Art 2316: Painting I Terms - Professor Valdez
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Glossary:
Acrylic Paint: A type of paint made with synthetic resin as the medium (liquid) to bind the pigment (color), rather than natural oils
such as linseed used in oil paints. It has the advantage of drying faster than oil paint and being water soluble.
"Academic" : The term has come to mean conservative and traditional. It also refers to a style sanctioned or promoted by an
official institution, academy, or school.
Achromatic: Without color, or color with no saturation – black, white, and neutral grays, for example.
Analogous Colors: are adjacent to one another on the color wheel, neighboring hues.
Additive Primaries, Subtractive Primaries: The (additive) primary colors of light (red, green and blue) can be added to produce
the secondary colors of light; magenta (red + blue), cyan (green + blue) and yellow (red + green). The three primary colors of light
when added together at the same time produce white light.
The subtractive primaries (in pigments these are red, yellow and blue). The nature of subtractive primaries can be demonstrated
with the secondary colors of light (magenta, cyan and yellow) Together these colors subtract all color from white light, yielding
black. Color pigments (the colors we paint on the canvas, etc.) mix and are seen in a similar way to the subtractive primaries of
light.
Ala Prima: A style of painting where, instead of building colors up with layers, the painting is done in one session while the paint
is still wet. From the Italian word which literally means at once.
Analogous color: a color scheme consisting of or limited to adjacent hues on the color wheel, usually within the scope of a
primary through one of its related secondary such as blue, blue-green, and green.
Assemblage: Sculpture using preexisting, recognizable objects that contribute their original identity to the total content of the
work. (Can be attached to paintings)
Atmospheric perspective: (aerial perspective) The term for how atmospheric conditions influence our perception of objects in the
distance. As objects get closer to the horizon, they appear lighter in tone and bluer or cooler in color.
Binder: The substance in a paint which holds together (binds) the pigment and makes the paint stick to whatever it's painted on.
Chiaroscuro: The treatment (and use of) light and dark areas, patterns, and gradations in two-dimensional works of art, especially
gradations of light and dark that produce the effect of modeling. An Italian word literally meaning "light dark", used to describe the
skillful balance of light and dark in a painting. Caravaggio and Rembrandt's paintings are good examples.
Chroma: Or intensity, is the quality by which a color appears pure as in “fire red” or dull and grayish (neutralized) as in “brick red”.
(also known as purity or saturation).
Collage: From the French papers collés, or pasted papers. A work made by pasting various materials, such as paper scraps,
photographs, and cloth on a flat surface.
Color Constancy: The psychological tendency to see colors as we think they are rather than as we actually perceive. Often we
automatically compensate for changes in lighting.
Color Field painting: A trend that grew out of Abstract Expressionism that uses large stained or painted areas to provide the
viewer with an environment of color. Paint is sometimes poured on an unprimed canvas.
Complementary Colors: Two colors on opposite sides of the color wheel, which when placed next to each other make both appear
brighter. The complementary color of a primary color (red, blue, and yellow) is the color you get by mixing the other two (red + blue
= purple; blue + yellow = green; red + yellow = orange). So the complementary color for red is green, for blue it's orange, and for
yellow it's purple.
Composition: The combining of parts or elements to form a whole. The structure, organization, or total form of a work of art.
Conceptual Art: An event or work of art conceived in the mind of an artist. Conceptual works are sometimes produced in visible
form, but often presented only as a mental concept or idea. A trend developing in the late 1960s partially as a way of avoiding the
commercialization of art.
Content: Meaning contained and communicated by form.
Contour: The edge of a mass or shape or group of masses or shapes.
Cool colors: Colors whose relative visual temperature makes them seem cool. Cool colors generally include green, blue-green,
blue, blue-violet, and violet.
Art 2316: Painting I Terms - Professor Valdez
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Design: Both the process and the result of structuring the elements of visual form.
Expressionism: The broad term that describes emotional art, most often boldly executed and making free use of distortion and
arbitrary color. When used more specifically, Expressionism refers to individual and group styles originating in Europe in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Fat over Lean: The principle to follow if you wish your oil paintings to last and not crack. Each layer of your painting should have a
bit more oil painting medium added to it to make it a little more flexible than the layer beneath it.
Ferrule: The metal part of a brush that holds the hairs.
Figure :Separate shape(s) distinguishable from a background or ground.
Film Color: Appears as a thin transparent, translucent layer between the eye and an object independent of the objects
surface/local color. (related to aerial perspective: the tendency of forms seen at great distance through a hazy atmosphere to blur
toward uniformity in hue and value, with no sharp distinctions between colors or edges. In many atmospheres, everything will take
on a blue cast.)
