectual French experiments of the early years of this century, has turned once more to the expression of the romantic attitude which is probably the most characteristic aspect of the native tradition. This attitude, which takes the form of a concern with problems of light, felling and atmosphere and which is sometimes linked with the formal language of the Cubists and Abstractionists and sometimes with the literary preoccupations of the Surrealist, and often with the influences of the 19th century Romantics such as Blake, Palmer and Calvert, is generally defined as Neo-Romanticism.
OIL PAINTING: A method of painting in which the pigments are ground with oils and diluted with turpentine, oil of spike or refined petrol. The medium is the one most commonly used in painting in Europe since it displaced tempera (q.v.) in the 15th century, and there can be no doubt that its popularity is due to the freedom of its handling and the lack of discipline required compared with tempera, water color, etc.
OUTLINE: “Nature has no outline, but imagination has,” said William Blake in order to urge the necessity for good drawing, even in painting. Outline was man’s earliest device for recording his visual experiences, and it is only during recent years, with the rise of “painting” by tonal values that it has been dispensed with. With the revolt against the cult of naturalism in painting, however, the outline has been used in modern art with effect as in the work of Gauguin, Matisse, Rouault and others. |
divisions into which pottery is classified depends upon the degree of heat thus applied. In the case of ordinary earthenware, the heat is just sufficient to harden the ware and yet leave it porous. The temperature to which stoneware is submitted, however, is sufficient to vitrify the material and render the vessel impervious to liquids, a process which required the addition of a flux to the material. The porosity of earthenware is overcome by the addition of glaze (q.v.) which is only added to stoneware for decorative purposes. Glazes are colored by means of metallic oxides to which the ‘palette’ of the potter is limited as other pigments would be discolored by the great heat of the firing. Pottery is also decorated by slip, graffito (qq.v.) and incising.
PREHISTORIC ART: Although the period known as Prehistoric covers a vast reach of time, from earliest man until the first civilizations of Egypt. Mesopotamia, Crete and the Indus Valley, we usually associate with “prehistoric art” the products of the Later Palaeolithic, or Old Stone Age.
PRIMITIVE ART: By primitive art is meant the art of prehistoric man and modern savage societies. Such art, although primitive in point of time (for spirit), is from an aesthetic point of view commonly as high and often higher than the art of later civilizations. Although the primitive artist lacks scientific knowledge (perspective, light and shade, etc.) he possesses the ability to transcribe his visual experience directly and almost instinctively. A complete lack of self-consciousness, in fact, might be said to be the essential quality of primitive art. The style ranges from the symbolic to a free and vital naturalism.
PROMITIVISM: Primitivism is used to describe the attitude adopted by many painters of the present century who, inspired by savage, peasant or child art, sought to incorporate their works similar qualities of unsophisticated vision.
REALISM: Realism in art, in its formal aspect, is concerned with interpreting the essential nature of the subject represented and revealing truths hidden by the accidentals (q.v.) of ordinary visual appearances.
RECESSION: The representation of depth and the illusion of a third dimension in a painting is known as recession, an effect which is usually obtained by the application of the principles of linear and aerial perspective. |
PAINTING: Defined simply in terms of its technical requirements, painting consists of the application of pigment to a surface or support.
PALETTE: This expression often refers, not merely to the board on which the artist lays his pigment, but to the combination of colors which he habitually uses. The history of the palette in this sense is linked very closely with the history of painting as a whole, as the progressive availability of a greater range of more brilliant and more permanent pigments has either assisted the painter in achieving better effects of naturalism on the one hand, or in exploiting the purely formal and abstract nature of colour on the other. This is not to argue that more and better pigments are essential for greater works of art—the painters of ancient Greece e.g. created masterpieces with a four-color palette, white, black, yello-ochre and a red earth-color, and Mediaeval painters were scarcely better off with a larger variety of low-toned earth-colors and a limited range of bright colors of animal and vegetable origin and of very doubtful permanence. These colors were divided into two sets, according to brilliance, austere and florid.
PASTEL: A softer kind of colored crayon, bound with just sufficient gum to give shape to the sticks. Drawings in this medium are typically delicate in color and atmospheric in effect.
PASTICHE: In art the selection by an artist of mannerisms in the work of others from which he evolves an individual style but to which he contributes little or nothing original.
PATINA: The surface corrosion on antique metal objects caused by the action of the atmosphere or the soils in which they have been buried. Most typical is the bluish green of bronzes, although nearly every hue is to be found according to the metal and particular conditions to which it has been subjected. The effect is quite often simulated on modern statuary.
