GENERAL ART TERMS

Acrylic: A plastic used as a medium for pigments in painting or as a casting material in sculpture.

Applique: (Fr. "Applied"; pron. apli-KAY) A cutout attached to a background.

Aquatint: An intaglio method in which areas of color are made by dusting powdered resin on a metal plate and then letting acid eat the plate surface away from around it.

Aquarelle: (pron, ak-we-RELL) Transparent watercolor.

Artist Proof (AP): A print outside of the numbered series, usually 1/10 of the edition. The Artist's Proof is sometimes referred to by its French name, epreuve d'artist ( abbreviated E.A.) either AP or E.A. are commonly used in the lower left corner of the piece.

Assemblage Sculpture: formed by joining individual pieces, sometimes "Found Objects."

Bon-a-tirer: (Fr. "Good to pull"; pron. bone-ah-ti-RAY) The first impression of a print run acceptable to the artist and used as the standard with which each subsequent impression is compared.

Bas-relief: (Fr. "low relief'; pron. B4H relief) Sculpture in which the figure projects only slightly from the background.

Catalogue Raisonne: (Fr. "reasoned catalogue": pron. catalog re-zo NAY) Complete descriptive listing of an artist's works.

Collage: (pron. co-LAZH) A work made by gluing pieces of paper, fabric, etc., onto a flat surface.

Diptych: (pron. DIP-tick) A two part painting, often of attached panels. A triptych is composed of three parts, a tetratych four, etc.

Dry point: An intaglio technique like engraving in which the image is drawn on a metal plate with a needle, raising a ridge which prints a soft line.

Embossed print: Uninked relief print in which dampened paper is pressed into recessed areas of a plate to produce a three-dimensional impression.

Engraving: An intaglio process in which lines are cut into a metal plate and then filled with ink to transfer the image onto paper.

Etching: An intaglio process in which an image is scratched through an acid-resistant coating on a metal plate. The plate is then dipped in acid which eats into the exposed surface.

Foreshortening: Alteration of the scale of an image to suggest perspective.

Found object: A natural object incorporated into a work of art.

Giclée (pronounced "zhee-clay") reproductions were originally developed in 1989 as a plate-less method of fine art printing. The word Giclée is French for "to spray " and is a registered trade name of The 'IRIS' Printer. The images are scanned and digitally stored in a computer and sent directly to a high resolution printer. Unlike other printing methods, each image is sent to the printer individually.

Gouache: (pron. gwash) Watercolor to which an opaque white has been added.

Graphic: Any work printed directly on paper from a plate or block.

Haute Relief: (Fr. "high relief': pron. O relief) High sculptural relief in which figures project from a background at least half their real depth.

Hors de Commerce: (H.C.) (Fr. "Outside of sale", pron. OR decom-AIRCE) A designation for prints not in the numbered series pulled for the use of the publisher, normally limited to five or six.

Impasto (Ital.; pron. im-PAHS-to) Thick application of paint creating a textured surface.

Intaglio (Ital. "Incision"; pron. in TAHL-yo) Any technique in which an image is incised below the surface of the plate, including dry point, etching, aquatint, engraving, and mezzotint.

Linocut: A process in which an image is cut in relief on a linoleum block.

Lithograph : A Plano graphic process in which images are drawn with crayon or a greasy ink on stone or metal and then transferred to paper. In modern times, the ink is on a drum that rotates to print the image.

Mezzotint: An intaglio process in which the plate surface is roughened and then an image is created by smoothing the areas to be printed.

Mixed Media: The use of different materials in the same work.

Mobile: A sculpture that permits motion.

Monotype: A unique print made from an inked, painted glass or metal plate.

Pastel: A soft chalk made of pigments; water, and a binder, blended into a stiff paste and dried.

Photomechanical offset printing: A process in which an image is transferred to a printing plate photographically and then onto a roller which prints on paper. An offset print is not a graphic.

Planography: Any process of printing from a surface level with the plate, as lithography.

Relief: A technique in which the portions of a plate intended to print are raised above the surface, as woodcut, linocut, etc.

Roman numbered edition: A smaller edition numbered with Roman numerals, usually a deluxe edition on higher quality paper.

Serigraphy: (screen printing, silk- screen). A stenciling method in which the image is transferred to paper by forcing ink through a fine mesh in which the background has been blocked.

Signed and numbered: Authenticated with the artist's signature, the total number of impressions in the edition, and the order in which the impression is signed; "5/20" indicates that the print is the fifth signed of an edition of 20 impressions.

The Terragraph is a unique printing process, developed by Har-El Printers & Publishers and the Terragraph Atelier, in Jaffa Port.. It combines advanced binding materials and the most basic pigment - sand. The first step is to seal the paper with a silicone varnish, to keep the sand and the oil binders in relief on the paper's surface. The sand is ground to different coarseness of grain, according to the necessary effect.. Where the sand area is needed, first a binder is applied or mixed with the sand, and printed through a screen.

Woodcut: A process in which an image is cut in relief on a wood block and then transferred to paper.

