Artistic Techniques, Materials, and Terminology
What the exam tests
This domain tests whether you can use technical vocabulary precisely and connect materials to visual effects. Questions may ask you to identify a medium from a description, explain why fresco limits colour, distinguish tempera from oil, or define terms such as contrapposto, foreshortening, and chiaroscuro. Precision matters more than long lists.
Core rules and concepts
- Painting media. Fresco applies pigment to wet lime plaster; carbonation fixes the image, but the palette must be lime-fast and work must be rapid (giornata). Tempera binds pigment with egg yolk, dries quickly, and produces crisp linearity; oil dries slowly, allows blending, glazes, and sfumato. Acrylic is modern synthetic polymer.
- Support and ground. Wood panel, canvas, copper, and paper behave differently; gesso prepares absorbent grounds. Canvas became dominant in Venice because of humidity and large-scale commissions.
- Sculpture. Carving is subtractive (marble, wood); modelling is additive (clay, wax); casting reproduces in bronze via lost-wax. Relief varies from low (bas-relief) to high; contrapposto shifts weight onto one leg.
- Architecture and drawing. Orders, vaults, and domes; orthographic plan, section, and elevation; perspective drawing and cartoon transfer. Printmaking: woodcut (relief), engraving and etching (intaglio), lithography (planographic).
- Terminology. Chiaroscuro = light-dark modelling; tenebrism = dramatic darkness; sfumato = smoky blending; impasto = thick paint; foreshortening = perspective shortening; trompe-l'œil = deceptive realism.
Worked example
Prompt: "Why did oil painting replace tempera for subtle modelling?" Reasoning: tempera's egg binder sets quickly, so transitions must be hatched or layered; oil's slow drying permits wet-in-wet blending and translucent glazes over opaque underpaint. Name the consequence - softer flesh tones, deeper shadows, and greater tonal range - and cite a work such as Van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece or Titian's late paintings. The mark is for linking binder, drying time, and visual result.
Traps that cost marks
- Calling fresco "paint on dry plaster"; that is secco and less durable.
- Confusing engraving (cut lines) with etching (acid bites lines).
- Using "chiaroscuro" for any dark painting.
- Mixing carving and casting as if both were subtractive.
- Defining foreshortening as "making things smaller" without perspective.