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Glossary
Glossary
In art, abstract compositions do not represent visual reality with accuracy but instead rely on a language of colour, shape and form.
In philosophy, aesthetics is the critical study of perception and visual representations, and traditionally refers to the definition of beauty. When applied to individual artists, it is often used as a synonym of style or taste.
Architecture is the practice of planning, designing and constructing buildings or other three-dimensional structures for human use. Architecture combines artistic and practical factors, balancing often conflicting requirements such as social, economic, political or ecological needs.
Images are described as biomorphic when, while formally retaining abstract qualities, they nevertheless remind viewers of living shapes such as plants, animals or human bodies.
An artist’s unique mode of applying paint with a brush.
Visual art related to or evoking writing. Calligraphic figures are composed of thin, swirly lines and might conceal symbolic meanings related to the relationship of images and language.
Urban panoramas, often related to architectural studies.
Drawing material made of carbon. Typically used for sketches or studies, charcoal drawings are characterised by broad strokes and crumbly textures, emphasising volume and dynamism over linear construction.
Italian term literally meaning ‘light-dark’. It refers to the use of shadow and light to create the illusion of volume and three-dimensionality in images.
A creative technique which combines images, materials and other ephemera to produce a new composition. Collages often convey observations about society, art and other creative trends.
The conscious organisation or arrangement of formal elements in an image or other artistic production.
A kind of artistic production in which ideas, messages and meanings take precedence over formal aspects such as material or technique.
The artistic philosophy, first emerged in early 20th century Russia, according to which visual forms should reflect modern industrial urban spaces. Other characteristic elements are the rejection of ornaments, stylised shapes and a belief that art is able to influence politics and society.
The material, tangible nature of a body. In art, the term refers to how images represent qualities such as shape, volume, size or force.
Derived from the Italian word ‘disegno’, meaning both ‘drawing’ and ‘plan’, this term is often used as a synonym of ‘outline’ or ‘sketch’. In artistic compositions, design is related to the structure and organisation of formal elements.
Drawing refers to the act or process of producing a picture with a pencil or pen. As a technique, it is defined as the representation of an object or the outline of a figure, plan, or sketch by means of lines.
Etching is a printmaking process in which a strong acid is used to cut into incised parts of a metal surface to create a design. The print itself is produced by putting the plate through a high-pressure printing press with a sheet of paper, which picks up the ink from the etched lines. Together with engraving, this method is historically associated with early modern Old Masters such as Rembrandt and Goya, and it is still widely used today.
A modernist movement involving visual arts and poetry which originated in Northern Europe in the early 20th century. Typically, this style relies on subjectivism and the distortion of images, dramatically rendered to evoke emotional responses or to convey radical ideas.
Figurative art is based on recognisable representations of objects, figures and forms from the real world. While it depends on formal elements such as line, shape, colour and light, these can be rendered to a varying degree of realism.
The word ‘formal’ in art refers to the visual elements that compose an artwork, such as line, shape and form, space, colour and texture.
Genres in art refer to specific categories or classifications of artistic works that share common characteristics, themes and styles. Genres were originally codified and ranked by seventeenth-century academies. They include, in order of importance, history, portrait, landscape and still life.
A term generally used in painting, it describes the free, spontaneous application of paint on a surface.
Graphic images rely on lines and strokes, rather than colour and tone, and are produced on a two-dimensional surface. This term is usually associated to techniques such as printmaking, typography and design.
Graphite is a naturally occurring mineral which, due to its ability to leave marks on paper and other objects, has been used to make pencils since the 16th century.
Iconography can refer both to the symbols and images used in a specific work of art and to the branch of art history dedicated to the study of images and their symbology.
Ink is a coloured solution used on a variety of surfaces to produce imaged, texts or designs.
Landscape compositions, most usually paintings, depict natural scenery, either real or imagined. This genre has a long and rich history in the Western and Chinese traditions, with a vast range of associations with symbolic and spiritual meanings.
Minimalist art, developed in the 1960s in the USA, refers to an aesthetic focused on purity and abstraction. Closely associated to conceptual art, it rejects representation and the imitation of reality, and encourages viewers to respond to the shapes and forms of the artwork itself.
