Art & Art History Vocabulary: 100 Key English Terms
English is the shared language of international museums, auction houses, art magazines and biennials, and much of art history is taught and published in it. This glossary explains the core vocabulary of art movements, painting and sculpture techniques, materials, museums, the art market and contemporary art in plain English and Turkish, with examples from galleries, classrooms and exhibition texts. It is written for art students, artists and museum visitors who want to read, talk and write about art with confidence.
100 terms
9 topics
48 core terms
200 example sentences
Read, understand, keep going
No account needed. Read the meaning, see where the term is used, then study the examples. Click any word in the lesson for help. You can also select a word and press Alt + Enter.
Movements & Periods
art movement
noun
Meaning
A group of artists who share similar ideas, aims or styles during a particular period, and the art they produce, such as Impressionism or Cubism.
Where you use it
Central in art history classes, museum texts and exam questions. A movement emerges, develops, influences later artists or fades; artists belong to, lead or break away from it. Many movement names end in -ism and are written with a capital letter.
Examples
Surrealism was one of the most influential art movements of the twentieth century.
Which art movement do you think this painting belongs to?
Common phrases
a major art movement · found a movement · belong to a movement · avant-garde movement
The period in European history, roughly from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, when art and learning were renewed by a strong interest in ancient Greek and Roman culture.
Where you use it
Always capitalised and usually used with the: the Renaissance. Art historians speak of the Early, High and Northern Renaissance; leading names include Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael and Dürer. It is also used before nouns: Renaissance art, a Renaissance palace.
Examples
The Renaissance began in Italian cities such as Florence before spreading north.
Renaissance painters studied anatomy to make their figures more lifelike.
Usage note
Americans usually say REN-uh-sahns; British speakers often say ri-NAY-suhns. Both are correct.
Common phrases
the Italian Renaissance · the High Renaissance · the Northern Renaissance · Renaissance art
A French art movement of the 1870s and 1880s whose painters, such as Monet, Renoir and Morisot, tried to capture light, colour and passing moments, often painting outdoors.
Where you use it
The artists are Impressionists and their work is Impressionist. The name came from Monet's painting Impression, Sunrise and was first used mockingly by a critic in 1874. Typical descriptions: loose brushwork, broken colour, scenes of modern everyday life.
Examples
The Impressionists often painted outdoors to catch the changing light.
Impressionism shocked many critics, because the paintings looked unfinished to them.
Art that does not try to show people, objects or places realistically and uses shapes, colours, lines and marks to create its effect instead.
Where you use it
Developed in the early twentieth century with artists such as Kandinsky, Mondrian and Malevich. Writers separate purely abstract (non-objective) work from work that simplifies forms taken from nature. The opposite is figurative or representational art.
Examples
Many visitors find abstract art difficult at first, so the guide asks them to describe only colours and shapes.
Kandinsky's paintings from around 1910 are among the earliest examples of abstract art.
Art made roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, when artists broke with academic traditions and experimented with new styles, subjects and materials.
Where you use it
Used for this period and its movements, from Impressionism to Pop Art. Many museums use the term in their names, such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and İstanbul Modern. The dates are approximate and vary between writers.
Examples
The modern art collection starts with Cézanne and ends with Warhol.
Is this modern art or contemporary art? It depends on when it was made.
Usage note
Modern art is a historical label, not simply ‘new art’. For art made today, say contemporary art.
Common phrases
museum of modern art · pioneers of modern art · modern and contemporary art · modern art collection
A mid-nineteenth-century movement, led in France by Gustave Courbet, that showed ordinary people and everyday life truthfully instead of idealised or historical scenes.
Where you use it
With a capital R it names the movement; with a small r, realism means any lifelike way of showing things. Use the related words carefully: a Realist painter belongs to the movement, while a realistic detail simply looks true to life.
Examples
Courbet's huge paintings of workers and a village funeral made Realism a subject of fierce debate.
The level of realism in the fruit is amazing; you almost want to pick it up.
Common phrases
French Realism · Realist painter · social realism · photographic realism
The style of European art and architecture from about 1600 to 1750, known for drama, movement, strong light and emotion, as in the work of Caravaggio, Rubens and Bernini.
Where you use it
Used as a noun (the Baroque) and an adjective (Baroque painting, a Baroque church). Typical descriptions: theatrical, dynamic, diagonal compositions, dramatic lighting, rich decoration.
Examples
Bernini's sculptures are full of Baroque movement; the marble almost seems to breathe.
This course covers Baroque art in Italy, Spain and the Netherlands.
Usage note
With a small b, baroque can also mean very detailed and complicated, as in ‘a baroque plot’.
Common phrases
Baroque art · Baroque painting · High Baroque · Baroque church · Ottoman Baroque
An art movement started around 1907 by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, which broke objects into geometric shapes and showed them from several viewpoints at once.
Where you use it
Art historians divide it into Analytical Cubism, with muted colours and fragmented forms, and Synthetic Cubism, with collage and brighter colours. The artists are Cubists and their work is Cubist. It deeply influenced later abstract art and design.
Examples
In this Cubist portrait, we see the face from the front and the side at the same time.
Cubism changed the way artists thought about space on a flat surface.
An art and literary movement launched in Paris in 1924 by André Breton, which explored dreams, the unconscious and strange combinations of images.
Where you use it
Well-known Surrealists include Salvador Dalí, René Magritte and Max Ernst. In everyday English, surreal means strange and dreamlike: ‘It was a surreal day.’ In art writing, Surrealist with a capital S refers to the movement.
Examples
Surrealism borrowed ideas from Freud's writings on dreams.
Magritte's Surrealist paintings put ordinary objects in impossible situations.
Common phrases
Surrealist painting · Surrealist manifesto · Surrealist imagery · the Surrealist movement
Belonging to the style of European art and architecture from about the twelfth to the fifteenth century, known for cathedrals with pointed arches, tall windows and stained glass.
Where you use it
Used for architecture, sculpture, manuscripts and painting: a Gothic cathedral, Gothic sculpture, International Gothic. In the nineteenth century, Gothic Revival buildings copied the style. In everyday English, gothic can also mean dark and mysterious.
Examples
Gothic cathedrals use pointed arches and flying buttresses to make the walls taller and lighter.
The museum's Gothic galleries display altarpieces and carved wooden saints.
Common phrases
Gothic cathedral · Gothic architecture · International Gothic · Gothic Revival · late Gothic
A movement in art, music and literature from the late eighteenth to the mid nineteenth century that valued emotion, imagination, wild nature and the individual over reason and rules.
Where you use it
Key painters include Delacroix, Turner, Friedrich and Géricault. Writers describe Romantic works as dramatic, emotional and sublime. Here, Romantic has nothing to do with love stories; it is linked to powerful feeling, the sublime and national history.
Examples
Romanticism rejected the calm order of Neoclassicism and celebrated strong feeling.
Friedrich's lonely figures in vast landscapes are typical of German Romanticism.
Common phrases
German Romanticism · Romantic painter · Romantic landscape · the Romantic sublime
An early-twentieth-century movement, strongest in Germany, in which artists distorted shapes and used intense colours to express emotions rather than show the world as it looks.
Where you use it
The German groups Die Brücke (founded 1905) and Der Blaue Reiter (1911) are central, and Munch is seen as a forerunner. The word is also used for any art with strong emotional distortion. Abstract Expressionism is a separate American movement of the 1940s and 1950s.
