Aboriginal |
Aboriginal encompasses Indian, Inuit and Métis people living in Canada.
Carl Beam The North American Iceberg, 1985
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Abstract , Abstraction |
In art, the word "abstract" designates a work that does not represent the world as we see it in reality. Abstract art is a 20th-century artistic trend that sees the artist discarding the depiction of real objects in nature, and favouring the use of formal patterns of shapes, lines, colour and texture. It is also known as non-representational art.
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Academic |
Strict observance of conventional rules.
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Aesthetic |
Science of beauty in nature and in art.
© West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative Ltd.
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African American (Canadian) |
refers to Black people who have lived in USA (Canada) since the beginnings of transatlantic settlement. Although historically very few have arrived directly from their ancestral homeland in the continent of Africa, the term "African American", "African Canadian" became increasingly popular in the 1990s to identify all descendants of Africa regardless of their place of birth. The earliest arrivals were slaves brought from New England or the West Indies. Between 1763 and 1865 most blacks migrating to Canada were fleeing slavery in the US. The US remained the main source of new black immigrants until the 1960s, when large numbers of West Indians began arriving. Today African Canadians constitute about 2% of the Canadian population.
Photo:© Dave Heath
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Amauti |
Traditionally made of seal or caribou skin, amauti (parkas) are now made of fabric. They are worn by women and girls for protection from the cold. Infants are carried in a pocket in the back, rather than in the hood.
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Antler |
A branched horn of a deer or similar animal (Gage Canadian Dictionary)
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Architecture |
The art of designing buildings and other structures.
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Aristocracy |
Government by the best or most outstanding citizens. Grand and stylish with distinguished bearing and manners.
© Estate of August Sander / Bild-Kunst (Bonn) / SODRAC (Montreal)
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Atmospheric perspective |
In a painting using atmospheric perspective, the use of successively less intense colours for each zone creates a feeling of spatial distance, corresponding to the effect of the atmosphere on our perception of faraway objects.
Detail of : Piero di Cosimo, Vulcan and Aeolus, 1495
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Background |
The part of an image that appears to be far away.
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Bleak |
Showing or suggesting a deep sadness or grim depression. Referring to mourning and death.
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Camera lucida |
Latin, meaning “lighted room.” A drawing aid consisting of a prism attached to a vertical rod clamped onto a drawing board or pad. The draftsman pointed the prism at the view and looked down through it, tracing the image that appeared to be on the paper.
Camera Lucida
Cornelius Varley (British, 1781-1873)
Artist Sketching with a Wollaston-Style Camera Lucida, c. 1830
Engraving 16.5 x 7.5 cm
Gernsheim Collection Harry Ransom Center
The University of Texas at Austin
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Camera obscura |
Latin, meaning “dark room.” Light entering through a small hole in one wall forms on the opposite wall an image of the scene outside. The image is upside down and backwards. A camera obscura can be room-sized or hand-held.
Camera Obscura (table model) c. 1820
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Carving |
The technique of cutting and eliminating the surface of a block of material to shape it into a particular form. The materials appropriate for carving include clay, marble, wood, sandstone, soap, and wax.
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Chromatic |
Relating to colours.
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Collage |
Collage from the French word coller (to stick), collage is a work created by gluing material to a surface. By doing so, the artist incorporates actual fragments of the real world.
Carl Beam Colombus Chronicles, 1992
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Colour-field |
Paintings with solid areas of colour covering the entire canvas and by suggestion into infinity. Most colour-field paintings are large and meant to be seen very close so that the viewer is immersed in a colour environment.
Robert Houle Mohawk Parflèche, 1990
© R. Houle
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Composition |
The organization of a scene represented on the canvas. The composition lines give the painting its structure.
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Concentric |
Having a common center, as circles of different size, one within another.
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Conceptual art |
Art that is intended to convey an idea or a concept to the perceiver. Conceptual art rejects the creation or appreciation of a traditional art object such as a painting or a sculpture as a precious commodity. Conceptual Art emerged as an art movement in the 1960s and dealt with issues resulting in an art object being replaced by an analysis of it. Also the idea that artistic production should serve artistic knowledge and that the art object is not an end in itself were important concepts of this movement. Conceptual artists began to question the very site of the artist’s activity. As the parameters of art expanded and the field of experimentation became more diverse these artists were conceiving works that existed principally as ideas, using language, text, and photography to document their ideaart. “Conceptual” art reclaimed the artist’s role in the process of creation. It questioned the validity of the art object, its commodity status, and its form of distribution.
