Art History (Test 3)

Front 1

nave

Back 1

the part of the church between the chief entrance and the apse end; the long, central hallwaydemarcated from the side aisles by piers or columns

Front 2

transept

Back 2

transverse arms of a cross-shaped church; they run perpendicular to the nave

Front 3

apse

Back 3

the vaulted, semi-circular or polygonal termination (end), usually to a chancel or chapel

Front 4

Neoplatonism

Back 4

a school of mystical philosophy that synthetizes the spiritual aspects of Plato’s Idealism with Egyptian light mysticism and Jewish philosophy. Its main concern is how the soul may return to the Eternal Supreme from which it departed to the imperfect phenomenal world. Influential in Byzantine and Gothic art and architecture.

Front 5

chi-rho monogram

Back 5

a monogram and symbol for Christ, consisting of the first two letters of Christ in Greek, and often, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet representing the words of Christ—“I am the beginning and the end

Front 6

mosaic

Back 6

wall or floor decoration made up of tiny stones or pieces of glass called tessarae cut to desired shape and size

Front 7

icon

Back 7

a representation or picture of a sacred Christian personage, itself regarded as sacred, it is usually two-dimensional; technically, in Byzantine, Greek, and Russian Orthodox church art

Front 8

iconoclasm

Back 8

the destruction of religious or sacred images by iconoclasts. In Byzantium, the period between 726 and 843, when there was an imperial ban on depiction of sacred figures.

Front 9

minaret

Back 9

a tall, usually slender tower or turret, connected with a mosque. Minarets have one or more projecting balconies from which the muezzin (or crier) calls the people to prayer.

Front 10

Quibla wall

Back 10

one of the walls of the mosque which indicates the direction towards Mecca

Front 11

Mihrab

Back 11

a semi-circular niche (indentation) usually set into the quibla wall, it marks the place where the Prophet stood in his house at Medina when he led the communal worship

Front 12

Hypostyle hall

Back 12

the communal worship hall covered with roof held up by a multitude of columns

Front 13

iwan

Back 13

a vaulted rectangular recess, opening onto a courtyard

Front 14

manuscript illumination

Back 14

a text, as in a hand-lettered codex (book), written and decorated by hand with color illustrations; usually these depictions are stories from the Bible, and were important because many people were illiterate

Front 15

monastery

Back 15

a group of buildings in which monks live together, set apart from the secular community

Front 16

Crusades

Back 16

armed pilgrimages, whose stated purpose was to wrest the Christian shrines of the Holy Land from Muslim control

Front 17

relic

Back 17

an object of religious worship, especially an article reputedly associated with a saint or martyr

Front 18

reliquary

Back 18

lavishly decorated continer for a relic

Front 19

tympanum

Back 19

the semi-circular sculpted area above a door, enclosed by an arch, usually seen on a church portal

Front 20

radiating chapels

Back 20

chapels that surround the apse end of a church, often dedicated to a saint or saints and contain relics or representations, or they may contain the tomb of a patron

Front 21

barrel vault

Back 21

the simplest form of a vault (arched ceiling), consisting of a continuous, unbroken semi-cylindrical vault resembling a tunnel

Front 22

groin/ cross vault

Back 22

produced by the intersection of two barrel vaults at right angle

Front 23

mandorla

Back 23

an almond-shaped variation on the halo surrounding the entire body of religious figures such as the transfigured Christ, God, or the Virgin Mary after the assumption; it represents the union of heaven and earth

Front 24

flying buttress

Back 24

consists typically of an inclined member carried on an arch or a series of arches and a solid buttress to which it transmits lateral thrust

Front 25

Scholasticism

Back 25

The Gothic school of philosophy in which scholars applied Artistotle’s system of rational inquiry to the interpretation of religious belief (Thomas Aquinas)

Front 26

buon fresco

Back 26

painting on wet lime plaster; because the pigments are absorbed into the wall’s surface as the plaster dries, it is one of the most permanent painting techniques