Examples
Expressionism uses harsh colours and jagged lines to show anxiety and alienation.
Kirchner's Berlin street scenes are among the best-known works of German Expressionism.
A movement of the 1950s and 1960s in Britain and the United States that used images from advertising, comics, celebrity culture and everyday consumer products.
Where you use it
Leading names are Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein in the US and Richard Hamilton and Peter Blake in Britain. Works often use screen printing, bright flat colours and repetition. It is written Pop Art or pop art; the artists are pop artists.
Examples
Warhol's soup cans are probably the most famous images of Pop Art.
Pop Art blurred the line between fine art and advertising.
Common phrases
Pop Art movement · Pop Art icon · British Pop Art · Pop Art style
Artists, works or ideas that are new and experimental and challenge accepted rules; the word is French for the front part of an army.
Where you use it
Used as a noun (the Parisian avant-garde) and as an adjective (avant-garde art). It is mostly applied to modern movements such as Cubism, Futurism and Dada. It can sound positive (bold, original) or critical (deliberately difficult).
Examples
In the 1910s, the Russian avant-garde experimented with pure geometric abstraction.
The gallery was known for showing avant-garde work that no one else would touch.
Common phrases
avant-garde art · the Russian avant-garde · avant-garde movement · the historical avant-garde
A movement from about 1750 to 1830 that revived the calm order, clear lines and moral themes of ancient Greek and Roman art, partly inspired by the excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum.
Where you use it
Key artists include Jacques-Louis David, Antonio Canova and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. The adjective is Neoclassical. It is often contrasted with the playful decoration of Rococo before it and the emotion of Romanticism after it.
Examples
David's paintings of Roman heroes are key examples of Neoclassicism.
Neoclassicism shaped public buildings across Europe, with their columns and triangular pediments.
A term for the work of artists such as Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Seurat, who started from Impressionism in the 1880s but moved towards stronger structure, symbolism or expression.
Where you use it
Not a single group with a shared programme: the name was coined by the British critic Roger Fry for a London exhibition in 1910. The artists are called Post-Impressionists. The movement is seen as a bridge to Cubism and Expressionism.
Examples
Van Gogh and Gauguin are usually grouped together as Post-Impressionists.
Cézanne's Post-Impressionist still lifes break objects into simple planes of colour.
Common phrases
Post-Impressionist painter · Post-Impressionist exhibition · French Post-Impressionism
The way the parts of an artwork, such as figures, shapes, colours and empty spaces, are arranged within the picture or space.
Where you use it
A key word in visual analysis and art school critiques. A composition can be balanced, symmetrical, crowded, dynamic or diagonal. People say a composition leads the eye, is built around a triangle or is off-centre.
Examples
The composition is built on a strong diagonal running from the bottom left to the top right.
Before you start painting, make three small sketches to test different compositions.
A method of showing depth and distance on a flat surface, for example by making parallel lines meet at a point and painting distant things smaller.
Where you use it
Art historians discuss linear perspective, developed in early fifteenth-century Florence, and atmospheric (aerial) perspective, in which distant things look paler and bluer. A drawing can be in perspective or out of perspective.
Examples
Brunelleschi is usually credited with the first experiments in linear perspective.
The table looks strange because its perspective doesn't match the floor.
Usage note
In everyday English, perspective also means a point of view (‘from my perspective’). The context tells you which meaning is meant.
Common phrases
linear perspective · one-point perspective · atmospheric perspective · in perspective
The range of colours an artist uses in a work or in a period of their career; also the flat board on which a painter mixes paints.
Where you use it
In art writing, palette usually means the choice of colours: a limited, muted, earthy, warm or bright palette. An artist's palette can lighten or darken over the years. The board meaning appears in studio talk and in self-portraits.
Examples
After he moved to the south of France, his palette became much brighter.
She works with a limited palette of just four colours.
Usage note
Do not confuse palette with pallet (a wooden platform for goods) or palate (the roof of the mouth); all three sound the same.
The part of a picture that seems closest to the viewer, usually at the bottom; the areas behind it are the middle ground and the background.
Where you use it
Essential for saying where things are: in the foreground, in the middle ground, in the background. It is also a verb: an exhibition can foreground a theme, meaning it gives that theme special attention.
Examples
In the foreground, two peasants are resting under a tree; behind them, the fields stretch to the horizon.
The exhibition foregrounds women artists who were left out of earlier histories.
Common phrases
in the foreground · foreground figures · foreground and background · foreground a theme
A strong difference between two parts of an artwork, such as light and dark, warm and cool colours, or rough and smooth surfaces.
Where you use it
A key word in visual analysis and critiques. Artists create, use or heighten contrast, and a work can have strong or subtle contrast. As a verb, contrast means to compare two things in order to show their differences.
Examples
The strong contrast between light and shadow makes the figures stand out from the dark background.
Compare and contrast the two portraits in no more than 500 words.
Usage note
The noun is stressed on the first syllable (CON-trast) and the verb on the second (con-TRAST).
Common phrases
strong contrast · colour contrast · contrast of light and dark · heighten the contrast · compare and contrast
The way the surface of an artwork feels, or looks as if it would feel, for example rough, smooth, thick or soft.
Where you use it
Artists talk about actual texture, such as thick paint or rough stone, and implied or visual texture, such as painted fur or silk that looks real. Common verbs are build up, create and add. The adjective is textured.
Examples
He mixes sand into the paint to give the surface more texture.
Look at how the painter suggests the texture of velvet with just a few highlights.
The use of strong contrasts between light and dark to make figures look three-dimensional and to create drama; the word is Italian for ‘light-dark’.
Where you use it
Closely associated with Leonardo, Caravaggio and Rembrandt. A very extreme form, in which figures emerge from deep darkness, is called tenebrism. Used in essays and on labels: dramatic chiaroscuro, a master of chiaroscuro.
Examples
Caravaggio's chiaroscuro makes the figures seem to step out of the darkness.
Use chiaroscuro in your still life drawing to make the apples look round.
Usage note
Pronounced kee-ar-oh-SKOO-roh; the ‘ch’ is a k sound, as in Italian.
The size of one part of an artwork or figure compared with another part or with the whole, for example the size of the head compared with the body.
Where you use it
Teachers say a figure is in proportion or out of proportion. Classical artists worked with ideal proportions, such as a body about seven or eight heads tall, while Mannerist painters stretched them. The plural is used for overall sizes: the proportions of a room.
Examples
The legs are too short; check the proportions against the model again.
Leonardo's Vitruvian Man is a study of ideal human proportions.
Common phrases
in proportion · out of proportion · ideal proportions · human proportions · sense of proportion
The point in a picture, usually on the horizon line, where parallel lines moving away from the viewer seem to meet.
Where you use it
Basic to linear perspective: one-point, two-point and three-point perspective use one, two or three vanishing points. Art historians note where the vanishing point is placed, because it can lead the viewer's eye to the main figure.
Examples
In Leonardo's Last Supper, the lines of the ceiling lead to a vanishing point at Christ's head.
Draw the horizon line first, then mark the vanishing point on it.
Common phrases
single vanishing point · horizon line · lines converge on the vanishing point · one-point perspective
The part of an artwork that draws the viewer's eye first and holds attention, often created through contrast, light, colour or the direction of lines.
Where you use it
Common in critiques and visual analysis: Where is the focal point? The focal point is the child's brightly lit face. A composition can have one main focal point and several secondary ones.
