Glossary
Acrylic paint
a permanent paint, applied with a brush or palette knife; may be thinned with turpentine
Anxiety
a mental health disorder that causes worry, apprehension, fear, and even panic attacks; alters a person’s thoughts and moods; treatable with therapy and medication
Art
objects created purely for aesthetic reasons by human beings to evoke emotions, feelings, and thoughts in the viewer; some people claim that animals have artistic talent, but only humans can make art that expresses ideas or concepts
Art gallery
a place that displays art by an artist or a group of artists, often centering on a style or theme
Art history
the study of culture and style in a historical time or place or within a group of people
Art movement
a style or philosophy of art that is created by a group of artists with a common goal and lasts over a period of time
Art museum
a building that houses works of art and provides education about them
Art period
an epoch with a commonality among artists; includes literature and music
Art style
a recognizable pattern, form, or technique that an artist or group of artists incorporate into their artwork (see Art Movement)
Artist
a person who creates art objects, ideas, or concepts for a career or hobby
Benton, Thomas Hart
American painter/muralist, 1889–1975; a Regionalist who portrayed rural American scenes, especially in his paintings from the 1930s; he also painted murals
Brush
a tool used in painting, with different types used for oil, acrylic, and watercolor paints
Canvas
a durable woven fabric stretched over a wooden frame, then painted on
Color
how light is reflected onto an object; has three attributes: hue or tint—the actual color; intensity—degree of purity or strength; value—the lightness or darkness; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet colors are created by light
Complementary colors
the result of mixing two primary colors
Composition
the way elements are arranged in a picture; also applies to writing and music
Depression
a mental health disorder that causes an individual to feel lethargic, hopeless, and sad; can affect a person’s thoughts and moods; treatable through therapy and medication
Easel
wooden frame with legs that holds an artist’s canvas
Genre
a specific subject matter, such as a still life, landscape painting, or picture depicting the activities of everyday people
Hue
a color or shade; a color’s position on the color wheel in relationship to white (see Color)
Impasto
a technique in which a heavy layer of paint is applied with a loaded brush onto a painting, leaving a thick surface when it dries; used by Vincent van Gogh in his paintings
Impressionism
a major art movement begun in nineteenth-century France and characterized by the artists’ focus on light and atmosphere in landscape; Impressionists’ works were sometimes considered sketches instead of finished works of art; Claude Monet’s 1874 painting Impression, Sunrise is said to have inspired the movement
Landscape art
a central theme/genre type of painting popular in American art in the mid-nineteenth century; artists include the Hudson River School painters and Georgia O’Keeffe
Medium or media (pl)
material such as oil and acrylic paint, marble, metal, wood, video, or a combination of materials called mixed media that is used to make an artwork
Mental health condition
disorder or illness in a person’s brain that has to do with the chemicals there; treatable with therapy and medication
The Met
The Metropolitan Museum of Art; an art museum in New York City that holds a collection of art covering more than five thousand years of history; one of the greatest museums in the Western Hemisphere, it attracts a wide variety of people, no matter their knowledge of art or art history
MoMA
The Museum of Modern Art; a leading art museum in New York City devoted to the modern visual arts; contains nearly two hundred thousand works of modern and contemporary art, including van Gogh’s 1889 painting Starry Night and Monet’s Water Lilies series painted from 1914–1926
Monet, Claude
French painter, 1840–1926; his art captured nature in light and colors; his Impression, Sunrise is considered to be the first Impressionist painting
Moses, Grandma
American painter, 1860–1961; untrained painter of rural landscapes capturing an unvarnished view of times gone by; began her career at age seventy-eight and quickly received national attention for her late entry into the art world
Mural painting
a painting on a wall
Oil paint
a type of paint applied with a brush or palette knife
Pastels
medium made of sticks of compressed colored powder; often used on tinted paper
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
the oldest art museum and school in the US; founded in 1805 in Philadelphia, it has a large collection of American art and casts of classical sculpture from the Louvre
Perspective
a system that represents three-
dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface so that an object in the background appears smaller than one in the foreground
Point of view (POV)
from where, or the location of where, the viewer observes an artwork
Portrait
a picture of a person or an animal; may be a painting, photograph, or collage
Primary colors
red, yellow, blue; colors not made by mixing other colors
Printmaking
the act of transferring an image onto paper or fabric using any number of different techniques, such as screen printing or etching
Radio dramas
dramas performed by well-known actors and produced for radio listeners from the 1940s to the 1980s; included comedy, horror, mystery, detective, and sci-fi
Sculpture
a three-dimensional work of art made of various materials, such as bronze or wood
Secondary colors
colors made by mixing primary colors, in particular orange, green, and purple/violet
Shade
a color made by adding black to make it darker; areas of a picture that represent an absence of light
Sourland Mountain Preserve
four thousand acres located on Sourland Mountain in central New Jersey with a rich diversity of plant and animal life; offers hiking, biking, horseback riding, and bird-watching
Sketch
marks made on paper with a pencil or pen or other held instrument; a drawing, painting, or model made as a rough draft for the final work of art
Still life
a painting that is usually of objects arranged on a tabletop, such as flowers in a vase; emerged as an independent subject in the sixteenth century
Studies
a sketch or drawing done in preparation for the main piece of art, usually for a painting (see Sketching)
Tint
a color made by adding white to make it lighter (see Color)
Turpentine
a substance used to thin acrylic paint or to clean brushes
Values
the lightness or darkness of a color (see Color); Monet’s work captures the atmosphere in a landscape by using values of color
van Gogh, Vincent
Dutch painter, 1853–1890; a major artist who used pure, intense color and thick brushwork called impasto; although still popular today, he allegedly sold only one painting during his lifetime; he lived with depression
Viewfinder
an instrument that assists an artist in cropping a scene to create a composition
Visual arts
forms of art, such as painting, sculpture, photography, and drawing
Whitman, Walt
American writer/poet/publisher/printmaker, 1819–1892; a literary icon, his most famous work is Leaves of Grass; he visited wounded Civil War soldiers in hospitals, then wrote about his experience in The Wound Dresser; he lived with depression
Wyeth, Andrew
American painter, 1917–2009; one of the best-known twentieth-century realistic Regionalists, his most recognizable painting is Christina’s World (1948)