Art terms
This glossary explains some of the techniques, mediums, art movements, and other terms you’ll encounter on our website, along with links to examples in the collection.
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Showing 11 of 335 art terms
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Radical Architecture
A cohort of Italian architects and designers active from the late 1960s through the 1970s. They placed themselves in opposition to the rationalism and
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Raking Light
Bright light, usually beamed obliquely, used to reveal such things as surface texture and detail
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Rayograph
A term invented by Man Ray, in which he merged his name with the word “photograph” to describe his particular approach to the technique of making photograms.
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Readymade
A term coined by Marcel Duchamp in 1916 to describe prefabricated, often mass-produced objects isolated from their intended use and elevated to the status
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Relational Aesthetics
A mode of art practice that establishes spaces, situations, or environments for a variety of social interactions. In essence, the social space or interaction
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Relief
Figures or forms carved or molded so as to project from a flat surface, as in sculpture, or the apparent projection of such shapes in a painting or drawing.
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Relief print
A general term for those printmaking techniques in which the printing surface is cut away so that the image alone appears raised on the surface. Relief
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Resin
Any of numerous plant-based, clear, translucent, yellow or brown, solid or semisolid, viscous substances—including copal, rosin, and amber—used principally
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Return to order (rappel à l’ordre)
A conservative cultural movement in France in the years following World War I. This movement was defined by a renewed interest in classicism, nationalism,
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Ritual
A series of actions, performed by an individual or group, according to a prescribed sequence. Rituals often include objects, dress, music, or body movements
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Rods and Cones
The photoreceptor cells in our eyes that are responsible for our sensitivity to light and color
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