Examples
The red cloak is the focal point; everything else in the painting is in muted browns.
Your composition has no clear focal point, so the eye wanders around the page.
Common phrases
main focal point · create a focal point · clear focal point · secondary focal point
A drawing technique that makes an object or a part of the body pointing towards the viewer look shorter, so that it seems to come out of the picture in depth.
Where you use it
A difficult skill in figure drawing, often mentioned in life classes and in Renaissance art history. Mantegna's Lamentation over the Dead Christ is a famous example. The verb is foreshorten: a foreshortened arm.
Examples
Mantegna's dramatic foreshortening places us at the feet of the dead Christ.
Foreshortening is tricky: the outstretched hand needs to look bigger than the head.
A picture made by putting paint on a surface such as canvas, wood or a wall; also the art or activity of making such pictures.
Where you use it
Countable for a single work (a painting by Frida Kahlo) and uncountable for the art form (she studied painting in Florence). Museum labels usually give the technique too, for example oil on canvas. People hang, paint, restore, sell and attribute paintings.
Examples
This painting was cleaned last year, and the colours are much brighter now.
She switched from sculpture to painting in her second year at the academy.
Usage note
Turkish ‘resim’ can mean a painting, a drawing, a picture or a photo. In English, painting is only for works made with paint; a pencil work is a drawing and a photo is a photograph or picture.
Common phrases
oil painting · landscape painting · hang a painting · restore a painting · abstract painting
A painting, drawing, photograph or sculpture of a particular person, usually showing the face and saying something about their character or status.
Where you use it
One of the main genres of painting. An artist paints a portrait of someone; the person who poses sits for a portrait and is called the sitter. Types include full-length, half-length, group and official portraits. The genre as a whole is portraiture.
Examples
This portrait of Sultan Mehmed II is attributed to the Venetian painter Gentile Bellini.
In this portrait, the sitter's hands are as important as her face.
Usage note
Turkish speakers sometimes drop the final t because of the Turkish word portre. Say POR-trit, with a clear t at the end.
Common phrases
paint a portrait · sit for a portrait · full-length portrait · official portrait · group portrait
A painting or drawing whose main subject is natural scenery such as mountains, fields, rivers or the sky; also the genre of such pictures.
Where you use it
Used for a single work (a landscape by Turner) and for the genre (landscape painting). Related words are seascape for the sea and cityscape for a city. In design and printing, landscape also means a horizontal format, as opposed to portrait.
Examples
Constable painted landscapes of the English countryside near his home.
In the nineteenth century, many painters left the studio to paint landscapes outdoors.
A painting or drawing of objects that do not move, such as fruit, flowers, vases, books or dead game, arranged by the artist.
Where you use it
Both the name of a genre and a countable noun. Dutch painters of the 1600s made it hugely popular, and many still lifes carry hidden messages, such as reminders that life is short. Art students set up and draw still lifes to practise light, shape and texture.
Examples
For homework, set up a simple still life with three objects and draw it in pencil.
Cézanne painted many still lifes of apples.
Usage note
The plural is still lifes, not ‘still lives’.
Common phrases
still life painting · set up a still life · floral still life · Dutch still life
A picture made mainly with lines, using a pencil, pen, charcoal or chalk; also the skill or activity of making such pictures.
Where you use it
A basic word in art schools: students take drawing classes, practise drawing from observation and keep sketchbooks. In museums, drawings are often shown in low light because paper fades. A quick, rough drawing is a sketch.
Examples
The drawings in this room are shown in dim light to protect the paper.
Drawing from observation is the first thing you learn in your foundation year.
Common phrases
pencil drawing · charcoal drawing · preparatory drawing · drawing class · drawing from observation
A quick, rough drawing or painting that records an idea or a scene, often made to plan a larger, finished work.
Where you use it
Both a noun and a verb: artists sketch, make sketches and keep a sketchbook. Museums often show preparatory sketches next to finished works. Common adjectives are quick, loose, rough and preliminary.
Examples
Bring your sketchbook to the museum; we'll sketch the sculptures in the courtyard.
This oil sketch was painted in an hour, probably as a study for the big canvas.
Common phrases
preparatory sketch · rough sketch · oil sketch · make a sketch · sketchbook
A single mark made by a paintbrush, or the visible way an artist puts on paint; it can be smooth and hidden or thick and expressive.
Where you use it
Used when describing technique: visible, loose, bold, short or swirling brushstrokes. Brushwork is the uncountable word for an artist's overall handling of paint. Experts study brushstrokes when deciding who painted a work.
Examples
In The Starry Night, Van Gogh's swirling brushstrokes make the sky look alive.
Up close you can see every brushstroke, but from a distance the surface looks smooth.
Usage note
Also written brush stroke (two words). For an artist's overall technique, brushwork is the more usual word.
Common phrases
visible brushstrokes · loose brushstrokes · bold brushstrokes · a single brushstroke
A portrait that artists make of themselves, usually by looking in a mirror or at a photograph.
Where you use it
Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Frida Kahlo are famous for their many self-portraits. Art historians ask how artists present themselves: as a gentleman, a worker or someone suffering. The plural is self-portraits.
Examples
Rembrandt painted around forty self-portraits during his career.
In this self-portrait, she shows herself holding brushes and a palette.
Usage note
A selfie is a self-portrait photo taken with a phone; in art writing, use self-portrait.
Common phrases
paint a self-portrait · self-portrait with · early self-portrait · photographic self-portrait
A way of painting walls or ceilings with water-based pigments on fresh, wet lime plaster, so the colours become part of the wall as it dries; also a painting made like this.
Where you use it
Painters work in fresco, finishing one section a day (a giornata) before the plaster dries. Famous examples are Giotto's chapel in Padua and Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling. The plural is frescoes. Painting on dry plaster is called fresco secco.
Examples
Michelangelo painted the frescoes on the Sistine Chapel ceiling between 1508 and 1512.
Many of the rock-cut churches in Cappadocia are decorated with Byzantine frescoes.
Usage note
Leonardo's Last Supper is often called a fresco, but it was painted on dry plaster, which is one reason it has deteriorated so badly.
Common phrases
fresco painting · ceiling fresco · in fresco · fresco cycle · restore a fresco
Drawing the human figure from a live model, often nude, who poses in a studio; also a class where this is practised.
Where you use it
A traditional part of art education. Students attend life drawing classes and draw short poses (gesture drawings) and long poses. Life class and figure drawing are similar terms.
Examples
Life drawing on Thursday evenings starts with ten two-minute poses.
Her life drawings show a real understanding of anatomy.
Usage note
Life drawing has nothing to do with still life; here, life means a living model.
Common phrases
life drawing class · life drawing model · life drawing session · short poses
A small, detailed painting, especially one made to illustrate a manuscript, as in Persian, Ottoman and medieval European books; also a very small portrait.
Where you use it
Ottoman miniature painting flourished from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, with masters such as Matrakçı Nasuh, Nakkaş Osman and Levni. Writers mention its flat space, rich colours and use of gold. In English, both miniature painting and manuscript painting are used.
Examples
The Topkapı Palace library holds some of the finest Ottoman miniatures.
Miniature painters often worked in teams, with one artist drawing and another adding colour.
Usage note
The word comes from Latin minium (red lead, used for decorating manuscripts), not from ‘mini’, although the paintings are small.
An artwork made of three panels placed side by side, often hinged so that the two outer panels can fold over the central one; typical of medieval and Renaissance altarpieces.
