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Objet trouve, see: Found Object.
Oceanic art
From the South Pacific, including Australasia.
Oeuvre
the total output of an artist. Also: a work of art.
Offset litho
lithographic technique in which ink is transferred from a plate to a rubber
roller, and then onto the paper.
Oil painting
A medium where pigments are mixed with drying oils, such as linseed, walnut,
or poppyseed, which found great favour due to its brilliance of detail,
its rich colour, and its wider tonal range. Popularized during the 15th
century in Northern Europe (whose climate did not favour fresco works),
foremost pioneers of oil paint techniques included (in Holland) Hubert
and Jan Van Eyck, and (in Italy) Leonardo Da Vinci.
Oils
There are various types of oil which are used as binders and drying agents
(oil plus pigment dries by a process of oxidation by absorbing oxygen
from the air) by oil painters. Linseed oil, made from flax seeds, adds
gloss and transparency to paints and dries very thoroughly (within 3-5
days), making it ideal for underpainting. Stand oil is a thicker type
of linseed oil, with a slower drying time (7-14 days), which is often
diluted with (eg) turpentine, and used for glazing to produce a smooth,
enamel-like finish with minimal traces of brushmarks. Poppyseed oil, much
paler, more transparent and less likely to yellow than linseed, is often
employed for white or lighter colours. Poppyseed oil takes longer to dry
than linseed oil (5-7 days), so it is perfect for working wet on wet.
Walnut oil is a thin, pale yellow-brown oil (dries in 4-5 days) which
is commonly used to make oil paint more fluid.
Orders of Architecture
the five Classic orders, each composed of a column, having a base, shaft,
capital, and entablature with architrave frieze, and cornice. There are
three orders of Greek architecture:
Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. These were adapted by the Romans, who added
Tuscan and Composite.
Origami paper folding
Reputedly invented in Japan around 1600, the Chinese version known
as "zhezhi" may be older.
Ottonian art
Murals, illuminated manuscripts and architectural sculpture of the period
919 to early 11th century, under the Ottonian emperors.
Outsider art
Refers to works by those outside of mainstream society. Outsider art broadly
includes folk art and ethnic art as well as by prisoners, the mentally
ill and others neither trained in art nor making their works to sell them.
Overpainting
The final layer of paint that is applied over the under painting or under
layer after it has dried. The idea behind layers of painting is that the
under painting is used to define the basic shapes and design so that the
overpainting can be used to fill in the details of the piece.
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Paintbrush
Bristles may derive from a variety of animals including boar, wolf, squirrel
and badger as well as synthetic. Red sable hair is considered the finest.
Different shapes are employed for different types of painting tasks: larger,
more indistinct areas of painting such as the sky in landscapes were typically
done with flat or round-tipped hogs hair brushes, while specific detail
was painted with fine pointed sable brushes. In addition, feathers were
sometimes employed to smooth out areas of paint to remove visible brushwork.
Badger Brushes were used to blend adjacent areas of different tones.
Painterly
a term coined by the art historian Heinrich Wolfflin to describe one of
two contrasting styles in painting: linear, which emphasizes contours;
painterly, which emphasizes colour and tone; hence painterliness.
Painting
process of applying paint. Also: object produced by applying paint to
a flat support, e.g. a wall or canvas.
For history and famous painters, see Fine
Art Painting.
Palette
slab of wood, metal or glass used by the artist for mixing paint. Also:
figuratively: the range of colours used by the artist. See: Colour
Mixing Tips.
Palette knife
spatula-shaped knife for mixing or applying thick, bodied paint.
Panel painting
refers to the use of wooden panels, as support: a practice which was widespread
until the appearance of canvas during the 15th century. In Flanders, Holland,
France and England, oak panels were most popular; in Germany and Austria
oak, beech, lime, chestnut, and cherrywood was used; while in Italy poplar
was also employed. Dry seasoned planks were primed with several coats
of "size" - a glue derived from animal skins - and gesso, a
combination of powdered calcium sulfate (gypsum) and animal glue. One
advantage of panels, was their extremely smooth surface, which made them
ideal for painting fine detail.
Panorama
painting of a view or landscape; especially large-scale painting around
a room, or rolled on a cylinder.
Papier Colle ("pasted paper")
collage of paper/card, first used in 1912 by Georges Braque.
Parietal Art
Prehistoric paintings, engravings or relief sculptures on cave walls and
ceilings.
Pastel
Crayon made from pigment mixed with gum and water and pressed into a stick-shaped
form, or work executed in this medium. Because pastel tends to be light
and chalky in tone, the word is also used to describe pale, light colours.
Pastoral
idealized landscape painting or country scene.
Pensieri
small models made as preliminaries to larger models, when making sculpture.
Performance Art
Contemporary form; see also Happenings.
