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Describing A Painting: Vocabulary

The document provides a vocabulary for describing various elements and techniques used in paintings. It includes terms for different types of paintings, techniques, settings, subjects, positions, forms, colors, values, and shades that could be used to analyze and discuss works of visual art. Key terms defined include landscape, portrait, still life, technique, urban/country/domestic setting, figures, light, form, mass, color, size, space, movement, hue, value, intensity, shade, and tint. A sample painting analysis is also included to demonstrate applying these terms.

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Aleksandra Radwan
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537 views3 pages

Describing A Painting: Vocabulary

The document provides a vocabulary for describing various elements and techniques used in paintings. It includes terms for different types of paintings, techniques, settings, subjects, positions, forms, colors, values, and shades that could be used to analyze and discuss works of visual art. Key terms defined include landscape, portrait, still life, technique, urban/country/domestic setting, figures, light, form, mass, color, size, space, movement, hue, value, intensity, shade, and tint. A sample painting analysis is also included to demonstrate applying these terms.

Uploaded by

Aleksandra Radwan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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DESCRIBING A PAINTING:

VOCABULARY
Types of painting
Landscape portrait still life mythological scene war scene nude
marine/seascape lives of saints Madonna with child domestic scene
human figure abstract painting (…)

What kind of paintings are these?

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Technique
Oil (on canvas- on wood) fresco watercolors (…)

Setting
urban setting country setting domestic setting
indoor scene outdoor scene

Subject
A figure a group of figures (the main figure, minor figures…)
standing, lying, kneeling, crouching, leaning, bending (towards…), making a gesture, holding an
object (…)
natural elements (a tree, a wood, a field, a garden, the sky…)
architectural elements (an arch, a square, buildings, columns, a staircase)
A simply/essentially furnished room an elegant room a grand scenery
Symbolic elements/objects (…)

Position
In the background / in the foreground
Above Below On the top of At the bottom of On the left/right
To the left/right of… In the middle In the (top left) corner
RAPHAEL’S SCHOOL OF ATHENS: complete the text

5 4 3

1) ………………………there is a standing figure representing the philosopher Plato


…………. gesture with his arm. (It is actually a portrait of Leonardo da Vinci).
2) ………………………there is a statue holding a lire.
3) In ………………………….there is a group of figures ………………… around a small
blackboard.
4) In ………………………..there is a philosopher sitting and ……………………..on a table.
5) On …………………… there is a figure ………………… and making notes on a book.
6) In the ………………………there is a grand architectural structure

Elements of the painting:

Light: artificial-natural, bright-dim, light-shade, direct-indirect, night-day (…)

Form or shape: conical, curvilinear, geometric , pyramidal, rectangular, circular, square,


triangular, spherical, cubical (…)

Mass or volume: big-small, bulky, empty-filled, heavy-light, solid-open, stable-unstable (…)

Color: advancing-receding, bright-dull, light-dark, strong-weak, warm-cool, fading, sfumato (…)

Size: exaggerated, large-small, little-big, natural (real), proportional, reduced, tall-short (…)

Space: deep-shallow, empty-filled, narrow-wide, open-closed, vast-small (…)

Movement: circular-straight, convergent-divergent, crosswise-lengthwise, fast-slow, forward-


backward, upwards-downwards (…)

COLOURS
Hue: a color
Primary red, blue, yellow
Secondary orange, green, violet
Intermediate red-orange, blue-green, etc.
Complementary two hues directly across one another on the color wheel. The
colors complement of each primary is the secondary created by mixing
the other two primaries (red-green; blue-orange; yellow-violet).
When placed near each other, complementary colors tend to
vibrate.
Value lightness or darkness of a color
Intensity brightness or dullness of a color due to its relative purity.
Shade a color modified by addition of  black resulting in a darker  hue 
Tint a color modified by addition of  white, resulting in a lighter hue

Write the colours (yellow, purple, olive green, violet, orange, light blue, dark blue, red):

What other colours do you know?

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