animalist

And in my opinion, the reason we have so few good animalists among modern artists is because the domestication of species and man's development have obscured their deeper visual significance for most of us.

1927, Hamilton Easter Field, editor, The Arts, volume 11:

(art) A painter or sculptor whose primary subject is animals.


restrainer

(photography) A chemical compound (such as potassium bromide), added to a developer to prevent fogging


elon

From a trade name, presumably a shortened form of the chemical name.

(photography) Synonym of metol (“p-methylaminophenol sulfate”)


underexpose

en-verb

underexpose (third-person singular simple present underexposes, present participle underexposing, simple past and past participle underexposed)

underexposes (present singular third-person)
underexposing (participle present)
underexposed (participle past)
underexposed (past)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-underexpose.wav

(photography) To take a photograph using too small an exposure


underexpose

en-adj

underexpose (comparative more underexpose, superlative most underexpose)

more underexpose (comparative)
most underexpose (superlative)

(photography) The condition when a photograph is darker than it should be because the film was not exposed to sufficient light either because the camera aperture was too small or the duration of light was too short.

huranga pore

darkened of photographs due to insufficient light


autotelism

(art) In literature or art, the belief that a work, having been created, is a justification in and of itself. Poems with a unified rhetorical device to frame the poem in a singular idea.


autotypy

en-noun

autotypy (usually uncountable, plural autotypies)

(dated, photography) An early photographic process that produced autotypes using a carbon pigment.


parison

From French paraison, from parer (“pare”).

The wineglasses were from a matched dozen, each having begun as a glowing parison at the end of some blowpipe over in Murano but days before.

2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 278:

(glassblowing) A spherical mass of glass, rolled immediately after being taken out of the furnace.


doubler

(metalworking) A person employed in a roller mill to fold the hot metal plates in half.


décollage

décollage (countable and uncountable, plural décollages)

décollages (plural)
decollage (alternative)

Unadapted borrowing from French décollage, influenced by de- + collage.

ubor

(art, uncountable) The opposite of collage: the process of cutting, tearing, etc. an original image to produce a new work.


emballage

French emballage (“wrapping, packaging”)

bor

(art) An artwork having a motif of wrapping or concealment.


photo artist

(photography, art) A person that uses photographic equipment to create art


tommyknocker

Then he's down one of these adits, talking to the tommyknockers, more'n likely.

2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 335:

(folklore) A mythical creature, like a brownie or leprechaun, believed to live in underground tunnels; later associated with dead miners.


stabat mater

Borrowed from Latin stabat mater (“the mother was standing”) (the first words of the hymn).

(art) An artwork depicting the Virgin Mary under the cross during the crucifixion of Christ alongside John the apostle.


pentimento

[Alt: A blue-tinted painting of a man's bent neck, with a faint image of a woman's face in its background]
Learned borrowing from Italian pentimento (“repentance, penance, penitence; remorse; change of opinion; correction; traces of a previous image or work in an artwork”), from pentìrsi (“to repent; to regret”) + -mento (suffix forming nouns representing the actions of verbs to which it is attached). Pentìrsi is derived from Latin paenitēre, the present active infinitive of paeniteō (“to cause to repent; to repent; to be sorry, regret”), from Proto-Indo-European *peh₁- (“to hate; to hurt”).
The plural form is also borrowed from Italian pentimenti.

der

She thought of the painting in the shop, the pentimento. Her life, the one she had so carefully planned for herself had crumbled like the paint on the surface.

2012, Lorraine T. Gilman, chapter 20, in Princeton Pentimento, Bloomington, Ind.: WestBow Press, Thomas Nelson, →ISBN, page 205:

[T]he presence of a pentimento is an extremely valuable entity which supports the conclusion that a painting is an original composition – so, by inference, therefore, refuting any later suggestion that the painting could be the work of a copyist, who would have been engaged upon copying an existing painting as seen! The identification of a pentimento in an artwork can occur in one of two ways: by analytical interrogation of the subsurface using penetrative radiation such as IRR or XRD, or by direct visual observation, where the overlaying paint has worn away […]

2019, Timothy J. Benoy, William A. Edwards, Howell G. M. Edwards, “Evidence of Pentimenti for the Authentication of Paintings: A Challenge for Analytical Science at the Interface with Art History”, in Peter Vandenabeele, Howell Edwards, editors, Raman Spectroscopy in Archaeology and Art History, volume 2, London: Royal Society of Chemistry, →ISBN, page 33:

(art, literature) The presence of traces of a previous work in an artistic or literary work; especially (painting) an image which has been painted over but is still detectable.


rabbet joint

(rare, woodworking) See definition at rabbet.


reattribution

en-noun

reattribution (countable and uncountable, plural reattributions)

To professionals in the world of art, reattribution is not necessarily pejorative, even though it is often perceived that way by the general public. Reattribution can upgrade a work as well as downgrade it.