Where you use it
Common on labels for altarpieces and in contemporary art, where painters and photographers still work in three parts. A work with two panels is a diptych, and one with many panels is a polyptych. People describe the central panel and the wings.
Examples
When the wings of Bosch's triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights are closed, they show the world in shades of grey.
Francis Bacon often painted in triptych form.
Usage note
The ‘ch’ is pronounced k: TRIP-tik.
Common phrases
altarpiece triptych · central panel · side wings · diptych and triptych
A three-dimensional artwork made by carving, modelling, casting or assembling materials such as stone, metal, wood or clay; also the art of making such works.
Where you use it
Countable for a single work and uncountable for the art form. The artist is a sculptor and the adjective is sculptural. Sculptures stand on a plinth or pedestal, are cast in bronze, carved in marble or installed outdoors.
Examples
The sculpture garden is open until sunset.
Michelangelo carved his famous sculpture of David from a single block of marble.
Usage note
Sculpture is the work or the art form; the person is a sculptor. There is no word ‘sculpturer’.
A hard stone, often white or with coloured veins, that can be carved and polished; it has been used for sculpture and buildings since ancient times.
Where you use it
Sculptors carve, polish and work in marble, and labels name the type, such as Carrara or Parian marble. Ancient marble statues were originally painted, although most of the colour has disappeared over time.
Examples
The statue was carved from a single block of Carrara marble.
Scientists have found traces of paint on many ancient marble sculptures.
Common phrases
carve in marble · white marble · marble statue · block of marble · polished marble
A hard metal made mainly of copper and tin, which is melted and poured into moulds to make sculptures; also a sculpture made of it.
Where you use it
Bronze sculptures are cast, often with the lost-wax method, and several casts can be made from one mould. It is countable for works: a bronze by Rodin. Labels often give the foundry and the cast number, for example ‘cast 4/8’.
Examples
Rodin's The Thinker exists in several bronze casts around the world.
Ancient Greek bronzes are rare, because many were melted down for their metal.
A sculpture in which figures or shapes stand out from a flat background, like those carved on temple walls, coins or sarcophagi.
Where you use it
Types depend on depth: low relief (bas-relief), where figures project only slightly, and high relief, where they almost stand free. Reliefs are carved, cast or moulded; a long relief band along a building is a frieze.
Examples
The sarcophagus is decorated with reliefs showing a lion hunt.
The figures in high relief cast deep shadows in the afternoon light.
Usage note
In everyday English, relief is the good feeling when worry ends. In sculpture, it is a technical term.
To make a sculpture or design by cutting away material from a solid block of stone, wood or ivory.
Where you use it
Carving is a subtractive method: the sculptor removes material, while modelling in clay adds it. Patterns: carve something from or out of marble, carve something in wood, a carved panel. The person is a carver.
Examples
The mosque's wooden doors were carved by craftsmen in the sixteenth century.
She carves directly into the stone without making a clay model first.
Common phrases
carve from marble · carve in wood · hand-carved · carved relief · carve directly
A sculpture of a person or animal, usually life-size or larger and free-standing, often made of stone or metal and placed in a public space.
Where you use it
Narrower than sculpture: a statue usually shows a figure, while a sculpture can be abstract. Statues are put up, unveiled or removed. A small statue is a statuette or figurine, and an equestrian statue shows a rider on a horse.
Examples
The bronze statue in the square was unveiled in 1932.
Most of the ancient statues in the museum have lost their arms or noses.
Usage note
Do not confuse statue with status (position) or statute (a written law).
To make a sculpture by pouring liquid metal, plaster or resin into a mould and letting it harden; as a noun, an object made in this way.
Where you use it
Patterns: cast in bronze, cast from a clay model, cast by a foundry. The past forms are also cast. Museums and academies keep plaster casts of famous sculptures for study, and a cast's number shows its place in an edition.
Examples
The sculpture was modelled in clay and then cast in bronze.
The academy's collection of plaster casts was used to teach drawing.
Usage note
British mould, American mold. The verb is irregular: cast, cast, cast.
Common phrases
cast in bronze · plaster cast · bronze cast · cast from a mould · lifetime cast
A sculpture of a person's head and neck, usually with the shoulders and upper chest.
Where you use it
A common form of portrait sculpture since Roman times. Busts are made of marble, bronze or plaster and usually stand on a pedestal. Labels say ‘bust of Emperor Hadrian’ or ‘portrait bust’.
Examples
The archaeologists cleaned the marble bust carefully before photographing it.
Roman portrait busts often show their subjects with wrinkles and other signs of age.
Common phrases
marble bust · bronze bust · portrait bust · bust of · unveil a bust
A strong woven cloth, usually cotton or linen, stretched over a wooden frame and used as a surface for painting; also a painting made on it.
Where you use it
Painters stretch, prime and paint on canvas, and museum labels say ‘oil on canvas’. Canvas can also mean the painting itself: a large canvas, his late canvases. Before canvas became common in the sixteenth century, many artists painted on wooden panels.
Examples
The label says ‘oil on canvas, 1889’.
She works on huge canvases, some of them four metres wide.
Usage note
The plural is canvases. Do not confuse canvas with canvass (to ask people for votes or opinions).
Common phrases
oil on canvas · stretch a canvas · prime a canvas · a large canvas · blank canvas
Paint made by mixing pigments with a drying oil, usually linseed oil; it dries slowly, so artists can blend colours and build up layers.
Where you use it
Artists work in oils or use oil paint; the finished work is an oil painting, or simply an oil. It became the main painting medium in Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, especially through Netherlandish painters. Common verbs: thin, mix, apply, layer.
Examples
Oil paint stays wet for days, so you can keep blending the colours.
Is that an oil painting or an acrylic?
Common phrases
work in oils · oil painting · a tube of oil paint · layers of oil paint
Paint that is mixed with water and used on paper, giving thin, transparent layers of colour; also a picture painted with it.
Where you use it
Uncountable for the medium (she paints in watercolour) and countable for a work (a watercolour by Turner). Painters talk about washes, wet-on-wet and dry brush techniques, and about keeping the white of the paper.
Examples
Watercolour is hard to correct, because the white of the paper shows through every layer.
The exhibition shows the watercolours Turner made on his travels in Italy.
Usage note
The American spelling is watercolor. Both are correct; just use one spelling consistently in a text.
Common phrases
watercolour paper · paint in watercolour · watercolour wash · a small watercolour
The material or technique an artist uses to make a work, such as oil paint, bronze, video or photography; also a liquid added to paint to change how it behaves.
Where you use it
On labels and in catalogues, the medium line says what a work is made of, such as ‘ink on silk’. In the general sense the plural is media (mixed media, new media); for paint additives, painters say mediums. Artists work in a medium or explore new media.
Examples
Clay was her favourite medium for twenty years before she turned to video.
Add a little medium to the paint if you want it to flow more easily.
Usage note
In art, medium has nothing to do with a psychic (Turkish ‘medyum’ in everyday use). On forms, ‘Medium:’ simply asks for the materials and technique.
Common phrases
work in a medium · mixed media · painting medium · a versatile medium
A fast-drying, water-based paint made with a plastic binder; it can be thinned with water but becomes water-resistant when dry.
Where you use it
Became available to artists in the mid twentieth century and was soon used widely, including by Pop artists. People often just say acrylics: ‘She paints in acrylics.’ Compared with oil paint, it dries in minutes and needs no solvents.
