Vocabulary specific to art

Abstract: art that looks as if it contains little or no recognizable or realistic forms from the physical world. Focus is on formal elements such as colors, lines, or shapes. Artists often "abstract" objects by changing, simplifying, or exaggerating what they see.

Abstract Expressionism: art that rejects true visual representation. It has few recognizable images with great emphasis on line, color, shape, texture, value; putting the expression of the feelings or emotions of the artist above all else.

Art deco: a style of design and decoration popular in the 1920's and 1930's characterized by designs that are geometric and use highly intense colors, to reflect the rise of commerce, industry and mass production.

Art nouveau: a decorative art movement that emerged in the late nineteenth century; art characterized by dense asymmetrical ornamentation in sinuous forms, it is often symbolic and of an erotic nature.

Balance: a feeling of equality in weight, attention, or attraction of the various elements within a composition as a means of accomplishing unity.

Complementary colors: two colors directly opposite one another on the color wheel. When placed next to one another, complementary colors are intensified and often appear to vibrate. When mixed, brown or gray is created. Red and green, blue and orange, and yellow and violet have the greatest degree of contrast. Red-violet and yellow-green, red-orange and blue-green, and yellow-orange and blue-violet are also complementary colors.

Composition: the arrangement of the design elements within the design area; the ordering of visual and emotional experience to give unity and consistency to a work of art and to allow the observer to comprehend its meaning.

Contrast: the difference between elements or the opposition to various elements.

Cool color: colors whose relative visual temperatures make them seem cool. Cool colors generally include green, blue-green, blue, blue-violet, and violet.

Cubism: art that uses two-dimensional geometric shapes to depict three-dimensional organic forms; a style of painting created by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in the early 20th century whereby the artist breaks down the natural forms of the subjects into geometric shapes and creates a new kind of pictorial space.

Emphasis: the stress placed on a single area of a work or a unifying visual theme.

Harmony: the unity of all the visual elements of a composition achieved by the repetition of the same characteristics or those which are similar in nature.

Horizon line: in a painting, a level line where land or water ends and the sky begins. Vanishing points, where two parallel lines appear to converge, are typically located on this line. A horizon line is used to attain the perspective of depth.

Hue: the name of the color, such as red, green or yellow. Hue can be measured as a location on a color wheel, and expressed in degrees; the main attribute of a color which distinguishes it from other colors.

Impressionism: a loose spontaneous style of painting that originated in France about 1870. The impressionist style of painting is characterized chiefly by concentration on the general impression produced by a scene or object and the use of unmixed primary colors and small strokes to simulate actual reflected light.

Landscape: a painting, drawing or photograph which depicts outdoor scenery. They typically include trees, streams, buildings, crops, mountains, wildlife, rivers and forests.

Line: an actual or implied mark, path, mass, or edge, where length is dominant.

Linear perspective: a system for creating the illusion of depth on a two-dimensional surface. The system is based on a scientifically or mathematically derived series of actual or implied lines that intersect at a vanishing point on the horizon. Linear perspective determines the relative size of objects from the foreground of an image to the background.

Medium: material or technique an artist works in; also, the component of paint in which the pigment is dispersed.

Movement: as it applies to art, the path that our eyes follow when we look at a work of art. Naïve art: art created by untrained artists. It is characterized by simplicity and a lack of the elements or qualities found in the art of formally trained artists.

Neutral color: colors of very low saturation, approaching grays.

Perspective: the art of picturing objects on a flat surface so as to give the appearance of distance or depth.

Photorealism: a style of painting in which an image is created in such exact detail that it looks like a photograph; uses everyday subject matter, and often is larger than life.

Plane: a shape which is essentially two-dimensional in nature but who's relationship with other shapes may give an illusion of the third dimension.

Plein air: French for "open air", referring to landscapes painted out of doors with the intention of catching the impression of the open air.

Point of view: the position from which something is seen or considered; for instance, head-on, from overhead, from ground level, etc.

Pointillism: a painting technique in which pure dots of color are dabbed onto the canvas surface. The viewer's eye, when at a distance, is then expected to see these dots merge as cohesive areas of different colors and color ranges.

Pop art: a style of art which seeks its inspiration from commercial art and items of mass culture (such as comic strips, popular foods and brand name packaging). Certain works of art created by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein are examples of pop art.

Portrait: a painting, photograph, or other artistic representation of a person.

Positive space: space that is occupied by an element or a form.

Primary colors: red, yellow, and blue. With these three colors (and black and white) all other colors can be made. The primary colors themselves can not be made by mixing other colors (see illustration).

Primitive art: Art that has imagery of folk art , it places emphasis on form and expression and often looks child like.

Proportion: a sense of appropriateness in the size relationship of different parts of a work.

Pure symmetry: an equilibrium created by identical parts that are equally distributed on either side of a real or imaginary cent4ral axis in mirror-like repetition.

Quadrilateral: in geometry, a four-sided polygon; examples include squares, rectangles, parallelograms, trapezoids, etc.

Realism: a style of painting which depicts subject matter (form, color, space) as it appears in actuality or ordinary visual experience without distortion or stylization.

Rhythm: a continuance, a flow, or a feeling of movement achieved by the repetition or regulated visual units.

Rule of thirds: a composition rule that divides the scene into three rows and three columns. The rule states that the painting is much more interesting if the focal point is not in the center of the canvas but rather in one of the outlying regions, preferably at one of the intersection points