PATTERN: A harmonious arrangement of the elements in a design or composition. In its simplest form pattern is the repetition of one or more motifs in a regularly scheme as applied to textiles, basket-work etc. But when used in the art of painting, the expression refers to symmetrical or unsymmetrical disposition of lines, shapes and color to form a balanced composition within the frame of the picture. |
RELIEF: A type of sculpture in which the carving projects form and is part of the main body of the stone or wood.
RHYTHM: The word is derived from the Greek “rhein” meaning “to flow” and refers to the unification of a work of art by the repetition of similar elements of line, form and color. Rhythm of line, of primary importance in draughtsman skill, both depend upon an alternate stressing and relaxation expressed by thinness and thickness of stroke, depth and shallowness of curves and the varying breadth of the areas contained in the contours.
ROMANITC ART: That form of art which is concerned with the artist’s emotions and feelings about his subject rather than with his apprehension of its structural nature, and with the representation of poetic and dramatic qualities rather than with the organization of a formal unity.
SANGUINE: A crayon made with red ochre, and one of the earliest of drawing materials. It is used with beautiful effect either alone or in conjunction with Conte (q.v.).
SCULPTURE: The art of sculpture is concerned with carving or modeling in wood, stone, ivory, clay, and metal, in the round or in relief. It has with painting, been a means of self-expression to mankind since the earliest times, either for magical and religious purposes or for purely aesthetic creation.
SIGNIFICANT FORM: A term coined by Mr. Clive Bell and first used by him in his book Art published in 1914, to describe the fundamental quality common to all works of visual art, the quality that is shared by all objects that provoke aesthetic emotion. This theory implies that Chartres Cathedral, a T’and horse, a Constable landscape, a Picasso and a piece of sculpture by Henry Moore, all have some basic quality in common as works of art.
SKETCH: A rapid drawing or painting lacking in detail and intending to convey a general impression of an object or scene, or of an intended project.
SPACE: Broadly, space is the whole surface of the picture upon which masses are disposed, or the volume in which they exist when the picture aims at representing depth. Space is negative mass, and in the composition of a picture may be regarded as having the same function as rests in music. STABILES: A name given by the American artist Alexander Calder, to his “Static Abstract Sculptures” as distinct from his Mobiles or “plastic forms in motion.” See KINETIC SCULPTURE.
STUDY: A drawing or painting made with care (either imaginatively or from nature) for purposes of study or as a preparation for a projected work of art.
SUBJECT: The subject of a work of art may be on the one hand its actual raison d’etre, or on the other, merely an excuse for the artist to bring together his ideas of composition or to record his observation. In the most abstract work, the structural problems, which the artist has solved, and the visual truths which he has presented, may e regarded as the subject matter, but the more obvious use of the word usually refers to that which the picture is ‘about’. In this sense the subject of the picture is probably of more importance to the spectator than to the artist himself. Nevertheless, until the most recent years the painter and sculptor have always seen fit to record some aspect of nature, and for the greater part of the history of art, man has been the subject of greatest importance.
SURREALISM: The aim of Surrealism is to overcome the barriers which exist between the conscious and the unconscious mind and between the ‘real’ and ‘unreal’ worlds of waking and dreaming.
SYMBOLISM: In art, symbolism is the expression of an abstract idea in terms of line and colour, or the representation of an object by means of a smple formal equivalent. Symbolism is a feature of much primitive art and is found in the formalism of Byuzantine painting, and in some forms of modern Expressionism (Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsy). In its Freudian sense, symbolism is largely the basis of Surrealism.
SYMMETRY: A disposition of equal elements of composition about a central axis, producing a sense of repose. (Cf. Asymmetry.)
TAPESTRY: Weaving which permits the production of complex and multi-colored designs. The warps are placed either horizontally, when it is known as ‘low-warp tapestry’ or suspended vertically, when it is known as ‘high-wap tapestry’, and the weft is worked with bobbins, one for each color used, in a manner which permits the use of an unlimited range of colors. Over 14, 000 tints are claimed to have been used in a hanging produced by the famous Gobelins Factory in France. |
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TECHNIQUE: The method of executing a work of art as distinct from the expressive element in its composition, from which however, it cannot wholey be separated.
TEMPERA: This Italian term originally referred to any fluid medium with which pigments could be mixed, including even oil, but it is now used to describe any method by which oil in emulsion (such as lined oil and glue-water) may be used with water as a diluent. The expression is, however, most usually associated with the particular method of painting with pigments ground with yolk of egg, the traditional method of the early Italian painters.
TERRA-COTTA: (It. baked earth) A fine quality unglazed pottery used since ancient times for statuary, vases and tiles of a characteristic brownish red.