Examples
Acrylic paint dries so fast that you need to mix your colours quickly.
Most first-year students use acrylic paint because it is cheaper and easier to clean up.
Common phrases
paint in acrylics · acrylic on canvas · acrylic medium · fast-drying acrylic paint
A coloured powder, made from minerals, plants, insects or chemicals, that gives paint its colour when it is mixed with a binder such as oil, egg or gum.
Where you use it
Used by painters, conservators and scientists. Historic pigments include ultramarine (made from lapis lazuli), ochre and lead white. Conservators analyse pigments to date paintings and to detect forgeries.
Examples
Ultramarine was made from ground lapis lazuli, so it was one of the most expensive pigments.
The lab found a modern pigment in the paint, which proved the work could not be from the 1600s.
A black drawing material made from burnt wood and used in sticks or pencils; it makes soft, dark lines that are easy to smudge and rub out.
Where you use it
A favourite medium for life drawing and quick studies. Artists draw in charcoal, smudge it with their fingers and spray it with fixative so it stays in place. Willow and vine charcoal are soft; compressed charcoal gives darker lines.
Examples
We'll start with five-minute poses in charcoal to warm up.
Spray the charcoal drawing with fixative so it doesn't smudge.
Common phrases
charcoal drawing · stick of charcoal · compressed charcoal · draw in charcoal
The art of making images by transferring ink from a prepared surface, such as a metal plate, a woodblock or a screen, onto paper, so that several copies can be made.
Where you use it
The main techniques are relief (woodcut, linocut), intaglio (etching, engraving), lithography and screen printing. Each print in an edition counts as an original and is usually signed and numbered by the artist, for example 12/50. The artist is a printmaker.
Examples
She teaches printmaking and specialises in etching.
Dürer used printmaking to spread his images across Europe.
Usage note
In art, a print is an original work, not just a reproduction or a poster. Ask whether it is an original print or a reproduction.
Common phrases
printmaking studio · printmaking techniques · fine art printmaking · limited edition print
The use of more than one material or technique in a single artwork, such as paint, collage, photographs, fabric and found objects.
Where you use it
Common on labels and application forms: mixed media on canvas, a mixed media installation. It works as a noun or before another noun (a mixed-media work). Galleries often list the exact materials after it.
Examples
The label just says ‘mixed media’, but you can see newspaper, acrylic and thread.
Her mixed-media collages combine old family photos with embroidery.
Common phrases
mixed media on canvas · mixed-media work · mixed-media artist · mixed-media collage
A picture or pattern made by setting small pieces of coloured stone, glass or ceramic, called tesserae, into plaster or mortar.
Where you use it
Roman floor mosaics and Byzantine wall mosaics with gold glass are major topics in the art of Anatolia, from Zeugma to Hagia Sophia and the Chora Church. Mosaics are laid, set or restored, and ‘mosaic floor’ appears often in excavation reports.
Examples
The Gypsy Girl mosaic from Zeugma has become the symbol of the museum in Gaziantep.
Byzantine mosaic artists used gold glass tesserae to make the walls shine in candlelight.
Paint made by mixing pigments with egg yolk and water; it dries quickly to a matt, durable surface and was the main technique for panel painting in Europe before oil paint.
Where you use it
Used for medieval and early Renaissance altarpieces and for Byzantine and Orthodox icons, usually on wooden panels prepared with gesso. Labels say ‘tempera on panel’ or ‘egg tempera and gold leaf on wood’. It cannot be blended easily, so it is applied in thin, hatched strokes.
Examples
Botticelli painted The Birth of Venus in tempera on canvas, which was unusual at the time.
The icon is painted in egg tempera on a wooden panel with a gold leaf background.
Common phrases
egg tempera · tempera on panel · tempera and gold leaf · tempera painting
A painting, sculpture, drawing, photograph, installation or any other object or piece of work that an artist makes and that is seen as art.
Where you use it
The general word museums, galleries and art writers use when they do not need to say what kind of work it is. It is countable: an artwork, two artworks. In speech, people often just say work or piece. In design and publishing, artwork can also mean the images prepared for printing.
Examples
The museum has more than 3,000 artworks in storage and shows only about 400 of them.
Please do not touch the artworks.
Usage note
Artwork and work of art mean the same thing; work of art sounds a little more formal. Write artwork as one word.
Common phrases
original artwork · display an artwork · digital artwork · work of art
The particular way an artwork looks that links it to an artist, a group, a place or a period, shown in its forms, colours, technique and subjects.
Where you use it
Used constantly in art history: an artist develops a personal style; a work is in the style of Rembrandt or typical of the Baroque style. Experts compare styles to date works and to decide who made them. The adjective is stylistic.
Examples
Her style changed completely after she moved to Paris.
The painting is not by Rembrandt himself but in the style of Rembrandt.
Common phrases
personal style · in the style of · develop a style · period style · stylistic features
An artwork of outstanding quality, or the best work an artist ever made; originally, the piece a craftsman made to be accepted as a master by a guild.
Where you use it
Common in guidebooks, museum marketing and reviews: a masterpiece of Baroque painting, an early masterpiece, her masterpiece. Art historians use the word carefully, because calling something a masterpiece is a judgement, not a fact.
Examples
Many critics see Las Meninas as Velázquez's masterpiece.
The museum's audio guide focuses on twenty masterpieces from the collection.
Common phrases
a masterpiece of · early masterpiece · acknowledged masterpiece · minor masterpiece
To show a person, scene or idea in a picture, sculpture or other artwork.
Where you use it
One of the most useful verbs for describing art in essays, labels and tours. Typical patterns: The painting depicts…, X is depicted as…, the scene depicted. The noun is depiction. It is more formal than show.
Examples
The fresco depicts the Last Judgement, with heaven above and hell below.
Saints are often depicted with objects linked to their stories.
Common phrases
depict a scene · be depicted as · realistically depicted · the figures depicted
What an artwork shows or is about, such as a battle, a bowl of fruit, a myth or a social issue, as opposed to how it is made.
Where you use it
Used in visual analysis to separate content from form and style. Students usually describe the subject matter first, then the composition and technique. It is uncountable; subject alone is also common (the subject of the painting).
Examples
Caravaggio shocked some patrons by using ordinary people as models for religious subject matter.
Start your essay with the subject matter, then discuss the use of colour.
Common phrases
religious subject matter · everyday subject matter · choice of subject matter · unusual subject matter
The study of the symbols, figures and themes in artworks and what they meant to people at the time; also the set of images linked to a particular subject.
Where you use it
A core method in art history, closely linked to Erwin Panofsky. Students identify the iconography of a scene, for example recognising a saint by the objects they hold. Also used more widely: Christian iconography, royal iconography, the iconography of power.
Examples
In Christian iconography, Saint Peter is usually shown holding keys.
Your essay should discuss both the style and the iconography of the altarpiece.
Usage note
Iconography is not the same as icon painting. An icon is a religious image, especially in Orthodox churches; iconography is the study of images and their symbols.
Common phrases
Christian iconography · royal iconography · iconographic analysis · iconographic programme
The use of objects, colours, animals or figures to stand for ideas or qualities, for example a dog for loyalty or a skull for death.
Where you use it
Writers discuss the symbolism of a work, colour symbolism or hidden symbolism. With a capital S, Symbolism is also a late-nineteenth-century movement (Moreau, Redon). The verb is symbolise (UK) or symbolize (US), and the adjective is symbolic.
