Contemporary art
The art of late 20th century and early 21st century.

Contrapposto
In figural sculpture, a balanced but asymmetrical attitude in which a figure stands posed with most of its weight on one leg and with the vertical axis of the body in a slight “s” curve.

Contrast
Difference between two or more elements (e.g., value, color, texture) in a composition; juxtaposition of dissimilar elements in a work of art; also, the degree of difference between the lightest and darkest parts of a picture.

Contour
The outline of a figure, body, or surface.

Cool colors
Colors suggesting coolness: blue, green, violet.

Cube
A solid body having six equal square sides.

Cubism
An early-20th century art movement that rejected naturalistic depictions, preferring compositions of geometric shapes and forms abstracted from the conventionally perceived world.

Cuirass
A military breastplate.

Culture
The customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group.

Cyanotype
The cyanotype (sunprint) was one of the first photographic printing processes. The process dates back as early as the year 1841 and became quite popular during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

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Decorative
Purely ornamental.

Degenerate Art
Works of art that the Nazis felt “insulted German feeling, or destroy or confuse natural form, or simply reveal an absence of adequate manual and artistic skill.”

Developed
The act of processing an image to make it visible. The developer is a chemical solution is used to turn the image visible on exposed films or photographic papers.

Diagonal
A line that joins two opposite corners of a four-sided figure.

Digital Camera
Camera that uses no film but captures images electronically which are stored on chips, memory cards, or disks.

Diorama
A scenic representation in which lifelike sculptured figures and surrounding details are realistically set against a painted background.

Disintegrate
To break or decompose into constituent elements, parts, or small particles.

Disposable Camera
One-time use camera that takes film.

Dominance
The importance of the emphasis of one aspect in relation to all other aspects of a design.

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Earth Art movement
An art movement where artists create artwork in nature, employing such materials as stones, dirt, and leaves.

Electromagnetic spectrum
The entire range of wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation extending from gamma rays to radio waves.

Electroplate
To plate with an adherent continuous coating by electrodeposition.

Elements of Art
Sensory components used to create works of art: line, color, shape/form, texture, value, space.

Emboss
To raise in relief from a surface.

Emphasis
Special stress given to an element to make it stand out.

Emulsion
A thin light-sensitive coating of silver bromide or other silver halide in a medium such as gelatin on a photographic plate, paper, or film.

Exposure time
The total amount of light allowed to fall on the film during the process of taking a photograph. The quantity of light allowed to act on a photographic material; a product of the intensity (controlled by the lens opening) and the duration (controlled by the shutter speed or enlarging time) of light striking the film or paper.

Extreme Close-up
Placement of a camera very close to the subject (i.e., a detail of a person’s eye).

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F-Stop
Controls the size of the hole in the camera that light passes through.

Far view or long shot
Placement of a camera very far or away from the subject so that you see the background around them as well as the subject.

Fauves
A group of artists, led by Henri Matisse, who believed that color was the formal element most responsible for pictorial coherence and the primary conveyor of meaning.

Film
A thin translucent strip or sheet of cellulose coated with an emulsion sensitive to light, used in a camera to take still or moving pictures.

Fixed
To fix an image is to stabilize or preserve it. The fixer is solution that is used after development, which removes any light-sensitive silver-halide crystals, making it no longer light sensitive.

Focal Length
The distance between the lens and image when focused for a distant subject.

Foreground
Part of a two-dimensional artwork that appears to be nearer the viewer or in the front.

Framing
When the photographer arranges the subject, foreground, and background within the boundaries of the camera frame.

Fresco
Painting on lime plaster, wither dry or wet.

Frieze
The part of the entablature between the architrave and the cornice; also any sculpted or painted band in a building.

Front view
Placement of a camera in front of the subject.

Functional
Art that has a use and purpose.

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Geometric
Of or relating to geometry and its methods and principles.

Gestural
Also know as action painting. A kind of abstract painting in which the gesture, or act of painting, is seen as the subject of art. Its most renowned proponent was Jackson Pollock.

Group f/64
Created in 1932, this group of photographers promoted a style of sharply detailed, purist photography. The name of the group is taken from a setting of a camera diaphragm aperture that gives particularly good resolution.

Guanyin
Chinese Boddhisattva of compassion.

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Hagia Sofia
Former Greek Orthodox church and mosque located in Istanbul, Turkey.

