Guyla - A Glossary of Art Terminology

Calendering: In papermaking, the process of pressing paper in order to give it a smooth surface, running it between rollers under strong pressure. Supercalendering produces an even smoother, polished finish.

Calligraphy: In printing and drawing a free and rhythmic use of line to accentuate design. It is seen at its best in Japanese wood-block prints and Chinese scrolls. Also, fine, stylized handwriting using quils, brushes or pens with ink.

Cameo: A small-scale low relief in a stratified or banded material, usually a gemstone such as onyx or sardonyx, but also in calcite alabaster or shell or glass, in which the ground is of one color and the figure in relief in another color or colors.

Cancellation Proof: Final print made once a series has been completed to show that the plate has been mutilated by the artist, and will never be used again to make more prints of the edition.

Canvas: Commonly used as a support for oil or acrylic painting, canvas is a heavy woven fabric made of flax or cotton. Its surface is typically prepared for painting by priming with a ground. Linen, made of flax, is the standard canvas, very strong, sold by the roll and by smaller pieces. An alternative to linen is heavy cotton duck, though it is debated as less acceptable by traditionalists (some find it unacceptable), cotton being less durable, because it's more prone to absorb dampness, and it's less receptive to grounds and size. For use in painting, a piece of canvas is stretched tightly by stapling or tacking it to a stretcher frame. A painting done on canvas and then cemented to a wall or panel is called marouflage. Canvas board is an inexpensive, commercially prepared cotton canvas which has been primed and glued to cardboard, suitable for students and amateurs who enjoy its portability. Also, a stretched canvas ready for painting, or a painting made on such fabric.

Canvas Print: An artwork reproduced directly onto canvas using a variety of printing techniques.

Canvas Scraper: A tool used to scrape oil or acrylic paint from a canvas. A canvas scraper has a curving blade so that its effect is evenly distributed, avoiding cuts and grooves.

Canvas Transfer: Reproduction on canvas which is created by a process such as serigraphy, photomechanical or giclée printing. The texture, brush strokes and aged appearance of an original may all be recreated.

Carbon Black Ink: An ink prepared by incorporating a black carbon pigment, derived from soot or charcoal, into water that has been mixed with a binding agent such as gum arabic or glue. As carbon is an inert material, the ink is chemically very stable, and its color tends not to change over time.

Cartouche: An ornamental figure which serves as a frame for an inscription or a decoration within a space which usually has a scroll-like, or an oval or lozenge shape, this figure having a form which is irregular or fantastic. A cartouche may be painted, sculpted, engraved, etc. Often specifies oblong figures enclosing Egyptian hieroglyphic names of gods and royalty. Also much used in the sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe to decorate walls and the title pages of books. Another sort of cartouche, a plaque attached to a work of art, its frame or base, and inscribed with the title, artist's name, etc., is often referred to by its Italian name, cartoccio.

Carving: A subtractive method of sculpture which consists of removing wood or stone from a single block. The technique of cutting and abrading the surface of a block of material to shape it into a particular form. Among the materials appropriate for carving include clay, chalk, plaster, soft salt blocks, artificial sandstone, soap, and wax.

Casein Engraving: A technique in which a piece of Masonite board is built up to about 1/16 inch thickness in multiple layers of casein. This is then used as a plate for engraving. The engraved surface should be sealed before inking.

Casein Paint: A paint much like opaque watercolor in which casein, a milk glue, is its binder. Casein is a white, tasteless, odorless protein precipitated from milk by rennin. Casein is the basis of cheese, and is used to make plastics, adhesives, and foods, as well as paint. Casein paint can be used on paper or board for light impasto, for underpainting, wall decoration, etc. Casein paint is too inflexible for use on canvas. It dries quickly with a waterproof surface, and may be varnished.

Casting: The process of making a sculpture or other object by pouring liquid material such as clay, metal or plastic into a mold and allowing it to harden, thereby taking on the shape of the confining mold. Reproducing in plaster, bronze, or plastic, an original piece of sculpture made of clay, wax, or similar material.

Catalogue Raisonné: A monograph purporting to contain a complete list of an artist's works, including thorough chronology, descriptions, photographs, notes on provenance, owners, samples of signatures, and a bibliography.

