IB Visual Arts HL key terms

An independent research task in which you analyse, compare and connect several works by different artists from contrasting cultural contexts, presenting visual and written evidence within a tightly limited number of pages.

The systematic description of how a work is put together - composition, colour, scale, medium and mark-making - carried out before and alongside interpretation of what the work means.

The visual and material features of an artwork, such as composition, colour, line, shape, texture, scale and handling of medium, considered as the building blocks of its appearance and effect.

The role a work played or plays in its setting - devotion, ritual, propaganda, commemoration, decoration or protest - and the intentions behind its making, which may differ from its present use.

The meanings a work holds for the community that made or uses it, including beliefs, values, status and identity, and how those meanings shift when the work enters a museum or market.

The circumstances surrounding a work's creation and reception: time, place, patron, politics, religion, technology, and the artist's training and life, used to explain why it looks and functions as it does.

The point at which comparison turns into conclusion: drawing your separate findings together into a personal, evidence-based insight rather than merely listing similarities and differences.

Placing two or more works, images or details side by side so that contrast and connection become visible and can be discussed directly rather than described in isolation.

The recognisable characteristics of an artist's or movement's visual language, such as abstraction, brushwork, colour range, distortion or pattern, which allow viewers to group works together.

A group of artists sharing aims, ideas and visual conventions during a particular period, such as Cubism or the Pictures Generation, used as a frame for comparing and situating works.

Deliberately taking and reusing existing images, objects or styles, either to critique the original or to build new meaning, a strategy that must be distinguished from plagiarism in your study.

Evidence you gather first-hand: the artwork itself, a gallery visit, an interview, or direct observation of materials and process, rather than someone else's summary or reproduction.

Commentary produced by others - books, reviews, documentaries, museum texts, scholarly articles - used to support, extend or challenge your own reading of an artwork.

An explanation of what a work might mean and how it produces that meaning, argued from visual and contextual evidence and open to more than one defensible reading.

The material or system an artist works in, such as oil paint, video, clay or performance, which shapes what can be made and how viewers read the finished work.

The size of a work relative to the human body and its surroundings, a deliberate choice that affects intimacy, authority, immersion and how a viewer physically encounters it.

A selected, annotated body of evidence showing how your art-making developed: experiments, media tests, research, failures, revisions and reflection, submitted for external assessment.

Sustained research into artists, works, techniques or ideas that informs your own practice, showing you can question and use sources rather than simply name them.

Deliberately trying unfamiliar materials, techniques or formats without knowing the outcome, in order to discover possibilities and to build evidence of risk-taking in your practice.

The stage of improving a work in progress by adjusting composition, colour, technique or concept in response to what you see and learn while making it.

Producing successive versions of an idea or form, each one changed slightly in response to the last, so that the final work carries the history of those attempts.

Short written notes attached to images or works in progress that explain decisions, materials, problems and next steps, linking visual evidence to your thinking.

An artist whose work, methods or ideas you study closely and then adapt into your own practice, acknowledged clearly so that influence is not mistaken for copying.

A working record of drawings, notes, photographs, trials and thoughts kept throughout the course, from which the process portfolio is later selected and edited.

Systematic photographing, scanning and recording of works, stages and tests so that your process can be evidenced accurately and shown at good quality in the submitted portfolio.

The precise vocabulary of art and design - terms for media, techniques, formal elements, processes and concepts - used in written and spoken analysis to show secure understanding.

Thinking back on what you made and why, judging what worked, what failed and what to try next, and showing how that judgement changed your practice.

Trial pieces that explore how a material or technique behaves - drying time, transparency, adhesion, resolution, structural strength - before you commit to it in a finished work.

What you want a work to do to a viewer - its message, mood, question or effect - stated clearly enough that later choices and refinements can be judged against it.

The final assessed presentation in which you select, install and justify a resolved body of work, judged on the whole experience rather than on separate pieces in isolation.

A short written statement explaining the thinking behind your exhibition: its theme, the selection and sequencing of works, installation choices, and what you want viewers to experience.

A group of works that clearly belong together through shared ideas, materials, processes or visual language, while still showing development, range and evidence of decision-making.

The short label written for viewers giving title, medium, dimensions and a concise explanation of the work's ideas, kept within the prescribed word limit.

The decisions involved in selecting, sequencing, spacing, lighting and labelling works so that together they produce a particular experience for a viewer in a given space.

The physical placing and fixing of works in a space - height, spacing, lighting, sequence and any built elements - treated as part of how the exhibition makes meaning.

A work made for, or adapted to, one particular place, so that its meaning depends on the architecture, history or use of that location and cannot be fully transferred elsewhere.

The strength and clarity of the ideas a work communicates, judged by how convincingly its form, materials and presentation carry those ideas to a viewer.

The control and judgement shown in handling materials and processes, so that technical decisions serve the work's intention rather than displaying skill for its own sake.

The paths a viewer's eye and body follow through an exhibition, shaped by where works are placed, how high they hang and what blocks or opens the view.