1994, John E. Conklin, Art Crime, Bloomsbury, →ISBN, page 54:

(art, crime) The process of determining whether artwork is real or fake, and, if fake, determining when and by whom it was created.


galant

Borrowed from French galant (“gallant”).

(historical, music, art) Of or relating to an 18th-century movement in visual arts and literature, opposing the strictures of the baroque style and emphasizing light, casual elegance.


astrophotography

As in most nature photography, the 35mm single lens reflex camera is probably the best choice for astrophotography.

1967, H. Charles Laun, The Natural History Guide, Alsace Books and Films, page 44:

Their^([CMOS sensors']) pixel size, linearity and noise performance are not necessarily ideal for astrophotography.

2017, Chris Woodhouse, The Astrophotography Manual, 2nd edition, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), page 10:

Astrophotography is a craft requiring development of skill, not just good equipment.

2018, Michael A. Covington, Digital SLR Astrophotography, 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, page 18:

(astronomy, photography) The photography or imaging of astronomical objects, celestial events or areas of the night sky.


astrophoto

Once captured on film, an astrophoto does no good unless transferred to a form you can see and examine closely.

1973, Richard Berry, “Getting More Out of Your Astrophotos”, in Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada Newsletter, volume 67, page L32:

(astronomy, photography) An image of one or more celestial objects made using techniques of astrophotography.


parameterization

parameterization (countable and uncountable, plural parameterizations)

parameterizations (plural)
parametrization (alternative)
parameterisation (alternative)
parametrisation (alternative)

(design, engineering) The representation of physical characteristics or properties by parameters rather than as sui generis instances; usually and especially:

(computing) Such parameterized representation in a computer model.


contrapposto

contrapposto (countable and uncountable, plural contrapposto or contrapposti)

contrapposto (plural)
contrapposti (plural)

Borrowed from Italian contrapposto, past participle of contrapporre.

The contrapposto flexes one buttock and relaxes the other.

(art) The position of a figure whose hips and legs are twisted away from the direction of the head and shoulders.


CF

CF (countable and uncountable, plural CFs)


CF

(photography) Abbreviation of CompactFlash.

(photography) Abbreviation of CompactFast.


rangefinder

rangefinders (plural)
range finder (alternative)

rangefinder camera
rangefinder camera#English

(photography) Abbreviation of rangefinder camera.


bill of materials

bill of materials (plural bills of materials)

bills of materials (plural)
bill of material (alternative)

(manufacturing, design engineering) A list of materials and components used in a manufactured item.


art movement

(art) Any of many styles of art having an underlying philosophy or goal; many of them have names with an -ism suffix.


mortise-and-tenon joint

mortise-and-tenon joint (plural mortise-and-tenon joints)

A keyed mortise-and-tenon joint is constructed the same as a doweled mortise and tenon joint except that the tenon projects far enough through the mortise to admit the insertion of a tapering key which draws the mortised piece firmly against the shoulder of the tenon.

1918, Herman Frederick Rusch, Shop Work, Joinery-cabinet-making-carpentry, Chicago, Illinois, United States: University of Chicago Press, page 56:

(woodworking) A joint made by inserting a projecting tenon into a mortised slot.


foreshortening

foreshortening (countable and uncountable, plural foreshortenings)

(art) A technique for creating the appearance that the object of a drawing is extending into space by shortening the lines with which that object is drawn.


astrophotographer

(astronomy, photography) A person, especially an astronomer, who takes photographs of the stars


polylineal

en-adj

polylineal (comparative more polylineal, superlative most polylineal)

more polylineal (comparative)
most polylineal (superlative)

The painting uses polylineal writing to create a brown texture over the lower third of the canvas.