This term is used to describe artworks that contain only one colour.
Naturalist artworks attempt to represent the world as the artist sees it. In the 19th century, this term referred to a movement that rejected idealised notions of ‘beauty’, with painters reproducing figures, objects and landscapes in a realistic way.
A nude is an artwork representing naked human figures. Influenced by the ancient Greek tradition, the Western canon tended to focus on the female body, infused with a vast range of symbology, idealisation and religious meanings.
This term refers to established artists, mostly painters, who worked in Europe between the 15th and the 18th century and remain influential for artists today. A selection of Old Masters could include, for instance, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Albrecht Dürer, Caravaggio, Rembrandt and Jacques-Louis David.
Pastels are a medium constituted by pigments mixed with binders, including chalk, oil and wax, to form sticks. With vibrant, textural colours, pastels are usually applied to paper and can be manipulated with fingers and brushes.
This term denotes rough, hand-made drawings made by artists to quickly note down preliminary ideas for later artworks.
The genre of still life is focused on inanimate subject matters, either natural, such as food, flowers or animals, or artificial, such as glasses, vases or books. These artworks became extremely popular from the 16th century onwards, and often included symbolic, religious or allegorical meanings.
Like sketches, studies are images produced in preparation for a later, generally larger and more complex artwork. Studies are used to plan compositional elements, understand their relationship to pictorial space, or resolve formal problems. As such, they represent a valuable insight into an artist’s creative process.
The most concise definition of painting is the process of applying pigments to a two-dimensional surface. This is generally done with tools such as brushes, knives or sponges. Pigments can include a wide variety of substances, including oil paints, watercolours and acrylic, and surface materials can range from canvas to wood and fabric. In art history and criticism, painting refers to both the technique and the resulting artworks.
In art history and criticism, palette refers to the range of colours used in a particular artwork or, generally, by a specific artist.
In visual art, performance refers to artworks created through the actions of artists or other individuals. This term can also be used to discuss specific formal elements or the treatment of figures in a representational artwork.
Perspective is the representation of three-dimensional space in two-dimensional artworks that creates the illusion of distance. Linear perspective, a technique that relies on fixed viewpoints and vanishing points, was developed in Italy in the early 15th century. Aerial perspective, by contrast, creates the illusion of depth by representing atmospheric effects on distant objects.
Pigments are coloured substances that, mixed with binders, are used to produce paints and dyes. Natural pigments have been used for thousands of years by civilisations around the world, with synthetic ones being developed and mass produced in the 19th century.
Portraits are artworks that record the appearance of someone. A genre almost as old as figurative art itself, portraiture can display not only a person’s likeness, but also their social status, personality, mood, religious beliefs or virtue.
A print is an artwork, generally two-dimensional, made by impressing a matrix onto a surface to produce multiple iterations of the same image. The most well-known printing techniques include etching, lithography, screenprint and woodcut.
Realism in art is the attempt to represent nature in a truthful and accurate way. The term also refers to a 19th century art movement that rejected romantic, idealised subject matters and favoured the portrayal of everyday life and people.
This adjective is used for artworks that do not attempt to accurately represent reality but depict it in a simplified, economical way. In stylised images, elements such as shape, line and colour are modified to produce a decorative or spontaneous effect.
In art, symbols are formal elements or images of recognisable figures, animals or objects that have metaphorical meanings. Depending on the context, symbolic language can include colours, animals, flowers, or atmospheric elements. Decoding symbols may require extensive background knowledge from viewers.
Texture refers to the tactile quality of an art object. This term may be used to describe the application of pigment on a surface, or the appearance of three-dimensional artworks.
Tone is used to describe the relative light or darkness of colours in an artwork. The relationship between tonal values can generate varying visual and emotional effects.
In perspective, viewpoint denotes the specific position from which a scene is observed. By experimenting with viewpoints artists can achieve either realistic or disorienting effects in their artworks.
Referring to both medium and artworks, watercolour is a painting technique that uses water-based pigments. Generally produced on paper, watercolours are a highly emotional technique, due to their transparency and soft, luminous effects.
