UNIT 1
VOCAB:
Stone markers: Markers used to denote important religious or civic sites or to be used as burial markers.
Abstraction: Art that does not depict an actual person, place, or thing as it looks in the real world.
Acropolis: A "high city" – generally the most important area of the city, which would be built on a hill.
Burin: A pointed tool used for engraving or incising.
Dolmen: Several large stones (megaliths) capped with a covering slab, erected in prehistoric times.
Frieze: A broad horizontal band of sculpted or painted decoration near the top of the object.
Ground: A coating applied to a canvas or some other surface to prepare that surface for painting; also refers to the background.
Ground line: In paintings and reliefs, a painted or carved base line on which figures appear to stand.
Hand thrown: Pottery object not made on a pottery wheel.
Ideogram: A simple, picture-like sign filled with implicit meaning.
Incise: To cut into a surface with a sharp instrument; also a method of decoration, especially on metal and pottery.
Medium (media): The substance or agency in which an artist works; also, in painting, the vehicle (usually liquid) that carries the pigment.
Megalith (adj., megalithic): Literally, "great stone"; a large, roughly hewn stone used in the construction of monumental prehistoric structures.
Menhir: A prehistoric monolith, uncut or roughly cut, standing singly or with others in rows or circles.
Monolith: A column that is all in one piece (not composed of drums); a large, single block or piece of stone used in megalithic structures.
Monumental: In art criticism, any work of art of grandeur and simplicity, regardless of its size.
Mural: A wall painting; a fresco is a type of mural medium and technique.
Naturalism: The doctrine that art should adhere as closely as possible to the appearance of the natural world.
Paleolithic: The "old" Stone Age, during which humankind produced the first art objects beginning ca. 30,000 B.C.
Pigment: An insoluble powder that is mixed with water, oil, or another base to produce paint.
Popul Vuh: Mayan creation story.
Provenance: A record of ownership of a work of art used as a guide to authenticate it.
Radiocarbon dating: Method of measuring the decay rate of carbon isotopes in organic matter to provide dates for organic materials such as wood and fiber.
Silhouette: A portrait in profile showing the outline only and filled in with black.
Twisted perspective: AKA Composite View – a convention of representation in which part of a figure is shown in profile and another part of the same figure is shown frontally.
Trilithon: A pair of monoliths topped with a lintel; found in a megalithic structure.
Anthropomorphic: Ascribing human characteristics to nonhuman things.
Composite view: See twisted perspective.
Contour line: Outline of a figure or shape.
Cromlech: A circle of monoliths; also called henge.
Lintel: A beam used to span an opening.
Mesolithic: The "middle" prehistoric period, between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic ages.
Neolithic: The "new" Stone Age, approximately 7000-3000 B.C.
Sarsen: A form of sandstone used for the megaliths at Stonehenge.
Sculpture in the round: Freestanding figures, carved or modeled in three dimensions – not attached to another surface (except a base).
Slip: A suspension in water of clay and/or other materials used to coat the outer part of a piece of pottery in the production of ceramic ware.
Subtractive sculpture: Sculpture technique in which materials are taken away from the original mass, i.e., carving.
Sympathetic magic: Magic predicated on the belief that one thing or event can affect another at a distance as a consequence of a sympathetic connection between them, like a voodoo doll.
