Art Terms

composition:
The arrangement of forms in a work of art.

content:
A work of art is usually discussed in terms of its subject matter, form, and content. Content refers to the intellectual, psychological, spiritual, narrative, or aestheic aspects of the work.

form:
An artist uses form as a vehicle for rendering a particular type of subject matter. The formal elements of a work of art consist of the groupings and combinations of shapes.

medium:
The specific material used by an artist, such as oil and brush; also, the vehicle used, such as sculpture, painting, or photography.

monotype:
A print made by painting on a sheet of glass and then transfering the wet paint to paper. It is different from most prints in that the image is unique.

oeuvre:
French word for an artist's body of work.

pastel:
Drawing material made of ground white chalk and colored powder.

perspective:
A system for representing three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface. Objects in the distance traditionally appear smaller and those in the foreground, or those closest to the viewer, larger.

pictorial space:
The illusion of space, whether three- or two- dimensional, created by an artist on the two-dimensional surface of the canvas or paper.

picture plane:
The flat surface used by an artist as a starting point for building an illusion on a two-dimensional surface. The picture plane is not the medium itself but an imaginary surface, almost like a sheet of glass or an invisible field on which elements such as spatial illusion, perspective, and form exist.

print:
Any one of multiple impressions made on paper from the same plate, block, screen, or transfer paper.

subject matter:
The topic or theme used by an artist as the means to convey artistic expression, for example, landscape, still life, the human figure.

Terms Relating to Degas

avant-garde:
Used to describe art that ventures away from the current mainstream, often experimental in nature. The term is usually applied to art or artists who are doing something new and unusual, something that departs from convention.

bourgeois:
Of or relating to the social middle class.

Bourgeoisie:
The middle class.

dram shop:
Bar, saloon.

Dreyfusard, anti-Dreyfusard:
The terms applied to those who, respectively, supported or denounced Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish army officer who was wrongly convicted of treason by the French army in 1894. The Dreyfus Affair polarized many of the Impressionists and their contemporaries.

École des Beaux-Arts:
Official, influential French school for the training of painters, graphic artists, sculptors, and architects.

genre painting:
The use of scenes of everyday life as an artist’s subject matter.

plein air:
French term for open air, used to describe artists who painted out-of-doors and paintings that conveyed a feeling of the outdoors.

Salon:
The group of French artists and art teachers who presided over public exhibitions during the nineteenth century. Artists had to adhere to conventional methods of presenting images in order to gain admittance to the official Salon.

Second Empire:
Term applied to the period of time when Napoleon III reigned as emperor (1852-70). Also used to describe a style of art produced in France from the Second Republic (1848-1852), when Napoleon III also reigned, through the Second Empire.