Examples
The symbolism of the lilies would have been clear to fifteenth-century viewers: they stood for purity.
Is there any symbolism in the colours, or did the artist choose them just for the composition?
Common phrases
religious symbolism · colour symbolism · hidden symbolism · rich in symbolism
Connected with beauty and with how something looks and is experienced; as a noun, the particular look or set of artistic ideas of an artist or group.
Where you use it
As an adjective: aesthetic value, aesthetic experience, aesthetic choices. As a noun: a minimalist aesthetic, the Bauhaus aesthetic. Aesthetics, with -s, is the branch of philosophy that studies beauty and art.
Examples
The museum bought the textile for its historical value, not just its aesthetic qualities.
Her photographs share a cool, minimalist aesthetic.
Usage note
Pronounced es-THET-ik (in British English also ees-THET-ik). The ‘ae’ is a single sound.
Common phrases
aesthetic value · aesthetic experience · aesthetic quality · a minimalist aesthetic
Showing people, animals or objects in a way you can recognise, even if they are simplified or distorted; the opposite of abstract.
Where you use it
Common in gallery and exam language: figurative painting, a figurative sculptor, a return to figuration. Representational means almost the same. Be careful: in language and literature, figurative means not literal (a figurative meaning).
Examples
After years of abstraction, he returned to figurative painting in the 1980s.
The prize is open to both abstract and figurative work.
Common phrases
figurative painting · figurative art · figurative sculpture · semi-figurative
To say that a work was made by a particular artist, place or period, based on evidence such as style, documents or scientific tests.
Where you use it
Very common on museum labels. ‘Attributed to Titian’ means experts think the work is probably by Titian but are not certain; ‘workshop of’ and ‘circle of’ are less certain. The noun is attribution, and attributions can be accepted, disputed or changed.
Examples
The painting was once attributed to Rembrandt but is now thought to be by one of his pupils.
On what evidence did they attribute the drawing to Leonardo?
Usage note
The verb is stressed on the second syllable (a-TRIB-ute). The noun an attribute, such as the keys of Saint Peter, is stressed on the first (AT-tri-bute).
Common phrases
attributed to · attribute a work to · firmly attributed · change the attribution
A detailed discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of an artwork; in art schools, a session where students show their work and get feedback from tutors and classmates.
Where you use it
Art students often say crit for short: a group crit, the final crit. Tutors critique work (verb). In writing, a critique is more balanced than criticism, which in everyday English usually means negative comments.
Examples
We have a group critique on Friday, so bring two finished pieces.
The tutor's critique focused on the weak composition rather than the subject.
Usage note
Critique (kri-TEEK) is the discussion, a critic (KRIT-ik) is the person, and criticism is the activity or the negative comments.
Common phrases
group critique · final critique · written critique · give a critique · constructive critique
A shape, image or theme that is repeated in one work or across many works, such as a flower in a textile pattern or a symbol that keeps returning in an artist's paintings.
Where you use it
Used in art history, design and the decorative arts: floral motifs, geometric motifs, a recurring motif. Ottoman tiles and textiles use motifs such as the tulip, the carnation and the saz leaf. Art historians trace how motifs travel between cultures.
Examples
The tulip motif appears again and again on İznik tiles.
The open window is a recurring motif in Matisse's paintings.
The complete body of work an artist produced during their life, considered as a whole.
Where you use it
A formal word from French, used in catalogues, reviews and academic writing: a key work in her oeuvre, Picasso's vast oeuvre. In conversation, people usually say body of work or simply work.
Examples
This small landscape is unusual in an oeuvre dominated by portraits.
The catalogue raisonné lists every known painting in the artist's oeuvre.
Usage note
Pronounced roughly ‘UR-vruh’. It is normally used in the singular.
Common phrases
the artist's oeuvre · entire oeuvre · late oeuvre · body of work
To place two or more different things side by side so that their differences or connections become clear.
Where you use it
A favourite verb of curators and critics: an exhibition juxtaposes ancient and contemporary works; a collage juxtaposes unrelated images. The noun juxtaposition is just as common: a striking juxtaposition.
Examples
The exhibition juxtaposes Ottoman calligraphy with contemporary graphic design.
Surrealist collages juxtapose objects that would never normally appear together.
Common phrases
juxtapose X with Y · striking juxtaposition · deliberately juxtaposed · juxtapose images
A public show of artworks or objects, arranged in a museum, gallery or other space, either for a limited time or permanently.
Where you use it
Museums hold, organise, curate and open exhibitions; visitors see or visit them. Common types are solo (one artist), group, temporary and touring exhibitions. In British English, exhibition is the usual word; American English also uses exhibit for the same thing.
Examples
Her first solo exhibition opens at a small gallery in Karaköy next month.
The exhibition runs until 15 March and then travels to Berlin.
Usage note
The usual English for Turkish ‘kişisel sergi’ is solo exhibition or solo show; ‘personal exhibition’ sounds unnatural.
Common phrases
solo exhibition · group exhibition · temporary exhibition · hold an exhibition · the exhibition runs until
A room or building where art is shown to the public; also a private business that shows and sells the work of the artists it represents.
Where you use it
Has two common meanings: a room inside a museum (Gallery 12, the Islamic galleries) and a commercial gallery that sells art. Some public museums use it in their names, like the National Gallery in London. Commercial galleries represent artists, hold openings and take a share of sales.
Examples
The Ottoman paintings are in the gallery on the second floor.
He is represented by a gallery in New York that sells his work at art fairs.
Common phrases
art gallery · commercial gallery · gallery opening · be represented by a gallery · gallery space
A person who chooses and arranges artworks for exhibitions, or who looks after and researches a museum's collection.
Where you use it
In museums, curators are experts in one area (curator of Islamic art) and write labels and catalogues. Independent curators organise shows and biennials without working for a single institution. The verb is curate.
Examples
The curator spent two years selecting works for the exhibition.
Our guided tour will be led by the curator of the photography collection.
To show artworks or objects to the public in a museum or gallery; as a noun, an object or work that is shown.
Where you use it
Artists exhibit their work and museums exhibit objects. As a noun, an exhibit is usually one item in a museum (do not touch the exhibits); in American English it can also mean a whole exhibition. In law, an exhibit is a piece of evidence.
Examples
She first exhibited her work in Ankara in 1995.
The most popular exhibit in the museum is a Roman floor mosaic.
Usage note
The h is silent: ig-ZIB-it.
Common phrases
exhibit work · exhibit widely · exhibit internationally · museum exhibit
Being shown in a museum, gallery or shop, where people can see it.
Where you use it
Common on museum websites and signs: currently on display, not on display, on permanent display. On view means the same and is very common in American museums. The opposite is in storage.
Examples
Is the Ottoman kaftan collection on display at the moment, or is it in storage?
The newly restored painting will go back on display in May.
Common phrases
on permanent display · currently on display · put on display · go on display · not on display
The artworks and objects that a museum owns and keeps long term, as opposed to works borrowed for temporary exhibitions.
Where you use it
Museums build, display and add to their permanent collection, but usually only a small part is on show at any time. A ticket may cover only the permanent collection, with an extra charge for temporary exhibitions.
Examples
Entry to the permanent collection is free, but the special exhibition costs 15 euros.
Osman Hamdi Bey's The Tortoise Trainer is one of the best-known works in the Pera Museum's permanent collection.
