LC Art cheat sheet

The elements of art are line, shape, form, space, color, value, and texture; principles of design include balance, contrast, emphasis, movement, pattern, rhythm, and unity.

Line has measurable properties: direction, length, thickness, and quality (sharp, blurred, broken); contour lines define edges while implied lines guide the eye between points.

Shape is two-dimensional and enclosed; form is three-dimensional and can be actual (sculpture) or implied through shading and perspective.

Color theory: hue is the color name; value is lightness/darkness; intensity (saturation) is purity; complementary hues sit opposite on the color wheel and neutralize when mixed.

Primary pigments are red, yellow, and blue (traditional) or cyan, magenta, yellow (subtractive printing); secondary colors result from mixing two primaries.

Positive space is occupied by the subject; negative space is the surrounding void; figure-ground relationship describes how viewers separate subject from background.

Balance is symmetrical (mirror), asymmetrical (weighted but unequal), or radial (radiating from a center); visual weight increases with size, dark value, and warm hue.

Texture can be actual (tactile surface) or simulated (illusion of surface through technique); value scales typically run from white through grays to black.

Paleolithic cave paintings (Lascaux, Altamira, Chauvet) use mineral pigments (ochre, charcoal) applied by hand, brush, or blowpipe; animals dominate, often overlapping without ground lines.

The Venus of Willendorf (c. 28,000–25,000 BCE) is a small limestone female figurine with exaggerated reproductive features, interpreted as a fertility symbol.

Neolithic art shifts to architecture and ceramics: Stonehenge (c. 3000–2000 BCE) uses post-and-lintel construction aligned to solstices; pottery shows geometric decoration.

Ancient Near Eastern art features ziggurats (stepped temple platforms), cylinder seals, and the Code of Hammurakl stela; figures show hierarchical scale.

Egyptian art follows the canon of proportions and frontality: heads in profile, eyes frontal, shoulders frontal, legs in profile; registers organize narrative scenes.

Greek art progresses from Archaic (stiff, archaic smile) to Classical (contrapposto, idealized proportions) to Hellenistic (dramatic emotion, dynamic poses, e.g., Laocoön).

Greek orders: Doric (plain capital, no base), Ionic (volute capital, base), Corinthian (acanthus-leaf capital); the Parthenon is Doric with Ionic elements.

Roman art contributes concrete construction, the arch, vault, and dome (Pantheon), veristic portraiture, and historical relief (Trajan's Column).

Byzantine art is characterized by gold grounds, frontal figures, elongated proportions, and hieratic scale; mosaics in Ravenna and the Hagia Sophia are key examples.

The Byzantine icon is a sacred image used for veneration; iconoclasm (726–843 CE) banned religious images, followed by restoration of icons.

Early Christian art uses catacomb frescoes, the Good Shepherd motif, and basilica-plan churches with a nave, aisles, and apse.

Romanesque architecture features thick walls, small windows, round arches, barrel vaults, and sculpted tympana (e.g., Moissac, Vézelay).

Gothic architecture introduces pointed arches, ribbed vaults, flying buttresses, and large stained-glass windows, allowing taller, lighter structures (Chartres, Notre-Dame).

Medieval manuscript illumination includes carpet pages, historiated initials, and gold leaf; the Book of Kells and Lindisfarne Gospels are Insular examples.

The Bayeux Tapestry is an embroidered linen narrative of the Norman Conquest, using continuous registers and secular subject matter.

Giotto's frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel mark a shift toward naturalism, volumetric figures, and emotional expression within medieval conventions.

Renaissance art revives classical antiquity, uses linear perspective (Brunelleschi), anatomical study, and balanced composition; Masaccio, Donatello, and Botticelli lead the Early Renaissance.

High Renaissance (c. 1495–1520) masters: Leonardo (sfumato, chiaroscuro), Michelangelo (terribilità, David, Sistine ceiling), Raphael (harmonious Madonnas, School of Athens).

Northern Renaissance emphasizes oil painting, detailed texture, and symbolic realism: Van Eyck (Ghent Altarpiece), Dürer (engravings), Bruegel (genre scenes).

Mannerism (c. 1520–1600) features elongated figures, artificial colors, and spatial ambiguity: Parmigianino's Madonna with the Long Neck, El Greco.

Baroque art (c. 1600–1750) emphasizes dramatic light (tenebrism), movement, emotional intensity, and theatricality: Caravaggio, Bernini, Rubens, Velázquez.

The Dutch Golden Age produces genre painting, still life, and portraiture: Rembrandt (chiaroscuro, self-portraits), Vermeer (light, domestic interiors).

Baroque architecture uses undulating facades, domes, and ornament (Borromini, Bernini's colonnade); Versailles exemplifies royal absolutist design.

Chiaroscuro is the contrast of light and dark to model form; tenebrism is its extreme form with dramatic spotlighting and dark shadows.

Rococo (c. 1700–1770) features pastel colors, asymmetry, curves, and playful aristocratic themes: Watteau, Boucher, Fragonard; architecture: Amalienburg.

Neoclassicism (c. 1750–1830) revives Greco-Roman forms, linear clarity, and moralizing subjects: David (Oath of the Horatii), Ingres, Canova.

Romanticism (c. 1800–1850) emphasizes emotion, individualism, sublime nature, and dramatic color: Géricault, Delacroix, Turner, Friedrich.

Realism (c. 1840–1880) depicts everyday life and labor with unidealized accuracy: Courbet, Millet, Daumier; challenged academic hierarchy of genres.

Impressionism (c. 1870s) uses broken brushstrokes, plein-air painting, and light effects: Monet, Renoir, Degas, Morisot; name from Monet's Impression, Sunrise.