Catalyst: A substance which provokes a chemical reaction in other materials without itself changing. For example, an egg will emulsify water and oil by acting as a catalyst. In resin sculpture, a catalyst must be added in order to cause the resin to harden. An accelerator, usually already added to the resin, reacts with the catalyst and heat is generated which sets off the hardening process.

Celadon: A ceramic glaze containing iron. It must be fired by the reduction method, with its red iron oxide (ferric) reduced to black (ferroso-ferric). The final color of the glaze is either olive green, gray-green, or gray. Celadon ware was developed and perfected during the prosperous Sung dynasty. It was valued by the Chinese largely because of its resemblance to jade. The pigment known as celadon green is also called green earth, the main ingredient of which is celadonite, an iron silicate. Chinese and Korean celadon porcelain was named for the resemblance of its color to this pigment.

Cellulose: The chief constituent of the cell walls of all plants. All plants contain tissue that, when properly processed, will yield cellulose. Cotton in its raw state contains about 91% and is the purest form of natural cellulose. Other sources for papermaking include hemp (77%), softwoods & hardwoods (57% to 65%), and kozo (66% to 77%).

Central Axis Line: This construction line is used to layout the features-blank. It remains perpendicular to the eye level line, even with the head tilted, and runs from forehead to chin, bisecting the face with a line of symmetry. Structurally, the left and right sides of the head/ face are mirror copies of each other. This understanding helps in judgement of measurements of the facial features.

Centrifugal Casting: A means of casting employing the force achieved in a spinning apparatus to push the casting material into a mold and refers to centrifugal force - moving away from an axis; the opposite being centripetal force - moving toward an axis.

Ceramic: Hard glasslike material made from fired or "baked" clay. The art and craft of modelling an object in clay and firing in a kiln. This process produces earthenware and porcelains. Any object made of clay and fired.

Ceramicist: A person who makes ceramics.

Certificate of Authenticity: A warranty card or statement of authenticity of a limited edition print that records the title of the work, the artist's name, the edition size and the print's number within the edition, the number of artist's proofs and the release date. It is a guarantee that the edition is limited and that the image will not be published again in the same form.

Charcoal: A wood carbon formed by slowly heating bundles of twigs in airtight chambers, a process that produces charred wood rather than ash. Because charcoal is composed of large, almost weightless, particles and is both very fragile and friable, allowing it to be erased with even the gentlest of rubbing, it is most suited for broad, rapid preliminary sketching on canvas, panel, paper or wall.

Chiaroscuro: The dramatic use of light and shadow to create a mood or a focal point in a painting. The use of different values to create modelling and to simulate the effects of light and shadow in nature. The introduction of oil paints in the 15th century, replacing tempera, encouraged the development of chiaroscuro, for oil paint allowed a far greater range and control of tone. When the contrast of light and dark is strong, chiaroscuro becomes an important element of composition.

Chiaroscuro Drawing: A manner of drawing by which the usual drawing method of applying dark strokes over light colored paper is reversed. Instead, the composition is defined by light values, such as white gouache, over a dark ground. The etymology of the word is the combination of the two Italian words chiaro, meaning light, and scuro, the word for dark.

Chipping Out: In lost-wax casting, using a blunt chisel to remove the investment.

Chisel: A cutting tool consisting of a metal shaft beveled at one end to form the cutting edge. A chisel is specially designed for cutting a particular material - wood, metal or stone.

Chop: Also called dry stamp or seal. A mark impressed on a print by a workshop or a printer. Some artists and publishers also use their own chop to identify authentic prints.

Chroma: One aspect of colors (other than those in the black-white scale): hue and saturation, or degree of vividness.

Chromalith Replica: A continiuos tone reproduction with hand drawn touch colors, using both serigraphy and lithography.

Chromatic Pigments: All the pigment which are neither black, white, nor gray - the achromatic pigments.

Chromist: One who works with color. An artist craftsman who separates paintings or drawings into individual colors used to print.

Chromolithography: A lithographic process using several stones or plates - one for each color, printed in register. The result is color prints, to be distinguished from colored prints that have the color hand-applied after printing.

Chronocentrism: The self-indulgent tendency of the most recent era and its history, values, etc. To see itself as more important, more highly developed, or more relevant to human experience in general than any other era.