Common phrases
add to the permanent collection · permanent collection galleries · rehang the permanent collection · highlights of the permanent collection
A large exhibition that shows an artist's work from their whole career, or from a long period of it, usually in chronological order.
Where you use it
Major museums hold or stage retrospectives, often for well-established or recently deceased artists, so a retrospective is a sign of recognition. Used as a noun (a Picasso retrospective) or an adjective (a retrospective exhibition).
Examples
The retrospective brings together 200 works from five decades.
Her first major retrospective opens in Istanbul this autumn.
Common phrases
major retrospective · career retrospective · hold a retrospective · retrospective exhibition
Work done to repair a damaged or decayed artwork or building and bring it closer to its original appearance, for example by cleaning it or filling in missing areas.
Where you use it
Restorers carry out restoration; works can be under restoration or a building closed for restoration. Many museums now prefer the word conservation, which focuses on keeping a work stable. Over-restoration or a bad restoration can harm a work.
Examples
The mosque's tiles are under restoration and will be visible again next year.
The restoration of the Sistine Chapel frescoes in the 1980s and 1990s revealed much brighter colours.
Common phrases
under restoration · closed for restoration · restoration work · careful restoration · restoration project
To select, organise and present artworks for an exhibition, collection or event, deciding on the theme, the order and how the works are displayed.
Where you use it
Patterns: curate an exhibition, a show curated by…, co-curate. In recent years the word has spread to playlists, menus and shops, which some art professionals find annoying. The noun is curation or curating.
Examples
The exhibition was curated by a team of three young art historians.
She has been asked to curate next year's biennial.
Common phrases
curate an exhibition · co-curate · curated by · carefully curated
The professional care of artworks and objects to slow down damage and keep them stable for the future, through scientific study, careful treatment and control of light, humidity and temperature.
Where you use it
Conservators work in conservation studios and labs. Preventive conservation controls the environment, while conservation treatment repairs the object, ideally in ways that can be reversed. Many museums prefer this word to restoration.
Examples
The tapestry will spend six months in the conservation studio.
Good conservation means doing as little to the object as possible.
Usage note
In museums, conservation is about objects. In everyday English, it often means protecting nature (wildlife conservation).
An arrangement in which a museum or collector lends an artwork to another institution for a period, usually for an exhibition; also the work that is lent.
Where you use it
Labels say ‘On loan from the National Gallery, London’ or ‘Lent by a private collector’. Museums request, approve or refuse loans, and every loan needs insurance, a condition report and often a courier. A long-term loan can stay for years.
Examples
This painting is on loan from a museum in Madrid until the end of the year.
The museum refused the loan because the panel was too fragile to travel.
Common phrases
on loan from · long-term loan · loan request · loan agreement · lend a work
A public sale in which artworks or other objects are sold to the person who offers the most money.
Where you use it
Works are sold at auction, come up for auction or are put up for auction. Auction houses publish catalogues with estimates, and buyers bid in the room, by phone or online. The final price is the hammer price; the buyer usually also pays a buyer's premium.
Examples
The painting sold at auction for twice its estimate.
The collection will be put up for auction in London next spring.
Common phrases
sell at auction · auction house · online auction · auction record · come up for auction
A person or institution that buys and keeps artworks or other objects, often over many years and around a particular theme.
Where you use it
Private collectors buy at auctions, galleries and art fairs; many lend works to museums or found their own. Labels often say ‘Private collection’ or ‘Gift of…’. Related words: collect, collecting, collection.
Examples
Several of Turkey's private museums were founded by collectors.
A private collector bought the drawing and has agreed to lend it to the exhibition.
Common phrases
private collector · art collector · major collector · collector's item
The documented history of who has owned an artwork since it was made, used to show that it is genuine and was acquired legally.
Where you use it
Important for auctions, museums and the law. A work has good, clear or incomplete provenance. Gaps in provenance, especially for antiquities or for the years 1933–1945, raise questions about theft or looting. Auction catalogues list the provenance of each lot.
Examples
The museum refused to buy the vase because its provenance before 1990 was unknown.
The catalogue lists the painting's full provenance, from the artist's studio to the present owner.
Common phrases
provenance research · impeccable provenance · gap in the provenance · provenance records
A formal request, with payment, for an artist to make a particular work; also the work made in this way. As a verb, to order such a work.
Where you use it
Historically, churches, rulers and wealthy families commissioned most art; today museums and cities commission public works. Patterns: commission an artist to paint…, a public commission, a work commissioned by… It can also mean the fee a dealer or auction house takes.
Examples
The altarpiece was commissioned by a wealthy merchant family for their chapel.
She has just received her first public commission, a mural for a metro station.
Common phrases
commission a work · public commission · receive a commission · commissioned by · site-specific commission
A person or organisation that supports artists, usually by paying for works or giving regular financial help; historically, often a ruler, a church or a wealthy family.
Where you use it
Art historians study patrons and patronage: the Medici were major patrons of the Florentine Renaissance. Today museums also call their donors patrons. Patterns: a patron of the arts, a generous patron, under the patronage of.
Examples
As a patron, Lorenzo de' Medici supported artists such as the young Michelangelo.
Ottoman sultans and viziers were important patrons of architecture and the arts of the book.
Usage note
False friend: Turkish ‘patron’ means boss. In English, a boss is a boss or a manager; a patron supports artists, or is a regular customer of a shop or restaurant.
Common phrases
patron of the arts · wealthy patron · royal patron · patronage system · museum patron
A person or company that buys and sells artworks as a business, often running a gallery and representing particular artists.
Where you use it
Dealers work in the primary market, selling new work directly from artists, or the secondary market, reselling works. Historical dealers such as Paul Durand-Ruel helped make the Impressionists successful. Dealers usually take a commission on sales.
Examples
The art dealer sold the painting privately instead of sending it to auction.
An experienced art dealer can tell you whether the asking price is realistic.
Common phrases
leading art dealer · primary market · secondary market · private sale
One item, or a group of items sold together, offered at an auction and given a number in the catalogue.
Where you use it
Auctioneers announce ‘Lot 25, a portrait by…’, and bidders follow the lot numbers in the catalogue. A lot can be sold, unsold (bought in) or withdrawn before the sale. Each lot has an estimate and often a secret reserve price.
Examples
Lot 47, a small Ottoman miniature, sold for three times its estimate.
The most expensive lot of the evening was withdrawn an hour before the sale.
Usage note
In everyday English, a lot means many (a lot of people). At auctions, a lot is a countable item: two lots, the next lot.
Common phrases
lot number · top lot · unsold lot · withdraw a lot · bid on a lot
A work made to look like the genuine work of another artist or period in order to deceive buyers; also the crime of making such works.
Where you use it
A forger produces forgeries, and experts detect or expose them through provenance research, style analysis and scientific tests. A copy, or a work ‘after’ an artist, is not a forgery unless it is sold as the original. Fake is the informal word.
Examples
Han van Meegeren's forgeries of Vermeer fooled experts in the 1930s and 1940s.
Pigment analysis showed that the painting was a modern forgery.
Common phrases
art forgery · detect a forgery · skilful forgery · expose a forgery · convicted forger
The art of the present time, usually meaning work made from about the 1960s or 1970s to today, often using new media, ideas and ways of exhibiting.
Where you use it
Common in the names of museums and galleries, at biennials and art fairs. Contemporary art includes painting and sculpture but also installation, video, performance and digital work. Writers discuss its themes, such as identity, memory, technology and the environment.