ART DICTIONARY

Abstract Expressionism or abstract expressionism - A painting movement in which artists typically applied paint rapidly, and with force to their huge canvases in an effort to show feelings and emotions, painting gesturally, non-geometrically, sometimes applying paint with large brushes, sometimes dripping or even throwing it onto canvas. Their work is characterized by a strong dependence on what appears to be accident and chance, but which is actually highly planned. Some Abstract Expressionist artists were concerned with adopting a peaceful and mystical approach to a purely abstract image. Usually there was no effort to represent subject matter. Not all work was abstract, nor was all work expressive, but it was generally believed that the spontaneity of the artists' approach to their work would draw from and release the creativity of their unconscious minds. The expressive method of painting was often considered as important as the painting itself.

Allegory - When the literal content of a work stands for abstract ideas, suggesting a parallel, deeper, symbolic sense. The adjectival form of this term can be either allegorical or allegoric.

Art deco - An art movement involving a mix of modern decorative art styles, largely of the 1920s and 1930s, whose main characteristics were derived from various avant-garde painting styles of the early twentieth century. Art deco works exhibit aspects of Cubism, Russian Constructivism and Italian Futurism -- with abstraction, distortion, and simplification, particularly geometric shapes and highly intense colors -- celebrating the rise of commerce, technology, and speed. The growing impact of the machine can be seen in repeating and overlapping images from 1925; and in the 1930s, in streamlined forms derived from the principles of aerodynamics. The name came from the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs Industriels et Modernes, held in Paris, which celebrated living in the modern world. It was popularly considered to be an elegant style of cool sophistication in architecture and applied arts which range from luxurious objects made from exotic material to mass produced, streamlined items available to a growing middle class.

Art Nouveau - French for "The New Art." An art movement and style of decoration and architecture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, characterized particularly by the depiction of leaves and flowers in undulating lines, often flowing vines. Gustav Klimt (Austrian, 1862-1918), Alphonse Mucha (Czechoslovakian, 1860-1939), Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1861-1901), Aubrey Beardsley (English, 1872-1898), Antonio Gaudí (Spanish, 1852-1926), and Hector Guimard (French, 1867-1942) were among the most prominent artists associated with this style. The roots of Art Nouveau go back to Romanticism, Symbolism, the English Arts and Crafts Movement and William Morris (English, 1834-1896). Art Nouveau is also known as Jugenstil and Yellow Book Style, epitomizing what is sometimes called fin de siècle style.

Baroque - The art style or art movement of the Counter-Reformation in the seventeenth century. Although some features appear in Dutch art, the Baroque style was limited mainly to Catholic countries. It is a style in which painters, sculptors, and architects sought emotion, movement, and variety in their works.

 Collage - A picture or design created by adhering such basically flat elements as newspaper, wallpaper, printed text and illustrations, photographs, cloth, string, etc., to a flat surface, when the result becomes three-dimensional, and might also be called a relief sculpture. Most of the elements adhered in producing most collages are "found" materials. Introduced by the Cubist artists, this process was widely used by artists who followed, and is a familiar technique in contemporary art. "Collage" was originally a French word, derived from the word coller, meaning "to paste."

Copyright - A pillar of art law: the legal right granted to a creator, a publisher, or a distributor to exclusive publication, production, sale, or distribution of an artistic, literary, musical, or dramatic work. Often signified by the mark ©, the year declared, and the name of the owner. Copyright regulations are based upon the French notion of droit moral.

Cubism - One of the most influential art movements (1907-1914) of the twentieth century, Cubism was begun by Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1882-1973) and Georges Braque (French, 1882-1963) in 1907. They were greatly inspired by African sculpture, by painters Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906) and Georges Seurat (French, 1859-1891), and by the Fauves. In Cubism the subject matter is broken up, analyzed, and reassembled in an abstracted form. Picasso and Braque initiated the movement when they followed the advice of Paul Cézanne, who in 1904 said artists should treat nature "in terms of the cylinder, the sphere and the cone."

Engraving - A method of cutting or incising a design into a material, usually metal, with a sharp tool called a graver. One of the intaglio methods of making prints, in engraving, a print can be made by inking such an incised (engraved) surface. It may also refer to a print produced in this way. Most contemporary engraving is done in the production of currency, certificates, etc

Etching - An intaglio printing process in which an etching needle is used to draw into a wax ground applied over a metal plate. The plate is then submerged in a series of acid baths, each biting into the metal surface only where unprotected by the ground. The ground is removed, ink is forced into the etched depressions, the unetched surfaces wiped, and an impression is printed. Also, both the design etched on a plate and an impression made from an etched plate. Too often confused with engraving

Fauvism - An early twentieth century art movement and style of painting in France. The name Fauves, French for "Wild Beasts," was given to artists adhering to this style because it was felt that they used intense colors in a violent, uncontrolled way. The leader of the Fauves was Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954).

Genres - Genre painting is the depiction of subjects and scenes from everyday life, ordinary folk and common activities.

