Guyla - A Glossary of Art Terminology

Icon: Things or persons that are considered the most admirable or recognizable examples of something.

Iconoclast: Originally, one who destroys sacred religious images. The original iconoclasts destroyed countless works of art - religious images which were the subject of controversy among Christians of the Byzantine Empire, especially in the eighth and ninth centuries, when iconoclasm was at its height. Those who opposed images did not simply destroy them, although many were demolished; they also attempted to have the images barred from display and veneration. During the Protestant Reformation images in churches were again felt to be idolatrous and were once more banned and destroyed. In the nineteenth century iconoclast took on the secular sense that it has today: one who breaks traditions, doctrines, convictions, or practices.

Iconography: Pictorial illustration of a subject, or the collected representations illustrating a subject. Also, the study of subject matter and symbolism in the visual arts, as in collections of pictures constituting a complete visual record of a subject, or a visual dictionary. Identification of subject matter in works of art.

Ideal: A conception of something in its absolute perfection. Or, a standard or model of excellence. Also, an ultimate object of endeavor; a goal. And, an honorable or worthy principle or aim.

Idealism: As opposed to realism, the representation of things according to a preconceived ideal form or type. The pursuit of things in an ideal form. In philosophy, any of several theories which hold that reality has no objective existence but is produced in some way by the mind.

Idealize: To give an ideal form or value to something. The representation of things according to a preconception of ideal form or type; a kind of aesthetic distortion to produce idealized forms.

Idealized: Describes art in which people, objects, or nature have been altered or modified to present perfect or ideal types. Regarded or treated as ideal, or made or envisioned as ideal.

Identity: The characteristics by which a thing, a person, or a people is definitively known. Individuality in some ways, and sameness (identical) in others.

Ideogram: A simple picture-like sign or graphic symbol used either in a signage or a writing system, so that it represents a thing or an idea instead of a letter or specific word.

Ideology: A body of ideas reflecting the social needs and aspirations of an individual, a group, a class, or a culture; examples are ethnocentrism and class consciousness. A set of doctrines, beliefs, or ideals that form the basis of a political, economic, or other system which attempts to put experience of the world into some order.

Idiom: A style or technique characteristic of an individual artist, period, movement, or medium. A potter might be said to be working in the idiom of early New England potters; or a painter, that she or he works in the abstract expressionist idiom.

Illumination: Hand-drawn decoration or illustration in a manuscript, especially prevalent in medieval art.

Illusion: A deceptive or misleading image or idea. Also refferd to as trompe l'oeil, "fools the eye".

Illustration: A general term used for a drawing or an original work of art. A work of art that usually seeks to join visual and discursive information for the purposes of communication.

Illustrator: A person who creates design and pictures for books, magazines, or other media.

Image: A picture, idea, or impression of a person, thing, or idea; or a mental picture of a person, thing, or idea. The word imagery refers to a group or body of related images.

Image Size: The size of the work's, not the overall paper size or size including the framing.

Imagery: The art of making pictures to represent or evoke a particular thing.

Imagination: The mental power to present things to the mind even without their presence to the senses. Only those details pertain to an image of imagination that have been put into them by imagination. This stands in sharp contrast with images of perception which can be further detailed by taking in more details through the senses.

Imagines: In ancient Rome, wax portraits of ancestors. This is the plural form of the word; the singular form is imago.

Imbrication: An overlapping, as of scales or tiles.

Imitationalism: A theory of art which places emphasis on the literal qualities. According to this theory, the most important thing about a work of art is the realistic representation of subject matter. A work is considered successful if it looks like and reminds the audience of what is seen in the real world.

Immutable: Not subject to change.

Impasto: A painting technique where the thickness of the paint applied to a canvas or panel is enough to have actual form. When paint is so heavily applied that it stands up in lumps with the tracks of the brush clearly evident, it is said to be heavily impasted. Also; outstanding heavy layers or strokes or any thickness or roughness of paint or deep brush marks, as distinguished from a flat, smooth surface.

