Art History Vocab

Front 1

Altarpiece

Back 1

A panel, painted or sculpted, situated above and behind an altar.

Front 2

Cathedral

Back 2

A bishop’s church

Front 3

Crypt

Back 3

A vaulted space under part of a building, wholly or partly underground; in churches, normally the portion under an apse or a chevet.

Front 4

Diagonal rib

Back 4

One of the ribs that forms the X of a groin vault

Front 5

Fan vault

Back 5

A vault characteristic of English Perpendicular
Gothic, in which radiating ribs form a fanlike pattern.

Front 6

Flamboyant style

Back 6

A Late Gothic style of architecture superseding the Rayonnant style and named for the flamelike appearance of its pointed bar tracery.

Front 7

Flying buttress

Back 7

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

Front 8

Gothic

Back 8

Originally a derogatory term named after the Goths, used to describe the history, culture, and art of western Europe in the 12th to 14th centuries.

Front 9

Lancet

Back 9

In Gothic architecture, a tall narrow window ending in a pointed arch.

Front 10

Moralized Bible

Back 10

A heavily illustrated Bible, each page pairing paintings of Old and New Testament episodes with explanations of their moral significance.

Front 11

Mullion

Back 11

A vertical member that divides a window or that separates one window from another.

Front 12

Oculus (pl. oculi)

Back 12

A small round window in a Gothic cathedral.

Front 13

Ogee arch

Back 13

An arch made up of two double-curving lines meeting at a point.

Front 14

Pietà

Back 14

A painted or sculptured representation of the Virgin Mary mourning over the body of the dead Christ.

Front 15

Pinnacle

Back 15

In Gothic churches, a sharply pointed ornament capping the piers or flying buttresses; also used on church facades.

Front 16

Tracery

Back 16

Ornamental stonework for holding stained glass in place, characteristic of Gothic cathedrals. In plate tracery the glass fills only the “punched holes” in the heavy ornamental stonework. In bar tracery, the stained glass windows fill almost the entire opening, and the stonework is unobtrusive.

Front 17

Quatrefoil

Back 17

A shape or plan in which the parts assume the form of a clover-leaf.

Front 18

Rayonnant

Back 18

“radiant” style of Gothic architecture, dominant in the second half of the 13th century and associated with the French royal court of Louis IX at Paris.

Front 19

Decorated style

Back 19

Gothic style in which piers, walls, and vault elements become increasingly complex and decorative during the 14th century.

Front 20

Perpendicular style

Back 20

Gothic style that involves pronounced verticality of its decorative details.

Front 21

Rose window / rosette

Back 21

A circular stained-glass window.

Front 22

Triforium

Back 22

In a Gothic cathedral, the blind arcaded gallery below the clerestory; occasionally the arcades are filled with stained glass.