Icon - Loosely, a picture; a sculpture, or even a building, when regarded as an object of veneration.

Illumination - Decoration with drawings, usually in gold, silver, and rich colors, especially in the initial letters of manuscripts, particularly those done during the Middle Ages. A manuscript, produced during the Middle Ages, in which the pages are decorated this way. Often these manuscripts contain small pictures known as illuminations or miniatures.

Impressionism - An art movement and style of painting that started in France during the 1860s. Impressionist artists tried to paint candid glimpses of their subjects showing the effects of sunlight on things at different times of day.

Lithography - In the graphic arts, a method of printing from a prepared flat stone or metal or plastic plate, invented in the late eighteenth century. A drawing is made on the stone or plate with a greasy crayon or tusche, and then washed with water. When ink is applied it sticks to the greasy drawing but runs off (or is resisted by) the wet surface allowing a print-- a lithograph-- to be made of the drawing. The artist, or other print maker under the artist's supervision, then covers the plate with a sheet of paper and runs both through a press under light pressure. For color lithography separate drawings are made for each color. (pr. le-thog'ruh-fee)

Minimalism - A twentieth century art movement and style stressing the idea of reducing a work of art to the minimum number of colors, values, shapes, lines and textures. No attempt is made to represent or symbolize any other object or experience. It is sometimes called ABC art, minimal art, reductivism, and rejective art.

Nocturne - A picture of a night scene.

Numismatics and currency - Numismatics is the study or collecting of coins, medals or currency -- any form of money

Porcelain - A hard, white, translucent, impervious, resonant ceramic body, also known as china, invented in China between A.D. 600 and 900. This clay is primarily made of kaolin, a fine white clay. Also, an object made of porcelain; and sometimes any pottery that is translucent, whether or not it is made of kaolin. Porcelain is regarded as the most refined of all ceramic wares.

Realism - The realistic and natural representation of people, places, and/or things in a work of art. The opposite of idealization. One of the common themes of postmodernism is that this popular notion of an unmediated presentation is not possible. This sense of realism is sometimes considered synonymous with naturalism.

Relief - A type of sculpture in which form projects from a background. There are three degrees or types of relief: high, low, and sunken. In high relief, the forms stand far out from the background. In low relief (best known as bas-relief), they are shallow. In sunken relief, also called hollow or intaglio; the backgrounds are not cut back and the points in highest relief are level with the original surface of the material being carved.

Rococo - An eighteenth century art style which placed emphasis on portraying the carefree life of the aristocracy rather than on grand heroes or pious martyrs. Love and romance were considered to be better subjects for art than historical or religious subjects. The style was characterized by a free, graceful movement; a playful use of line; and delicate colors

Romanticism, and the Romantic school - An art movement and style that flourished in the early nineteenth century. It emphasized the emotions painted in a bold, dramatic manner. Romantic artists rejected the cool reasoning of classicism -- the established art of the times -- to paint pictures of nature in its untamed state, or other exotic settings filled with dramatic action, often with an emphasis on the past. Classicism was nostalgic too, but Romantics were more emotional, usually melancholic, even melodramatically tragic

Silk-screen - A stencil process of printmaking in which an image is imposed on a screen of silk or other fine mesh, with blank areas coated with an impermeable substance, and ink is forced through the mesh onto the printing surface. Also called serigraphy and screen-printing. Andy Warhol and Robert Raushenberg used silkscreens as a means of applying paint to canvases. Also, a print made by this method, sometimes called a screenprint.

Surrealism - A twentieth century avant-garde art movement , the images found in surrealist works are as confusing and startling as those of dreams. Surrealist works can have a realistic, though irrational style, precisely describing dreamlike fantasies, as in the works of René Magritte (Belgian, 1898-1967), Salvador Dalí (Spanish, 1904-1988), Yves Tanguy (French, 1900-1955), and Alfred Pellan (Canadian, 1906-1988). These artists were partly inspired by Symbolism, and partly the Metaphysical Painting of Giorgio de Chirico (Italian, 1888-1978). Or, it could have a more abstract style, as in the works of Joan Miró (Spanish, 1893-1983), Max Ernst (German, 1891-1976), and André Masson (French, 1896-1987), who invented spontaneous techniques, modeled upon the psychotherapeutic procedure of "free association" as a means to eliminate conscious control in order to express the workings of the unconscious mind, such as exquisite corpse.

Tessellation - A collection of shapes which fit together to cover a surface without overlapping or leaving gaps. Often a repeating geometric pattern, many of which may also be referred to as tiling. Types of tessellations include translation, rotation, and reflection. They can be regular or irregular (a regular tessellation is made up of congruent regular polygons -- triangles, squares or hexagons), periodic and non-periodic, two- and three-dimensional, and their motifs can be fractals (self-replicating). The study of tessellations can integrate many disciplines across the entire curriculum -- in art, math, language arts, social studies

Trompe l'oeil - A French term literally meaning "trick the eye." Sometimes called illusionism, it's a style of painting which gives the appearance of three-dimensional, or photographic realism