Horizon line
The horizon line in perspective drawing is a horizontal line across the picture. It is often used to separate the sky from the land.

Horizontal line
A straight line parallel to the horizon.

Hudson River School
A group of 19th century American artists who initially painted uncultivated regions of the Hudson River valley, and eventually expanded to landscapes across the country, focusing on the unique geography and historical situation of the region.

Hue
Refers to the name of a color (e.g., red, blue, yellow, orange).

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Idealism
The tendency to represent things as aesthetic sensibility would have them rather than as they are.

Impressionism
A late 19th century art movement that sought to break up light into its component parts and capture its fleeting effects on various surfaces through discontinuous strokes of color.

Industrial materials
Raw materials used in construction.

Intensity
Also called chroma or saturation. It refers to the brightness of a color (a color is full in intensity only when pure and unmixed). Color intensity can be changed by adding black, white, gray, or an opposite color on the color wheel.

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Jackson Pollock
(1912-1956), the artist that most exemplified gestural abstraction. Using sticks and brushes, he flung, poured, and dripped paint onto a section of unsized canvas that he had rolled across his studio floor.

Jin Dynasty
China (1115-1234 ce).

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Line
A point moving in space. Line can vary in width, length, curvature, color, or direction.

Lithography
Printmaking method in which an image is drawn, using greasy ink or litho crayons, directly on the flat surface on a limestone or aluminum plate treated to accept ink and repel water.

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Magnum
Magnum Photos is one of the most prestigious photographic agencies and was formed in 1947 by four photographers - Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger, and David "Chim" Seymour. Magnum is known for its blend of documentary and artistic photographs that chronicle the world.

Meenakshi
Hindu princess born with fish-shaped eyes; the word “meena” meaning ‘fish’ and “akshi” meaning shaped.

Ming Dynasty
Last Chinese dynasty re-established in Beijing (1368-1644 ce).

Minimalism
A predominantly sculptural American trend of the 1960’s whose work consists of a severe reduction of form, oftentimes to single, homogenous units.

Mixed media
A work of art for which more than one type of art material is used to create the finished piece.

Modern art
Art created from the 19th cent. to the mid-20th cent. by artists who veered away from the traditional concepts and techniques of painting, sculpture, and other fine arts that had been practiced since the Renaissance.

Modernism
A movement in Western art that developed in the second half of the 19th century and sought to capture the images and sensibilities of the age.

Momoyama
Japan (1568-1600).

Monoprint
An impression on paper of a design painted on a surface, such as glass or a metal plate.

Montage
A photographic image produced by the collage technique.

Montmartre
A mecca for artists and bohemians from throughout Europe in Paris during the early 20th century.

Mortise
A usually rectangular cavity in a piece of wood, stone, or other material, prepared to receive a tenon and thus form a joint.

Movement
The principle of design dealing with the creation of action.

Mural
A very large image, such as a painting or enlarged photograph, applied directly to a wall or ceiling. Muralist: A person who paints murals.

Muralist
A person who paints murals.

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Naturalism
A tendency toward strict adherence to the physical appearance of nature and rejection of ideal forms.

Negative
A photographic image or the film containing it, that shows black and white tones reversed and colors as complementary. It is used to make prints. A negative is a rectangle of plastic translucent material coated with chemicals that, upon exposure, records an image. This process occurs inside a camera. The resulting negative needs to undergo developing in order to be made insensitive to light.

Negative space
Refers to spaces that are or represent areas unoccupied by objects.

Neutral colors
The colors black, white, gray, and variations of brown. They are included in the color family called earth colors.

Nonobjective
Having no recognizable object as an image.

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Organic
Refers to shapes or forms having irregular edges or to surfaces or objects resembling things existing in nature.

Orotones
Goldtone prints.

Ovoid
A three-dimensional form shaped like an egg—oval from some points of view and circular from others.

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Panoramic
An entire view of everything around you.

Pattern
Anything repeated in a predictable combination.

Permanence
The quality or state of being continuing or enduring without fundamental or marked change.

Perspective
A system for representing three-dimensional objects viewed in spatial recession on a two-dimensional surface.

Photo collage
An artistic combination of different images or materials glued onto a surface.

Photo League
An organization of photographers founded in New York in 1936. They were committed to documentary photography and later members were interested in the medium as an expressive visual form.

