MATSEC AM Art flashcards

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

Chiaroscuro

Italian for light-dark; the deliberate modelling of form through strong contrasts of light and shade. Central to Leonardo, Caravaggio, and later Baroque painting to create volume and drama.

Sfumato

Leonardo da Vinci's technique of blending tones and edges so imperceptibly that transitions appear smoky and soft, eliminating hard outlines. Seen in the Mona Lisa's face and landscape.

Impasto

Paint applied thickly so that brush or palette-knife marks stand proud of the surface. Used by Van Gogh and the Impressionists to make the physical gesture part of the image.

Glaze

A thin, transparent layer of paint applied over a dried opaque layer, letting the underlayer show through. Produces deep, luminous colour, typical of oil painting from the Van Eycks onward.

Complementary contrast

Placing opposite colours on the colour wheel side by side so each intensifies the other. Exploited by the Impressionists and by Matisse to make colour itself carry emotional force.

Picture plane

The flat, two-dimensional surface of the painting considered as a plane. Cubism famously collapsed illusionistic depth by keeping attention on the picture plane.

High Renaissance

Period c.1490–1527 centred on Rome and Florence, marked by balanced composition, idealised anatomy, and mastery of perspective. Key figures: Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael.

Baroque

Style c.1600–1750 characterised by dramatic diagonals, theatrical light, and emotional intensity, often serving Church and state propaganda. Exemplified by Caravaggio, Bernini, and Rubens.

Neoclassicism

Movement c.1750–1830 reviving Greco-Roman clarity, linear contours, and moralising subjects, aligned with Enlightenment rationalism. Associated with David and Canova.

Romanticism

Movement c.1800–1850 privileging emotion, individual genius, sublime nature, and national history over classical restraint. Key painters include Goya, Friedrich, Delacroix, and Turner.

Realism

Mid-nineteenth-century movement depicting ordinary contemporary life without idealisation, often with social critique. Courbet's Stone Breakers and Millet's peasants are canonical examples.

Impressionism

Movement launched at the 1874 Paris exhibition, using broken brushwork, light-toned palettes, and plein-air observation to capture fleeting effects of light and modern life.

Cubism

Movement c.1907–1914 by Picasso and Braque that fractured objects into multiple viewpoints on a single plane. Analytic phase is monochrome; synthetic phase introduces collage.

Dada

Anti-art movement arising during the First World War, using absurdity, chance, and the readymade to attack bourgeois values and artistic authority. Associated with Duchamp and Tzara.

Surrealism

Movement from 1924 drawing on dream imagery and the unconscious, often via automatism or hyper-realistic rendering of impossible scenes. Key figures: Dalí, Magritte, Ernst.

Abstract Expressionism

Post-war American movement of the 1940s–50s emphasising scale, gesture, and immediacy. Action painting (Pollock) contrasts with colour-field painting (Rothko).

Pop Art

Movement of the 1950s–60s appropriating advertising, comics, and mass-produced objects into fine art, blurring high and popular culture. Key figures: Warhol, Lichtenstein, Hamilton.

Readymade

An ordinary manufactured object designated as art by the artist's choice alone, challenging the idea that skill defines art. Duchamp's Fountain (1917) is the paradigm case.

Linear perspective

A system using a horizon line and vanishing points so parallel lines converge, creating the illusion of receding space. Formalised by Brunelleschi and Alberti in the fifteenth century.

Vanishing point

The point on the horizon where receding parallel lines appear to meet. A one-point construction places it centrally; two-point uses two points on the horizon.

Foreshortening

Depicting a form as if projecting toward or away from the viewer, so its length appears compressed. Used dramatically by Mantegna and Michelangelo in ceiling compositions.

Trompe-l'œil

French for 'deceive the eye'; painting that creates a convincing illusion of three-dimensional objects or space, often on a flat wall or panel.

Contrapposto

An asymmetrical pose in which weight rests on one leg, tilting hips and shoulders in opposition. Revived in the Renaissance from classical sculpture to animate the figure.

Primary source study

Observational drawing or painting made directly from the object, figure, or site rather than from a photograph or reproduction. Examiners reward evidence of sustained direct observation.

Portfolio annotation

Written notes accompanying studio work recording date, source, medium, intention, and evaluation. Annotations must show reflection and revision, not merely describe what was made.

Formal analysis

Interpreting an artwork through its visual elements - composition, colour, tone, line, scale, medium, and spatial construction - before linking these effects to meaning and context.

Iconography

The study of the subject matter and symbolic meaning of images, including conventional attributes such as a saint's emblem or a skull as memento mori.

Patronage

The commissioning system funding artworks, from the Medici in Florence to the Catholic Church and modern state or corporate sponsors. Patronage shapes subject, scale, and function.

Memento mori

Latin for 'remember you must die'; a symbolic reminder of mortality, often a skull, hourglass, or guttering candle, common in still life and vanitas painting.

Vanitas

A still-life type using objects such as skulls, books, and decaying fruit to signal the emptiness of worldly pursuits and the certainty of death.

Sublime

An aesthetic category of overwhelming grandeur and awe, mixed with terror, associated with vast nature and Romantic landscape. Discussed by Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant.

Claim–evidence–interpretation

A critical-writing pattern: state the reading of the work, cite a specific visual detail, then explain how that detail supports the reading. Prevents unsupported generalisation in essays.