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Contact print |
A photographic print the same size as the negative from which it was made. The negative is in direct contact with the photographic paper during printing.
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Contemporary |
An art current, belonging to the same period of time. Usually referring to our present time, but may refer to being current with any specified time.
Brian Jungen Shapeshifter, 2000
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Craft |
A focus on technical skill and manual dexterity. The manual activities performed by artisans or craftsmen, as distinguished from those practiced by artists in the making of fine art. There have been tensions in Western art practice resulting from differentiations between the art and craft, especially since the onslaught of mechanization in the nineteenth century industrial era.
© Estate of Donald Judd, VAGA (New-York) / SODART (Montreal) 2003
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Crest |
Designates – among other things - a tuft of feathers on top of the head of certain birds.
Detail of The Owl by Kenojuak Ashevak © West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative Ltd.
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Cubism |
Cubism was a term coined in 1908 by Louis Vauxcelles to describe the modern art of Picasso and Braque. These artists refuted traditional perspective and broke the planes of the composition into interlocking facets thereby fragmenting and disintegrating the image.
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Daguerreotype |
Daguerreotype is an early photographic process. It depended on long exposure time and bright light and was recorded on a silver plate. It was invented by Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre in 1837.
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Daguerreotype |
The first commercial photographic process. A daguerreotype is a finely detailed image formed on a sheet of silver-plated copper. It is fragile and non-reproducible.
Unknown (American)
Youth with Freckles 1850
daguerreotype 10.3 x 7.7 cm quarter-plate; image: 9 x 7.1 cm sight
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Darkroom |
Light-tight room used for processing or printing.
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Density |
Quality of being dense. Containing many elements in a limited space.
© Charlie Inukpuk
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Dyad |
Two units regarded as a pair or opposite in a whole.
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Eden |
The place where Adam and Eve lived at their creation. Also refers to a state of supreme happiness.
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Enlargement |
A photographic print larger than the negative from which it was made.
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Environmental art |
Refers to art, which involves the creation or manipulation of a large or enclosed space, which effectively surrounds its audience.
© Richard Serra / ARS (New-York) / SODRAC (Montreal)
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Exposure |
The amount of light that falls on a film or negative. In a camera, exposure is determined by the length of time the shutter is open, and the size of the opening through which the light passes.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Behind Gare St. Lazare, 1932
gelatin silver print
24.7 x 15.7 cm
© Henri Cartier-Bresson
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Façade |
The front of a building, which accents its entrance.
© Courtesy Dr. Naomi Jackson Groves
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Foreground |
The part of an image that seems to be closest to the viewer.
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Foreshortening |
Artists obtain this perspectival effect through an oblique representation of the object, as though it were either moving away from or moving toward the spectator. In order for the illusion to be apprehended correctly, the length of the object must be: shortened - hence the term "foreshortening" for this representational technique.
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Gelatin silver print |
A positive image composed of silver particles held in a binder layer of gelatin on paper. This technique was used to make contact prints and enlargements from negatives from the late 1870s. Gelatin silver enlarging papers continue to be widely used for back-and -white photographs today.
© Miriam Grossman Cohen
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Gypsum |
Mineral used to make plaster.
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Horizon line |
In linear perspective, the horizon line is where sky and earth meet. It is on this line that the vanishing point is located.
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Idealize |
To give an ideal form. Painter who idealizes his model.
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Installation |
In contemporary art, an installation is composed of several elements assembled to form a work that occupies its own three-dimensional space. Installations are constructed from various objects including those found or fabricated by the artist. Installations generally allow the visitor to interact with the work.
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Interpret |
To give a sense or a meaning to something.
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Inuktitut |
Mother tongue of about 18,500 Inuit. It is the language spoken by the majority of Nunavut’s inhabitants.
A selection of a few Inuktitut characters
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Landscape |
A work of art depicting a scene in nature.
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Large format camera |
A camera that produces a negative larger than 35 mm. 4” x 5” and 8” x 10” cameras are still commonly used in landscape photography.
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Legend |
Traditional mythical story belonging to one specific people. Depiction of reel facts or characters accepted by almost everyone but distorted or amplified by imagination or biases.
© West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative Ltd.
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Limestone |
Rock which is mainly made of calcium carbonate.
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Linoleum |
Material used in the manner of a woodcut made in sheets by pressing a mixture of linseed oil, powdered cork, gum and resin onto a jute canvas backing.
