Art history
This discipline is dedicated to reconstructing the various contexts in which a work of art was produced.
Aesthetics
This term refers to the philosophical inquiry into the nature and expression of beauty.
Art criticism
This term refers to the explanation of current art events to the masses.
Formal analysis
This type of analysis focuses on only the visual qualities of an artwork.
Contextual analysis
In this type of analysis, critics look at the environment surrounding a work of art's creation and consumption.
Chronological
Art historians follow this development pattern.
Close examination of artwork
Art historians begin an analysis with this act.
Photographs
These artworks appear flatter and lacking in subtlety when reproduced in books.
Participant observation
This method of art historical study is influenced by anthropology.
Pliny the Elder
This ancient Roman historian wrote Natural History.
The Lives of the Artists
Giorgio Vasari wrote this important art historical work.
Artistic genius
This concept developed during the Renaissance and is discussed in The Lives of the Artists.
Johann Joachim Winckelmann
This German scholar emphasized the study of stylistic development in relation to historical context.
Feminist historians
This group of historiansrevised art history to include more women.
Visual culture
This broad area of artistic concern includes advertisements, television, etc.
Stone, metal, and fired clay
These three enduring materials reveal much about early civilizations.
Papyrus
This delicate material survived in Egypt due to its hot, dry climate.
Caves and tombs
These two types of sealed areas helped preserve ancient artworks around the world.
Western art was often better preserved.
Art criticism has focused on Western cultures for this reason.
Central and South America
This geographical region features known but unexplored historical sites.
Chauvet Cave
This cave is the site of Old Stone Age cave paintings in southeastern France.
Red ochre, black charcoal, and a bit of yellow
These three colors appear in the Chauvet Cave paintings.
Animals such as horses, rhinoceros, lions, buffalos, and mammoths
These beings are the subjects of the Chauvet Cave paintings.
Lascaux and Altamira
These caves are the two most famous cave painting sites.
Human hands
This part of the human body is depicted in Lascaux and Altamira.
Venus of Willendorf
This Old Stone Age statuette exhibits exaggerated female features.
Fertility statue
Historians suspect that this use may be the purpose of Venus of Willendorf.
Rock shelters
These dwellings developed during the Middle Stone Age.
Depiction of the human figure
This detail distinguished rock shelter paintings from older cave paintings.
Megaliths
These large rock constructions were built during the New Stone Age.
Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, England
This location is the home of Stonehenge.
Sarsen
Stonehenge uses this form of sandstone.
Tigris and Euphrates
These two rivers border Mesopotamia.
Ziggurats
Sumerians built these stepped pyramids for religious purposes.
King of Ur
This neo-Sumerian ruler reasserted control of Sumer after the Guti conquest.
Shamash
This sun-god appears upon the stone stele of the Code of Hammurabi.
Relief carvings depicting battles, sieges, hunts, and other important events
These carvings are the most notable Assyrian artworks from 900 to 600 B.C.E.
Bel
The Ishtar Gate is dedicated to this Babylonian deity.
Persepolis
Location of Persian palace constructed of stone, brick, and wood in an Egyptian architectural style
Alexander the Great
This man conquered Egypt in 332 B.C.E.
Queen Nefertiti
This Egyptian queen's portrait bust is among Ancient Egypt's most recognizable works.
Hierarchical scale
This manner of depicting figures in an artworkportrays those with greater social status in a larger scale.
Palette of King Narmer
This Egyptian artifact used for mixing cosmetics displays hierarchical scale.
Fractional representation
This Egyptian painting method depicts each part of the body as clearly as possible.
Elaborate burials
This Egyptian custompreserved rich stores of objects.
Tutankhamen
This Egyptian boy king's tomb contained a wealth of artifacts.
Gold, blue glass, and semi- These three materials appear on Tutankhamen's burial mask. precious stones Nubia
This kingdom south of Egypt once ruled its northern neighbor.
Simplified, geometric nude The Cycladic culture is famous for these sculptures. females Knossos on Crete
The Minoan culture was centered on this city.
Minotaur
This half-man, half-bull creature was rumored to live in a Minoan maze.
Mycenaean culture
This culture arose and replaced the Minoans.