Implied: Something that is suggested or inferred, rather than directly apparent.

Implied Line: A line that is visually suggested by the arrangement of forms, lights and darks, or other elements in a work of art.

Imprematura: Term used in oil painting. It is a thin, transparent glaze of color. This glaze is applied to the surface over a drawing. It goes directly on the white surface. It is sometimes called a veil.

Impression: A print from an engraving. A single print made from a block, plate, or stone; or the act of impressing-- the contact between the printing surface and the surface on which the print is made. A poor impression is usually caused by wear of the plate or block, or by under inking. Sometimes refers more loosely to a mark left on a surface by pressing something against it, or to a single or initial coat of color.

Impression Number: The number assigned to a print in an edition.

Inanimate: Neither moving nor having other qualities associated with living organisms.

Incising: Cutting into a surface, typically in metal, stone, or pottery, often used for text and decoration.

Incongruity: A state of two or more things lacking harmony, being incompatible, inconsistent, absurdly combined.

Incrassate: To make a liquid thicker, or to allow a liquid to become thicker; to thicken; inspissate.

India Ink: Name commonly used for black drawing ink. India ink originated in China, but was named so by the fact that the pigment used in making it came from India. The pigment is lampblack, bone black, or carbon black. Traditionally, it is mixed with a hot hide glue in the proportions of 1 part pigment to 2 or 3 parts glue and dried into sticks. These are rubbed on stone and the particles mixed with water. When it is manufactured in liquid form and sold in bottles, the pigment is mixed with a little shellac which makes it water-resistant. This ink is considered quite lightfast. It is not to be confused with the inks made for many technical pens, many of which are not water-resistant and not lightfast. India ink can be used with pens or brushes.

Indirect Carving: A carving technique in which a sculpture is made by copying the proportions of a small scale model.

Indirect Casting: Lost-wax metal casting in which the model that is "lost" is not the original model, but a wax cast from a piece mold taken from the original model. This second wax model is sometimes called an indirect casting, or an intermodel. If the indirect casting is hollow, a core is pored into it. Indirect casting has numerous advantages because it:
  1. ensures an even wall of wax.
  2. ensures an even wall of metal.
  3. enables repairs to be made if part of the cast is defective.
  4. enables another version to be made if the whole cast fails.
  5. permits the multiple edition of a sculpture, because the original model is preserved.

Inflatable: A sculpture made from plastic sheet or PVC which achieves its intended form when filled with air, or another gas.

Inkblot or Ink Blot: An image formed by dripping ink onto a piece of paper, and then folding the paper in half. Although inkblots are invariably symmetrical, making them is largely aleatoric - their images depending greatly upon accident or chance. Painted versions of inkblots are called blotto paintings.

Inlay: To set material such as metal, stone, wood, tile, or ivory precisely into a depressed ground or surface in order to create a design or picture.

Inscribe and Inscription: To mark as with letters or numbers, often a short label, as an artist might formally mark his name, a title, the year, a dedication, etc. Such a label can be called an inscription.

Insouciance: A lack of concern; nonchalance.

Installation: Art made for a specific space or designed for a specific site, more often indoors than out. This term is used in art to mean any work that is designed to be set up for viewing by the public. Installations may be temporary or permanent. Generally, most are only installed for a short time and then either moved or dismantaled. They can include any number or type of objects and activities imaginable.

