Art Vocabulary / Bakersfield College

Non-representational (non-objective)

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Non-representational (non-objective)
1. Art that does not seek to portray anything in the real world, and has no resemblance to any real object or objects. The art may be made up of color or shapes or line or texture, etc…

The artwork below, Mohave, by Ted Kerzie, in the collection at the Walter Stiern Library at Cal State Bakersfield, is an example of a non-representational painting.

Representational (objective)

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Representational (objective)
1. Artwork that is intended to look like something in the real world.

The work below (American Gothic, Grant Wood, 1930, Art Institute of Chicago) is representational.

This image is in the public domain.

Emphasis

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Emphasis
1. A design principle defined by one area being stressed or singled out above everything else
2. When the eye is drawn to one area of a composition due to the arrangement of elements, the values used, or the the absence of shapes.
3. When an element is larger or smaller or wildly different than the other elements in the remaining composition.

Click here to see Crying Spider by Odilon Redon which contains a strong sense of emphasis.

Click here to see Spirit Waters by Odilon Redon.

Click here to see Target with Four Faces by Jasper Johns.

Variety

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Variety
1. The use of intricate and complex relationships in a composition.
2. A composition that uses different values, lines, textures, and shapes.
3. Can be considered the opposite of unity, but without enough variety in any composition, unity becomes monotony.

Click here to see a Frank Stella composition that has a strong sense of variety.

Click here to see a Judy Pfaff composition that has a strong sense of variety.

Click here to see another Judy Pfaff composition that contains variety.

Unity

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Unity (also called Harmony)
1. When the elements of a composition work well together as a unit
2. A quality of wholeness achieved when the elements and principles of design are used effectively
3. When elements are grouped and appear to have a relationship
4. Coherence
5. Repetition
6. Correspondence
7. Pattern

Click here to see a composition by Joaquín Torres-Garciá that contains a strong sense of unity.

Click here to see a composition by Sophie Taeuber-Arp that contains a strong sense of unity.

Click here to see a composition by Vasily Kandinsky that contains a strong sense of unity.

Abstract

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Abstract

1. (verb) to generalize, summarize, or distort qualities of perceivedreality.

2. (noun) the reduction of an image or object to an essential aspectof its form or concept.
3. Simplified forms in a composition that have been suggested by the real world.

Click here to see Girl before a mirror, by Pablo Picasso, a strongly abstract painting.

Abstract art

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Abstract art

A term used to describe non-representational works that have beenderived from perceived reality. (see Abstractand Abstraction)

Abstract Expressionism

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Abstract Expressionism

An American (New York) art movement of the late 1940s and 1950s,characterized by large, bold, abstract or non-representational works, acommitment to the importance of process, and subjective and introspectivesubject matter. Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Willem de Kooning, BarnettNewman, Mark Rothko, Arshile Gorky, Elaine de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler,Grace Hartigan, Hans Hoffman, Louise Nevelson, and Franz Kline were all part ofthis movement.

Abstraction

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Abstraction

1. Imagerywhich departs from representational accuracy, to a variable range of possibledegrees; to exaggerate or simplify surrounding forms.

2. A method of creating two-dimensional artthat relies on color, pattern and form rather than realistic or naturalisticportrayal of subject matter. The composition starts with recognizable forms,but the artist simplifies and/or distorts the image into a new form.

Accent

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Accent

An area of particular interest or importance.

Achromatic

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Achromatic (via French from Greek: without color)

A composition in shades of black, white, and gray.

Activated space

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Activated space

The area controlled by a physical object, including the physicalvolume or mass and the surrounding or enclosed space.

Additive colors

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Additive colors

Colors made by light, the additive primaries are red, green, and blue.Television screens and computer screens use RGB additive colors.

Additive plan

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Additive Plan

Architectural plans constructed from an accumulation of shapes,usually asymmetrically arranged.

Additive sculpture

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Additive Sculpture

A physical object constructed from separate parts, which have beenconnected using glues, joints, stitching, etc.

Aesthetics

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Aesthetics

The branch of philosophy that studies beauty, art, and taste.

After-image

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After-image

An optical illusion that occurs after staring at a color, then lookingat a white surface. The image that then appears will have the opposite colorsfrom the original.

Allegorical art

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Allegoricalart

Narrative art in which the story is symbolic. Allegoricalimages or stories often have a moral or ethical message.

Analogous colors

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Analogous colors (hues)

Color harmony based on colors that are nextto each other (yellow, yellow/green, and green are analogous)

Analogy

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Analogy

An implied relationship between things thatare otherwise unlike.