Ciseau: A chisel that cuts or engraves the surface of metal.

Ciselet: A chasing chisel or tracer which dents rather than cuts a metal surface.

Cissing: In painting, an application of color that would have resulted in a flat area of paint (covering with an even thickness), but resulted instead in running streaks and bare spots, usually because of poor wetting of the surface.

Claw Chisel: A stoneworking chisel with the blade fashioned into small teeth. It is used for shaping and leaves striations in the stone surface. A claw chisel with two long points is know as a calcagnolo (Italian) or as a pied de biche (French).

Clay: Mud; moist, sticky dirt. In ceramics, clay is the basic material, usually referring to any of a certain variety of mixtures of such ingredients - fine-grained, firm earthy material that is plastic when wet, brittle when dry, and very hard when heated. The most common types of ceramic clays are earthenware (terra cotta is an example), stonewares, and porcelain. Also, a hardening or nonhardening material having a consistency similar to clay, often called modeling clay or Plasticine.

Cloisonné: Enamels fused inside a wire enclosure (a cloison) on a metal or porcelain ground, forming chambers (cloisons) to receive vitreous enamel pastes. Used earliest and commonly by the Byzantines, with excellent examples dating from before the eleventh century. A rarer type of cloisonné is that in which the wire enclosures surround inlaid stones.

Coated Paper: Paper manufactured with a thin surface coating of clay. This coating produces an extremely sharp, finely detailed image because it prevents ink from penetrating the paper fibers.

Cognitive: Pertaining to the act or processes of knowing and perceiving. Most aesthetic theories argue that art is not a matter of mere decoration because of its various appeals to the various cognitive faculties of the mind.

Coils: Long, snake-like ropes of clay that are used in making pottery. The coil method of making pottery involves building the walls of a pot with a series of coils into the required shape. Once the desired height has been reached the surface can either remain coil-textured or they can be smoothed. Much pottery in primitive cultures was made this way, and remains one of the principle hand-building technique potters use.

Coiling: A method of forming pottery or sculpture from rolls of clay that are smoothed together to form the sides of a jar or pot.

Cold-pressed Paper: A smooth watercolor paper. A paper surface with slight texture produced by pressing the finished sheet between cold cylinders.

Collaborative Print: A print created as a joint effort between artist and master printer.

Collage: A grouping of different textured materials or objects that are glued together. A work of art made by pasting various materials such as bits of paper, cloth, etc. onto a piece of paper, board or canvas.

Collagraph: A contemporary intaglio process in which prints are pulled from a block on which the design that uses a build-up of applied sufaces, such as glue, mat board, cloth, sand, etc, built up like a collage creating a relief. The elements are adhered to a block to build up the areas that will print. The block is then inked by hand and then wiped so that the paper receives the ink from the depressions and printed on an intaglio press.

Collaring: Part of the ceramic technique of throwing a pot on a potter's wheel. Collaring is constricting the top of the pot to prevent the wet clay from flaring out.

Collective Representations: Distinguishable values and sentiments as they link with shared cultural symbols in a given time and place.

Collector's Mark: A small, distinctive mark, usually composed of initials, a design, or a paraph, which collectors and museums apply as a stamp or by hand on a drawing to indicate ownership. A "Studio" or "Estate" stamp is a similar mark applied to drawings found within an artist's studio, often after the artist's death. The presence of a collector's mark on a drawing can help establish the history of the drawing's ownership, known as its provenance.

Color Scheme: The colors an artist uses and the way they are combined in an artwork.

Color-variant Suite: A set of identical prints in different color schemes.

Color Trial Proof: Also called CTP. Prints used to test or change colors for an edition. Usually signed only in the case of a multiple state edition. Rarely more than two or three of these are made.

Color Wheel: A circular grid that represents the colors based on color theory. This grid clearly shows the relationships colors have with each other (complimentary, opposite, etc.).

Combine: Any painted assemblage that is neither simply painting or sculpture, but rather a hybrid painting-sculpture.

Commemorative: Prints made posthumously from the artist's original plates. Limited edition items made to commemorate a specific date or event.

