Art History Words and Terms Beginning With S

A salon, based on the French word living room, is a conversational gathering of intellectuals, artists and politicians. The French Salon was the official annual exhibition sponsored by the French government from 1667 to 1890; it continues under the private stewardship of the Societe des Artistes Francais.

The artists who developed a distinctive Cubist style based on Picasso's and Braque's ideas, but with a strong geometric appearance and easier-to-decipher imagery. They exhibited in the public exhibitions called "salons."

A word, from the Latin (via Italian) fumare ("to smoke"), used to denote a painting technique.

A shade is what one ends up with when black (or some other dark color) is added to a pure hue.

A shape is an element of art. Specifically, it is an enclosed area, the boundaries of which are defined by other elements of art (i.e.: lines, colors, values, textures, etc.).

Simultaneity depicts more than one view of an object on one plane.

An element of art, space refers to distances or areas around, between or within components of a piece.

Technically speaking, "the" spectrum is what one sees when white light (i.e.: sunlight) is dispersed and refracted by a prism.

Stain Painting is a branch of Color Field Painting, which is part of Abstract Expressionism. The paint is allowed to seep into the fabric of an unprimed canvas.

A still life is a type of painting containing one or more inanimate objects, and that's it.

The act of stippling involves covering an area with dots.

Symmetry is what occurs when one side of something balances out or mirrors the other.

Synthetic Cubism was invented by Picasso and Braque as they simplified a specific repertory of forms derived from their Analytic Cubism period of 1909/10 to 1912. Synthetic Cubism also incorporated collage and papier colle in Picasso and Braque's work.