Photogram
Photographs made without cameras. They are made by placing objects directly onto light-sensitive paper and then exposing the paper to light. The resulting image is unique and shows white shapes against a blue background.

Photography
From the Greek roots “photo” and “graphy” which means “light writing” The art of producing images on a light-sensitive surface by the chemical action of light or other radiant energy.

Photojournalism
The field in which the news and events is presented through photographs.

Photomontage
Also known as montage or collage. A combination of diverse materials to create a new work. A photomontage is the combination of photographs and originated shortly before the 1920s.

Photorealism
Also known as Superrealism, a school of painting and sculpture of the 1960s and 1970s that emphasized producing artwork based on scrupulous fidelity to optical fact. Many of the artists used photographs as sources for their imagery.

Pictograph
A picture, usually stylized, that represents an idea; also, writing using such means; also painting on rock.

Pictorialist
In the early 1900s, there was a growing interest in art photography and photographers concentrated on the medium's expressive qualities to demonstrate that even a mechanical process could produce artistic images. To prove their point, they created images that imitated an established art form, painting. The style of photography they advocated came to be called Pictorialism. Pictorialism called for soft focus images that evoked a feeling or mood. In the United States this movement was led by Alfred Stieglitz.

Pinhole camera
A simple form of a camera consisting of a lightproof box with a pinhole opening on one side. Light passes through the lens-less camera onto a light sensitive material placed inside of the box on the opposite wall of the pinhole.

Plein-air
An approach to painting much favored by the Impressionists, in which artists sketch outdoors to achieve a quick impression of light, air, and color. The sketches were then taken to the studio for reworking into more finished works of art.

Polaroid Camera
Instant picture camera developed in 1948. Contains all the chemicals needed to make the image, on the paper.

Portrait
A picture of a person, usually showing the face.

Positive
The opposite of a negative. A positive can be used to produce a print, in which the colors or shades are reverted to their original form.

Positive space
Spaces that are or represent solid objects.

Pre-Columbian
The cultures that flourished in the Western Hemisphere before the arrival of Christopher Columbus and the beginning of European contact and conquest.

Primary color
Refers to the colors red, yellow, and blue; from these all other colors are created.

Primary colors of light
T he three colors of light (red, blue, green) from which all other colors of light may be derived.

Primary colors of pigment
Refers to the colors red, yellow, and blue; from these all other colors are created.

Primitive
The style of works of self-trained artists who develop their talents in a fanciful and fresh manner.

Principles of design
The organization of works of art. They involve the ways in which the elements of art are arranged (balance, contrast, dominance, emphasis, movement, repetition, rhythm, subordination, variation, unity).

Prism
An optical device used to refract (“bend”) a beam of light.

Printmaking
The artistic design and manufacture of multiple impressions made on paper from the same plate. includes woodcuts or silk-screens.

Proportions
The size relationships of one part to the whole and of one part to another.

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Qing Dynasty
China (1644-1912 ce).

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Ray
A thin line or narrow beam of light.

Realism
An art movement developed in France in the mid 19th century that focused on portraying the experiences and sights of everyday contemporary life.

Rectangle
A four-sided polygon that has four right angles and each pair of opposite sides parallel and of the same length

Recycle
To use again, especially to reprocess; to recondition and adapt to a new use or function.

Repetition
The act of repeating or being repeated.

Rhythm
Intentional, regular repetition of design elements to achieve a specific repetitious effect or pattern.

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Saturation
A color's purity of hue, or intensity.

Scale
Relative size, proportion; used to determine measurements or dimensions within a design or work of art.

Sculpture
A three-dimensional work of art either in the round (to be viewed from all sides) or in bas relief (low relief in which figures protrude slightly from the background).

Self-portrait
A portrait of oneself made by oneself.

Secondary color
Colors that are mixtures of two primaries. Red and yellow make orange, yellow and blue make green, and blue and red make violet.

Shadow
The image cast by an object blocking rays of light.

Shang Dynasty
Bronze Age in China (2000-1100 bce).

Shape
A two-dimensional area or plane that may be open or closed, organic or geometric.

Shutter Speed
Controls the amount of time that light is allowed to pass into the camera through the shutter, which opens and closes like a window.

Side view
Placement of a camera at the side of the subject.

SLR Camera
Also known as a Single Lens Reflex Camera. Camera with a removable lens, that takes film, and which can manipulate light using the features of shutter speed and f-stop. This is the camera most professionals use.

