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Created in the Archaic Period
New York Kouros, ca. 590-580 B.C.
A field that is either rounded at the top or pointed; at Amiens, it appears directly above the two lintels in each portal.
Tympanum
A term referring to the polemical comparison of one art with another, specifically a long-running debate on the relative merits of painting and sculpture.
Paragone
The most important art historical text produced during the Renaissance, and would serve as an essential model for later writers on art.
Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, 1550, expanded edition 1568.
A style of painting which makes two-dimensional objects appear to be three-dimensional.
Illusionism or trompe l'oeil, a French term meaning "trick the eye." Also known as illusionism.
The style seeks to evoke strong emotional responses through intense and passionate expressions. Give an example.
Baroque.
From the Italian word for drawing or design, carries a more complex meaning in art, involving both the ability to make the drawing and the artist's intellectual capacity.
Disegno
An architectural feature that indicates the direction of prayer in a Mosque. Give an example.
Qibla wall. At Cordoba it faces southeast.
A classical type of column distinguishable from other order thanks to the sculpted acanthus leaves that stick out from the capital. Give an example.
Corinthian column. At Cordoba, some of the spolia reused in the original prayer hall are Corinthian; at Amiens, Corinthian capitals inspired the design of the piers and colonnettes found throughout the building.
Describes more than half of a circle, so it curves inward at the bottom. Give an example.
Horseshoe arch; Cordoba.
The massive block at the west end of a cathedral or great church. Give an example.
Western frontispiece. Amiens.
Systems of representation in Greek sculpture characterized by realism; quotidian or degraded reality. Give an example.
Hellenistic. Drunk Old Woman, late 3rd-early 2nd century B.C.
In 855 C.E., Muhammad I had this western portal to the original Cordoba prayer hall restored.
Vizier’s Gate.
This was Michelangelo’s first monumental commission, and it would help to catapult him to fame together with the David produced a few years later.
Michelangelo, Pietà, 1498–99, Vatican, St. Peter’s Basilica
This painting engages with a long tradition of artists depicting Saint Luke painting the Virgin. It was believed that he painted Mary’s portrait during her lifetime, and that the image was completed by the Virgin herself, or even an angel.
Sofonisba Anguissola, Self-Portrait at the Easel, ca. 1556
These two different techniques have the paint applied directly into the freshly laid plaster and applied once the plaster has dried.
Buon fresco and fresco a secco.
This sculpture sought to make the viewer witness "the reality of God as man," and therefore to be persuaded of the truth of the Catholic message.
Luisa Roldán, Jesus Carrying the Cross, 1692-1700
The Spanish conquest of the so-called New World led to the importation of a great many materials. Widely used in Spain in the Baroque period, this was one of the most valuable art materials imported from the Americas.
Cochineal
Composed of triglyphs and metopes.
Doric frieze.
Part of the Periklean Building Program
The Parthenon (architecture), 447-432 B.C.
Perfected reality. Give a classical and a Renaissance example.
(two answers; daily double)
Naturalism:
Doryphoros, ca. 450-440 B.C.
Michelangelo, David, 1501–1504
We encounter color as a major element of the larger work; the whiteness of the sculptural group is a punctuation, a focal point, within an extremely multicolored work. Not monochrome at all, after all.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Saint Teresa of Avila, and the Cornaro Chapel, 1647-51, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome
God the Father, Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Host (and their corresponding circular forms) are all directly aligned with the central vertical axis of this fresco in the Stanza della Segnatura, in the Vatican's Papal apartments.
Raphael, The Disputa (Disputation of the Holy Sacrament), 1509-15011
This sculpture results in the negation of medium specificity; the transformation of media is almost painterly, where areas of flesh catch light and shadow.
Gian Lorenzo Berini, Apollo and Daphne, 1622–25
Donatello Bramante, Raphael, Baldassare Peruzzi, Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, and Michelangelo, all contributed to its design. In 1629, this artist started his contribution, which would take the next fifty years of his life.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Colonnade, 1656-67, St Peter’s, Rome
An additive process, which is then followed by carving using small tools to achieve details (subtractive process). Give an example.
Luisa Roldán, Ecstasy of St. Mary Magdalen, c. 1690
This enclosure, characterized by four ribbed domes, reserved for the caliph and his associates and set apart from the rest of the prayer hall by a low wooden barrier.
Maqsura reserved for the caliph of Cordoba and his associates; set apart from the rest of the prayer hall by a low wooden barrier.
Architectural feature associated with this passage, from Revelation 21:9-14 "Then one of the seven angels [...] carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. It has the glory of God and a radiance like a very rare jewel, like jasper, clear as crystal.
Gothic stained glass; clerestory windows; lux nova.
Name the diagonal lines that recede into depth and converge at a shared vanishing point, located within the architecture of this painting. Name the painting too.
Orthogonal lines. Raphael, Marriage of the Virgin, 1504
The traditional interpretation views the frieze as a representation of the 5th century B.C. Athenian citizenry participating in their annual or quadrennial Panathenaic procession, a religious festival held in honor of the birthday of the goddess Athena, the city’s protectress.
Executed by the sculptor Pheidias and his workshop, Ionic Frieze at the Parthenon, this work was sculpted out of 114 blocks of Pentelic marble, ca. 442-438 B.C (as late as 432 B.C.)