Perspective
A term which refers to the "depth" of a picture - that is, the
illusion of three-dimensional space on the picture's two-dimensional surface
- whereby forms in the background appear smaller than those in the foreground.
The "single point" or linear perspective system was pioneered
by Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) in Florence in relation to his architecture.
Mathematically constructed so that all receding parallel lines seem to
converge towards each other, eventually meeting at a single point (the
vanishing point), this method of perspective was employed by artists from
the early 15th century onwards. Curiously, Dutch and Flemish painters
of the early 15th century developed their own independent method of perspective.
Petroglyphs
Primitive rock carvings and engravings.
Phalerae
metal boss or disc, worn as an ornament or decorating a horse's harness.
Commonly seen in Hallstatt and La Tene style Celtic art.
Photography
Now a fine arts medium.
Photomontage
picture combining juxtaposed photographic images.
Photorealism
a hyper-realistic style of painting in which an image is created in such
detail that it resembles a photograph.
Pictographs (Prehistoric)
Also called pictograms, they are images typically on rock faces which
express an idea or information.
Picturesque
quaint, charming. From the 18th century onwards "The Picturesque"
acquired a more specific meaning, particularly in connection with landscape
painting, and architecture; it suggested a deliberate roughness or rusticity
of design, and was to some extent transitional between Classicism and
Romanticism.
Pieta
representation of the Virgin Mary holding the dead body of Christ.
Pigment
the colour element in paint. Pigments can consist of a wide variety of
ingredients, including minerals, natural/artificial dyestuffs, and other
synthetic compounds. See: Colour
Pigments: Types, History.
Plains Art
describes the native American
Indian art practised by the Sioux, Commanche and Blackfeet tribes,
on the Western Plains of the United States.
Plastic
used in art to describe anything that can be molded or modeled; the opposite
of Glyptic.
Plastic art
three-dimensional forms of art such as sculpture, pottery, and architecture.
Plein air painting
refers to the spontaneous outdoor method of painting from nature - usually
landscapes - as perfected by Claude Monet among others.
Pochade
sketch, especially one made outdoors.
Polymorphic painting
multiform painting, produced by some modern kinetic artists. The appearance
of the work changes according to the position of the observer.
Pop Art
Sixties movement led by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. See: Andy
Warhol's Pop Art.
Polyptych
painted work (usually an altarpiece) of more than three panels; see also
Diptych, Triptych.
Porcelain
hard, refined ceramic stoneware, invented by the Chinese in the 7th century.
See Chinese Porcelain.
Portrait Art
Drawn or painted image of a person, usually naturalistic and identifiable;
hence portraiture, portraitist. See also Bust.
Poster Art
Either advertising lithographic designs, propaganda posters or reproductions
of famous paintings. For more details, see: History
of Poster Art.
Potter's wheel
Horizontal revolving disk used to shape clay by the ceramicist.
Pottery
A form of ceramic art, in which wet clay is shaped, dried, glazed and
fired in a kiln to create a variety of vessels, and ornaments. For history
and styles of Antiquity, see: Greek
Pottery.
Poussinist
adherent of the French late 17th-century theory of poussinism: the supremacy
of line (draftsmanship) over colour.
Prehistoric art
Creative expression of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods
of the Stone Age. For a chronological dateline, see: Prehistoric
Art Timeline.
Primary colours
red, blue, and yellow; the colours that can be mixed to produce other
colours, but cannot themselves be produced from mixtures.
Primitivism/Primitive art
Paintings and drawings by people outside the influence of traditional
Western styles. Also: works by intuitive painters or sculptors with a
"naive" style commonly due to their lack of formal arts training.
Print
any image, pattern, or lettering produced on fabric or paper by a variety
of graphic processes. Also: (verb) to make an impression or image by such
a process. Usually means letter-printing; printmaking involves producing
an image that is aesthetically pleasing, or illustrative.
Printmaking
A term which applies to fine art printing processes, such as etching,
engraving, lithography, woodcut, and silkscreen, in which multiple images
are replicated from the same metal plate, stone, wood or linoleum block,
or silkscreen, with monochrome or colour printing inks.
Proportion
in painting, sculpture and architecture, this describes the ratio between
the respective parts and the whole work, as annunciated (for instance)
in the Canon of Proportion, a mathematical formula establishing ideal
proportions of the various parts of the human body.
Protestant Reformation Art
A less overt, more humble, smaller-scale type of religious art, triggered
by Luther's revolt (1517) and exemplified by the work of Pieter Bruegel
the Elder, Rembrandt and Jan Vermeer.
Provenance
A term meaning the origins of a work of art, specifically its history
of ownership since its creation. Museum curators and fine art research
experts at auctioneers like Christie's and Sotheby's study a work's provenance
to establish its authenticity.
Public Art
A loose term which, in practice, means artworks financed out of the public
purse. Can also mean works (usually sculpture) sited in public places,
such as the Chicago Picasso.
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