Analysis

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Analysis

In art criticism, discovering how theprinciples of art are used to organize the art elements; in art history, analysisdetermines the style of the artwork.

Anomaly

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Anomaly

Something that is noticed, because itdiffers from its environment.

Applied art and design

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Applied art and design

Disciplines that use the principles andelements of design to create functional pieces for commercial use. Graphic design and industrial design are applied design fields.

Applied color

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Appliedcolor

Color added to a material or object, concealing orchanging its original color.

Appropriation

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Appropriation

To borrow or sample aspects of another’swork in your artwork.

Approximate symmetrical balance

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Approximate symmetrical balance

A form of balance attained when visual units are arranged to create asense of equilibrium (symmetry) without repeating identical units with respectto a central line

Arbitrary color

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Arbitrary color

Color that has no natural relationship to the object depicted. Usuallycontains emotion or expressive significance.

Arcade

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Arcade

A row of arches supported by piers or columns.

Arch

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Arch

A curved structural architectural element that spans an opening,transferring downward pressure laterally.

Armature

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Armature

A simple inner skeleton that provides support for other materials.

Art Brut

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Art Brut (French: roughart or raw art)Art created by children,untrained or naïve artists and the mentally ill. This type of art is alsocalled outsider art. Starting in the 1940s, French artist Jean Dubuffet began collecting thistype of art; his collection eventually became known as Collection de l’Art Brut.

Art criticism

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Art criticism

The process and result of criticalthinking about art. It usually involves description, analysis, andinterpretation of art, as well as some kind of judgment.

Art Deco

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Art Deco

An international art movement that reached its height during the 1920sand 1930s. Although less ornate than ArtNouveau, the movement continued an emphasis on design inspired by organicforms and flowing lines. The use of repeated shapes and pattern alsocharacterize Art Deco design. Many Art Deco motifs have a streamlined effect,derived from industrial design.

WPA poster in the Art Deco style, published in the 1940s. Public domain.

Portion of Wisdom, with Light and Sound, located above the entrance of 30 Rockefeller Center (GE Building), New York City. Public domain.

Arte Povera

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Arte Povera (Italian:poor art)

A 1960s art movement originating in Italy. A loosely defined group ofartists used “poor” materials, such as twigs, metal, glass, fabric, stone andlive animals as a means of turning away from “high” art. The group wasconcerned about the point at which art and life, nature and culture, intersect.The goal was to bridge the natural and the artificial.

Artifact

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Artifact

1. An artifact is an objectrepresenting a particular culture or stage of technological development. Examplesare: stone tools, pottery vessels, sharpened bone.

2. In recent years, anything that results from anart or design process may be referred to as an “artifact.”

Artificial color

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Artificial color

Intentional alteration or exaggeration of a color to produce anemotional or psychological reaction.

Art Nouveau

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Art Nouveau - (French:new art)

A late-nineteenth and early twentieth century movement characterizedby extreme stylization, decorative organic and human forms, and flowing, curvedlines.

An Art Nouveau poster by Alfons Mucha. Maude Adams as Joan of Arc, 1909, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, New York, USA. Public domain.

Arts and Crafts

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Arts and Crafts

A design movement in England, between 1860 and 1910, that rejectedindustrialization, and emphasized traditional hand crafted products. Themovement celebrated labor, individualism, simplicity, honesty and a truth tomaterials over mass-production.

Ascender

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Ascender

The section of a lowercase letter thatextends above the x-height. The top stroke of a lowercase “h” is an ascender.

Assemblage

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Assemblage

1. A term coined by the artist Jean Dubuffet (French, 1901—1985) todescribe his collage compositions.

2. A sculpture or composition, using pre-existing, sometimes found objectsthat may or may not contribute their original identities to the total contentof the work.

Asymmetrical/Asymmetry

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Asymmetrical/Asymmetry

1. Balance achieved in a composition when neither side reflects ormirrors the other (also called informalbalance).

2. Uneven balance using elements of diverse sizes, shapes, positions, patternsand hues.

3. Opposite of symmetry, thetwo sides of a composition that do not mirror each other.

Atmospheric perspective (aerial perspective)

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Atmospheric perspective (Alsocalled aerial perspective)

1. The phenomenon in nature in which particles of water and dust inthe air cause objects to appear lighter and less distinct in the distance.

2. A technique often employed in landscape painting implying threedimensional space on a two dimensional picture plane, in which objects distantfrom the viewer become less distinct, often bluer or cooler in color, and inwhich contrast in greatly reduced.