(art) Describing any of several stylistic or expressive devices, especially in contemporary western calligraphy, employing repetition of words or phrases.


bozzetto

/bəʊtˈsɛtəʊ/

In his studio, his small bozzetti were diligently kept out of public view, and he granted access to the back room where he stored them only to select individuals.

2020, Johannes Myssok, “Angelica Kauffman and Antonio Canova”, in Bettina Baumgärtel, editor, Angelica Kauffman, Hirmer, page 24:

(art) A small scale model used to make a larger sculpture.


Romanist

(art history) A painter of the 16th century Romanist school.


orthophotography

During the past three decades, orthophotography has become an increasingly popular and useful tool for land managers. As quality and availability improve, this trend will continue. Orthophotography combines the planimetric precision of maps with the wealth of detail found on aerial photographs.

2012, David P. Paine, James D. Kiser, chapter 8, in Aerial Photography and Image Interpretation, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN:

(photography) The geometrical correction of aerial photographs so that their displayed distances are rendered uniform and can be measured like a map.

ορθοφωτογραφία

the technology of correcting aerial photographs so that displayed distances are uniform and can be measured like a map


lampwork

(glassblowing) A method for working with blown glass that does not require a furnace.

(glassblowing) Glass pieces made by this method.

(glassblowing) The activity of producing glass pieces using this method.


primary market

The primary market is art directly from the artist, offered for sale for the first time.

2010, Don Thompson, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark, Aurum Press Limited, →ISBN:

(art) Works of art directly bought from the artist.


secondary market

en-noun

secondary market (plural secondary markets)

The primary market is art directly from the artist, offered for sale for the first time. The secondary market is resale: buying, selling and trading among collectors, dealers and museums.

He dealt in the “secondary” market—reselling pieces that have been sold before—to individual collectors and investors who grouped together for high-value works.

2024 April 17, Charlotte Edwardes, “‘The money is not real – it’s a feckless level of wealth’: the inside story of the biggest art fraud in American history”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

(art) The market for works of art that have been sold before.


versal

(typography, calligraphy) Ornamental letter that begins a section


bear walker

bear walkers (plural)
Bear Walker (alternative)
bear-walker (alternative)
bearwalk (alternative)

Calque of Ojibwe me'coubmoosa (“bear walker”).

clq

The hair ornament was worn by the Bear-Walker before and during the casting of spells.

1901, Charles Edward Brown, The Wisconsin Archeologist, page 116:

He told Jim he saw a Bear-walker approaching the house then and there.

1953, Inland Seas, Great Lakes Historical Society, page 13

These bear-walkers owed their powers to their personal manito, the bear, and traveled in disguise at night, causing disease among their victims.

1983, Christopher Vecsey, Traditional Ojibwa Religion and its Historical Changes, →ISBN, page 148:

(Native American, folklore) An evil sorcerer, specifically one who walks by night in the form of a bear.


japanning

(art, woodworking) A European technique of creating lacquerware in imitation of the traditional Japanese style.


timbric

en-adj

timbric (comparative more timbric, superlative most timbric)

more timbric (comparative)
most timbric (superlative)


white lady

en-noun

white lady (countable and uncountable, plural white ladies)

For quotations using this term, see Citations:white lady.

(folklore) A female ghost dressed in white, who is associated with local legends of tragedy.


écorché

Borrowed from French écorché (“flayed”).

Apollo with a potato peeler, she flays the Marsyas of humanity, exposing raw nerve. Man is a red-ribboned écorché in her laboratory.

(art) A figure drawn, painted or sculpted so as to show the muscles of the body without skin.


artsploitation

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-artsploitation.wav

(art, slang) A genre of art that relies on self-reference;


diapositive

(photography, graphic arts) An image suitable to overlay (superimpose) over another (as for example a gel for an overhead projector, a slide that complements another slide as a superimposition for it, or a digital virtual equivalent of these); its coloration is adjusted to contrast with the underlying image (for example, text may be white instead of black in areas where the background is dark).


virtualist

(art, computing) An artist who specializes in art on the Internet or in virtual reality.


frigger

(glassblowing) An object made by a glassmaker (or, later, other craftsmen), as an ornament, a testing sample, or a test of skill.


non-referential perception

non-referential perception (plural non-referential perceptions)

(art) perception of an object without known points of reference.


star trail

The idea behind photographing star trails is wonderfully simple. Just take your old mechanical camera, point it skyward, and leave the shutter open.

