DU Fine Arts Unit flashcards
DU Fine Arts Unit · Build recall with a focused review session.
32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Elements of art
- The basic visual components used to build any artwork: line, shape, form, value, texture, color, and space. They are the raw vocabulary artists manipulate.
- Principles of design
- Organizing rules for arranging elements, including balance, contrast, emphasis, movement, pattern, rhythm, unity, and proportion. They describe how elements relate rather than what they are.
- Complementary colors
- Pairs located opposite each other on the color wheel, such as red and green or blue and orange. Placed side by side they intensify contrast; mixed together they neutralize toward gray.
- Analogous colors
- Colors adjacent on the color wheel, for example blue, blue-green, and green. They share an underlying hue and produce harmonious, low-contrast schemes.
- Value in art
- The relative lightness or darkness of a color or tone, independent of hue. Value establishes form, depth, and readability in a composition.
- Chiaroscuro
- An Italian term for the strong contrast between light and dark used to model three-dimensional form and heighten drama, prominent in Renaissance and Baroque painting.
- Linear perspective
- A geometric system in which parallel lines converge at vanishing points on a horizon line, creating the illusion of depth on a flat surface.
- Vanishing point
- The point on the horizon line where receding parallel lines appear to meet. One-point perspective uses one; two-point perspective uses two.
- Foreshortening
- A technique that depicts an object or limb angled toward the viewer as compressed in length, producing a convincing illusion of projection into space.
- Impasto
- Paint applied thickly so that brush or palette-knife marks stand out from the surface. It creates physical texture and catches light.
- Fresco
- A mural technique of painting water-based pigment onto fresh, damp lime plaster. The pigment bonds with the plaster as it cures, making the image durable.
- Sfumato
- A painting technique of subtle, smoky blending of tones so edges dissolve softly. Leonardo da Vinci is its most famous practitioner.
- Tenebrism
- An extreme form of chiaroscuro in which figures emerge from near-total darkness under a single strong light source, associated with Baroque painting.
- Baroque art
- A European style roughly from 1600 to 1750 marked by dramatic movement, emotional intensity, rich color, and theatrical light, often serving church and state display.
- Renaissance humanism
- A cultural movement reviving classical learning and centering human experience and proportion. It shaped Renaissance art's naturalism, perspective, and idealized anatomy.
- Neoclassicism
- A late 18th- and early 19th-century style reviving Greco-Roman clarity, order, and restraint, often tied to Enlightenment ideals and revolutionary politics.
- Romanticism
- An early 19th-century movement valuing emotion, individualism, nature's sublime power, and dramatic color over Neoclassical reason and restraint.
- Realism in art
- A mid-19th-century movement depicting ordinary people and everyday life without idealization, often addressing labor and social conditions.
- Post-Impressionism
- A late 19th-century development building on Impressionism's color while adding structure, expressive distortion, or symbolic meaning, as in Cezanne, Van Gogh, and Gauguin.
- Subtractive sculpture
- A carving method that removes material from a solid block of stone or wood. The final form is limited by the original mass.
- Additive sculpture
- A method of building form by adding material, such as modeling clay or assembling found objects. It allows gradual construction and revision.
- Lost-wax casting
- A bronze-casting process in which a wax model is coated in a mold, the wax is melted out, and molten metal fills the cavity.
- Relief sculpture
- Carved or modeled forms projecting from a flat background. Low relief is shallow; high relief projects substantially from the backing plane.
- Contrapposto
- A pose in which weight rests on one leg, tilting the hips and shoulders in opposite directions. It gives figures natural balance and dynamism.
- Intaglio printmaking
- A process in which incised lines below the plate surface hold ink, which is transferred under pressure. Etching and engraving are examples.
- Relief printmaking
- A process in which raised areas of a block receive ink and print while cut-away areas stay blank. Woodcut and linocut are examples.
- Lithography
- A planographic print process relying on the repulsion of oil-based ink and water on a flat stone or metal plate, with no incising or carving.
- Greek architectural orders
- Three classical systems of column and capital design: Doric with a plain capital, Ionic with volutes, and Corinthian with acanthus-leaf ornament.
- Post-and-lintel
- A structural system of vertical posts supporting horizontal beams. It is basic to Greek temple architecture and limits span by beam strength.
- Arch and vault
- Curved structural forms that transfer loads and span openings. The arch enabled Roman engineering; the vault extends an arch into three dimensions.
- Dome
- A hemispherical roof structure spanning a circular or polygonal space. Examples include the Roman Pantheon and Byzantine Hagia Sophia.
- Asymmetrical balance
- A composition balanced by unequal visual weights, such as a large plain area offset by a small dense one, rather than by mirror symmetry.