Abstract – Art derived from realism but deviating in appearance; maintaining the essentials of shape, line, color, and texture relating to the subject.
Abstract expressionism – An American movement in the 1940s and 1950s that emphasized feelings and emotions; often called “action painting” because many artists used slashing brushstrokes and dripped, poured, or spattered paint on canvas.
Aesthetics – A philosophy dealing with the nature and expression of beauty, as in the fine arts.
Analogous – Three or more colors that are closely related because they contain a common hue and are adjacent on the color wheel. Blue, green-blue, and green are analogous colors. Analogous colors may be used as a color scheme.
Art criticism – Art processes and skills involved in studying, understanding, and judging a work of art; the four formal steps involve description, analysis, interpretation, and judgment.
Atmospheric perspective – Creating the illusion of distance on a flat surface by simulating the effects of light and air on an object; for example, a bright object appears closer to the viewer than a dull object. (Also called aerial perspective.)
Background – The part of the picture plane appearing to be farthest from the viewer.
Balance – A design principle dealing with the appearance of stability or the equalization of elements in a work of art; a balanced work of art seems to have equal visual weight or interest in all areas. Balance may be symmetrical, asymmetrical, or radical.
Coil method – A process of rolling long pieces of clay and using them to form the sides of bowls, containers, or objects.
Collage – A work of art where various materials, such as bits of paper, fabric, photographs, and found objects, are arranged and glued to a flat surface.
Collagraph –The print resulting from printing a relief collage.
Complementary colors – Colors directly opposite each other on the color wheel. Red and green, blue and orange, and yellow and purple are complementary colors. They make a neutral result when mixed.
Composition – The organization of the elements of art and principles of design in creating a work of art.
Contrast – The use of opposing elements, such as color forms or lines, to produce different effects in a work of art.
Cool colors – Blues, greens, and violets. These colors suggest coolness and appear to recede from the viewer.
Critique – A critical review or commentary dealing with a literary or artistic work.
Design – The organization of the art elements and principles into a plan. (Also called composition.)
Digital media – The use of technology to capture images, sounds, and effects in the creative process.
Elements of art – The “visual tools” artists use to create works of art. These include form, shape, line, texture, color, space, and value.
Form – A shape having three dimensions—height, width, and depth.
Shape – An area defined by line or color.
Line – The path made by a moving point that can vary in width, direction, and length.
Texture – The actual roughness or smoothness of a surface or the illusion
thereof.
Color – The hue, value, and intensity of an object as seen by the human eye.
Space – The area between, around, above, below, or within objects.
Value – The lightness or darkness of a color. (See Shade and Tint.)
Foreground – The parts of an artwork that appear closest to the viewer.
Found object – Everyday objects such as cups, keys, chains, buttons, lids, and scraps that can be composed to create a work of art such as an assemblage, a collage, a stabile, a mobile, or a sculpture.
Genre subjects – Depiction of everyday life scenes.
Grotesque – A relief decorating Gothic architecture such as gargoyles and sculptures.
Intermediate (tertiary) colors – Colors made by mixing equal parts of a primary and secondary color (red-orange, yellow-orange, blue-green, blue-violet, violet-red).
Linear perspective – A technique of creating the illusion of space on a two-dimensional surface using vanishing points and lines.
Medium – Material applied in creating a work of art, such as a pencil, paint, wood, ink, metal, clay, or food.
Middle ground – Area appearing between the foreground and the background.
Mixed-media – A work of art using more than one medium.
Mobile – A suspended construction moving about in space, creating variations of shapes, spaces, and shadows.
Monochromatic color – One color used in varied values and intensities.
Monoprint – Printing process that produces one unique copy of the same design that cannot be printed more than once.
Mosaic – Artwork made by adhering small pieces of stone, ceramic tile, or other materials to a background.
Multimedia – Referring to various media such as a camera, television, video, tape recorder, CDROM, computer, or slide projector.
Negative space or shape – The space surrounding shapes or solid forms in a work of art.
Neutral color – Black, brown, gray, and white.
Portfolio – Samples of an artist’s work assembled for review.
