Ah 365 Midterm Vocabulary

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Address

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before the modern era, the listing, usually on the bottom of the print of the collaborators – the artist, engraver, printer and publisher.

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Artist’s proof/proofs

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trial impressions that are pulled before the printing matrix was completed. This also can refer to the impressions that the artist reserves for him or herself without limitation & as such, it has been used to circumvent the official limitation of the edition.

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Autographic

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that which reflects the artist’s touch with great immediacy.

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Baroque

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the 17th century period in Europe characterized in the visual arts by dramatic light and shade, turbulent compositions, and exaggerated emotional expression. Overly ornate with complex designs, the word comes from Portuguese (borroco) meaning an "imperfect pearl." Rubins & Caravaggio can be classified here. It has more visual heft than the Rococo, which follows it.

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Bistre

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a yellowish brown to dark brown pigment used in drawing.

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Burin

aka: a graver

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an engraving tool of metal or wood with a square or lozenge-shaped steel shaft attached to a long wooden handle.

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Cancellation

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marring the surface of the plate, block or stone after the edition has been printed augmenting the rarity & the value of each printed impression.

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Caricature

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an exaggerated parody using often ludicrous distortions of parts or physical characteristics.

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Cartoon

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a full sized drawing that was transferred directly to the wall surface to be frescoed by "pricking," the process of making small holes in the outlines.

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Chiaroscuro

aka: clair-obscur

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in printmaking, a woodcut technique that allows for separate blocks to carry broad areas of tone, with or without linear marks. In drawing, it is a term used to describe a technique in which rigorous light and dark contrasts are the principle element. This technique was introduced during the Renaissance and is effective in creating an illusion of depth & space around the principle figures depicted. The works of Caravaggio or Rembrandt are exceptional examples of this technique.

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Chine collé

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a technique for pressing a thin sheet of Oriental paper, or washi to a heavier backing sheet and printing it at the same time. This can be done by either intaglio or lithographic means.

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Codex

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the earliest form of a book, it replaced scrolls.

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Cognate impression

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a ghost print

the second pull taken off of a block or plate without re-inking the matrix. Often used when referring to monotypes.

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Cubism

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the most influential style of the 20th century, developed in Paris by Picasso and Braque, beginning in 1907. Cubism is based on the simultaneous presentation of multiple views, disintegration, and the geometric reconstruction of subjects in flattened; ambiguous pictorial space; figure and ground merge into one interwoven surface of shifting planes. Color is limited to neutrals.

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Desayno

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the initial creative idea is made in the drawing & that drawing is also a very different idea from coloring.

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Drypoint

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the intaglio method in which a plate is directly scored with a needle.

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Edition

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a predetermined # of impressions taken from any printing surface.

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Engraving

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the method of working a metal plate with a tool called a burin. Although most frequently used for making plates for printing purposes, engraving has also been used as a method of decorating metal (especially silver). Hogarth was first apprenticed to a silver engraver. The engraving of gems and glass was an entirely different trade, with its own special set of skills, so there was no real cross over happening there.

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Enlightenment

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a movement in the 18th century to apply the methods & principles of 17th century natural science & to apply these methods to God, man & society. The 18th century’s own name for the movement was the “Enlightenment.” This term suggested that after a long night of darkness caused by ignorance, superstition, intolerance & slavery to the past, the new light was the light of science. Voltaire on superstition – 1776, from Dictionnaire Philosophique “Almost everything that goes beyond the adoration of a supreme Being & submission of the heart to his orders is superstition. One of the most dangerous is to believe that certain ceremonies entail the forgiveness of crimes. Do you believe that God will forget a murder you have committed if you bathe in a certain river, sacrifice a black sheep, or if someone says certain words over you?…Do better miserable humans; have neither murders nor sacrifices of black sheep.”

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Etching

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an intaglio method in which lines are introduced into a metal plate by being bitten with acid.

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Fetishistic

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seeing woman as a substitute for "the lack," thus the underlying fear of castration via the male gaze. The term can also refer to a hypersexualized disorder that focuses on inanimate objects or a specific part of the human body.

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Gothic Art

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a style of medieval art that developed in Northern France. It followed the Romanesque in the 12th century.

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Intaglio

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a “catch-all” term used to describe a print from a metal plate that shares many different processes, all of which pull ink out of the grooves in the plate.

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International Style

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a period within Gothic Art that developed in France, Bohemia & Northern Italy in the late 14th & early 15th centuries. It spread across Western Europe, as implied by the name, & was a style of courtly sophistication.

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Laid paper

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paper that is made on a screen composed of intersecting brass wires of two different weights – the heavier ones are called the laid wires, the lighter ones are called the chain wires. Laid paper shows the marks left by the laid wires.

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Limed

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washed with lime, calcium & water to be made white. The term usually applies to parchment & vellum.

