Praxis Art cheat sheet

The seven elements of art are line, shape, form, space, color, value, and texture; shape is flat and enclosed, while form is three-dimensional and occupies volume.

The principles of design include balance, contrast, emphasis, movement, pattern, rhythm, unity, variety, proportion, and scale; they describe how elements are organized.

Traditional pigment color wheel: primary colors are red, yellow, and blue; secondary colors (orange, green, violet) each mix two primaries; tertiary colors mix a primary with an adjacent secondary.

Tint = hue + white; shade = hue + black; tone = hue + gray; intensity (saturation) is the purity or dullness of a hue.

Additive color mixes light (red, green, blue) and combines toward white; subtractive color mixes pigments or CMYK inks and combines toward black.

Three balance types: symmetrical (mirror-image halves), asymmetrical (unlike elements given equal visual weight), and radial (elements radiate from a central point).

Linear perspective requires a horizon line, one or more vanishing points, and orthogonals; one-point shows a single face receding, two-point shows a corner, three-point adds vertical recession.

Warm colors (red, orange, yellow) appear to advance; cool colors (blue, green, violet) appear to recede; high-contrast values advance while low-contrast values recede.

Line categories: contour follows an outer edge, cross-contour maps surface topography, gesture captures rapid movement or energy, and implied line is completed by the viewer's eye.

Buon fresco applies pigment in water to wet lime plaster; carbonation bonds the pigment permanently. Fresco secco applies pigment to dry plaster and is far less durable.

Oil paint dries slowly and stays blendable; the fat-over-lean rule requires later layers to contain more oil than earlier layers to prevent cracking. Glazing is transparent; impasto is thick and textured.

Watercolor is a transparent medium used through wet-on-wet, wet-on-dry, dry-brush, and resist techniques; white areas are usually unpainted paper rather than added pigment.

Acrylic is pigment suspended in a polymer emulsion: it thins with water, dries quickly, and becomes water-resistant once cured.

Printmaking families: relief (woodcut, linocut) inks raised surfaces; intaglio (engraving, etching, drypoint, aquatint) holds ink in incised lines; planographic (lithography) relies on grease-water repulsion; screenprinting uses a stencil.

Etching bites lines into metal with acid, while drypoint scratches the plate directly and leaves a raised burr that prints as a soft, rich line.

Ceramic bodies: earthenware fires low and stays porous; stoneware fires mid-to-high and vitrifies; porcelain fires high and is white and translucent. Stages run greenware, bisque, then glaze firing.

Sculptural processes group as subtractive (carving), additive (modeling, assemblage), and substitution (casting, including lost-wax bronze casting).

Exposure triangle: aperture (f-stop) controls light and depth of field, shutter speed controls motion blur, and ISO controls sensor sensitivity and image noise.

Prehistoric art includes the Lascaux and Altamira cave paintings and the Venus of Willendorf, a small carved figure with exaggerated reproductive features dated to roughly 25,000 BCE.

Italian Renaissance markers: Brunelleschi's demonstration of linear perspective, Leonardo's sfumato and atmospheric perspective, Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling, and Raphael's balanced compositions.

Baroque hallmarks: extreme light-dark contrast (Caravaggio's tenebrism), dynamic diagonals and theatrical movement (Bernini), and Dutch genre, portrait, and still-life painting (Rembrandt, Vermeer).

Modern sequence: Realism, Impressionism (first exhibition 1874), Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism (from about 1907), Futurism and Dada, Surrealism (1924), Abstract Expressionism (1940s), Pop Art (1960s).

Cubism divides into Analytic (about 1908-1912; faceted, muted, multiple viewpoints) and Synthetic (about 1912-1914; collage, flatter shapes, brighter color), developed by Picasso and Braque.

The Feldman model of art criticism proceeds in four steps: description, analysis, interpretation, then judgment.

Aesthetic theories used in criticism: imitationalism (fidelity to appearances), formalism (quality of design and composition), and emotionalism or expressivism (the feeling the work conveys).

Gothic architecture is identified by the pointed arch, rib vault, flying buttress, rose window, and large stained-glass programs.

Dada (from 1916) used readymades and absurdity to attack artistic convention, while Surrealism (Breton's manifesto, 1924) pursued dream imagery and automatism.