In art, abstract compositions do not represent visual reality with accuracy but instead rely on a language of colour, shape and form.
In philosophy, aesthetics is the critical study of perception and visual representations, and traditionally refers to the definition of beauty. When applied to individual artists, it is often used as a synonym of style or taste.
Architecture is the practice of planning, designing and constructing buildings or other three-dimensional structures for human use. Architecture combines artistic and practical factors, balancing often conflicting requirements such as social, economic, political or ecological needs.
Images are described as biomorphic when, while formally retaining abstract qualities, they nevertheless remind viewers of living shapes such as plants, animals or human bodies.
An artist’s unique mode of applying paint with a brush.
Visual art related to or evoking writing. Calligraphic figures are composed of thin, swirly lines and might conceal symbolic meanings related to the relationship of images and language.
Urban panoramas, often related to architectural studies.
Drawing material made of carbon. Typically used for sketches or studies, charcoal drawings are characterised by broad strokes and crumbly textures, emphasising volume and dynamism over linear construction.
Italian term literally meaning ‘light-dark’. It refers to the use of shadow and light to create the illusion of volume and three-dimensionality in images.
A creative technique which combines images, materials and other ephemera to produce a new composition. Collages often convey observations about society, art and other creative trends.
The conscious organisation or arrangement of formal elements in an image or other artistic production.
A kind of artistic production in which ideas, messages and meanings take precedence over formal aspects such as material or technique.
The artistic philosophy, first emerged in early 20th century Russia, according to which visual forms should reflect modern industrial urban spaces. Other characteristic elements are the rejection of ornaments, stylised shapes and a belief that art is able to influence politics and society.
The material, tangible nature of a body. In art, the term refers to how images represent qualities such as shape, volume, size or force.
Derived from the Italian word ‘disegno’, meaning both ‘drawing’ and ‘plan’, this term is often used as a synonym of ‘outline’ or ‘sketch’. In artistic compositions, design is related to the structure and organisation of formal elements.
Drawing refers to the act or process of producing a picture with a pencil or pen. As a technique, it is defined as the representation of an object or the outline of a figure, plan, or sketch by means of lines.
Etching is a printmaking process in which a strong acid is used to cut into incised parts of a metal surface to create a design. The print itself is produced by putting the plate through a high-pressure printing press with a sheet of paper, which picks up the ink from the etched lines. Together with engraving, this method is historically associated with early modern Old Masters such as Rembrandt and Goya, and it is still widely used today.
A modernist movement involving visual arts and poetry which originated in Northern Europe in the early 20th century. Typically, this style relies on subjectivism and the distortion of images, dramatically rendered to evoke emotional responses or to convey radical ideas.
Figurative art is based on recognisable representations of objects, figures and forms from the real world. While it depends on formal elements such as line, shape, colour and light, these can be rendered to a varying degree of realism.
The word ‘formal’ in art refers to the visual elements that compose an artwork, such as line, shape and form, space, colour and texture.
Genres in art refer to specific categories or classifications of artistic works that share common characteristics, themes and styles. Genres were originally codified and ranked by seventeenth-century academies. They include, in order of importance, history, portrait, landscape and still life.
A term generally used in painting, it describes the free, spontaneous application of paint on a surface.
Graphic images rely on lines and strokes, rather than colour and tone, and are produced on a two-dimensional surface. This term is usually associated to techniques such as printmaking, typography and design.
Graphite is a naturally occurring mineral which, due to its ability to leave marks on paper and other objects, has been used to make pencils since the 16th century.
Iconography can refer both to the symbols and images used in a specific work of art and to the branch of art history dedicated to the study of images and their symbology.
Ink is a coloured solution used on a variety of surfaces to produce imaged, texts or designs.
Landscape compositions, most usually paintings, depict natural scenery, either real or imagined. This genre has a long and rich history in the Western and Chinese traditions, with a vast range of associations with symbolic and spiritual meanings.
Minimalist art, developed in the 1960s in the USA, refers to an aesthetic focused on purity and abstraction. Closely associated to conceptual art, it rejects representation and the imitation of reality, and encourages viewers to respond to the shapes and forms of the artwork itself.
