Art terms
Learn about the materials, techniques, movements, and themes of modern and contemporary art from around the world.
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Showing 41 of 345 art terms
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Calcium white
A white pigment often characterized by a warm tonality and significant transparency
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Calligraphy
Calligraphy is the art of creating handwritten text using highly stylized lettering. Its historical origins span millennia and many regions of the world, including East Asia, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and North Africa. Calligraphic texts may contain letters and/or symbols created using paint, ink, and other, often liquid, materials manipulated with an instrument such as a brush or pen.
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Calotype
William Henry Fox Talbot patented a photographic process in 1841 that led to a stable negative image. The process involves exposing a sheet of sensitized paper in the camera then developing, fixing, and washing it. The stable negative image could be contact printed. Though calotypes are soft and hazy, with visible paper fibers, the invention revolutionized image-making by making it possible to produce multiple prints from one negative image. It was also used as a means of making copies of drawings and documents. The process remained in use through the 1850s, when it was replaced by the albumen silver print.
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Cameraless photography
Cameraless photographs are created by manipulating light, radiation, and/or chemicals to leave an impression on photo-sensitive paper. Examples include techniques such as cyanotypes (commonly known as blueprints), radiographs (commonly known as X-rays), chemigrams, and photograms. Today, artists continue to experiment with cameraless techniques to find new ways of capturing the world around them.
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Canvas
A closely woven, sturdy cloth of hemp, cotton, linen, or a similar fiber, frequently stretched over a frame and used as a surface for painting.
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Cartes-de-visite
Small photographs mounted to cardstock, patented in 1854. These “visiting” cards, most often featuring individual or celebrity portraits, were popularly traded and collected in albums.
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Cast
(verb) To form a material, such as molten metal or plastic, into a particular shape by pouring or pressing into a mold; (noun) something formed in a mold; (noun) a mold or impression taken of an object or of printing type.
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Celluloid
The first synthetic plastic material, developed in the 1860s and 1870s from a combination of camphor and nitrocellulose. Tough, flexible, and moldable, it was used to make many mass-produced items, including photographic film for both still and motion picture cameras. Despite its flammability and tendency to discolor and crack with age, celluloid was used in motion picture production until the 1930s, when it began to be replaced by cellulose-acetate safety film.
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Charcoal
Among the earliest known drawing materials, charcoal sticks are produced by burning vines or twigs of wood in an airless atmosphere. The black tonality of charcoal varies based on the type of vine or wood it is derived from. Composed of loosely bound, splinter-like particles that sit on the surface, charcoal marks are easily smudged or disrupted. Some artists exploit this quality by manipulating the marks with implements such as erasers, rolled paper stumps, or their fingers to create tonal effects. Charcoal crayons, developed in the 19th century, consist of charcoal powder compressed into sticks that produce a denser, darker mark.
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Chine collé
A technique, used in conjunction with printmaking processes such as etching or lithography, that results in a two-layered paper support: a tissue-thin paper, cut to the size of the printing plate, and a larger, thicker support paper below. Both the tissue and the support sheet are placed on top of the inked plate and run together through the printing press, sometimes with a thin layer of adhesive between them to reinforce the bond produced through the pressure of the press. The process creates a subtle, delicate backdrop to the printed image. Chine is the French word for China, referring to the fact that the thin paper originally used with this technique was imported from China. In addition to China, paper was also imported from India or Japan. Collé is the French word for "glued."
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Choreography
The art of creating and arranging a wide range of dance, from classical ballet to experimental performance; a work created by this art. A person who creates choreography is called a choreographer.
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Chroma
The intensity of a given color
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Chromogenic print
The dominant photographic color process of the 20th century is made up of three gelatin layers containing cyan, magenta, and yellow organic dyes. Together, these dyes produce a full-color image. From 1935 to the present day, the chromogenic process has been used to create a range of print, transparency, and film materials. Common branded products such as Kodacolor prints, introduced by Kodak in 1942, use the chromogenic process, as do materials produced by other companies such as Fuji and Agfa. Used by both professionals and nonprofessionals, chromogenic prints, also known as “C prints,” can be unstable and prone to color shift or fading.
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Cinematographer
The person who sets up both camera and lighting for each shot in a film, the cinematographer has a major influence over the look and feel of a shot or scene, and is often as highly esteemed as the director. Cinematography is the art of positioning a camera and lighting a scene.
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Cinématographe
A combination motion-picture camera, printer, and projector invented by French photographers, photographic equipment manufacturers, and brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière in 1895. The Lumière brothers used the Cinématographe to show their films when they set up the world’s first movie theater, in the back room of a Parisian café. Unlike Thomas Alva Edison and William K. L. Dickson’s electrically powered Kinetograph, the Cinématographe was compact and hand-cranked, so it could be easily transported to shoot films on location.