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Metamorphosis |
Transformation, change of a form into another.
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Metaphor |
One thing conceived as representing a thing ordinarily designates one things is used to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison.
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MicMac |
A North American Indian tribe that lives in Eastern Canadian territories (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island).
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Minimalist |
The foremost concern of the Minimal artists Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Robert Morris, Sol LeWitt, and Dan Flavin , was how to use space as a primary element of their art. They began making sculptures of a radical simplicity, abandoning traditional composition, and rejecting surface detail and hierarchical relationships, so that the physical properties of the materials would be perceived with greater clarity. Their critical discussions about the nature of painting itself became the basis for their inquiries into the definition of the art object. What classified something as art? What properties belong uniquely to sculpture? Such questions would lead to a consideration of volume, mass, weight, and the role of space. Questioning the nature of experience and knowledge, these young idealistic artists became critics themselves, writing about their own art and that of their peers. Their theoretical positions, informed in varying degrees by inquiries into phenomenology, behavioural psychology, metaphysics, and Eastern philosophies, were sometimes publicly articulated. As Robert Morris pointed out, simple shapes should not be equated with simplicity of experience. The simplicity of forms is a disguise for the complexity of thought that gave them definition.
© Robert Fones
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Modern, Modernism |
Modernism refers to the new art prevalent in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when artists wanted to distance themselves from the styles of the past, and instead use innovative forms of expression.
© The Humphrey Estate
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Module |
A basic unit of which the dimensions of the major parts of a work are multiples. The principle is used in sculpture and other art forms and in architecture, where the module may be the dimensions of an important part of a building, such as a column, or simply some commonly accepted unit of measurement.
Carl Andre, Lever, 1966 © VAGA (New York)/SODART (Montreal) 2003
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Mosaic |
A surface comprised of small pieces of stone or glass.
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Multiculturalism |
A movement to broaden the range of cultures we study, in reaction to the prevailing opinion that the great accomplishments have been made almost exclusively by males of European descent.
© Miriam Grossman Cohen
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Métis |
Métis are a distinct cultural group whose members, of mixed Indian and French, Scottish or Irish ancestry, are descended from people who established settlements in the Red, Assiniboine and Saskatchewan River valleys during the nineteenth century.
Bob Boyer A Minor Sport in Canada, 1985 © Bob Boyer
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Nunavik |
Nunavik is the province of Quebec's arctic region. A vast territory lying north of the 55th parallel; bordered by Hudson Bay to the west, Hudson Strait to the north and Ungava Bay and Labrador to the east.
Map Courtesy of Makivik Corporation. Nunavik Research Center.
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Parfleche |
Parfleche are rawhide containers, similar in construction to an envelope but can be as large as a suitcase made by the Aboriginal peoples of the Plains. They were often painted and decorated and used to carry personal and ceremonial objects.
Photo: © Canadian Museum of Civilization, image number: S96-5478
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Perspective |
A technique for representing three-dimensional objects or spaces on a two-dimensional surface.
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Photomontage |
Photomontage, is a collage technique, was invented by the German artists after World War 1. They combined details of diverse photographs into new compositions, thereby creating work with a strong social political message.
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Pictorial |
Pictorial means relating to or using pictures, paintings, etc.
Detail of Iris by Vincent van Gogh
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Pictorialism |
A movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that sought to have photography recognized as a fine art. Pictorialist photographers manipulated their prints to achieve a variety of effects. Romantic subjects in soft focus were common.
Julia Margaret Cameron
The Guardian Angel 1869
albumen silver print 29.4 x 16.4 cm
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Pinhole Camera |
The simplest camera you can use to take a photograph. A pinhole camera is a closed light-tight box with a pinhole on one side. Light enters through the hole and projects an inverted and reversed image on photographic film or paper placed inside the box, opposite the hole.
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Polished |
To make a surface smooth and glossy.
© Thomasie Qamugaaluk
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Polyptych |
Polyptych means an arrangement of four or more panels (as of a painting) usually hinged and folding together.
Jacopo di Cione, Triptych of the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints, 1380
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Portrait |
is a work of art that represents a specific person, a group of people. Portraits show us what a person looks like as well as revealing something about the subject’s personality. A portrait can be 3 dimensional (sculpture) or two-dimensional (painting).