Song Dynasty
China (960-1276 ce).

Sphere
Globe-shaped; a solid geometric shape whose surface is made up of all the points that are an equal distance from the point that is the shape's center.

Square
A rectangle with all four sides equal Straight line: a line free from curves, bends, or angles.

Space
The emptiness of area between, around, above, below or within objects. Shapes and forms are defined by the space around and within them.

Subject
The main idea or object in a piece of artwork.

Subordination
Making an element appear to hold a secondary or lesser importance within a design or work of art.

Subtractive
Refers to sculpting method produced by removing or taking away from the original material.

Sunprint or photogram
Photographs made without cameras. Objects are placed directly on light-sensitive paper, exposed to light, and then developed to produce a photograph.

Surrealism
A successor to Dada, Surrealism incorporated the improvisational nature of Dada into its exploration of the ways to express in art the world of dreams and the unconscious.

Symbol
Something that stands for or suggests something else by reason of relationship, association, convention, or accidental resemblance; especially: a visible sign of something invisible.

Symmetrical
Correspondence in size, shape, and relative position of parts on opposite sides of a dividing line or median plane or about a center or axis.

Symmetry
The parts of an image or object organized so that one side duplicates or mirrors the other. Also known as formal balance.

Synchromism
A style dedicated to the realization of form through the juxtaposition of warm and cool colors as opposed to modeling by the conventional means of light and dark.

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Tang Dynasty
China (618-906 ce).

Tarbush
A red hat similar to the fez worm especially by Muslim men.

Tenon
A projection on the end of a piece of wood shaped for insertion into a mortise to make a joint.

Texture
The surface quality of materials, either actual (tactile) or implied (visual). It is one of the elements of art.

The Eight
Eight American artists who followed influential artist, Robert Henri. Henri urged these artist to focus on portraying the reality of life, which in turn influenced the production of images depicting the rapidly changing urban landscape of New York City. Later became known as the Ashcan School.

Theme
A distinct, recurring, and unifying quality or main idea.

Tonality
Arrangement of colors; the scheme connecting the color tones in a work of art such as a painting or photograph; how the light values in the scene are mapped to shades of grey on the print.

Triangle
A figure that has three sides and three angles.

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Ukiyo-e
The classic Japanese form of woodblock printing, historically used for making large quantities of popular images. In this type of relief printing, many individual blocks of wood are carved and then fitted together to form the printing surface. The use of water-based inks results in delicate, translucent colors similar to the effects of watercolor painting. The printing paper is placed on top of the inked blocks, and an impression is made by hand rubbing with a baren, rather than using a press.

Unity
The total visual effect of a composition achieved by the careful blending of the elements of art and the principles of design.

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Value
Lightness or darkness of a hue or neutral color.

Vantage Point
Where the camera is placed to take the photograph. The relationship between the camera and the subject. For example: Is the camera placed at, above, or below eye level.

Vanishing point
In perspective drawing, a point at which receding lines seem to converge.

Variable
A part of an experiment that can be changed or altered depending on what is being investigated.

Variation
A principle of art concerned with combining one or more elements of art in different ways to create interest.

Variety
A principle of art concerned with combining elements of art in different ways to create interest.

Vertical line
A straight line perpendicular to the horizon Visible spectrum – the part of the electromagnetic spectrum to which the human eye is sensitive.

Visible spectrum
The part of the electromagnetic spectrum to which the human eye is sensitive.

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Warm colors
Colors suggesting warmth: red, yellow, and orange.

Wavy line
A line that moves in waves.

Woodblock
The incised wooden plank or shaped wood blocks that hold the ink from which a woodcut is printed.

Woodcut
The oldest form of relief printing, in which portions of a woodblock are cut away using knives, gouges, and chisels. Ink is rolled over the elevated areas of the block, and absorbent paper is pressed onto the surface, transferring the image.

Worm’s eye
Placement of a camera below the subject. It is from the viewpoint of a worm, so the camera is not only below the subject, but is looking up at the subject (i.e., looking at the bottom of a person’s chin).

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Zigzag line
A line that has short sharp turns and angles.

The Zone System
A photography technique, pioneered by Ansel Adams, which allows photographers to translate the light they see into specific densities on negatives and paper, thus giving better control over finished images.

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