TEXTURE: In painting texture refers (1) to the physical characteristics (apart from color) and minute structure of any surface, such as skin, fabric etc. which the artist is attempting to represent. (2) The characteristics of pigment as handled by the artist (impasto, scumble, glaze etc.) which endow the surface of a picture with distinctive qualities. The procedure is extended by certain advanced schools of painting (Constructivists, Cubists, Surrealists etc.) to include the actual use of materials of varying texture such as newspaper, cork, textiles, and even metal.
TONALISM: A name given to a number of experiments made by American painters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in order to paint sunlight.
TONE: Every color has its tonal value, that is to say, its strength expressed in terms of lightness or darkness. The best example of tonal values is the translation of color into monochrome which occurs in photography, whereby objects are no longer related in terms of color against color, but in terms of greys ranging from black to white.
TRANSITIONAL STYLE: This term may be used to describe the period of change from one Gothic style of architecture to another which usually took place in the last quarter of the century.
UNIVERSALS: In abstract art the expression ‘universal’ refers to the underlying significant structure of an object as opposed to the ‘accidentals’ of its accepted visual appearance. |
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VALUES: The relationship of two or more tones is known as value. The accurate rendering of values is more important than color in the expression of natural appearances. See TONE.
VARNISH: A substance of resinous origin, sometimes used as a dryer in oil painting, but most often used as a protective film applied over the surface of a finished painting, Owing to the fact that it dries faster than oil, it must be applied some considerable time, six months or more, after the completion of the picture in order to avoid cracking. Varnish becomes discolored after a long period, which largely accounts for the dull tones of ‘Old Masters’, a fact which has been amply demonstrated by the cleaning of the pictures in the National Gallery. Many painters of the 19th century simulated the ‘antique’ effect by applying a toned varnish.
VERISIMILTUDE: The accurate representation of mechanical vision in painting, and the basis of naturalism in art in which, however, the artist invariable adds a certain degree of feeling which is the expression of his emotional reaction to the subject depicted. The term verisimiltude is roughly the equivalent of the French trompe l’oel.
VIGNETTE: A small illustration or ornament, used principally in book production at the beginnings and ends of chapters, the design being made to fade off into the paper.
VOLUME: By his handling of volumes, an artist is able to express his feeling for three-dimensional form in addition to that which he has for pattern and surface design. In painting, volume is expressed mainly by the painter’s use of light and shade, although certain subtle uses of color to define or soften edges will impart a sense of solidity, while in draughtsmanship the artist will rely mainly on the ability of his line to depict contours and suggest the volumes which they contain. The subject is of primary importance to the sculptor, who is, of course, concerned with the relationships of actual volumes with each other and the space they occupy, rather than with their representation in an imaginary setting.
XYLOGRAPHY: The art of engraving on wood.
ZOOMORPHIC: The representation of animal forms in decorative art, and ZOOMORPH, the animal so represented. |
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TECHNIQUE: The method of executing a work of art as distinct from the expressive element in its composition, from which however, it cannot wholey be separated.
TEMPERA: This Italian term originally referred to any fluid medium with which pigments could be mixed, including even oil, but it is now used to describe any method by which oil in emulsion (such as lined oil and glue-water) may be used with water as a diluent. The expression is, however, most usually associated with the particular method of painting with pigments ground with yolk of egg, the traditional method of the early Italian painters.
TERRA-COTTA: (It. baked earth) A fine quality unglazed pottery used since ancient times for statuary, vases and tiles of a characteristic brownish red.
TEXTURE: In painting texture refers (1) to the physical characteristics (apart from color) and minute structure of any surface, such as skin, fabric etc. which the artist is attempting to represent. (2) The characteristics of pigment as handled by the artist (impasto, scumble, glaze etc.) which endow the surface of a picture with distinctive qualities. The procedure is extended by certain advanced schools of painting (Constructivists, Cubists, Surrealists etc.) to include the actual use of materials of varying texture such as newspaper, cork, textiles, and even metal.
TONALISM: A name given to a number of experiments made by American painters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in order to paint sunlight.
TONE: Every color has its tonal value, that is to say, its strength expressed in terms of lightness or darkness. The best example of tonal values is the translation of color into monochrome which occurs in photography, whereby objects are no longer related in terms of color against color, but in terms of greys ranging from black to white.
TRANSITIONAL STYLE: This term may be used to describe the period of change from one Gothic style of architecture to another which usually took place in the last quarter of the century.
UNIVERSALS: In abstract art the expression ‘universal’ refers to the underlying significant structure of an object as opposed to the ‘accidentals’ of its accepted visual appearance.
VALUES: The relationship of two or more tones is known as value. The accurate rendering of values is more |