Gold
The best-known Mycenaean artifacts are made from this metal.
Limestone and marble
The Greeks used these two types of stone to create freestanding sculptures.
Doric and Ionic
These two architectural styles were used in building Greek temples between 660 and 474 B.C.E.
Corinthian style vases
Figures are portrayed against a floral background in this style of vase.
Large, linear black figures
These types of figures appeared on Athenian style vases.
Roman replicas of Greek art
Information about Doric columns has survived in this manner.
Contrapposto
This manner of posing standing figures by shifting their weight onto one leg was developed by the Greeks.
Persians
This culture was responsible for destroying the Parthenon.
Peloponnesian War
This war signaled the beginning of the Late Classical Period and the decline of architecture.
Venus de Milo and the Laocoön Group
These two statues are notable artworks of the Hellenistic Period.
Brick and wood
Etruscan structures were built from these two materials.
Ceramic models
Information about Etruscan buildings has survived in this manner.
Clay and bronze
Most surviving Etruscan art is constructed from these two media.
Concrete
This Roman discovery allowed the construction of huge domed buildings.
Curved arch
This development allowed the Romans to construct bridges and aqueducts.
The Pantheon and the Colosseum
These two buildings, still standing in Rome, represent the genius of Roman engineering.
Relief sculptures portraying Roman emperors or military victories
These artworks often sit atop Roman triumphal arches.
Carrying small carved images of the deceased
This funereal ritual became common in the Roman Republic.
Mosaics made from small ceramic tiles.
Byzantine artists are best known for these artworks
Ravenna
This Italian city is famous for its Byzantine mosaics.
Latin
This language was the international language in the medieval period.
Book of Kells and the Coronation Gospels
These two books are notable examples of medieval illuminated manuscripts.
Germanic peoples
These early medieval people were famous for their metalwork
Vikings
This medieval culture was famous for itsimmense wooden ships.
Saint-Sernin
This famous Romanesque church is in Toulouse, France.
Vault
This arch-shaped structure can be used as a ceiling or to support a roof.
Ribbed vaults
This term refers to a framework of thin stone arches or ribs beneath intersections of vaulted portions of Gothic ceilings.
Flying buttresses
This term refers to arches or bracing materials placed on the outsides of buildings.
Chartres Cathedral
This French Gothic cathedral is famous for its large stained-glass windows and flying buttresses.
Giotto di Bondone
This Florentine fresco painter is famous as a transitional artist between the Gothic and Renaissance.
Paper money
This innovation allowed the Medici family to acquire a vast fortune.
Intellectual figures of high status
Artists played this role during the Renaissance.
Baptistery
A competition was held in Florence to design the doors for this building.
Twenty-five years
The "Gates of Paradise" required this number of years for for Lorenzo Ghiberti to complete them.
Double-shelled dome
This type of structure was Filippo Brunelleschi's winning design for the dome of the cathedral in Florence.
Linear and aerial
These two types of perspective were used by Masaccio in frescoes.
A bronze statue of David
This statue is Donatello's most well-known work.
The Birth of Venus
This work by Botticelliestablished a longlasting image of female beauty.
Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo
These two men inspired the term "Renaissance Man."
Locks which control water flow through canals
These prototypes designed by da Vinci are still used today.
The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa
These two paintings of da Vinci's have become well known in popular culture.
Sfumato
This term refers to the use of mellowed colors and blurred outlines allowing colors to blend subtly in paintings.
David
Michelangelo created this sculpture from an immense piece of cracked marble.
Pope Julius II
This religious leader commissioned Michelangelo to design first his tomb and then the ceiling of the Sistine chapel.
Raphael Sanzio
This High Renaissance artist painted frescoes, including the School of Athens, and influential images of the Madonna.
Giorgione
This Venetian painter is credited with making landscapes viable subject matter for paintings.
Titian Vecelli
This Venetian portraitist, known as an influential colorist, used columns or drapes as backgrounds for portraits.
Mannerism
This painting style featured warped perspective and acidic colors.
Chiaroscuro
This term refers to dramatic contrasts of dark and light in a painting.
Counter Reformation
The Catholic church launched this movement, emphasizing lavish church decoration and extreme emotion.