3. A technique that uses value to create the illusion of depth andspace. As objects recede into space their values becomes lighter.

This image of the Italian Alps shows atmospheric perspective. Photo by David Koeth, used with permission.

Attributes of color

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Attributes of color

The three main description or properties of colors: hue, value, andintensity.

Avante-Garde

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Avante-Garde – (French: advancedguard or vanguard)

In art, theterm avant-garde refers to a small group of artists that, seemingly withoutfear, take artistic risks and challenge the boundaries of what is acceptable. Theseartists are often considered leaders, and often radicals, in the invention ofnew concepts.

Background

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Background

An area in a two-dimensional work thatattempts to show depth; the area that appears farthest from the observer. (Alsocalled ground or field.)

Balance

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Balance

1. Distribution of the visual weight of a composition. Symmetrical,asymmetrical, approximate symmetrical and radial, are different types ofbalance.

2. Equal distribution of elements on both sides of a composition.

Balanced color

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Balanced color

Colors that are balanced by their compliments. Painters often includecomplimentary color to assure color balance in a composition. For example: astrongly green composition will often contain some red to assure color balance.

Bas-relief

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Bas-relief

A three-dimensional form that is minimally raised from a flat background.

Bauhaus

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Bauhaus (German:house of construction)

A school of art, design, and architecture in Germany, started in 1919under the leadership of Walter Gropius. The school combined craft and finearts, and used the experimental principles of functionalism and truth tomaterials. The school moved twice, starting out in Weimar (1919 – 1925), movingto Dessau (1925 – 1932) and finally to Berlin (1932-1933). Under pressure fromthe Nazis, the school closed in 1933. The Bauhaus is considered the firstmodern art school.

Beam

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Beam

A straight, horizontal element spanning between to supportinguprights, lintels.

Binocular vision

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Binocular vision

The way human beings see; binocular vision is two retinal images, onefrom each eye, brought together by the brain into a single image that appearsthree-dimensional.

Biomorphic

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Biomorphic

An adjective used to describe configurations that suggests theappearance of plant or animal life, especially lower forms of life such asamoebae and other single cell organisms

Bisque fire

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Bisque fire

An unglazed first firing to low temperature, (cone 06 to cone 04), toharden the clay for glazing.

Bisque ware (biscuit)

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Bisque ware (biscuit)

Refers to pottery that has been fired but not yet glazed.

Bit

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Bit

An abbreviation of Binary Digit, themost basic unit of digital information. A bit can be expressed in only one oftwo states, 0 or 1, meaning on or off, yes or no. This is actually the onlyinformation a computer can process. 8 bits are required to store one alphabetcharacter.

Bitmap

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Bitmap

An image comprised of dots (pixels), as distinctfrom object-oriented or vector graphics. Also known as a raster image.

Bleed

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Bleed

The edges of a printed page that are outside the crop marks. When a designer wants toprint all the way to or past the edge of a piece of paper, he/she must use ableed. The standard bleed is ¼ inch.

Blind contour

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Blind contour

A contour drawing in which the artist’seye stays focused on the object being drawn, and doesn’t look at the imagebeing created on drawing surface.

Blistering

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Blistering

The broken bubbles on a glazed and fired ceramic surface.

Bloating

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Bloating

Deformation of a clay during firing, usually bumps or blisters, causedby impurities or over firing.

Body of work

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Body of work

A group of works created by a single artist; or a group of workscreated by artists working in collaboration over a specific period of time.

Body type

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Body type

8 point to 14 point text, used for the main body oftext; also called text type.

Boldface

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Boldface

A thicker, heavier version of a typeface,used to denote emphasis.

This is Helvetica Regular

This is Helvetica Bold - a boldface version

Byte

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Byte

A unit of information made up of eightbits. Bytes are commonly used to represent alphanumeric characters or integersfrom 0 to 255.

Bone dry

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Bone dry

Term used to describe greenware that is completely dry, containingonly small amounts of physical moisture. This is clay’s most fragile state.

Burnishing

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Burnishing

In Ceramics, refers to rubbing leather hard clay with any smooth toolto polish it and tighten the clay surface.

CAD/CAM

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CAD/CAM (computer-aided design/ computer-aidedmanufacturing)

A broad term, used to describe the useof computers to create and produce products.

Calligraphy

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Calligraphy

The art of beautiful writing. Broadly,a controlled flowing use of line referred to as calligraphic.