2001, Eric DeBolt, “Happy Trails”, in Astronomy, volume 29, number 7, page 74:

(astronomy, photography) The line of light recorded on a photographic medium when a time exposure is made of a star in the nighttime sky using a camera on a fixed mount, caused by the rotation of the earth during the period of time when the camera's shutter is held open.


ondoyant

ondoyant glass

(art) wavy; having the surface marked by waves or slightly depressed furrows


tronie

(art) A kind of painting that depicts an exaggerated or characteristic facial expression.


gravure

gravure (countable and uncountable, plural gravures)

for too long have the walls of our houses been adorned with examples of effete Old World portrait gravure.

1916 March 25, Irvin S. Cobb, “"Unaccustomed as I am—"”, in Saturday Evening Post:

THE POCKET ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF BRITISH STEAM LOCOMOTIVES. By O. S. Nock. Blandford Press. 18s.
Mr. Nock, he remarks in his preface, was "incredulous" when the idea of this book of 192 colour gravure illustrations of a representative collection of British steam locomotives from Locomotion to BR's Evening Star was broached to him.

1964 December, “New Books”, in Modern Railways, page 429:

(art, printing) A type of intaglio printing process, in which an image is engraved onto a rotating copper cylinder.


mortice

One soon learned, however, that it was no easy thing to make wood do exactly as one required it. It looked quite easy in the masterly hands of the experienced pattern-maker, but the mysteries of dowelling and mortice and tenon were not uncovered in a week or two.

1944 November and December, A Former Pupil, “Some Memories of Crewe Works—II”, in Railway Magazine, page 341:

(woodworking) Alternative spelling of mortise


mortice

en-verb

mortice (third-person singular simple present mortices, present participle morticing, simple past and past participle morticed)

mortices (present singular third-person)
morticing (participle present)
morticed (participle past)
morticed (past)


vignetting

(photography) An instance of vignette (effect where qualities vanish toward edges).


line art

(printing, graphic design) Artwork to be reproduced with one solid color, contrasted with artwork having tone or shading (halftones), or full color (color separations).


quinternion

From quint- + -ernion, a suffix built from the ending of quaternion.

(bookbinding) Five gathered sheets of paper folded in two for binding together.

quinterno

five gathered sheets of paper folded in two


transpressionism

Blend of trans- + impressionism, coined by Guity Novin in the 1990s.

(neologism, art) A movement in art characterized by its emphasis on the role of observer in interpreting the artist's representation of collective memories of man which are manifested in myths and legends.


RWD

responsive web design
responsive web design#English

(design, Web) Abbreviation of responsive web design.


IDM

en-noun

IDM (countable and uncountable, plural IDMs)

intelligent design
intelligent design#English

(design) Initialism of intelligent design movement.

Alternative form: IdM

identity management
w:identity management

(design, software) Initialism of identity management.


kabouter

(Dutch folklore) A tiny folkloric man who traditionally wears a pointy red hat, lives in harmony with nature and resides in mushrooms, similar to a gnome, leprechaun or a smurf.


cable release

(photography) A sheathed wire plunger used to activate the shutter of a camera without accidentally moving it.


bat away

en-verb

bat away (third-person singular simple present bats away, present participle batting away, simple past and past participle batted away)

bats away (present singular third-person)
batting away (participle present)
batted away (participle past)
batted away (past)

(US, circus slang) To use any means to take the money of participants in a circus gaming attraction.


gelatinize

gelatinize (third-person singular simple present gelatinizes, present participle gelatinizing, simple past and past participle gelatinized)

gelatinizes (present singular third-person)
gelatinizing (participle present)
gelatinized (participle past)
gelatinized (past)
gelatinise (alternative)

(transitive, photography) To coat or treat with gelatin.


monoline

[…] monolines appear everywhere in the art of the Western letter, and have shaped the alphabet's development as much as the edged line of the broad pen.