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Cityscape
An artistic representation of a city or urban environment
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Classicism
The effort to match classical antiquity—and especially the art of the ancient Greeks and Romans—in artistic style, material, or subject matter. Classicism, which can refer to various kinds of artworks, like painting, sculpture, photography, and architecture, emerged in the Renaissance, and has continued to reappear throughout art history. This kind of art tends to be large in scale, usually represents a human figure or heroic story, and is often characterized by smooth lines and an emphasis on geometrical symmetry.
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Coating
Varnish applied after the painting has dried to unify its surface gloss. Coating often becomes yellow or gray with age.
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CoBrA
A European avant-garde movement active in the aftermath of World War II (from 1948 to 1951), whose name was derived from the first letters of the three cities—Copenhagen (Co), Brussels (Br), Amsterdam (A)—that were the homes of its members. CoBrA grew out of the artists’ critical stance toward capitalist production and consumption. As a form of resistance to Western artistic values, they explored the elements and strategies of folk art, children’s art, and art from Africa and the Pacific Islands. Their resulting work was often characterized by bold color and spontaneous brushwork that evoked the brutal nature of the social conditions of the time.
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Coding/programming
Coding is the method by which computer programmers, or coders, transmit instructions to computers. Coding transforms human language into the binary language of computers (in which there are only two possible states, off and on, commonly symbolized by 0 and 1). Programming languages have their own systems and rules that allow computers to understand and implement the instructions they are given in a sequential order.
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Coenties Slip
For a brief period in the 1950s and ’60s, an out-of-the-way street at the southeastern edge of Manhattan hosted a community of artists whose work there would change art history. Fred Mitchell encouraged Ellsworth Kelly to live there, and he in turn invited Robert Indiana, Jack Youngerman, and Delphine Seyrig. Agnes Martin, Lenore Tawney, and James Rosenquist also moved in, and Ann Wilson and Charles Hinman briefly worked there too. Coenties Slip, named after 17th-century Dutch settlers, was originally part waterway for mooring boats and a major marketplace. By the 1950s, the neighborhood was transitioning from a maritime to a financial center. Drawn by cheap rents, open floor plans, and solitude, the artists lived and worked in former sailmaking and industrial lofts, and often incorporated objects scavenged from the demolition around them into their art. They never formed a movement; their diverse art encompasses abstraction and figuration; textiles, assemblage, film, painting––but they all had significant breakthroughs at Coenties Slip that changed the landscape of modern art, and supported each other’s need to be a part of but also apart from the cultural scene.
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Collage
Derived from the French verb coller, meaning “to glue,” collage refers to both the technique and the resulting work of art in which fragments of paper and other materials are arranged and glued or otherwise affixed to a supporting surface.
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Collotype
A reproductive printmaking technique that is photographically based. Although collotype is increasingly rare, in the early 20th century it was employed for its effectiveness in reproducing the subtle delicacy of drawings and photographs. A photographic negative is projected onto a printing plate coated with light-sensitive gelatin that hardens and becomes receptive to the application of ink. Paper is laid on top and the image is printed on a press.
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Color Field painting
A form of abstract painting that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s, characterized by large areas of color, typically without strong tonal contrasts or a defined point of focus.
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Colored pencil
An implement for drawing that contains a rod of pigments or dyes, known as “colorants,” mixed with fillers (including kaolin, chalk, or talc), synthetic resin, and wax and encased in wood or paper. A limited palette of colored pencils was first developed in the early 19th century. Modern synthetic dyes and pigments have greatly expanded the range of colored pencils available, but some of these colorants are unstable and prone to fading.
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Combine
Term coined by Jasper Johns to describe a body of work by Robert Rauschenberg consisting of three-dimensional objects integrated into paintings. Rauschenberg made his first Combines in 1954, and continued to affix a motley assortment of cast-off items (from newspaper clippings and quilts to taxidermied animals) to traditional painting supports until 1964. His Combines collapse distinctions between the materials of artmaking and ordinary things; between painting and sculpture; and between the realms of art and everyday life.
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Comic
A sequence of images that may or may not also contain words. This sequence is made up of several images, or self-contained sections, called “panels.” When taken together, these words and images tell a story. While there is no limit to how many panels one can include in a story, you need at least two images in order to make a comic. Comics can vary in style and medium—some are made as drawings, while others are made up of paintings or even photographs. Traditionally, comics were made on paper using a variety of materials including graphite, colored pencil, pen, watercolor, and markers, and were published as books or strips in newspapers and magazines. Today, artists increasingly create comics digitally, using computers and tablets, and comics are frequently distributed via apps or websites.