Commission: To order an original work from an artist. The act of hiring someone to execute a certain work or set of works. Such an act is often made in the form of a contract. Commission may refer to a work executed under such an agreement.

Complexity: Closely related to variety, a principle of design, this term refers to a way of combining the elements of art in involved ways, to create intricate and complicated relationships. A picture composed of many shapes of different colors, sizes, and textures would be called complex.

Complimentary After-image: The image (in a complementary color) that is retained briefly by the eye after the stimulus is removed.

Complimentary Colors: Hues directly opposite one another on the color wheel and therefore assumed to be as different from one another as possible. Pairs of colors that have the maximum contrast and so, when set side by side, intensify one another. Green and red, blue and orange, and yellow and violet are complementary colors. When placed side by side, complementary colors are intensified; when mixed together, they produce a neutral or gray color.

Compose: To create, put together, or arrange the elements of art in a work, usually according to the principles of design.

Composition: The organization, design or placement of the individual elements in a work of art. The aim is to achieve balance and proportionality. Usually applied to two-dimensional art.

Condition: An artwork's physical condition influences its market value. Condition typically is described as ranging from excellent or "mint" - completely undamaged and original - to "poor." A poor-condition work may be creased, torn, water or tape-blemished, trimmed smaller than its original size or otherwise damaged.

Construction: An art work that is actually assembled or built on the premises where it is to be shown. Many constructions are meant to be temporary and are disassembled after the exhibition is over.

Conté Crayon: Invented in 1795 by Nicolas-Jacques Conté in response to the short supply of graphite during the Napoleonic Wars, Conté crayons were a mixture of refined graphite and clay. The process of manufacture used less graphite and, by altering the proportion of lead to clay, allowed the degree of hardness of the crayon to be altered. Deficiencies in the quality of the natural chalks, particularly red chalk, appear to have been the impetus at the end of the eighteenth century for the production of Conté crayons from carbon black and iron oxide. Orange-red in color, and slightly less friable than natural chalk, these became known as sanguine Conté crayons. Since the late nineteenth century, many fabricated dry or waxy crayons have been referred to as "Conté crayon."

Contemporary Art: Generally defined as art which was produced during the second half of the twentieth century.

Content: The message conveyed by a work of art - its subject matter and whatever the artist hopes to convey by that subject matter.

Contour: A line which creates a boundary separating an area of space or object from the space around it.

Contrapposto: Literally, "counterpoise." A method of portraying the human figure, especially in sculpture, so that it is apparently relaxed and mobile. A twist or "S" curve of the human figure caused by placing the weight on one foot and turning the shoulder.

Converging: Lines that go towards the same point.

Cool Colors: Those that suggest a sense of coolness.

Copal: A resin made from fossil trees, used as a varnish and in paint media, varying from soft to hard. All generally called “copal.” For years there were arguments about the use of these resins for painting mediums. They can be very brittle so should not be used as a picture varnish. These resins are mined in Africa. Because they are not shipping very much anymore, they have mostly stopped being manufactured.

Coping: A method of splitting away stone from a block preliminary to shaping a carving. Small punch are driven into a block and hit in sequence until the stone splits between them.

Copperplate Engraving: A method of printing using a copper plate into which a design has been cut by a sharp instrument such as a burin; an engraving produced in this way. Invented in south west Germany during the 1430s, the process is the second oldest graphic art after woodcut.

Copy: An intentional imitation, replica, reproduction, or duplication of an original work of art, usually produced in the same medium. Unlike a fake, a copy generally is intended as an emulation of a model rather than as a deception. A variation on copying, complicating the issues involved in distinguishing between originals, copies, and forgeries, are appropriations.

Core: A hollow wax sculpture to be cast in metal is filled with clay or plaster with grog (refractory material). The wax can be modeled directly over a preformed core, and after the sculpture is cast, the core is generally removed in order to make the sculpture less heavy. A core might be either an original model pared down, or it might be poured into a hollow wax cast. A core may contain an armature, and it may hold chaplets.

Core Pin: A chaplet. In lost-wax casting, core pins connect the core placed within a wax model to its surrounding mold. Typically many are employed for a work. They vary in size from thin wire to thick bars of metal, depending on the scale of the model. When the wax is melted from the mold, core pins keep the core from shifting. When molten metal is poured in, they are incorporated into it, and when the investment is broken off, they protrude from the surface of the metal. When they are made of the same alloy as the cast, they are difficult to find once they have been filed down. If they fall out when the core is removed, they leave holes which must be filled. A possible substitute for core pins are refractory spacing blocks.