El Greco
This well-known Mannerist painter's work emphasized the emotion of the counter-reformation.
The Alps
This geographical feature divided the Southern Renaissance from the stillGothic North.
Engravings
Copies of Italian Renaissance artworks became available in the North through this medium.
Germany
This country's upper-class merchants traded considerably with Venice, inspiring the Northern Renaissance.
Matthias Grünewald and Albrecht Dürer
These two men are considered the greatest artists of the Renaissance in northern Europe.
Ten works
This number of Matthias Grünewald's works are known to have survived.
Isenheim Altarpiece
This work, consisting of nine panels on two sets of folding wings, is considered Matthias Grünewald's masterpiece.
Albrecht Dürer
This man is considered the most famous artist of Reformation Germany.
The naturalistic detail popular in the north with the theoretical ideas of Italian artists
Albrecht Dürer's artistic style aimed to combine these two traits.
Theories of art
Albrecht Dürer wrote about this topic.
Hans Holbein the Younger
This great Renaissance portraitist was born in Germany but best known for his work in England.
Henry VIII of England
Hans Holbein's portrait of this monarch captures the subject's psychological character.
Jesuits
This religious order founded in the Baroque era focused on gathering converts worldwide.
Maria Theresa of Austria, Peter the Great and Catherine the Great of Russia, and King Louis XIV of France
These four powerful Baroque sovereigns ruled by divine right.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
This Enlightenment author's work was a protest against the concentration of wealth.
Caravaggio
This Baroque artist used chiaroscuro so extensively that his name is used to describe extremes of dark and light.
Depiction of biblical figures as poor people in ragged clothing
This naturalistic aspect of Caravaggio's work caused some patrons to reject his work.
Artemisia Gentileschi
This female baroque artist was the daughter of a painter, and her works include paintings of Old-Testament women.
Ecstasy of St. Theresa
This sculpture, done by Bernini for the Cornaro Chapel, attempts to recreate clouds and fabric in stone.
Rembrandt van Rijn
This Dutch Baroque artist was famous for his painting, printmaking, and especially draftsmanship.
Versailles
This lavish palace created for Louis XIV allowed French culture and Baroque art blossom.
Salon
This annual art exhibition, held in Louis XIV's court, established rules for judging art.
Diego Velázquez
This artist, the court painter of King Philip I, painted figures out of patches of color.
Versailles
Rococo art was centered at this royal court.
Jean-Antoine Watteau
This French Rococo artist was responsible for the creation of the fête galante genre.
Madame Pompadour
This mistress to Louis XV was a patron of Rococo art.
The French Revolution of 1789
This cataclysmic eventushered in Neoclassicism to replace Rococo.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Despite his prior revolutionary leanings, Jacques Louis David had no issues with working for this man.
Romanticism
This artistic style emphasized emotions, dreams, exotic and melodramatic events.
Eugène Delacroix, Théodore Gericault, and William Blake
These three men are some of the most important Romantic artists.
The Stonebreakers
This Realist painting by Gustave Courbet depicts ordinary workmen repairing a road.
Classical figures or women in exotic settings
These contexts are the only two appropriate settings for depicting female nudes in Romantic-era paintings.
Impression: Sunrise
This painting by Claude Monet gave Impressionism its name.
Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Alfred Sisley
These three artists are noteworthy Impressionists.
Paul Cezanne
This artist redefined works in terms of form, inspiring Cubism.
Searching for more and more brilliant color
This trait unified PostImpressionists.
Optical mixing
In this process, the viewer's eye blends the dots of color in a painting.
Vincent van Gogh
This artist used vivid color to emphasize vice in Night Café.
Stockbroker
Paul Gauguin held this career prior to discovering painting.
Chemically-based paints and the paint tube
These two inventions allowed Impressionists to take art outdoors
Japanese-style perspective and photography's snapshot style
These two characteristics influenced Edgar Degas' impressionist style.
Pre-Raphaelites
These English artists dissatisfied with the Industrial Revolution shaped a new style reminiscent of pre-Renaissance art.
Fauves, or "Wild beasts"
Modernist artists who used arbitrary color extensively
Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque
These two artists collaborated to analyze form, eventually developing Cubism.
