Guyla - A Glossary of Art Terminology

Naive Art: The style of naive painting is characterized by a careful, simplifying approach, non-scientific perspective, bright colors, and often, an enchantingly literal depiction of imaginary scenes. Art made by people with no formal art training.

Narrative Painting: A painting where a story serves as the dominant feature.

Nature: The material world and its beauties, especially those parts remaining in a primitive, untouched state, unchanged by humans.

Nature Print: A print made by rolling ink on natural objects (leaves, flowers, grass) and pressing out on paper.

Natutalistic: Descriptive of a work of art that closely resembles forms in the natural world. Synonymous with representational.

Needle File: A thin, pointed jeweler's file.

Needlepoint: Decorative needlework on canvas, usually in a diagonal stitch covering the entire surface of the material.

Negative Shape: A background or ground shape seen in relation to foreground or figure shapes.

Negative Space: The space in a painting around the objects depicted.

Netsuke: In Japanese art, a belt toggle, often carved ivory or wood, and in the form of an animal or animals, used to secure a purse or small container suspended on a silk cord from the sash of a kimono.

Neutral: Having no hue - black, white, or grey. A neutral can be made by mixing complementary hues.

Newsprint: The type of paper on which newspapers are typically printed. This is a very inexpensive paper, manufactured from wood pulp, popular for use by students and for the making of sketches and preliminary drawings. It takes charcoal, soft lead pencil, and litho crayon well. Since it turns brown and becomes brittle on relatively short aging, it should not be considered for permanent work. Newsprint is available in pads, single sheets, and rolls.

Nice: Pleasing, agreeable, or attractive in appearance, or courtesy and polite, or respectable, or subtle. So loosely positive a term as nice should be used as sparingly as possible.

Nichrome: A nickel-based alloy able to withstand high temperatures.

Nickel: A silver-white, hard, malleable, barely ductile, rust-resistant metal, used mainly in alloys and for plating.

Niello: A soft, black alloy of sulfur with copper (copper sulphide), gold (gold sulphide), silver (silver sulphide), or lead (lead sulphide), used to ornament metal objects. Designs incised on the objects are filled with the alloy (usually as a powder), which is then fused with the metal by means of heat. Also, to decorate using this process, or the objects decorated with it.

Nimbus: A halo or a circle of radiant light around the heads of God, Christ, the Virgin Mary, or a saint. A type of aureole, gloriole, or glory. It indicates divinity or holiness, though originally it was placed around the heads of kings and gods as a mark of distinction.

Nise-e: In Japanese art, a portrait in sketchy outline.

Nitric Acid: A mineral acid used as an oxidizing agent in etching.

Nonferrous: Not composed of or containing iron. Nonferrous metals are often used in order to avoid iron's potential for rusting or magnetization.

Non-Objective: Completely non-representational; pure design; fully abstract. The real subject matter is the composition of the drawing or painting itself.

Nonrepresentational Art: Without reference to anything outside itself-without representation. Also called nonobjective-without recognizable objects.

Nostalgia: A bittersweet longing for things, persons, or situations of the past. The condition of being homesick; homesickness.

Nude: An unclothed live model, or a work of art representing a person without clothing. Also a name for a color representative of caucasion skin color (sometimes called flesh or peach).

Numbered: Refers to labeling on a print of its place in the order of its production, when it is part of an edition of a limited quantity of impression. Also see limited edition and multiple.

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