Intaglio: All-metal plate engraving and etching processes where incised or copperplate printing uses a principle opposite that of relief printing. The image to be printed is sunk into the printing surface and filled with a greasy printer's ink. Then the surface is carefully wiped clean so that the ink remains only in the incised design. The great pressure required to pick up the intaglio printing leaves a visible plate mark within the margin of the uncompressed paper. The intaglio techniques are all forms of engraving on metal, usually copper, and they are distinguished from the other techniques by the method of printing. When the plate has been engraved by one or more of the processes to be described and several processes are often used in combination the plate is dabbed all over with a thin kind of printing ink, which is then rubbed off again with muslin or the palm of the hand, leaving the ink in the engraved furrows. A piece of paper is then damped and laid on the plate and both are rolled through a heavy press not unlike a mangle. The damp paper is forced into the engraved lines and so picks up the ink in them: when dry the engraved lines stand up in relief. This explains the great difference between a copper engraving, or any other intaglio print, and a wood engraving which has been out in a very similar way the ink lies on the surface of a wood engraved block instead of forced into the lines cut (intagliate) into the metal plate. A wood engraving cannot be printed in the intaglio manner as it would break under the pressure.Some of the processes included in this category are line or copper engraving, etching - including soft-ground etching, mezzotint, aquatint, drypoint, stipple and crayon engraving and the related processes. Another form of intaglio consists of cutting forms out of a surface so as to form a kind of relief in reverse. The most common example is an engraved sealring, hence the opposite term is often cameo.

Intarsia: A type of inlay work, primarily in wood and sometimes in mother-of-pearl, ivory, bone, marble, etc. This may result in either pattern or picture.

Intensity: The brightness or dullness of a color. The degree of purity or brilliance of a color. Also known as chroma or saturation.

Intention: What the artist means to convey in a work of art, as opposed, for instance, to the way the work is interpreted.

Interesting: A subjective evaluation of something or someone stimulating or holding attention. Interest is an important ingredient in motivation for producing art, as well as for studying and enjoying it in other ways.

Intermediate Colors: Also known as tertiary colors, they are produced by mixing unequal amounts of two primary colors. Intermediate colors are located between the primary and secondary colors on a color wheel.

Intimation: The effect of a work of art upon its beholder of inducing the viewer to spontaneously supply the experiential dimension needed for an effective communication of an artistic expression or representation. It is irreducible to the unimodal, perceptual awareness of reproductive elements in the work, but instead, is an effect of the work's artistic presentation. It surpasses mere third-person recognition of some experience's perceivable expression, but introduces a second-person, empathetic acquaintance with it.

Intonaco: The final layer of plaster on which a fresco is painted.

Invert: To turn inside out or upside down. Or, to reverse the position, order, or condition of something.

Investment: A thick jacket of refractory material built around a wax model which forms the mold in lost-wax casting. It can be made of plaster or clay mixed with grog, applied in layers, with the finest and softest layers painted or gently worked over the wax model, and the outer layers reinforced with wire.

Iridescence: A surface displaying a lustrous rainbowlike brightness, such as seen on oil slicks, in the plumage of some birds and on the wings of some butterflies. Opalescence includes iridescence, but upon a base of whiteness.

Iris Print: A recently developed printing process using advanced technology to create a lustrous, continuous-tone digital print hat meets or exceeds the quality of traditional lithography and screen printing. Organic, water-based inks in four colors are applied to the paper's surface from tiny jets one tenth the diameter of a human hair. Also called Giclée.

Iron-gall Ink: A black ink produced by crushing and soaking gall nuts in water so as to extract the tannic and gallic acids within the nuts. Ferrous sulfate and gum arabic are then added. Iron-gall is the ink most commonly used in European drawings from the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries. When exposed to light, the ink can change in color from black to brown. Consequently, although today many old master drawings appear to have been drawn with brown ink, originally they would have been black. The natural acidity of the ink can also have a corrosive effect on the fibers of the paper, actually eating the paper away. There is at present no known preventative action that can be taken to halt the ultimately destructive effect of the ink.

Isocephaly: The arrangement of figures so that the heads are at the same height.

Inspiration: That which evokes ideas. A source that kindles emotions or impulses, or acts as an influence to promote creativity.

Issue Price: The original price of an artwork, usually a print, when first offered for retail sale.

Ivory: Tusks or teeth of mammals, especially those from elephants, walrus, hippopotamus, and whale; or the smooth, hard, yellowish-white material of which they consist; or a thing made of ivory. May also refer to the color of ivory, a pale grayish yellow to yellowish white.

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