Cotton Linters: Fibers that adhere to cottonseed after ginning. Used as raw material to produce pulp for cotton fiber content papers.

Coulage: A method of making a sculptural automatism in which one pours a molten material, such as a metal, chocolate, or wax, into cold water. As the material cools it forms a kind of randomized if not entirely accidental form.

Counterproof: A reversed copy of a chalk drawing created by passing the original drawing, together with a moistened blank sheet of paper placed on top of it, through a printing press. The pressure of the press, and the friable nature of the medium, cause the design of the original drawing to be duplicated, albeit in reverse, on the dampened piece of paper. Printmakers found the technique useful because they could work from a design that was the correct way around for engraving a copper plate. The process was also used to adhere or fix more friable media to the support. A characteristic of counterproofs is their flattened appearance, from having been passed through the press.

Countersignature: Signature of someone other than the artist that adds either additional authenticity or historical value to an artwork.

Crackle: In ceramic glazes, a network of fine craze lines, produced intentionally or accidentally, especially associated with oriental and modern porcelain. Also, in oil painting, when the paint's surface is broken by a network of small cracks.

Craft: Since the Renaissance, fine art has distinguished itself from craft in the conventional sense of "mere" manual dexterity or technical skill. In the era of mechanical reproduction this notion of craft has generally suffered a loss of respect.

Craftsmanship: Aptitude, skill, and manual dexterity in the use of tools and materials.

Crayon: Made in the form of sticks, crayons are composed of colored pigments combined with oily, fatty, or waxy binding media. The type and proportion of the binder within the overall mixture determines the consistency, hardness, texture and tenacity of the crayon. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the term was used to describe fabricated chalks made by mixing ground natural black or red chalk with some form of filler and binder, as well as charcoal that had been modified into drawing sticks by soaking them in oils and soaps. Because the binder is always greasy or oily, the stroke of a piece of fabricated chalk or other crayon is usually more homogeneous and intense than that of the drier and more friable mark left by natural chalk. Today crayon has become a generic term to describe any color stick made with an oily or greasy binder, such as lithographic or children's wax crayons.

Crazing: A network of cracks which sometimes forms in ceramic glazes; crackle. It may be desirable or not, depending on the artist's wishes. It is caused by the glaze and clay body contracting at different rates as they cool after firing. A similar pattern in the surface of oil paints is known as crackle instead of crazing. Crackle in oil paintings is less likely when the painter follows the rule of fat over lean -- when oil colors will be applied in layers (coats), the first layer should be leanest (least oil) followed by layers with progressively more fat (more oil.) Following this principle results in a work less likely to crack in aging. Similarly, in order to encourage crazing, later coats should have less oil than earlier ones.

Critic: One who analyses, evaluates, or expresses an opinion on a work of art, from a cluster of Greek words meaning to decide, to discern, to judge.

Crop: To trim one or more of a picture's edges, or to place one or more of the edges of an image so that only part of a subject can be seen within the image.

Cross-Hatching: An area of closely spaced lines intersecting one another, used to create a sense of three-dimensionality on a flat surface, especially in drawing and printmaking.

Crucible: A heatproof vessel in which metal is made molten for pouring into a mold.

Culture: A highly ambiguous notion, "culture" has directly opposed connotations, and it always best to consider carefully the context of its use by individual authors. For some it means high art and only high art. There is sometimes a tacit assumption that "culture" refers only to creative, non-utilitarian endeavours. "Culture" may also mean all things produced by human agency: decorative artifacts, high art, political ideologies, ritual beliefs, social customs, and so on. It is equally possible to reason that humanity and all its products exist within nature, however superficially different they appear to be.

Cure: The hardening process of a material which is worked in a moist or liquid form, such as resin and concrete. To mature.

Curvilinear: Stressing the use of curved lines as opposed to rectilinear which stresses straight lines.

Cutout: In art, a piece of paper cut into a shape and arranged with other cutouts to form designs and picture.

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