Emil Nolde and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
These two artists utilized arbitrary colors and intense feelings along with their group, Die Brücke.
Der Blaue Reiter
Vasily Kandinsky led this German Expressionist group.
Piet Mondrian
This Dutch Expressionist artist's De Stijl canvasses consist of flat fields of primary color.
World War I and the rise of Modern Art in the United States
These two events caused the center of the art world to move from Paris to New York.
The Armory Show
This exhibition was the first major showing of modern art in the United States.
Harlem
This area of New York was the center of the African-American creative renaissance in the United States.
LHOOQ, Fountain, and Bull's Head
Marcel Duchamp created these three Dadaist artworks.
Sigmund Freud
This psychologist's theories influenced surrealist artists such as Salvador Dalí.
Bauhaus Architecture
This architectural style aimed to combine aesthetics with industry.
Painter, graphic artist, and designer
Bauhaus School instructor Joseph Albers held these three artistic professions.
Propaganda
This type of art was produced the most during World War II.
Artists who were developing abstraction
Art critic Harold Greenberg was an advocate for this type of artist.
Jackson Pollock
This artist's work represented the pinnacle of Abstract Expressionism.
Action-paintings
This type of Abstract Expressionist painting involved dramatic brushstrokes or dripping paint.
Robert Rauschenberg
This artist created "combines" from castoff objects he found around him.
Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Robert Indiana
These three famous Pop-Artists' paintings included soup cans, comics, and commercial stencils.
Acrylic paint and the airbrush
These two inventions led to "hard-edge painting."
Jeanne-Claude and Christo
These two Earthwork artists are responsible for wrapping monuments in plastic.
Guerilla Girls
This group of female artists wears gorilla masks in protest of male-dominated art world.
AT&T (Sony) Building
Philip Johnson added a finial atop this building.
The Great Wall
This structure is considered the most famous work of Ancient Chinese art.
Bronze
The dynasties succeeding the Qin in China cast this type of metal with mysterious methods.
Tang dynasty
During this Chinese dynasty, often referred to as the "Golden Age," Buddhism had a profound effect.
People's Republic of China
This Chinese government regime forced most artists to create propaganda.
Hinduism and Buddhism
These two religions have had the greatest effect on Indian art.
Shiva
This Hindu god is often depicted in sculpture dancing with raised arms.
Impressionism
This European artistic style influenced Japanese art in the 19th Impressionism (UARG:30,1,3) century.
Flat colors and overhead viewpoint
These two aspects of Japanese prints influenced French artists in the late nineteenth century.
Nok civilization
This ancient African society located in present-day Nigeria was renowned for its life-like terracotta sculptures.
Benin Kingdom
This ancient African society was famous for its bronze statues of the oba, or king.
Perception of traditional artworks as pagan symbols
Europeans destroyed much African art for this reason.
Art for art's sake
Traditional African art does not adhere to this Western artistic concept.
Dan and Bwa
These two African cultures were renowned for their mask making.
Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia
These three archipelagos together constitute Oceania.
The Asmat
This Melanesian cultural group practicedhead-hunting.
The Maori
This New Zealand culture is currently seeking cultural renewal by placing old traditions in modern contexts.
The Quran
This Islamic holy book contains the teachings of Muhammed and is often richly decorated.
Qibla
This wall in a mosque always faces Mecca.
Anthropological and archeological museums
These two types of museums initially displayed Native American art
Pyramids and Pueblo complexes
These two types of structures are examples of extraordinary early American architecture.
Line
This term refers to a path of a point moving through space.
Vertical line
This type of line was included in medieval churches to promote spiritual awe.
Shape
This term refers to the twodimensional area of an object.
Form
This term refers to the threedimensional area of an object.
Organic shapes
This term refers to freeform or irregularly shaped objects.
Shading and highlighting
These two techniques are used on the contours of a two-dimensional shape to create the illusion of form.
Aerial perspective and atmospheric perspective
These two terms refer to a type of perspective which accounts for particles in the air changing the appearance of distant objects.
Vanishing point
This term refers to a point in a painting where lines converge and disappear.
Hue
This term refers to the name of a color.