This term is used to describe artworks that contain only one colour.
Naturalist artworks attempt to represent the world as the artist sees it. In the 19th century, this term referred to a movement that rejected idealised notions of ‘beauty’, with painters reproducing figures, objects and landscapes in a realistic way.
A nude is an artwork representing naked human figures. Influenced by the ancient Greek tradition, the Western canon tended to focus on the female body, infused with a vast range of symbology, idealisation and religious meanings.
This term refers to established artists, mostly painters, who worked in Europe between the 15th and the 18th century and remain influential for artists today. A selection of Old Masters could include, for instance, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Albrecht Dürer, Caravaggio, Rembrandt and Jacques-Louis David.
Pastels are a medium constituted by pigments mixed with binders, including chalk, oil and wax, to form sticks. With vibrant, textural colours, pastels are usually applied to paper and can be manipulated with fingers and brushes.
This term denotes rough, hand-made drawings made by artists to quickly note down preliminary ideas for later artworks.
The genre of still life is focused on inanimate subject matters, either natural, such as food, flowers or animals, or artificial, such as glasses, vases or books. These artworks became extremely popular from the 16th century onwards, and often included symbolic, religious or allegorical meanings.
Like sketches, studies are images produced in preparation for a later, generally larger and more complex artwork. Studies are used to plan compositional elements, understand their relationship to pictorial space, or resolve formal problems. As such, they represent a valuable insight into an artist’s creative process.
The most concise definition of painting is the process of applying pigments to a two-dimensional surface. This is generally done with tools such as brushes, knives or sponges. Pigments can include a wide variety of substances, including oil paints, watercolours and acrylic, and surface materials can range from canvas to wood and fabric. In art history and criticism, painting refers to both the technique and the resulting artworks.
In art history and criticism, palette refers to the range of colours used in a particular artwork or, generally, by a specific artist.
In visual art, performance refers to artworks created through the actions of artists or other individuals. This term can also be used to discuss specific formal elements or the treatment of figures in a representational artwork.
Perspective is the representation of three-dimensional space in two-dimensional artworks that creates the illusion of distance. Linear perspective, a technique that relies on fixed viewpoints and vanishing points, was developed in Italy in the early 15th century. Aerial perspective, by contrast, creates the illusion of depth by representing atmospheric effects on distant objects.
Pigments are coloured substances that, mixed with binders, are used to produce paints and dyes. Natural pigments have been used for thousands of years by civilisations around the world, with synthetic ones being developed and mass produced in the 19th century.
Portraits are artworks that record the appearance of someone. A genre almost as old as figurative art itself, portraiture can display not only a person’s likeness, but also their social status, personality, mood, religious beliefs or virtue.
A print is an artwork, generally two-dimensional, made by impressing a matrix onto a surface to produce multiple iterations of the same image. The most well-known printing techniques include etching, lithography, screenprint and woodcut.
Realism in art is the attempt to represent nature in a truthful and accurate way. The term also refers to a 19th century art movement that rejected romantic, idealised subject matters and favoured the portrayal of everyday life and people.
This adjective is used for artworks that do not attempt to accurately represent reality but depict it in a simplified, economical way. In stylised images, elements such as shape, line and colour are modified to produce a decorative or spontaneous effect.
In art, symbols are formal elements or images of recognisable figures, animals or objects that have metaphorical meanings. Depending on the context, symbolic language can include colours, animals, flowers, or atmospheric elements. Decoding symbols may require extensive background knowledge from viewers.
Texture refers to the tactile quality of an art object. This term may be used to describe the application of pigment on a surface, or the appearance of three-dimensional artworks.
Tone is used to describe the relative light or darkness of colours in an artwork. The relationship between tonal values can generate varying visual and emotional effects.
In perspective, viewpoint denotes the specific position from which a scene is observed. By experimenting with viewpoints artists can achieve either realistic or disorienting effects in their artworks.
Referring to both medium and artworks, watercolour is a painting technique that uses water-based pigments. Generally produced on paper, watercolours are a highly emotional technique, due to their transparency and soft, luminous effects.