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Commercial photography
Years after Louis Daguerre invented and popularized the daguerreotype, advancements in camera technology grew. Developments like shortened shutter times and decreased lens sizes increased convenience and reduced costs, and as a result, commercial photography studios multiplied across the United States and Western Europe. By 1850, New York City alone was home to 77 studios. Among them was Matthew B. Brady’s “Gallery of Illustrious Americans” which photographed many of the country's prominent citizens, such as President Abraham Lincoln. As the 1800s ended, photography became even more inexpensive and accessible, making it possible for private individuals to keep and share images of their loved ones. In 1916, James Van Der Zee opened his Guarantee Photo Studio. There he took photos of Black Harlemites during the neighborhood’s historic Renaissance. Van Der Zee later photographed Black celebrities, like Jean-Michele Basquiat, until his death in 1983. Commercial photography's rise allowed many to fashion their self-image and capture important moments.
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Commercially primed canvas
A canvas that has been primed before being sold
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Commission
To request, or the request for, the production of a work of art
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Conceptual art
In the 1960s, many artists experimented with art that emphasized ideas over objects and materials traditionally associated with art making. In 1967, Sol LeWitt wrote in his essay “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art” that “the idea itself, even if it is not made visual, is as much of a work of art as any finished product.” Conceptual artists used their work to question the notion of what art is, and to critique the underlying ideological structures of artistic production, distribution, and display.
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Concrete art
This term was first introduced in 1930 by Dutch artist Theo van Doesburg, who said that “nothing is more concrete, more real, than a line, a color, a plane.” Concrete art finds meaning only in its own material form, and artworks (typically paintings and sculptures) incorporate lines, colors, and/or flat surfaces (planes) that do not represent anything. Similar to but distinct from abstraction, Concrete art does not depict visual symbols or ideas from the natural world. Max Bill, a Swiss artist and designer who was educated at the Bauhaus, became a founder and leader of the Concrete art movement in the later 1930s.
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Constructivism
Developed by the Russian avant-garde at the time of the October Revolution of 1917. Declaring that a post-Revolutionary society demanded a radically new artistic language, Constructivist artists, led by Aleksandr Rodchenko, aimed to strip their works of subjective emotional character, eventually even rejecting painting as an individualist bourgeois form. The Constructivist artist was recast as an engineer of a new society, whose practice served a greater social or utilitarian purpose.
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Contact print
When light-sensitized paper is placed in direct contact with a negative and then exposed, the result is a contact print. A printing frame is often used to tightly bind the materials together during exposure, thus ensuring perfect registration and crisp resolution. The resulting image is the same size as the negative, as opposed to a print created with an enlarger, which requires the image to pass from negative to paper through a lens system.
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Contrast
Photographs contain areas of brightness and darkness, regions of roughness and smoothness, and, at times, colors from across the spectrum. Contrast is the visual ratio of the tones, textures, and colors that are present in an image. High tonal contrast arises from the interaction of light and dark regions within an image. High textural contrast is found where areas of fine-grained detail run up against more uniform fields. High color contrast exists where colors are brought together from opposite sides of the color wheel. Contrast plays a vital role in helping our eyes understand what they see in a picture by defining the volume and edges of the objects they represent. Photographers can heighten or reduce contrast to manipulate the clarity of their images and the mood they convey.
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Cotton duck
Also called cotton canvas, cotton duck is a common support for painting. It is typically cheaper than linen and has a lighter and warmer color.
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Critical Design
A term first used by Anthony Dunne in his book, Hertzian Tales (1999), referring to an attitude toward design rather than a movement or method. It follows in the footsteps of other practices (like Radical Design in Italy and avant-garde British architecture of the late 1960s and early 1970s) that have regarded design as a way to pose incisive questions, challenge the status quo, and think deeply about the possible future consequences of present choices. Critical Design is speculative, conceptual, provocative, and can be darkly satirical. It does not always lead to usable products, but it does produce long-term thinking, a nuanced view of consumers as complex, contradictory individuals, and alternative solutions suggesting that change is always possible, even inevitable.
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Cropping
In photography, editing, typically by removing the outer edges of the image.
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Cubism
Originally a term of derision used by a critic in 1908, Cubism describes the work of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and those influenced by them. Working side by side, they developed a visual language whose geometric planes and compressed space challenged what had been the defining conventions of representation in Western painting: the relationship between solid and void, figure and ground. Traditional subjects—nudes, landscapes, and still lifes—were reinvented as increasingly fragmented compositions. Cubism’s influence extended to an international network of artists working in Paris in those years and beyond.
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Cyanotype
In 1842, the scientist and astronomer Sir John Herschel invented a new process for reproducing his notes. By combining sunlight and an iron salt solution on photo-sensitive paper, a Prussian blue image was created. Just a year after Herschel’s invention, a family friend, the botanist Anna Atkins used the technique to create copies of algae specimens, which she combined into an album. (Atkins is often credited as the first woman photographer.) In the following years, the cyanotype was used to copy architectural and engineering plans, and the distinctive blue tint gave rise to the term “blueprints.”
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Cyclorama
A panoramic mural on the inner surface of a cylindrical space, which gives viewers the illusion that they are immersed in a 360-degree view of a (typically outdoor) scene. This popular 19th-century form of entertainment often celebrated military endeavors and territorial expansion.
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