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Print |
Shape or mark made from a block or plate or other object that is covered with wet colour (usually ink) and then pressed onto a flat surface, such as paper or textile. Most prints can be reproduced over and over again by re-inking the printing block or plate.
Carl Beam The North American Iceberg, 1985
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Process art |
Beginning in the late 60’s, some American artists placed greater emphasis on the process of making an art object. The inherent properties of the materials used determined the final outcome of the form. These artists abandoned control and allowed chance and the physical characteristics of the materials to determine the final look of the work. Artists like Robert Morris, once a leading spokesman for Minimalism, began to reject the order, structural clarity, and precision of Minimalism. In place of preconceived forms and strictly delineated shapes he began using non?rigid materials in loose, indeterminate arrangements, giving them a feel of disorder and chaos. Because of the emphasis on the process of making, and the way the inherent properties of materials determined the final outcome of the form, these works were called “Process” art.
© Robert Morris / ARS (New-York) / SODRAC (Montreal)
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Ptarmigan |
The ptarmigan resemble a grouse. This northern bird is well suited to its environment, e.g. nostrils are hidden by feathers, body feathers have a long, downy aftershaft that increases insulation, and toes are feathered. Ptarmigan have a snow-white winter plumage. Summer plumage is mottled brown.
Canadian Wildlife Service
Reproduced with permission of the Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada, 2003
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Qaggiq |
Inuktitut word: a large dome-shaped snowhouse where meetings or group celebrations are held.
Igloo, Fullerton, N.W.T.
Moodie, J.D. / National Archives of Canada / C-001827
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Qamutiik |
Inuktitut word: a sled with two runners. This word is the plural of qamuti (a runner).
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Retouching |
The alteration by hand of the look of a photographic negative or print. Retouching is most often used in portraiture, to hide minor blemishes and imperfections.
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Romantic, Romanticism |
A movement in Western European art from the early 19th century. It is characterized by the rejection Neoclassicism " the established art of the time " and marked by intense colours, emotions painted in a bold and dramatic manner, complex compositions, soft outlines and sometimes heroic subject matter.
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Royal Academy or Royal Academy of Arts (RA) |
- In 1769, under the patronage of Britain’s King George III, the Royal Academy met for its first session. The official title of this elite institution is “Royal Academy in London for the Purpose of Cultivating and Improving the Arts of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture”, or simply called “The R.A.” The painters among the R.A.’s founding members were its first president, Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), the portrait painter Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788), the landscape artist Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782), and an American Benjamin West (1738-1820), who became president upon the death of Joshua Reynolds. Members of the Royal Academy of Arts (RA) are known as “Associate of the Royal Academy” (ARA).
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Sepulchre |
A tomb or burial place.
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Serpentine |
A mineral consisting chiefly of a hydrous silicate of magnesium, usually green, and sometimes spotted like a serpent’s skin (Gage Canadian Dictionary)
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Shaman |
Part priest, part sorcerer, magician and seer, healer, prophet, male or female, shamans can enter into a state of trance, travel beneath the sea or among the stars to the northern lights, transform themselves into wolves, seals or monsters, call upon benevolent spirits and fight to the death against malevolent ones, exercise justice, heal the body and save the soul, condemn, forgive, take or give life. Mediums, sages and sorcerers, they act as intermediaries between the world of the living and the supernatural world of shadows and spirits.
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Shoreline |
Area of land next to the water
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Sketch |
The first stage of a work, showing the overall theme and the main elements. Sketches can be done in pen or pencil, or quickly painted on canvas.
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Slave |
A person who is the legal property of another or others and is bound to absolute obedience.
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Space |
An element of art that refers to the distance or area between, around, above, below, or within things. It can be described as two-dimensional or three-dimensional; as flat, shallow, or deep, as positive or negative.
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Sphere |
Solid ball or globe.
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Spire |
(In architecture) - Tapering structure in form of tall cone or pyramid rising above a tower.
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Spiritual |
A practice that is concerned with sacred or religious things. It is a belief that is concerned with the higher qualities of the mind, and of the spirit, as opposed to matter.
Robert Houle The Place Where God Lives, 1989 © R. Houle
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Still-life |
A picture of inanimate objects. Still-lifes appear throughout the history of art and photography. Common subjects include food, flowers, tableware, books, and dead animals.
David Hlynsky
Still Life in a Fish Bowl 1983
chromogenic print (Ektacolor)
50.7 x 40.6 cm; image: 35.5 x 35.5 cm
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Still-life |
Picture of inanimate objects. Common still-life subjects could be vessels, food, flowers, books, usually dead animals and clothing. A still-life painting can also be a symbol for the fleeting aspects of life. The Dutch painters of the seventeenth century excelled in creating still-life paintings.
