Art History-Exam 3
Terms
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- Aisle
- The portion of a basilica flanking the nave and separated from it by a row of columns or piers.
- Alternate Support System
- In church architecture, the use of alternating wall supports in the nave, usually piers and columns or compound piers of alternating form.
- Ambulatory
- A covered walkway, outdoors (as in a church cloister) or indoors; especially the passageway around the apse and the choir of a church. In Buddhist architecture, the passageway leading around the stupa in a chaitya hall.
- Apse
- A recess, usually semicircular, in the wall of a building, commonly found at the east end of a church.
- Archivolts
- The continuous molding framing an arch. In Romanesque and Gothic architecture, one of the series of concentric bands framing the tympanum.
- Barrel Vault
- A masonry roof or ceiling constructed on the arch principle, or a concrete roof of the same shape. A barrel (or tunnel) vault, semicylindrical in cross-section, is in effect a deep arch or an uninterrupted series os arches, one behind the other, over an oblong space.
- Basilica
- In Roman architecture, a public building for legal and other civic proceedings, rectangular in plan with an entrance usually on a long side, In Christian architecture, a church somewhat resembling the Roman basilica, usually entered from one and with an apse at the other.
- Carolingian
- Pertaining to the empire of Charlemagne (Latin, "Carolus Magnus") and his successors.
- Central Plan
- The horizontal arrangement of the parts of a building or the buildings and streets of a city or town, or a drawing or diagram showing such an arrangement. In an axial plan, the parts of a building are organized longitudinally, or along a given axis; in a central plan, the parts of the structure are of equal or almost equal dimensions around the center.
- Choir
- The space reserved for the clergy and singers in the church, usually east of the transept but, in some instances, extending into the nave.
- Cloisonne
- A decorative metalwork technique employing cloisons; also decorative brickwork in later Byzantine architecture.
- Codex
- Separate pages of vellum or parchment bound together at one side; the predecessor of the modern book. The codex superseded the rotulus. In Mesoamerica, a painted and inscribed book on long sheets of bark paper or deerskin coated with fine white plaster and folded into accordion-like pleats.
- Compound/Cluster Pier
- A pier with a group, or a cluster, of attached shafts, or responds, especially characteristic of Gothic architecture.
- Crossing Square
- The area in a church formed by the intersection (crossing) of a nave and a transept of equal width, often used as a standard module of interior proportion.
- Dome
- A hemispherical vault; theoretically, an arch rotated on its vertical axis. In Mycenaean architecture, domes are beehive-shaped.
- Fan Vault
- A masonry roof or ceiling constructed on the arch principle, or a concrete roof of the same shape. A fan vault is a vault characteristic of English Perpendicular Gothic architecture, in which radiating ribs form a fanlike pattern.
- Flying Buttress
- An exterior masonry structure that opposes the lateral thrust of an arch or a vault. A pier buttress is a solid mass of a masonry. A flying buttress consists typically of an inclined member carried on an arch or a series of arches and a solid buttress to which it transmits lateral thrust.
- Fresco
- Painting on lime plaster, either dry (dry fresco, or fresco secco) or wet (true, or buon, fresco). In the latter method, the pigments are mixed with water and become chemically bound to the freshly laid lime plaster. Also, a painting executed in either method.
- Groin Vault
- A masonry roof or ceiling constructed on the arch principle, or a concrete roof of the same shape. A groin (or cross) vault is formed at the point at which two barrel vaults intersect at right angles.
- Icon
- A portrait or image; especially in Byzantine churches, a panel with a painting of sacred personages that are objects of veneration. In the visual arts, a painting, a piece of sculpture, or even a building regarded as an object of veneration.
- Iconoclasm
- The destruction of religious or sacred images. In Byzantium, the period from 726 to 843 when there was an imperial ban on such images. The destroyers of images were known as iconoclasts. Those who opposed such a ban were known as iconophiles.
- Illuminated Manuscript
- A luxurious handmade book with painted illustrations and decorations.
- Jamb
- In architecture, the side posts of a doorway.
- Monastery
- A group of buildings in which monks live together, set apart from the secular community of a town.
- Narthex
- A porch or vestibule of a church, generally colonnaded or arcaded and preceding the nave.
- Nave
- The central area of an ancient Roman basilica or of a church, demarcated from aisles by piers or columns.
- Ogive (pointed) arch
- The diagonal rib of a Gothic vault; a pointed, or Gothic, arch.
- Pantokrator
- Greek "ruler of all." Christ as ruler and judge of heaven and earth.
- Pendentive
- A concave, triangular section of a hemisphere, four of which provide the transition from a square area to the circular base of a covering dome. Although pendentives appear to be hanging (pendant) from the dome, they in fact support it.
- Pilaster
- A flat, rectangular, vertical member projecting from a wall of which it forms a part. It usually has a base and a capital and is often fluted.
- Radiating Chapels
- In medieval churches, chapels for the display of relics that opened directly onto the ambulatory and the transept.
- Rayonnant
- The "radiant" style of Gothic architecture, dominant in the second half of the 13th century and associated with the French royal court of Louis IX at Paris.
- Ribbed Vault
- A masonry roof or ceiling constructed on the arch principle, or a concrete roof of the same shape. In a ribbed vault, there is a framework of ribs or arches under the intersections of the vaulting section.
- Rose Window
- A circular stained-glass window.
- Squinch
- An architectural device used as a transition from a square to a polygonal or circular base for a dome. It may be composed of lintels, corbels, or arches.
- Tracery
- Ornamental stonework for holding stained glass in place, characteristic of Gothic cathedrals. In plate tracery, the glass fills only the "punched holes" in the heavy ornamental stonework. In bar tracery, the stained-glass windows fill almost the entire opening, and the stonework is unobtrusive.
- Transept
- The part of a church with an axis that crosses the nave at a right angle.
- Triforium
- In a Gothic cathedral, the blind arcaded gallery below the clerestory; occasionally, the arcades are filled with stained glass.
- Trumeau
- In church architecture, the pillar or center post supporting the lintel in the middle of the doorway.
- Tympanum
- The space enclosed by a lintel and an arch over a doorway.
- Vellum
- Calfskin prepared as a surface for writing or painting.
- Westwork
- German "western entrance structure." The facade and towers at the western end of a medieval church, principally in Germany. In contemporary documents the westwork is called a castellum (Latin, "castle", "fortress") or turris ("tower")
- Charlemagne
- Latin: Carolus Magnus or Karolus Magnus, meaning Charles the Great; possibly 742 – 28 January 814) was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans (Imperator Romanorum) from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800. This temporarily made him a rival of the Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople.
- Gislebertus
- Sometimes "of Autun" (flourished in the 12th century), was a French Romanesque sculptor, whose decoration (about 1120-1135) of the Cathedral of Saint Lazare at Autun, France - consisting of numerous doorways, tympanums, and capitals - represents some of the most original work of the period. His sculpture is expressive and imaginative: from the terrifying Last Judgment (West Tympanum), with its strikingly elongated figures, to the Eve (North Portal), the first large scale nude in European art since antiquity and a model of sinuous grace. His influence can be traced to other French church sculpture, and his techniques helped pave the way for the Gothic style.