1984, Margaret Shepherd, Calligraphy Now, page 31:

(calligraphy) A font line of consistent width, as occurs when imitating pencil script.


orans

orantes (plural)
orant (alternative)
oranta (alternative)
orante (alternative)

(art, Christianity) A figure in an attitude of prayer, usually standing, with the elbows close to the sides of the body and with the hands outstretched sideways, palms up.


rhyparography

/ɹɪ.pəˈɹɒ.ɡɹə.fi/

/ɹɪ.pəˈɹɑ.ɡɹə.fi/

From Ancient Greek ῥύπος (rhúpos, “filth”) + -graphy.

(art) The painting, or literary description, of mean or sordid things; especially still-life or genre painting.


fachan

A fachan is a large, fierce monstrosity that is as dangerous as it is strange. A fachan has one eye in the middle of its forehead, a single arm in the middle of its chest and one leg supporting it from underneath. The fachan's[…]

(Can we date this quote?), RuneQuest Monsters, Mongoose Publishing, →ISBN, page 63:

"I can handle a fachan on my own,” Sir Celes said. “Don't worry, my regiment is...” “My father...” It felt so cold all of a sudden. Like a cloud had covered the sun. A fachan. A horrible, one-eyed giant. A terrifying monster that had taken something[…]

2020 April 27, Nao Wakasa, The Extraordinary, the Ordinary, and SOAP! Volume 1, J-Novel Club, →ISBN:

(folklore and now also fantasy) A giant in Irish and Scottish folklore, which has one central leg, one hand protruding from its chest, and one eye.


atmospheric perspective

(art) A technique in which an illusion of depth is created by painting more distant objects with less clarity, and with a lighter tone


aleatoric

en-adj

aleatoric (comparative more aleatoric, superlative most aleatoric)

more aleatoric (comparative)
most aleatoric (superlative)

/eɪliːəˈtɔəɹɪk/

From Latin āleātōrius (see aleatory) + -ic.

aleatoric music

Some artists, like John Cage, have adopted aleatoric methods of composition in order to remove any trace of authorial expression from their work.

2005, Noël Carroll, “Formalism”, in The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, eds. Berys Gaut and Dominic McIver Lopes (Master e-book IBSN 0203991923), page 89

(art, music, not comparable) Of or pertaining to works that have been produced with an element of chance (aleatoricism).


digicam

Originally a trade name, shortening of digital camera, equivalent to digi- + cam.


rupestral

From New Latin rupestris, from Latin rūpes (“rock”).

Having departed from Sardis and before reaching the mnema of Tos, the traveller saw a monument which was either a free-standing pillar or a rupestral tablet, depending on how we interpret the word.^([στήλη])

1982, William Kendrick Pritchett, Studies in Ancient Greek Topography, page 277:

In the course of the last decade, a fair number of ancient rupestral (rock-cut) horoi have been published from various sites in southern Attica.

1995, Josiah Ober, “Greek Horoi: Artifactual Texts and the Contingency of Meaning”, in David B. Small, editor, Methods in the Mediterranean: Historical and Archaeological Views on Texts & Archaeology, page 115:

Representational art appears in two major categories: rupestral art (as in the paintings of the Palaeolithic caves) and mobiliary art (also called mobile or portable art).

2008, Harald Haarmann, Joan Marler, Introducing the Mythological Crescent: Ancient Beliefs and Imagery connecting Eurasia with Anatolia, page 14:

(art, archaeology) Made on or placed on rock surfaces.


rondocubism

(art) A form of cubism, in post-World War One Czechoslovakia, that employed more rounded forms


affixative

(art, antiquities) A preservative, usually an adhesive transparent fluid, used to protect the surface of a drawing from abrasion or similar damage.


chinoiserie

en-noun

chinoiserie (countable and uncountable, plural chinoiseries)

chinoiseries (plural)
Chinoiserie (alternative)

/ʃiːnwɑːzəˈɹiː/

Borrowed from French chinoiserie (“Chinese-esque”).

The Baroness perceived that her entertainer had analyzed material comfort to a sufficiently fine point. And then he possessed the most delightful chinoiseries—trophies of his sojourn in the Celestial Empire: pagodas of ebony and cabinets of ivory; sculptured monsters, grinning and leering on chimney-pieces, in front of beautifully figured hand-screens; […]

1878, Henry James, chapter VI, in The Europeans, Macmillan and Co.:

(art) A style in art, or an artistic object, that reflects the influence of Chinese art.

