Art History Words and Terms Beginning With C

Photographed portraits of sitters on small 4 by 2 1/2 cards, invented by A.A.E.Disderi and very popular during the Victorian era, provoking what was called "cartomania."

A catalogue raisonné is a book - an exhaustive book - which covers every known work of an individual artist up to the year of the book's publication.

From the Latin "calx" (limestone) chalk is the mineral substance calcium carbonate (the main ingredient of limestone).

From the Latin word for "around," circa (also written as "c." or "ca.") is most commonly inserted before an historical date.

Collage is an art form that includes glued paper, objects and other foreign matter. Picasso and Braque invented the art form during the the Synthetic Period (1912 and on).

Color is the element of art that is produced when light, striking an object, is reflected back to the eye. There are three (3) properties to color.

An art term that describes one particular pose a sculpture or painting of a human has been given by the artist.

A principle of art, contrast refers to the arrangement of opposite elements (light vs. dark colors, rough vs. smooth textures, large vs. small shapes, etc.) in a piece so as to create visual interest, excitement and drama.

A French phrase that means "cry of the heart."

Crizzling is the unhappy state wherein old glass is afflicted with a fine network of cracks on its surface.

Cut-outs by Henri Matisse are made of gouache-painted sheets of paper, carved by scissors into representational and imaginery forms. These shapes are first pinned to a colored surface, as the artist directs an assistant about placement and then glued into place once the work is complete. Matisse's cut-outs are not collages.