Secondary colors
This term refers to colors formed by mixing two of the three primary colors.
Color wheel
Sir Isaac Newton invented this tool in the seventeenth century to organize colors.
Value
This term refers to the lightness or darkness of a color or neutral.
Neutrals
This term encompasses black, white, and the grey continuum.
Intensity
This term refers to the brightness or purity of a color.
Relativity
This property of color makes it look different next to another color.
Optical color
This term refers to the effects of special light upon colors.
Actual and visual
These terms refer to the two types of texture in the context of art.
Rhythm
This term refers to the sense of movement created in an artwork through repetition of elements.
Motif
This term refers to a single element of a pattern repeated to create rhythm.
Focal point
This term refers to a place in a composition where the eye tends to rest.
Proportion
This term refers to the size relationships among the parts of a composition.
The human figure
The Classical Greeks used this standard as the measure of all things.
Paper
Modern artists most often draw upon this common, wood-based surface.
Charcoal
This drawing medium is so soft the color of the paper shows through in areas where it is lightly applied.
Hatching and crosshatching
These two types of shading use lines.
Stippling
This shading technique involves a pattern of dots.
Pastels
This soft drawing tool is popular for portraiture and came into heavy use around the 1700s.
Relief prints, intaglio prints, lithographs, and screen prints
These four printmaking processes involve a "matrix" upon which the printed image is initially generated.
Intaglio printmaking
Lines are incised into a matrix in this printmaking process.
Lithography
This printmaking process utilizes the oil-resistant nature of water.
Screen printing
Ink is forced through stenciled silk with a squeegee in this printmaking process.
Mexican Revolution
During this event, printmaking became a way to disseminate mass-produced images of social protest.
Pigments, binders, and solvents
These three types of materials combine to make paint.
Buon fresco
In this fresco technique, paint is applied to wet plaster.
Diego Rivera
This Mexican muralist was famous for his strongly political, early 20th century frescos.
Quick-drying and narrow tonal range
These two limitations are characteristics of tempera paint
Impasto
This term refers to thickly applied, lumpy oil paint.
Encaustic
This wax-based paint was fused with irons to Egyptian grave markers.
Tempera, watercolor, and gouache
These three paints are commonlyused types of water-based paint.
Oil paint and turpentine
Some artists are allergic to these two substances, making acrylic paint important.
Photography
This development at first caused painters to strive for hyper-realism.
Carving, modeling, casting, and construction
These four processes are the basic ways of creating sculpture.
Carving
Bits of the original material are removed in this subtractive sculpture process.
Alexander Calder
This artist created mobiles from wire forms that move with the wind.
Communities and government agencies
Two groups of people from whom Environmental artists must gain approval before they can begin their work.
Collage
In this type of mixed media art, the artist combines any material that can be stuck to a surface.
Joseph Cornell
This twentieth-century artist filled open boxes with objects to make artistic statements.
Masks and ceremonial costumes
These two examples of traditional artwork can be considered mixed media.
Performance art
This type of art emphasizes a unique, unrepeatable experience.
Pinching, coiling, slab, and These four processes are types of pottery processes. throwing Slip
This term refers to liquid clay applied to solid clay pieces to make them stick together.
Kiln
This term refers to a special oven used for firing clay pieces.
Knitting, crocheting, and braiding
These three weaving techniques do not require a loom.
Silica
Glass is most often made from this material.
Glassblowing
Artists can form vases and bottles from glass through this method.
Boxes and house boards
Northwest Coast Indians commonly carve these two items with traditional designs.
Architects
This term refers tospecialists who design structures and buildings.
Climate
This feature dictated house-building materials in ancient times.
Post-and-lintel construction
In this important architectural development, a long piece of stone or wood is placed horizontally upon two upright pieces.
The Parthenon
This building is a famous Greek example of post-and-lintel construction.
Thin walls and stainedglass windows
The invention of flying buttresses made these two stylistic features of cathedrals possible.
The Crystal Palace
This structure was constructed from glass walls and slim iron rods for the World's Fair in London.
Antonio Gaudi
This artist created organically-shaped cut stone buildings in Spain.
Steel and concrete
These two types of materials are favored for multi-family urban developments.