Post-Impressionism extends Impressionism with structure and expression: Seurat (pointillism), Cézanne (geometric form), Van Gogh (expressive color), Gauguin (synthetism).

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (founded 1848) rejects academic conventions for detailed, moralizing medieval and literary subjects: Hunt, Millais, Rossetti.

Photography's invention (Niépce, Daguerre, 1839) and the box camera influenced painting's turn toward abstraction and candid composition.

Fauvism (1905) uses arbitrary, intense color and simplified form: Matisse, Derain; the name derives from critic Louis Vauxcelles' remark.

Cubism (1907–1914) breaks objects into facets and multiple viewpoints: Picasso and Braque; Analytic (monochrome, fragmented) precedes Synthetic (collage, flatter).

Futurism (1909) celebrates speed, technology, and motion through dynamic lines: Boccioni, Balla; Italian movement tied to a manifesto.

Dada (c. 1916) rejects logic and artistic convention with readymades and photomontage: Duchamp, Tzara, Höch; precursor to conceptual art.

Surrealism (1924) explores the unconscious via automatism and dream imagery: Dalí, Magritte, Ernst, Miró; Breton wrote the manifesto.

Abstract Expressionism (1940s–50s) includes action painting (Pollock) and color field (Rothko, Newman); centered in New York after WWII.

Pop Art (1950s–60s) appropriates mass culture and advertising imagery: Warhol (silkscreen), Lichtenstein (comic panels), Hamilton.

Postmodernism (1970s onward) questions originality and authorship through appropriation, installation, and identity politics: Sherman, Kruger, Basquiat.

Chinese painting divides into court/academic and literati traditions; literati (wenren) painting values brushwork, calligraphy, and landscape over verisimilitude.

Chinese porcelain: blue-and-white developed under the Yuan dynasty using cobalt; Ming and Qing wares became major export goods along the Silk Road and maritime routes.

Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints depict kabuki actors, courtesans, and landscapes: Hokusai, Hiroshige; they influenced European Impressionists via japonisme.

Indian art includes Buddhist stupas (Sanchi), Hindu temple sculpture with mudras and iconography, and Mughal miniature painting blending Persian and Indian styles.

Islamic art avoids figural imagery in religious contexts, favoring calligraphy, arabesques, geometric tessellation, and architectural forms (mihrab, minaret, dome).

African art traditions include Nok terracotta, Benin bronzes (lost-wax casting), Dogon masks, and kente cloth; many works serve ritual or social functions.

Pre-Columbian art: Maya stelae and codices, Aztec sun stone, Inca masonry and textiles; Mesoamerican ballgame imagery and calendar systems are recurring themes.

Oceanic art includes Aboriginal Australian dot painting (songlines, Dreaming), Maori carving (whakairo), and Melanesian mask traditions used in ceremony.

Drawing media: graphite, charcoal, conté crayon, ink, and pastel; hatching and cross-hatching create value through parallel lines; stumping blends charcoal.

Painting media: oil (slow-drying, blendable, glazes), acrylic (fast-drying, water-soluble), watercolor (transparent washes, reserved whites), tempera (egg binder, quick-drying, crisp edges).

Fresco applies pigment to wet lime plaster (buon fresco); secco applies pigment to dry plaster and is less durable.

Printmaking: relief (woodcut, linocut) cuts away non-image areas; intaglio (etching, engraving, drypoint) incises lines below the surface; planographic (lithography) relies on oil-water repulsion.

Screen printing forces ink through a stencil-mesh; monotype produces a single unique print; editions are numbered and signed by the artist.

Sculpture: subtractive (carving stone/wood), additive (modeling clay/wax), casting (lost-wax bronze), and assemblage/construction (welding, found objects).

Photography basics: aperture controls depth of field, shutter speed controls motion blur, ISO controls sensor sensitivity; the exposure triangle balances these.

Digital and mixed media: raster vs. vector graphics, layers and masks in software, and collage combine traditional and digital processes.

Formal analysis examines elements and principles within a work independently of context; contextual analysis relates the work to its culture, artist, and history.

Feldman's four steps of art criticism: description, analysis, interpretation, evaluation - in that order.

Aesthetics branches: mimetic (art as imitation), expressive (art as emotion), formalist (art as significant form), and institutional (art defined by the artworld).

Iconography identifies subject matter and symbols; iconology interprets their cultural meaning (Panofsky's three levels: pre-iconographic, iconographic, iconological).

Semiotics: sign, signifier (form), and signified (meaning); denotation is literal meaning, connotation is associated meaning.

Intentional fallacy warns against judging a work solely by the artist's stated intention; affective fallacy warns against judging by emotional response alone.

Interpretive lenses include feminist, Marxist, psychoanalytic, postcolonial, and queer theory; each asks distinct questions about power, gender, class, and identity.

Evaluation criteria include craft, originality, expressive power, and coherence; criteria vary across cultures and historical periods.

Visual literacy is the ability to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning from images; it includes decoding symbols, composition, and cultural cues.

Reading a work: identify subject, medium, scale, and setting; then analyze composition, focal point, and visual path the eye follows.

The gaze describes how viewers are positioned by an image; the male gaze (Mulvey) and oppositional gaze analyze power in looking.

Museum display, lighting, framing, and wall text shape interpretation; reproduction differs from original in scale, surface, and color.

Compare-and-contrast responses should address at least two works using shared criteria: subject, style, technique, and historical context.

Visual evidence supports claims: cite specific areas, colors, lines, or compositional devices rather than general impressions.

Contextual information (patron, date, function, audience) can confirm or complicate a viewer's initial reading of an image.

Responding to art involves describing what is seen, analyzing how it is made, interpreting meaning, and evaluating with justified criteria.