Examples
Istanbul has become an important centre for contemporary art since the first biennial in 1987.
The course covers contemporary art from 1980 to the present.
Common phrases
contemporary art scene · contemporary art museum · contemporary art fair · international contemporary art
An artwork made for a particular space, often filling a whole room, which visitors walk into or around and experience with more than just their eyes.
Where you use it
A central form of contemporary art, also called installation art. Artists create, build or install an installation, using light, sound, video, found objects or the architecture itself. In museums, the word also means the process of putting up a show.
Examples
The installation fills the old warehouse with hundreds of hanging lamps.
Installation of the exhibition takes two weeks, so the gallery will be closed.
Art in which the idea or concept behind the work matters more than how it looks or how skilfully it is made; it developed mainly in the 1960s and 1970s.
Where you use it
Conceptual works may consist of text, instructions, photographs, documents or everyday objects. Writers trace its roots to Marcel Duchamp's readymades. The artists are conceptual artists, and their way of working is often called a conceptual practice.
Examples
Some visitors ask whether conceptual art is really art, which is exactly the question it wants them to ask.
Her work grew out of conceptual art and uses only text and photographs.
Common phrases
conceptual artist · conceptual practice · early conceptual art · conceptual framework
Art in which the artist's own actions, carried out live in front of an audience or recorded, are the work itself, rather than an object.
Where you use it
It grew strongly from the 1960s, with roots in Futurism and Dada. Artists perform, stage or re-perform a piece, and museums show documentation such as videos and photographs. A performance can last a few minutes or several months.
Examples
The performance art piece takes place in the main hall at 7 p.m., and photography is not allowed.
Performance art often uses the artist's body to explore endurance and vulnerability.
Common phrases
performance art piece · live performance · performance artist · durational performance
A short text in which artists explain what their work is about, how they make it and why, often written for exhibitions, applications and websites.
Where you use it
Required for most art school applications, open calls, residencies and grants. It is usually 100–300 words long, written in the first person and mostly in the present tense. Curators and juries read it to understand the ideas behind the work.
Examples
Please send ten images of your work and a one-page artist statement.
Keep your artist statement simple and avoid jargon the jury might not understand.
Usage note
Also called an artist's statement. Write about the work, not your whole life story; that belongs in a biography (bio).
Common phrases
write an artist statement · short artist statement · artist statement and CV · submit an artist statement
A large international exhibition of contemporary art held every two years in the same city, such as those in Venice, São Paulo and Istanbul.
Where you use it
The Italian form Biennale appears in names such as the Venice Biennale, held since 1895; the Istanbul Biennial has been held since 1987. People visit, curate or take part in a biennial, and in Venice countries have national pavilions. A triennial takes place every three years.
Examples
The Istanbul Biennial uses venues across the city, from museums to old warehouses.
She was invited to represent her country at the biennial in Venice.
Usage note
Biennial means every two years; biannual usually means twice a year. Do not mix them up.
Common phrases
Istanbul Biennial · Venice Biennale · national pavilion · take part in a biennial · biennial curator
Made for one particular place and depending on its history, architecture or surroundings, so that the work would lose its meaning if it were moved.
Where you use it
Used for installations, land art, murals and commissions: a site-specific installation, a site-specific work for a historic cistern. Biennials often invite artists to make site-specific works in old buildings.
Examples
The site-specific installation in the Byzantine cistern uses only light and sound.
Because the work is site-specific, it cannot travel with the rest of the exhibition.
An ordinary manufactured object that an artist chooses and presents as art, with little or no change; the idea was introduced by Marcel Duchamp in the 1910s.
Where you use it
Duchamp's Fountain (1917), a urinal signed ‘R. Mutt’, is the best-known readymade. The term is central to debates about what makes something art, and it paved the way for conceptual art. Also written ready-made.
Examples
Duchamp's readymades asked whether simply choosing an object could be an artistic act.
Is a readymade still art if the original is lost and only replicas survive?
Art made in public outdoor spaces, such as murals, stencils, stickers and paste-ups on walls, often without official permission.
Where you use it
Closely related to graffiti but usually more image-based. Some street artists, such as Banksy, have become famous, and street art festivals now commission large murals. Debates often concern legality, gentrification and whether street art belongs in galleries.
Examples
The street art in this neighbourhood changes every few months as new murals appear.
Can street art keep its meaning when it is moved into a gallery?
Common phrases
street art festival · street art tour · street artist · large-scale mural
Ten questions from this glossary. Pick the right meaning for each term and see your score.
How to learn art & art history vocabulary
Read real English texts about art every week: wall labels and online collection pages of large museums, exhibition reviews, catalogue essays and the notes in auction catalogues. Notice the verbs that go with each term: depict a scene, cast in bronze, attribute to, curate an exhibition.
Build a small set of phrases you can use to describe any artwork, such as “In the foreground…”, “The composition leads the eye to…” and “The artist uses a limited palette…”. On your next museum visit, practise by describing one work aloud for two minutes.
Learn each movement together with its rough dates, two or three key artists and its adjective form: Impressionism and Impressionist, Cubism and Cubist, the Baroque and Baroque. A simple timeline helps you see how one movement reacts to another.
Watch out for false friends and pronunciation traps: a patron is not a boss, a medium is not a psychic, a print can be an original work, and chiaroscuro, triptych and exhibit do not sound the way they look.
If you plan to study or exhibit abroad, collect sample artist statements, application texts and critique vocabulary, and practise writing about your own work in clear, simple English.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between modern art and contemporary art?
In English art writing, modern art is a historical term for art made roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, from Impressionism to Pop Art. Contemporary art is the art of our own time, usually work made from the 1960s or 1970s to today. Writers and museums draw the line in slightly different places, but calling a Monet painting ‘contemporary’ is a mistake.
How do I read a museum label in English?
Most labels follow the same order: artist, title (often in italics), date, medium and support, and a credit line. ‘Oil on canvas’ tells you the paint and the surface. ‘c. 1650’ means circa, about 1650. ‘Attributed to’ means experts think the artist made it but are not certain; ‘workshop of’ and ‘follower of’ are less certain still. The last line says how the museum got the work, for example ‘Gift of…’ or ‘On loan from…’.
Is the Turkish word ‘resim’ a painting, a picture or a drawing?
It depends on the work. A painting is made with paint, such as oil, acrylic or watercolour. A drawing is made mainly with lines, in pencil, charcoal or ink. A picture is a general, informal word for any image, including photographs. The ‘resim bölümü’ of a fine arts faculty is usually the Department of Painting, while a school ‘resim dersi’ is usually an art class.
Are art movements written with a capital letter in English?
Usually, yes. Names of movements and periods take a capital letter: the Renaissance, the Baroque, Impressionism, Cubism, Pop Art. So do the related nouns and adjectives: an Impressionist, a Cubist portrait. General descriptions stay lowercase: abstract art, modern art, contemporary art. Sometimes the capital changes the meaning: Realism is a nineteenth-century movement, while realism simply means a lifelike way of showing things.
How can I describe a painting in English in an exam or on a museum tour?
Move from what you see to what it means. Start with the basic facts: artist, date and medium. Then describe the subject matter and the composition: what is in the foreground and background, where the focal point is, how light and colour are used. Finally, interpret the work: its symbolism, its historical context, and why and for whom it was made. Verbs such as depict, suggest, emphasise and contrast will help you a lot.
