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A particular material, along with its accompanying technique.
Medium (plural-media)
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People with little or no formal art education who make art
Outsider/Folk Artist
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Suggest visual connections. Those that form geometric shapes can serve as an underlying organizational structure
Implied Lines
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Any two dimensional area defined by lines or changes in value or color
Shape
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Tend to be precise and regular. Examples are circles, triangles, and squares
Geometric Shapes
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Irregular, often curving or rounded, and seem relaxed and more informal than geometric shapes .. shapes based on natural forms
Organic Shapes/Biomorphic
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The two dimensional picture surface
Picture Plane
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Seperate shapes that seem to lie above a background or ground
Figure
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A figure or foreground shape, as opposed to a negative ground or background shape
Positive Shapes
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The background in two dimensional works. The area around and between figures
Ground
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A background or ground shape seen in relation to foreground or figure shapes
Negative Shapes
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A visual effect in which what was seen as a positive shape becomes a negative shape, and vice versa
Figure-Ground Reversal
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A three dimensional area
Mass
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When mass encloses space
Volume
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Form that does not openly interact with the space around it
Closed Form
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Three dimensional form that interacts with the space around it
Open Form
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The object above seems farther away than the one below
Vertical Placement
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The point on the horizon line at which lines or edges that are parallel appear to converge
Vanishing Point
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An imaginary plane parallel with the ground plane and extending to the horizon, where the eye level and ground plane appear to converge
Eye-Level/Horizon Line
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A single, fixed position or viewpoint
Vantage Point
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A nonlinear means for giving an illusion of depth
Atmospheric Perspective
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Art that incorporates actual movement as part of the design
Kinetic Art
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Refers to the relative darkness or lightness of a surface
Value/Tone
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Changes in value/tone can be used to suggest the way light reveals form and makes 2D work look 3D
Chiaroscuro
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Representations of unabsorbed light wavelengths, often simply called colors
Hues
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Having no color or hue; without identifiable hue; mostly blacks, whites, greys, and browns
Achromatic/Neutrals
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Refers to the addition of black to a hue to make it darker in value
Shade
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Refers to the addition of white to a hue to make it lighter in value
Tint
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Refers to the purity of a hue. Pure hues are the brightest
Intensity/Saturation
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Red, yellow, and blue. These Pigment hues cannot be produced by an intermixing of other hues
Primary Hues
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Orange, green, and violet. The mixture of two primaries. These are placed on the color wheel between the two primaries of which they are composed
Secondary Hue
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Red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, blue-violet, and red-violet. Located between the primary and the secondary of which it is composed
Intermediate Hues
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Variations in the value and intensity of a single hue
Monochromatic
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Hues that lie next to eachother on the color wheel; often characterized on the basis of "temperature"
Analogous
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Hues that lie opposite of one another on the color wheel; Thus creates a contrast that intensifies colors
Complementary
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Closely resemble objects from the natural world, or in the case of figurative works, the human form
Representational/Figurative
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What the work or the image in the work depicts
Subjects/Subject Matter
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Works of art so carefully and skillfully modeled they seem to look real by illusion
Trompe l'oeil
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Alters objects from the natural world to emphasize certain qualities or content.
Abstract
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Does not refer to the natural world at all
Nonrepresentational/Nonobjective
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The meaning we get from what we see
Content
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Refers to the symbolic meaning of signs, subject, and images
Iconography
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The combining of parts or elements to form a whole; the structure, organization, or a total form of a work of art
Composition
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The process of organizing visual elements and the product of that process
Design
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The appearance or condition of oneness. Describes the feeling that all the elements in a work belong together and make up a coherent and harmonious whole
Unity
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Acts to counter unity, provides diversity
Variety
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Refers to a repetitive ordering of design elements
Pattern
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The achievement of equilibrium, in which acting influences are held in check by opposing forces
Balance
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The near or exact matching of left and right sides of a three-dimensional form or a two-dimensional composition
Symmetrical Balance
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The left and right sides are not the same, instead various elements are balanced, according to their size and meaning, around a felt or implied center of gravity
Asymmetrical Balance
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A method an artist uses to draw attention to an area
Emphasis
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The principal areaof emphasis in a work of art. The place to which the artist directs the most attention through composition
Focal Point
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When an artist creates neutral areas of lesser interest that keep us from being distracted from the areas of emphasis
Subordination
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Artists use this to influence the way we look at a work of art. They are "paths" for the eye to follow, provided by actual or implied lines
Directional Forces
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The juxtaposition of strongly dissimilar elements
Contrast
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Gives composition unity, continuity, flow, and emphasis. Example: Figure 3.16, Cranes.
Repitition
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The regular or ordered repitition of dominant and subordinate elements or units within a design
Rhythm
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The size relation of one thing to another
Scale
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The size relationship of parts to a whole
Proportion
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The shape or proportions of a picture plane. May be large or small, rectangular or oblong
Format
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Refers to making discriminating judgements, bith favorable and unfavorable
Art Criticism
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Focus attention on the composition of the work and how it may have been influenced by earlier works
Formal Theory
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Consider art as a product of a culture and value system
Contextual Theory
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Pay attention to the artist's expression of a personality or a world-view
Expressive Theory
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