中國風 /中国风

art: style or object that reflects Chinese influence


camaieu

camaieus (plural)
camaieux (plural)
camayeu (alternative)

Borrowed from French camaïeu. Doublet of cameo.

(art) A style of painting in a small range of monochrome colours.

(art) A style of printing pictures producing the effect of a pencil drawing.


ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny

Reportedly coined by zoologist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919).

With reference to seedling stages the statement that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny must be made with great reserve.

1905, J. A. Harris, "The Importance of Investigations of Seedling Stages," Science, New Series, vol. 22, no. 554, p. 186

Haeckel maintained that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, and this idea was incorporated by Lombroso into his parallelism between the criminal and the child.

1961, M. E. Wolfgang, “Pioneers in Criminology: Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909)”, in The Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science, volume 52, number 4, page 367:

For even if we accept that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny," those responsible for the drafting of ancient legal documents were not children, and are hardly to be endowed with some form of infantile mentality.

2002, B. S. Jackson, “Models in Legal History: The Case of Biblical Law”, in Journal of Law and Religion, volume 18, number 1, page 11:

(biology, social sciences, art, philosophy) The physical, cultural, moral, or intellectual development of each individual passes through stages similar to the developmental stages of that individual's species, society, or civilization. Not taken literally since the late 19th century.


craquelure

craquelure (countable and uncountable, plural craquelures)

/kɹæk.əˈlʊə/

/kɹæk.əˈlʊɹ/

(art) The distinctive pattern of hairline cracks in the surface of an old painting.


polyfoto

Originally Polyfoto (“a commercial venture”), from poly- and photo.

(obsolete, British, photography) One of a series of 48 photographs (similar to photo booth photos) taken using a Polyfoto camera, which used a single glass plate negative, the operator turning a handle on the side to take each exposure and also move the plate.


polyfoto

en-verb

polyfoto (third-person singular simple present polyfotos, present participle polyfotoing, simple past and past participle polyfotoed)

polyfotos (present singular third-person)
polyfotoing (participle present)
polyfotoed (participle past)
polyfotoed (past)

(obsolete, British, photography) To take such a series of photographs.


mountant

The favourite professional mountant was, and to some extent still is, starch paste.

1911, Bernard Edward Jones, Encyclopedia of Photography, reprint edition, published 1964, →ISBN, page 365:

(photography, dated) The adhesive used to affix a photograph to a mount


oversplit

(gymnastics, acrobatics) Any split in which the angle formed by the legs measures greater than 180 degrees. Can be done to the front with either or both legs elevated, or in a straddle split with one or both legs elevated, or with a standing leg lift

ylispagaatti

split in which the angle formed by the legs exceeds 180 degrees


isometric perspective

en-noun

isometric perspective (plural isometric perspectives)

(art, cartography) A type of visual perspective in which all dimensions parallel to the three principal spatial axes are shown in their true proportions.


sinopia

sinopia (countable and uncountable, plural sinopias or sinopie)

Today many of the sinopias have been uncovered by a method called stacco.

1985, Joseph Reese Strayer, Dictionary of the Middle Ages:

In the course of lifting the frescoes from the walls the restorers discovered Simone's full-scale working drawings (in red chalk made from iron oxide and known as sinopie) which lay directly beneath the painted plaster [...].

2007, Edwin Mullins, The Popes of Avignon, Blue Bridge, published 2008, page 89:

(art) The rough sketch (executed in sinopia) which underlies a fresco.


kinker

[…] the high trapeze "kinkers" go through their "flying" act; but in a montage treatment of filming the children's trip to the circus, it could be used with striking effect as a comment on their imitation of the thrilling action.

1933, Amateur Movie Makers, volume 8, page 150:

"So, what's the vernacular then?" I say finally. ¶ "They're called kinkers," says Camel..."don't you go calling them 'kinkers' to their faces, neither." ¶ "What do I call them?" ¶ "Performers...There's them and there's us, and you're us," says Camel.