Format: Basic layout or proportions of a work being presented.
Frotage: Rubbing a piece of paper on a rough surface such as wood or stone to capture the texture for use in an artwork,
particularly a collage.
Gesso: A mixture of glue and either chalk or plaster of Paris applied as a ground or coating to surfaces in order to give them the
correct properties to receive paint. Gesso can also be built up or modeled into relief designs, or carved.
Glaze: A thin, transparent layer of paint. Glazes are used on top of one another to build up depth and modify colors in a painting.
A glaze must be completely dry before another is applied on top.
Graffito: From the Italian word meaning literally a little scratch. A technique where a top layer of color is scratched (the back of a
paint brush works well) to reveal a color beneath.
Grisaille: A painting using shades of grey only. Used by Renaissance artists to depict relief sculpture.
Ground: The background in two-dimensional works – the area around and between figure(s). Also, the surface on which you paint,
usually a coating (such as gesso primer) rather than a support except when the support is paper.
High key: Exclusive use of pale or light values within a given area or surface.
Hue: That property of a color identifying a specific, named wavelength of light such as green, red, violet, and so on. The actual
color of something, such as red, green, or blue. What we generally, but less technically correct, call color.
Icon: An image or symbolic representation (often with sacred significance).
Iconography: Visual images or symbols used by a given culture.
Impasto: In painting, thick paint applied to a surface in a heavy manner, having the appearance and consistency of buttery paste.
Lightfastness How permanent a color is or how unaffected by light it is. Watercolors and pastels are particularly susceptible to
damage by exposure to light.
In the United States the permanence of a color is measured by the American Standard Test Measure (ASTM), with colors rated 1
or 2 being the most permanent. In the United Kingdom the Blue Wool Scale is used, with colors rated 7 or 8 being the most
permanent.
Local color: the actual color as distinguished from the apparent color of objects and surfaces; true color, without shadows or
reflections.
Low key: Consistent use of dark values within a given area or surface.
Mass: the illusion of three-dimensional form on a two-dimensional surface.
Matte: a Dull finish or surface, especially in painting, photography, and ceramics.
Medium: (pl. media) – A particular material along with its accompanying technique. A specific type of artistic technique or means
of expression determined by the use of specific materials. Also, in paint, the fluid in which pigment is suspended allowing it to
spread and adhere to the surface.
Art 2316: Painting I Terms - Professor Valdez
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Minimal art: A style of twentieth-century sculpture and painting, usually severely restricted in the use of visual elements and
often producing relatively simple geometric structures.
Modeling: In drawing or painting, the effect of light falling on a three-dimensional object so that the image of its mass is revealed
and defined by value gradations.
Monochromatic: A color scheme limited to variations of one hue. A hue with its tints and/or shades.
Montage: A composition of pictures or parts of pictures previously drawn, painted, or photographed.
Naturalism: In the visual arts, the doctrine that art should resemble as closely as possible the appearance of the natural world. A
work created with this intention is called naturalistic. (See representational art.)
Negative shape: A background or ground shape produced by its interaction with foreground or figure shape(s).
Neutrals: surface hues that do not reflect any single wavelength of light but rather all of them at once. No single color is
noticed — only a sense of light and dark, such as white, gray or black. (Black = “the absence of color”, absorbs all color rays
equally and reflects none.) (White = represents 100% reflection of light) (Gray = a partial reflection of all color waves)
Neutralized Color: a color that has been grayed or reduced in intensity by mixture with any of the neutrals or with a
complimentary color.
Nonobjective or nonrepresentational: Visual form without reference to anything outside itself.
Open form: A form whose contour is irregular or broken, having a sense of unfinished growth, change, or unresolved tension.
Form in a state of becoming.
Optical Mixture: colors perceived at the same time that are combined and merged into one new color.
•Bezold Effect; related to optical mixture in even distribution of color — colors next to each other give a different whole or
overall effect. The possibility of changing a design considerably by simply changing one of its colors, discovered by
rugmaker Wilhelm von Bezold in the 19th century.
•Broken Color; layers of different colors applied to a painting so that they show through each other as opposed to being
mixed on the palette. (impressionist paintings).
•Additive spatial fusion: a technique in painting whereby dots of pure hues are placed close together on a white ground to
coax the viewer’s eye to mix them optically. (pointillism)
•Divisionism; the juxtaposition of tiny dots of unmixed paints, giving an overall effect of color when mixed optically by the
viewer’s eye from the distance: usually associated with the post-impressionists. (similar to pointillism just without the
white ground showing, ex. Chuck Close).