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Straight photography |
A movement of the first half of the 20th century that returned photography to its pure form. Straight photographs are direct - unposed, unmanipulated and unsentimental. Their power comes through a technical mastery of the medium, including framing, light and shade, line, and texture.
Walker Evans
A Room in Inverness, Nova Scotia 1971
gelatin silver print
35.3 x 27.8 cm; image: 25 x 25.5 cm
© Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
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Style |
Personal or collective way of treating materials and forms to create a work of art. Set of characteristics that allow the classification of a work of art and similar works into a given aesthetic category.
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Surrealism |
A twentieth century movement that was founded by the French writer, André Breton (1896-1966). The movement was influenced by the theories of the psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud. Surrealist works are as confusing and as startling as those of dreams. These works can be realistic, but be totally irrational in their depiction of dreamlike fantasies or they can be abstract. If they are abstract they are usually modeled upon the psychotherapeutic procedure of “free association”. In this process, conscious control is eliminated in order to express the unconscious.
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Symbol |
Symbol is a colour or object which represents something else. Eg. In Carl Beam's work, the traffic light represents the patterned behaviours that regulate our lives.
Faye HeavyShield Untitled, 1992
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Symbolize |
To use a symbol to depict, express or materialize something.
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Technique |
Set of procedures to create a work of art or obtain a predetermined outcome.
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Thematic |
Organized set or system of subjects. Topic, idea or proposal to develop. Central topic of someone’s comments, of a work of art.
Preparations for Food Elisapee Ishulutaq
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Theosophy |
Denotes metaphysical teachings and systems, derived from personal experience and esoteric tradition, which base knowledge of nature and the human condition upon knowledge of the divine nature or spiritual powers.
The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890-1985 (exh. cat. by M. Tuchman and others, 1986)
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Trompe l'oeil |
In painting, the attempt to make images that seemingly share or extend the three-dimensional space in which the spectator stands.
Emanuel de Witte, A Sermon in the Old Church in Delft , c. 1650-1651.
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Troubadour |
Medieval poet.
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Ulu |
A woman’s knife for domestic use. It has a crescent-shaped blade and is still widely used today.
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Umiak |
The Inuit term umiak is an open boat, with a wooden frame with a covering of bearded seal or walrus hide. Although comparatively light, it could transport up to thirty people and several tonnes of goods.
Umiak ME933.2 McCord Museum of Canadian History
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Underground railroad |
The Underground Railroad was a secret network of people who helped escaped slaves from the southern United States make their way north to Canada. The "railroad" was at its most active between 1840 and 1860.
Harriet Tubman (left) with some of her charges
Source: Bettmann Archives Inc. Reproduced from the National Library of Canada's website (www.nlc-bnc.ca)
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Vanishing point |
The method of conveying an impression of spatial depth on a flat surface – a piece of paper, for example – was first developed in the Renaissance, during the fifteenth century. One of the rules of perspective is that all parallel lines moving away from the viewer will eventually converge at a single spot called the vanishing point. In other words, two parallel lines moving away from the viewer give the impression of converging at an infinite distance.
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View camera or Field camera |
View camera or Field camera is used for making large-scale negatives, especially of outdoor scenes and architectural studies. In the nineteenth century, the plates were exposed and the contact printed rather than enlarged.
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Volume |
The three-dimensional space inside a form.
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Wash |
A method of doing or colouring a drawing using India ink or any other colour thinned with water. A wash may be used for shading, to reveal contours. One of the difficulties associated with washes is that the colours must be applied quickly so that they do not dry too fast or smear.
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Watercolour |
Paint mixed with water that is more transparent than gouache (a thicker water-based paint). Watercolours are applied on paper or board with a large soft-bristled brush. Since the colours are really thinned down, they produce a light background that allows the white of the paper to show through, thus acting as another colour.
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Wet plate collodion |
This process was invented in 1848 by Frederick Scott Archer. The wet plate collodion process became the prominent method of production of negatives on glass in the nineteenth century. The exposure time was shorter and became a lot mote popular than the previous methods and processes. It replaced the one of a kind daguerreotype. Wet-collodion on glass negatives were also popular for their high resolution of detail.
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Zenith |
The point of sky directly above the observer.
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