Galicia PAU History of Art flashcards

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

Ziggurat

Stepped mud-brick temple platform of ancient Mesopotamia, as at Ur, with a shrine on top reached by monumental stairs; it served as religious and administrative center, not a congregational hall.

Contrapposto

Pose in which weight rests on one leg, tilting hips and shoulders in opposing directions. Developed in Greek sculpture around 480 BCE and central to Polykleitos' canon of proportion.

Opus caementicium

Roman concrete made of lime mortar and rubble aggregate. Its strength allowed vaults and domes such as the Pantheon, and it was often faced with brick or stone patterns.

Kouros

Archaic Greek free-standing nude male statue, usually a grave or votive offering, characterized by frontal stance, rigid symmetry, braided hair, and the so-called Archaic smile.

Pendentive

Curved triangular masonry element that transitions a square room into a circular dome base. A defining feature of Byzantine architecture, first fully exploited at Hagia Sophia.

Flying buttress

External arched support that transfers the outward thrust of a Gothic vault to freestanding piers, allowing thinner walls and large stained-glass windows in the clerestory.

Tympanum

Semicircular area above a portal lintel, enclosed by archivolts. Romanesque and Gothic examples typically show the Maiestas Domini or Last Judgment in carved relief.

Historiated capital

Romanesque or Gothic column capital carved with narrative scenes or figures rather than pure ornament, often biblical or moralizing, functioning as visual instruction for the faithful.

Linear perspective

System in which parallel lines receding in space converge at a vanishing point on a horizon line, producing illusionistic depth. Codified by Alberti in 1435 from Brunelleschi's experiments.

Sfumato

Leonardo's technique of extremely subtle tonal transitions, blurring outlines and creating smoky atmosphere, most famously in the Mona Lisa and Virgin of the Rocks.

Figura serpentinata

Italian term for a figure posed in spiraling, twisting movement, often with opposing torsion of torso and limbs. Favored by Michelangelo and Mannerist artists to convey grace and energy.

Colorito versus disegno

Venetian emphasis on color and tonal glazing contrasted with Florentine-Roman priority of drawing and design. The debate shaped 16th-century art theory and evaluation of painters.

Tenebrism

Extreme chiaroscuro in which figures emerge from near-total darkness under a single raking light. Associated with Caravaggio and his followers across 17th-century Europe.

Quadratura

Illusionistic ceiling painting that simulates architectural structure and opens the ceiling into fictive sky, developed in Baroque Italy and mastered by Pozzo and Tiepolo.

Fête galante

Rococo genre showing elegant figures in amorous leisure within a park landscape. Term coined for Watteau's reception piece for the French Academy in 1717.

Chiaroscuro

Strong contrast between light and dark used to model form and create drama. Distinct from tenebrism, which pushes the contrast to near-total darkness of setting.

Pointillism

Seurat's technique of applying small dots of pure color that mix optically at viewing distance, based on color theory. Also called divisionism; central to Neo-Impressionism after 1884.

Rückenfigur

Figure seen from behind, gazing into the landscape, inviting the viewer to share that viewpoint. Central to Caspar David Friedrich's Romantic landscapes.

Cloisonnism

Post-Impressionist style using flat areas of color bounded by dark outlines, likened to stained-glass cells. Developed by Gauguin and Bernard at Pont-Aven around 1888.

Realism

Mid-19th-century movement depicting contemporary life and labor without idealization, aligned with Courbet's 1855 Pavilion du Réalisme and the rise of photography and social critique.

Papier collé

Cubist technique of pasting paper, newsprint, or wallpaper directly onto a support, introduced by Braque and Picasso around 1912 during the Synthetic Cubist phase.

Readymade

Ordinary manufactured object selected and designated as art by the artist, as in Duchamp's Bottle Rack and Fountain, challenging authorship, craft, and institutional definitions of art.

Suprematism

Malevich's non-objective movement of 1915, using basic geometric shapes on white grounds to evoke pure feeling, exemplified by Black Square and the term's manifesto publication.

Neoplasticism

De Stijl doctrine of Mondrian and Van Doesburg: strict horizontals and verticals, primary colors plus black, white, and gray, aiming for universal harmony and equilibrium.

Automatism

Surrealist technique of suppressing conscious control to let the unconscious direct mark-making or writing, practiced by Masson and Miró; contrasted with Dalí's veristic dream imagery.

Color field painting

Abstract Expressionist tendency using large areas of thinly applied, saturated color to create immersive, contemplative effects, associated with Rothko, Newman, and Still.

Earthworks

Art made by altering landscape with earth-moving equipment, located outside galleries, as in Smithson's Spiral Jetty (1970); tied to Land art and critiques of the art market.

Appropriation

Postmodern practice of reusing existing images or objects, often without alteration, to question originality and authorship, as in Sherman's film stills and the Pictures Generation.

Brutalism

Postwar architectural tendency using exposed concrete, monumental massing, and expressed structure, exemplified by Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation and the Smithsons' work.

Lost-wax casting

Bronze casting method in which a wax model is coated in clay, heated so wax drains out, and molten metal poured into the void; allows detailed, hollow, single-piece sculpture.

Buon fresco

Painting with pigment in water on wet lime plaster, so the image bonds with the wall as it cures. Corrections require removing plaster and repainting an entire giornata.

Iconography versus iconology

Iconography identifies subjects and symbols; iconology interprets their cultural meaning. Panofsky defined three levels: pre-iconographic description, iconographic analysis, and iconological interpretation.