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Art & Art History vocabulary · Visual Elements & Composition

Foreshortening

Meaning in art & art history, with examples

/fɔːrˈʃɔːrtənɪŋ/nounAdvanced term

In art & art history, foreshortening means: 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.

In Turkish: perspektif kısaltması, kısaltma

How it is used

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.

Example sentences

  1. Mantegna's dramatic foreshortening places us at the feet of the dead Christ.

  2. Foreshortening is tricky: the outstretched hand needs to look bigger than the head.

Common collocations

  • dramatic foreshortening
  • extreme foreshortening
  • foreshortened figure
  • master foreshortening
  • perspectiveA 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.
  • proportionThe 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.
  • life drawingDrawing the human figure from a live model, often nude, who poses in a studio; also a class where this is practised.
  • RenaissanceThe 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.

More terms: Visual Elements & Composition

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