Portrait - A work of art that represents a specific person, a group of people, or an animal. Portraits usually show what a person looks like as well as revealing something about the subject's personality. Portraits can be made of any sculptural material or in any two-dimensional medium. Portraiture is the field of portrait making and portraits in general.
Portrait is a term that may also refer simply to a vertically oriented rectangle, just as a horizontally oriented one may be said to be oriented the landscape way.
Positive space or shape – Objects in a work of art that are not the background or the space around them.
Primary colors – Red, yellow, and blue.
Principles of design – Guidelines artists use to create works of art and control how viewers react to these works; the principles of design are balance, repetition or rhythm, unity or harmony, movement, emphasis, variety, and proportion.
Balance – Arranging visual elements in a work of art equally; three types of
balance are formal (symmetrical), informal (asymmetrical), and radial.
Repetition or rhythm – Repeating lines, shapes, colors, or patterns.
Unity or harmony – The oneness or wholeness of a work of art.
Movement – The arrangement of elements in an artwork organized to create a
sense of motion.
Emphasis – Accent, stress, or importance of a part of an artwork.
Variety – Principles of design concerned with difference or contrast.
Proportion – The placement or ratio of one part of an artwork to another part or to the whole.
Printmaking – Producing multiple copies of an original work of art from blocks or plates.
Relief – A sculptural form such as a frieze that is raised from the surface.
Resist – Method where wax or crayon is used to cover surface areas the artist does not want to be affected by paint or dye.
Rubbings – A technique of transferring the textural quality of a surface to paper.
Secondary colors – Orange, green, and violet.
Shade – A dark value of a hue made by adding black to the color or its complement; opposite of tint.
Stabile – A metal sculpture, usually abstract, with no mobile parts.
Style – Refers to the artist’s unique manner of expression.
Technique – The style or manner in which the artist uses media.
Tessellation – A mosaic pattern made by interlocking repetitive shapes to form a work of art.
Tint – A tone of color made by adding white to a basic hue.
Vanishing point – The point or points where all parallel lines appear to converge.
isual Arts Standards
Abstract expressionism – An American movement in the 1940s and 1950s that emphasized feelings and emotions; often called “action painting” because many artists used slashing brushstrokes and dripped, poured, or spattered paint on canvas.
Aesthetics – A philosophy dealing with the nature and expression of beauty, as in the fine arts.
Analogous – Three or more colors that are closely related because they contain a common hue and are adjacent on the color wheel. Blue, green-blue, and green are analogous colors. Analogous colors may be used as a color scheme.
Art criticism – Art processes and skills involved in studying, understanding, and judging a work of art; the four formal steps involve description, analysis, interpretation, and judgment.
Atmospheric perspective – Creating the illusion of distance on a flat surface by simulating the effects of light and air on an object; for example, a bright object appears closer to the viewer than a dull object. (Also called aerial perspective.)
Background – The part of the picture plane appearing to be farthest from the viewer.
Balance – A design principle dealing with the appearance of stability or the equalization of elements in a work of art; a balanced work of art seems to have equal visual weight or interest in all areas. Balance may be symmetrical, asymmetrical, or radical.
Coil method – A process of rolling long pieces of clay and using them to form the sides of bowls, containers, or objects.
Collage – A work of art where various materials, such as bits of paper, fabric, photographs, and found objects, are arranged and glued to a flat surface.
Collagraph –The print resulting from printing a relief collage.
Complementary colors – Colors directly opposite each other on the color wheel. Red and green, blue and orange, and yellow and purple are complementary colors. They make a neutral result when mixed.
Composition – The organization of the elements of art and principles of design in creating a work of art.
Contrast – The use of opposing elements, such as color forms or lines, to produce different effects in a work of art.
Cool colors – Blues, greens, and violets. These colors suggest coolness and appear to recede from the viewer.
Critique – A critical review or commentary dealing with a literary or artistic work.
Design – The organization of the art elements and principles into a plan. (Also called composition.)
Digital media – The use of technology to capture images, sounds, and effects in the creative process.