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Mannerism

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a style that developed in the 16th century as a reaction to the classical rationality and balanced harmony of the High Renaissance, it is characterized by the dramatic use of light and space, exaggerated color, elongation of figures and distortions of perspective, scale and proportion.

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Manuscript

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a book made by hand & not printed.

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Medieval

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the “Dark Ages,” the “Middle Ages,” the period of European history from about A.D. 500 to 1500.

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Mezzotint

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an intaglio process which works from dark to light by scraping down a roughened metal plate.

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Modernism

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a theory and practice of late 19th and 20th century art that holds that each generation must build on past styles in new ways or break with the past in order to make the next historical contribution. Seen as “high art” as differentiated from popular art. In painting, most clearly seen in the work of the Post-Impressionists beginning in 1885.

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Naked

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non-erotic, unclothed person, who has a name, a profession & is removed from "serious" art.

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Neoclassicism

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New classicism. A revival of classical Greek and Roman forms in art, music and literature during the 18th and 19th centuries in both Europe and the USA. It was in part a reaction against Baroque and Rococo art.

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Nude

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an erotic undressed woman (usually).

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Painter-engraver

(from the French peintre-graveur)

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an artist who produces original as opposed to reproductive prints.

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Parchment

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animal skin from goats, sheep or cattle used for drawing & writing.

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Pattern Book/Modelbook

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precursor to the sketchbook, these were bound together simplified images used for other purposes by an artist's workshop…manuscript illuminations, stained glass, jewelry, architectural plans, sculpture, embroidery & so on.

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Physiognomy

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derived from the Greek words for nature & judge. An assessment of a person's character &/or personality from his or her facial features.

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Planographic

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any method of printing from a flat surface that has no variation in depth. The word was originally coined to go with relief, intaglio and stencil in order to distinguish the method of printmaking constituted by lithography and monotype.

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Polyautography

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this was the earliest name for lithography – it literally means “many drawings.”

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Post-impressionist

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a general term applied to various personal styles of art by French artists (or artists of other nationalities living in France) that developed from 1885 – 1900 in reaction to what these artists saw as the formless and aloof qualities of Impressionist painting. Post-impressionists were concerned with symbols, expressiveness and psychological intensity.

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Pouncing

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using a full bag of charcoal dust to beat the outlines of a cartoon & create a row of dots on the surface of the wall to be frescoed.

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Regionalists (American)

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a group of artists who focused chiefly on rural Midwestern subjects in the 1930's. This included Thomas Hart Benton, John Stuart Curry & Grant Wood. For the most part, they were technically conservative, shunned city life & made prints that in large part related to their paintings. Collectively, their work could be classified as "Social Realism."

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Renaissance

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a period in Europe from the late 14th through the 16th centuries, characterized by a renewed interest in human-centered classical art, literature and learning.

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Restrike

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a reprinting of a plate or block, neither signed nor numbered. And in most cases made after the edition is completed, usually after the death of the artist.

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Rococo

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from a French word meaning “rock work.” This is a late Baroque style (1715 –1775) used in interiors decoration and painting. It was playful, pretty, romantic, visually loose or soft; it used small scale and ornate decoration, pastel colors, and asymmetrical arrangement of curves. It was popular in France and Germany in the 18th century.

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Romanesque

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the art of Europe from 1000 AD to the rise of the Gothic style in the 13th century. It follows Byzantine models & used mainly striking primary colors in painting.

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Romanticism

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a literary and artistic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries in Europe, aimed at asserting the validity of subjective experience as a countermovement to the often cold formulas of Neoclassicism. Intense emotional excitement and depictions of powerful forces in nature, exotic lifestyles, danger, nostalgia and suffering characterize it.

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Sinopia

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a drawing made on the rough, lower coat of plaster, which was covered up, day by day by the finished pieces of fresco.

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Soldi/Soldo

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an Italian coin of the Renaissance made from copper & worth 1/20th of a lira.

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Squeegee

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a silkscreen tool for pushing the ink through the screen. It consists of a handle made of wood that holds a rubber or a plastic blade.

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State

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Any impression that shows an artist’s further work on the plate, block or stone.

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Transfer Lithography

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the artist works in a greasy medium on a special paper that gives up the image to the stone, a process that eliminates reversal.

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Vellum

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a fine-grained calf or lambskin prepared for drawing, writing or bookbinding.

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Voyeuristic

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seeing women as an image/body to be looked at.

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Watermark

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an image made within a sheet of paper by variations in the pulp thickness.

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Wove paper

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this is paper made on very fine brass wire screens. All of the wires are the same weight and woven to produce a smooth and even surfaced paper. Paper made on this type of screen is called wove paper and it does not show the marks of the wires.

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Analytical Cubism

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refers to the early mature style that lasted from 1909 –1911.

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Synthetic Cubism

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is the more decorative phase of the style, fewer, more solid forms, conceptual rather than observed subject matter and richer colors and textures characterized it. It often incorporated elements of collage.