art history definitions
Terms
undefined, object
copy deck
- ocher
- an impure iron ore which is usually yellow and sometimes red
- twisted perspective
- presents the profile of the subject, but also a complete (and therefore most descriptive) view of its anatomy
- narrative art
- the elements in a work of art are arranged to tell a story
- megaliths
- \"great stones,\" could reach a height of over 15 feet and weigh over 40 tons
- trilithon
- megaliths arranged in a three-stone construction; two stones would serve as posts and one as a cap (also POST AND LINTEL CONSTRUCTION)
- lintel
- The cap in the trilithon
- cromlech
- Circle henge of stones
- composite view
- of twisted perspective; most “informative†picture, used until ca. 500 BCE
- bucrania
- Bovine skulls
- lapis lazuli
- a rich, azure-blue stone
- registers
- a series of superimposed rows in a pictorial narrative
- glazed brick
- bricks painted and then fired to fuse the color with the baked clay
- bas-relief
- Low level of relief
- apadana
- The great hall of the palace
- mastabas
- Structures built over walled graves, pyramid shaped
- Imhotep
- Earliest named artist, royal diplomat and priest
- drummed columns
- the column is composed of stacked cylindrical segments as opposed to being cut from one stone
- fluted columns
- closely spaced parallel grooves giving the appearance of bundled reeds
- capital
- Head of the column
- engaged columns
- attached to the wall rather than freestanding
- in situ
- In place
- abrasion
- rubbing or sanding the surface
- Sympathetic Magic
- Prehistoric painters may have produced pictures of bison lying down to ensure that hunters found their prey asleep, or by symbolically killing pictures of bison guaranteeing the hunters triumph over the beast itself.