Catalonia PAU History of Art flashcards

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

Venus of Willendorf

Upper Paleolithic limestone figurine (c. 28,000–25,000 BCE) with exaggerated breasts, abdomen, and hips, faceless head, and no feet. Interpreted as a fertility or mother-goddess image.

Ziggurat

Stepped mud-brick temple platform of ancient Mesopotamia, with sloping sides, external staircases, and a shrine at the summit. The Ur ziggurat and Uruk's White Temple are key examples.

Egyptian composite view

Representational convention showing head in profile, eye and shoulders frontal, and legs in profile. It presents the most characteristic aspect of each body part rather than a single viewpoint.

Contrapposto

Weight-shift pose in which one leg bears the body's weight, producing a tilted pelvis, raised hip, and counterbalancing shoulders. Introduced in Greek Classical sculpture, it creates naturalistic balance.

Doric order

Greek architectural order with a fluted column lacking a base, a plain echinus capital, and an entablature of triglyphs and metopes. It is the heaviest and earliest of the classical orders.

Opus caementicium

Roman concrete made of lime mortar mixed with aggregate such as tufa, brick, or pozzolana. Its strength allowed large vaults and domes, including the Pantheon.

Pendentive

Curved triangular transition between a square bay and a circular dome. It concentrates the dome's weight on four piers and defines Byzantine and later domed church architecture.

Byzantine gold ground

Mosaic or panel background of gold tesserae or gold leaf that removes figures from earthly space. It signals sacred, timeless presence and reflects light toward the viewer.

Romanesque tympanum

Semicircular sculpted area above a church portal lintel. It typically shows Christ in Majesty or the Last Judgement, with figures scaled by importance and inscriptions guiding interpretation.

Flying buttress

External arched support that transmits the lateral thrust of a nave vault to a detached pier. Combined with rib vaults and pointed arches, it permits tall, thin walls and large windows.

Rib vault

Vault in which diagonal stone ribs carry the web infill and concentrate loads onto piers. Gothic builders used pointed rib vaults to span bays of varying shape and height.

Linear perspective

Geometric system in which parallel lines recede to a vanishing point on a horizon, producing consistent depth. Alberti codified it in 1435; Masaccio's Trinity applies it in painting.

Sfumato

Leonardo's technique of extremely subtle tonal transitions with no visible contour, producing smoky, soft edges. It models form and atmosphere, most famously in the Mona Lisa.

Figura serpentinata

Mannerist S-curved or spiralling figure pose implying rotation and instability. It replaces Renaissance frontal balance with artificial elegance and viewer involvement from multiple viewpoints.

Central plan

Building organised symmetrically around a central vertical axis, often domed or circular. Renaissance theorists linked it to ideal proportion and divine geometry; Bramante's Tempietto exemplifies it.

Tenebrism

Extreme chiaroscuro in which figures emerge from near-total darkness under a single strong light source. Caravaggio popularised it, and it spread across Baroque Europe.

Quadratura

Baroque ceiling-painting technique using painted architecture and perspective to extend real space illusionistically upward. Pozzo's Sant'Ignazio ceiling is a celebrated example.

Fête galante

Rococo painting genre depicting elegant aristocrats in amorous or musical outdoor leisure. Watteau established it, blending theatrical setting, delicate colour, and melancholy mood.

Rocaille

Asymmetrical, shell-and-scroll ornament characteristic of Rococo interiors and decoration. Curving, organic forms spread across panelling, furniture, and stucco to dissolve architectural boundaries.

Neoclassicism

Late 18th-century style reviving Greco-Roman forms with clear drawing, restrained colour, and moral or civic subjects. It responded to archaeological discoveries and Enlightenment rationalism.

Impasto

Paint applied thickly so that brush or palette-knife marks stand out from the surface. It exploits the physical body of paint, notably in Van Gogh and later Expressionist work.

Pointillism

Seurat's method of applying small, separate dots of pure colour that blend optically at a distance. It derives from colour theory and is also called divisionism or Neo-Impressionism.

Salon des Refusés

1863 exhibition in Paris of works rejected by the official Salon jury, authorised by Napoleon III. It exposed academic gatekeeping and is a landmark in avant-garde independence.

Analytic Cubism

Picasso and Braque's phase (c. 1909–12) of fragmented, faceted forms in a shallow, near-monochrome space. Multiple viewpoints dissolve the illusion of a single fixed perspective.

Readymade

Duchamp's term for an ordinary manufactured object presented as art with minimal alteration, such as Fountain. It attacks authorship, craft, and the institutional definition of art.

Automatism

Surrealist technique of suppressing conscious control to let the unconscious guide mark-making or writing. Masson's sand drawings and early Ernst works exemplify it.

Action Painting

Abstract Expressionist approach treating paint application as a record of physical gesture. Pollock's dripped and poured canvases place the act of painting at the work's centre.

Buon fresco

Painting with pigment suspended in water on wet lime plaster. As the lime carbonates, pigment becomes locked into the wall, giving great durability but requiring rapid, planned work.

Lost-wax casting

Bronze casting method in which a wax model is coated in clay, heated to melt out the wax, then filled with molten metal. It permits complex, hollow forms.

Etching

Intaglio printmaking in which acid bites lines through a wax ground on a metal plate. The exposed lines hold ink, producing freer, more drawn-looking marks than engraving.

Chiaroscuro

Italian term for the modelling of form through strong contrasts of light and dark. It creates volume and drama and underlies tenebrism when pushed to extremes.

Andamento

The directional flow and arrangement of tesserae rows in a mosaic. Skilled andamento follows contours of form and can create rhythm, shading, and visual movement.