Elements of art – The “visual tools” artists use to create works of art. These include form, shape, line, texture, color, space, and value.
Form – A shape having three dimensions—height, width, and depth.
Shape – An area defined by line or color.
Line – The path made by a moving point that can vary in width, direction, and length.
Texture – The actual roughness or smoothness of a surface or the illusion
thereof.
Color – The hue, value, and intensity of an object as seen by the human eye.
Space – The area between, around, above, below, or within objects.
Value – The lightness or darkness of a color. (See Shade and Tint.)
Foreground – The parts of an artwork that appear closest to the viewer.
Found object – Everyday objects such as cups, keys, chains, buttons, lids, and scraps that can be composed to create a work of art such as an assemblage, a collage, a stabile, a mobile, or a sculpture.
Genre subjects – Depiction of everyday life scenes.
Grotesque – A relief decorating Gothic architecture such as gargoyles and sculptures.
Intermediate (tertiary) colors – Colors made by mixing equal parts of a primary and secondary color (red-orange, yellow-orange, blue-green, blue-violet, violet-red).
Linear perspective – A technique of creating the illusion of space on a two-dimensional surface using vanishing points and lines.
Medium – Material applied in creating a work of art, such as a pencil, paint, wood, ink, metal, clay, or food.
Middle ground – Area appearing between the foreground and the background.
Mixed-media – A work of art using more than one medium.
Mobile – A suspended construction moving about in space, creating variations of shapes, spaces, and shadows.
Monochromatic color – One color used in varied values and intensities.
Monoprint – Printing process that produces one unique copy of the same design that cannot be printed more than once.
Mosaic – Artwork made by adhering small pieces of stone, ceramic tile, or other materials to a background.
Multimedia – Referring to various media such as a camera, television, video, tape recorder, CDROM, computer, or slide projector.
Negative space or shape – The space surrounding shapes or solid forms in a work of art.
Neutral color – Black, brown, gray, and white.
Portfolio – Samples of an artist’s work assembled for review.
Portrait - A work of art that represents a specific person, a group of people, or an animal. Portraits usually show what a person looks like as well as revealing something about the subject's personality. Portraits can be made of any sculptural material or in any two-dimensional medium. Portraiture is the field of portrait making and portraits in general.
Portrait is a term that may also refer simply to a vertically oriented rectangle, just as a horizontally oriented one may be said to be oriented the landscape way.
Positive space or shape – Objects in a work of art that are not the background or the space around them.
Primary colors – Red, yellow, and blue.
Principles of design – Guidelines artists use to create works of art and control how viewers react to these works; the principles of design are balance, repetition or rhythm, unity or harmony, movement, emphasis, variety, and proportion.
Balance – Arranging visual elements in a work of art equally; three types of
balance are formal (symmetrical), informal (asymmetrical), and radial.
Repetition or rhythm – Repeating lines, shapes, colors, or patterns.
Unity or harmony – The oneness or wholeness of a work of art.
Movement – The arrangement of elements in an artwork organized to create a
sense of motion.
Emphasis – Accent, stress, or importance of a part of an artwork.
Variety – Principles of design concerned with difference or contrast.
Proportion – The placement or ratio of one part of an artwork to another part or to the whole.
Printmaking – Producing multiple copies of an original work of art from blocks or plates.
Relief – A sculptural form such as a frieze that is raised from the surface.
Resist – Method where wax or crayon is used to cover surface areas the artist does not want to be affected by paint or dye.
Rubbings – A technique of transferring the textural quality of a surface to paper.
Secondary colors – Orange, green, and violet.
Shade – A dark value of a hue made by adding black to the color or its complement; opposite of tint.
Stabile – A metal sculpture, usually abstract, with no mobile parts.
Style – Refers to the artist’s unique manner of expression.
Technique – The style or manner in which the artist uses media.
Tessellation – A mosaic pattern made by interlocking repetitive shapes to form a work of art.
Tint – A tone of color made by adding white to a basic hue.
Vanishing point – The point or points where all parallel lines appear to converge.
isual Arts Standards
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