Pentimento: Obliterated painting subsequently revealed by reason of the overpainting’s becoming transparent, a characteristic of
linessed oil since its refractive index increase with age.
Permanence - The length of time a pigment retains its original color. Pigments must be light-fast (not fade when exposed to
daylight) and must not react chemically with other pigments and materials used in paintings nor the atmosphere.
Photorealism: A style of painting based on the cool, detached objectivity of photographs as records of subjects.
Pictorial space: The implied or illusionary space in a painting as it appears to recede backward from the picture plane.
Picture plane: The two-dimensional picture surface.
Pigment: A coloring agent in powder form used in paints, crayons, and chalks.
Plastic Quality of Color: The ability of color to build a form by the advancing and receding characteristics of certain colors. For
example, a spot of red on a flat surface seems to take a position in front of that surface. A spot of blue similarly placed, seems to
sink back into the surface. In general, warm colors advance, and cool colors recede.
Pointillism: A system of painting using tiny dots of color; developed by French artist Georges Seurat in the 1880’s. Seurat
systematized the divided brushwork and optical color mixture of the Impressionists.
Polychromatic: Having many colors; random or intuitive use of color combinations as opposed to color selection based on a
specific color scheme.
Positive shape: A figure or foreground shape, as opposed to a negative ground or background shape.
Art 2316: Painting I Terms - Professor Valdez
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Primary colors: Those hues that cannot be produced by mixing other hues. Pigment primaries are red, yellow, and blue;
Theoretically, primaries can be mixed together to form all the other hues in the spectrum.
Prime: In painting, a primary layer of paint or sizing applied to a surface that is to be painted.
Realism: a mid-19th C. style of painting and sculpture based on the belief that subject matter and representation in art should be
true to appearance without idealizing or stylization. The style grew out of a rejection of the artificial grandeur and exoticism of the
academically accepted art of the time.
Representational art: Art in which it is the artist’s intention to present again or represent a particular subject as closely as
possible to the way it is seen by the human eye.
Saturation: The purity or intensity of a hue (or color) on a scale from bright (full saturation) to dull (low saturation).
Secondary colors: Pigment secondaries are the hues orange, violet, and green, which may be produced in somewhat diluted form
by mixing two primaries.
Sfumato Where colors blend softly into each other, rather than having sharp outlines. It's an Italian word meaning shaded off, or
smoke.
Shade: A hue with black added.
Simultaneous Contrast: (occurs as a sensation in the eye of the beholder and is not objectively present — results from the fact
that any given color, the eye simultaneously requires the complementary color, and generates it spontaneously if it is not already
present.) Whenever two different color tones come into direct contact, the contrast intensifies the difference between them. The
effect is most noted, of course, when the colors are directly contrasting in hue, but it occurs even if the colors have some degree
of relationship. For instance, a yellow-green surrounded by green appears to be yellow, where as if it is surrounded by yellow it is
more noticeably green. The contrast can be in the characteristics of intensity or value as well as in hue.
Successive Contrast: The after image we see following the prolonged staring at a color will always be some version of that color’s
complimentary. A means by which the human eye strives to compensate for the separation of complement — caused by fatigue of
the nerve endings on the human retina (rods and cone) will cause the eye to see complement to original color of image — also
known as complementary after-image, on par with simultaneous contrast.
Split Complements: similar to complementaries, but embracing three points of the color circle. For example, yellow whose
complement is violet has a split complement of red-violet and blue-violet.
Tertiary Colors: Colors that are produced by mixing Primary and Secondary Colors together. Ex: Red-orange, Yellow-orange,
Yellow-blue, Green-blue, Red-violet, Blue-violet.
Toe In painting, a toe is the tip of a brush.
Value: light and dark qualities of a surface or area (sometimes referred to as tonal values). The amount of light reflected by a
surface operating within a hue or independent of hues.
Vantage point: The position from which the viewer looks at an object or visual field. Also called "observation point" or "viewpoint."
Vehicle: Liquid emulsion used as a carrier or spreading agent in paints; medium.
Warm colors: colors whose relative visual temperature makes them seem warm. Generally warm colors or hues include red-violet,
red, red-orange, orange, yellow-orange, and yellow.
Wash: A thin transparent layer of paint.
Wet-on-Wet Quite literally, painting with wet paint onto wet paint rather than dry.
The Three Major Attributes of Color:
1. Hue
2. Value (lightness, light intensity, brilliance)
3. Chroma (intensity, saturation)