DSST Western World Art flashcards

31 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Linear perspective

System in which parallel lines recede to a single vanishing point on a horizon, creating illusion of depth on a flat surface. Codified in early 15th-century Florence and central to Renaissance painting.

Contrapposto

Italian for 'counterpoise': the body's weight rests on one leg, causing hips and shoulders to tilt in opposite directions. Revives classical stance and gives figures lifelike balance.

Sfumato

Leonardo's technique of blending tones and edges so gradually that transitions look smoky and soft, with no hard outline. Visible in the Mona Lisa's face and background.

Brunelleschi's dome

Florence Cathedral dome (completed 1436) built without wooden centering, using a double shell, herringbone brick pattern, and stone chains. Landmark of Renaissance engineering and classical proportion.

High Renaissance

Brief period c. 1490-1520 centered in Rome and Florence, marked by balanced compositions, ideal proportions, and mastery of anatomy and perspective. Associated with Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael.

Mannerism

Style c. 1520-1580 that exaggerates Renaissance conventions: elongated proportions, unstable poses, acidic color, and crowded space. Parmigianino and Pontormo are key examples.

Jan van Eyck

Fifteenth-century Flemish painter who exploited oil glazes for minute detail and luminous surfaces. Works include the Ghent Altarpiece and the Arnolfini Portrait.

School of Athens

Raphael fresco in the Vatican Stanza della Segnale placing Plato and Aristotle at the central vanishing point. Embodies High Renaissance balance and classical learning.

Tenebrism

Baroque lighting device using near-total darkness with a harsh, directed light source. Caravaggio popularized it to heighten drama and psychological intensity.

Caravaggio

Italian Baroque painter known for realistic, unidealized figures and tenebrism. Works include the Calling of Saint Matthew and the Conversion of Saint Paul.

Bernini

Italian Baroque sculptor and architect whose marble groups convey motion and flesh. Works include David, Apollo and Daphne, and the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa; he designed St. Peter's colonnade.

Borromini

Baroque architect who favored undulating facades, complex geometric plans, and dramatic spatial compression. His San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane contrasts with Bernini's classicizing approach.

Quadratura

Baroque ceiling painting that uses architectural illusion and steep perspective to make flat vaults appear to open into sky. Pozzo's Sant'Ignazio ceiling is a famous example.

Rembrandt

Dutch Baroque master of tonal light and thick impasto, especially in late self-portraits. Also produced etchings and biblical history paintings such as The Night Watch.

Vermeer

Dutch Baroque painter of quiet domestic interiors lit by cool window light, using careful perspective and optical effects. Works include The Milkmaid and Girl with a Pearl Earring.

Las Meninas

Velázquez's 1656 Spanish court painting that includes the artist, the infanta, and a mirror reflecting the king and queen. It questions who is viewing whom.

Poussin vs. Rubens

French Baroque debate between Poussin's classical, drawing-based, planar history painting and Rubens's colorist, dynamic, energetic manner. It shaped academic doctrine for centuries.

Dutch still life

Independent genre that flourished in the 17th-century Netherlands, featuring flowers, food, and objects with moral overtones. It reflects commercial wealth and close observation.

Realism

Mid-19th-century French movement depicting contemporary life and ordinary labor without idealization. Courbet and Millet are central figures; photography and 1848 politics shaped it.

Gustave Courbet

French Realist who declared the movement in 1855 and painted unheroic subjects at large scale. Works include A Burial at Ornans and The Stone Breakers.

Millet's Gleaners

Painting of three peasant women gathering leftover grain, giving rural labor monumentality and dignity. It exemplifies Realism's focus on the working poor.

Daumier

French Realist known for lithographic caricature of politics and law courts, plus paintings of street life. His satirical line makes social critique the subject.

Manet's Olympia

1863 painting of a reclining nude who directly confronts the viewer, quoting Titian's Venus but asserting flatness and modern identity. It bridges Realism and Impressionism.

Barbizon School

Group of French landscape painters working outdoors near Fontainebleau in the mid-19th century. Their direct observation of nature anticipated Impressionism.

Ashcan School

American group c. 1900 that painted gritty urban scenes of streets, tenements, and everyday life. It extends Realist social observation into the 20th century.

Peredvizhniki

Russian 'Wanderers' who organized traveling exhibitions of socially engaged genre painting from 1870. Repin and Kramskoi are associated with the group.

Cave painting

Prehistoric parietal art using mineral pigments on cave walls, mostly animal imagery. Lascaux and Altamira are principal sites, dating tens of thousands of years ago.

Kouros

Archaic Greek standing nude male statue with frontal pose, stiff legs, and stylized hair. It marks the starting point of Greek naturalism before Classical contrapposto.

Gothic architecture

Medieval style defined by pointed arches, rib vaults, and flying buttresses, allowing tall walls filled with stained glass. Chartres Cathedral is a canonical example.

Neoclassicism

Late 18th-century style rejecting Rococo frivolity in favor of severe outlines, antique subjects, and moral seriousness. David's Oath of the Horatii exemplifies it.

Romanticism

Early 19th-century movement emphasizing emotion, individual experience, and sublime nature over reason. Delacroix, Turner, and Friedrich are representative painters.