Camera-ready

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Camera-ready art

Artwork that has been assembled by handand prepared for reproduction on a process camera. Inrecent years, desktoppublishing software on personal computers, has replaced the physicalassembly of this type of art. Most printing shops now use technology thatcreates printing plates from digital files directly, without using a camera andnegative. The term camera-readycontinues to refer to a document is ready to be made into a printing plate.

Cantiliever

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Cantiliever

An architectural form, a beam projecting a substantial distance,supported at one end only or balanced on a central support with both ends free.

Capital

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Capital

In architecture, the crown or top part of a column or pillar, uponwhich the entablature rests. Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian are the three majortypes of capitals.

Carving

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Carving

A subtractive process in which sculpture is formed by removingmaterial from a block or mass of stone wood or other material.

Casting

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Casting

A transference process; the process of making sculpture by pouring aliquid, (molten bronze, clay slip, wax, plaster) into a mold bearing asculptural impression.

CD-ROM - Compact disk-read only memory

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CD-ROM - Compact disk-read only memory.

An older storage system used forbackups of digital files.

Centered type

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Centered type

Lines of type of varying length that are alignedalong a vertical axis.

This type is centered

Can you see the way that

the type is aligned

along the central axis?

Central processing unit

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Central processing unit (CPU)

The part of a computer system containingcircuits that control and execute instructions in a computer program.

Ceramics

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Ceramics (Greek: pottery)

Historically, objects made from clayand other raw materials, that have been heated and cooled. Ceramic pieces canhave a utilitarian role, such as bowls, drinking vessels, etc., or they canhave a non-utilitarian purpose and can be considered fine art or decorative innature.

Chiaroscuro

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Chiaroscuro (Italian: light dark)

The useof light and dark tones to achieve a heightened illusion of depth in a drawingor painting. The technique can be used to increase drama or feeling, similar tolighting effects used in the theater.

Choke

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Choke

A method of altering the thickness of aletter or solid shape, used in trapping to ensure proper registration of colorson a printing press.

Chroma

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Chroma

The degree of purity or brilliance of a color.

Chromaticity

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Chromaticity

A term interchangeable with: chroma, saturation, and intensity.

Classical

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Classical

Having the qualities generally associated with the art of ancientGreece and Rome at the height of their civilizations. The artists of antiquitysought to make ideal images by abstracting the essential qualities of natureand humanity. The works of antiquity convey a nobility and elegance that isconveyed by a refined sense of balance and proportion.

Clay

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Clay

A natural earthly material that isplastic when wet and becomes hard and brittle upon treatment by high heat(firing).

Closed form

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Closed form

A self-contain form, having a resolved balance and compositional senseof calm.

Closure

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Closure

Allowing the viewer’s eye and brain to finish a composition by leavingparts out. Closure is related to principles of gestalt psychology.

Clustering

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Clustering

In design, creating a focal point bygrouping different objects or shapes together.

CMYK - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black

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CMYK - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black

A subtractive color system used in “process” or 4-color printing and usedin color laser printing. The process colors are deposited as a series of tinydots combined in a grid to “fool” the human eye.

Coated paper

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Coatedpaper

Paper that has had china clay added to it in thepapermaking process; ink sits on top of coated paper, making the image crisperand more saturated and clearer than one printed on uncoated paper.

Coiling

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Coiling

A method of ceramic construction in which long ropelike strands ofclay are coiled on top of one another then smothered.

Cold type

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Cold type

Refers to a method ofpreparing typography with a photographic typesetting machine. Coldtype was made obsolete with the introduction of the personal computer anddesktop publishing.

Collaboration

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Collaboration

The process or product of a group of individuals working toward asingle goal. Artists collaborate with other artists, but collaborations mayalso occur between artists and musicians, or artists and scientists, forexample.

Collage

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Collage

Creating a composition by gluingtogether paper or other materials to build color and texture. Often used incombination with paint, artist Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973) was one ofthe first artists to use collage as a distinct medium.

Colonnade

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Colonnade

A series or row of columns, usually spanned by lintels.

Color

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Color

The visible spectrum as seen by the human eye; also calledhue.

Color combinations

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Colorcombinations

Color relationships, established according to theirrelative position on the color (schemes/harmonies) wheel.

Color constancy

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Color constancy

The psychological tendency to see colors we expect to see even whenthe actual colors are different.

Color harmony

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Color harmony

The pleasing result of balanced color relationships.

Color interaction

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Color interaction

The relative differences between colorsas they react to one another in different environs, also called simultaneous contrast.

Color picker

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Color picker

A tool that selects color, available in many softwareprograms, such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator.

Color scheme

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Color scheme

A set of colors chosen to combine within a composition.