2006, Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, pages 36–37:

(circus, slang) A performer in a circus.


pixel-perfect

en-adj

pixel-perfect (comparative more pixel-perfect, superlative most pixel-perfect)

more pixel-perfect (comparative)
most pixel-perfect (superlative)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-pixel-perfect.wav

It was the first (and, indeed, practically the only one to this day) to have an animated loading screen, the first to have pixel-perfect collision detection […]

1991, Stuart Campbell, “The YS Official Top 100 Part 1”, in Your Sinclair:

Manual pixel-perfect collision-detection routines can be difficult to create and processor-intensive to run.

2003, Colin Moock, ActionScript for Flash MX: The Definitive Guide:

(video games, design) Involving precision at the pixel level.

(computing, design) Having precise dimension ratios in all aspects on well-defined drawing glyphs.


autofocus

This camera has autofocus, so it's more expensive.

(electronics, photography) A feature of some cameras and other optical systems that allows a correct focus on the subject to be obtained automatically


Flying Dutchman

(nautical folklore) A mythical Dutch-flagged ghost clipper that is very fast sailing, and never makes it to port, seen on the high seas, where upon being hailed, occupants request information on persons long dead, or leave messages for said people. In European naval folklore, it was considered to portend bad luck.


f-stop

f-stops (plural)
f stop (alternative)
f/stop (alternative)

Before you know what f-stop you want, you first have to know what it is you are trying to accomplish in the photograph: Do I want to freeze action, or show motion, and consider shutter speed, or, do I need to get a cast of people in focus, or focus selectively, and cater to aperture?

2006, Michael Grecco, Lighting and the Dramatic Portrait, Amphoto Books, →ISBN, page 22:

If you're shooting at an f-stop of 2.8, then the lens will take in a lot more light than it would if the f-stop was at 22.

2008 May 23, Ted Kritsonis, “Six of one, half a dozen of the other”, in Globe and Mail, Canada, retrieved 2008-12-26:

(photography) Any of the discrete steps or stopping points for adjusting the aperture of a lens, either marked on a ring on the lens and adjusted by rotating that ring or marked in the display of a digital camera and adjusted by buttons or touch-sensitive controls.

f-szám

any of the discrete steps for adjusting the aperture of a lens


intimism

en-noun

intimism (usually uncountable, plural intimisms)

(art) A genre of art (or literature) involving the depiction of quiet, domestic scenes, usually of domestic interiors

intimisme

A genre involving depiction of quiet domestic scenes


intimist

en-adj

intimist (comparative more intimist, superlative most intimist)

more intimist (comparative)
most intimist (superlative)

By its subject, the work is inscribed at the intersection of the romantic and realist traditions: on the one hand, Musset's La Confession d'un enfant du siecle and Vigny's Chatterton, but also the so-called intimist novel that, as Jean Bruneau notes, 'recounts events of daily life and asks the essential questions about them' and which, 'down-to-earth and often moralizing', prefigures the realist novel and the thesis novel; and on the other hand, the second bohemia, whose intimate journal in the romantic manner (as with Courbet's intimist painting of the world familiar to the painter) is converted into the realist novel when, with Les Scènes de la vie de bohème by Murger and especially Les Aventures de Mariette and Chien-Caillou by Champfleury, it registers in a faithful manner the often sordid reality of rawboned daubers' lives, their garrets, watering-holes and love affairs ('It is in reality the saddest live,' writes Champfleury in a letter of 1847, 'consisting of not dining, not having boots, and making about all that a quantity of paradoxes.')

1996, Pierre Bourdieu, The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field, →ISBN, page 100:

For this reason, in the numerous intimist portraits he painted in the sixties, particularly those of his wife Estrella, in which he worked from life, he attached so much importance to optical reality and mimetic perfection, to that “humanist certainty” that lies at the heart of all classicist stances.

1997, Simón Marchán Fiz, Alberto Datas, page 20:

It is ubiquitous throughout the occasional pieces and intimist work. The body, real, factual, everyday, with a familiarity characteristic of TV or of home movies, but suddenly, also, the body dramatized to the extreme, prey to creative anguish, experiencing its specific fiction, its daily sacrifice, the crucifixion of image and sound.

2008, Olivier Asselin, Johanne Lamoureux, Christine Ross, Precarious Visualities, →ISBN, page 90:

(art) Pertaining to or characteristic of the intimism genre; focussed on everyday domestic matters.


neorealism

en-noun

neorealism (usually uncountable, plural neorealisms)

(art) A movement in art, literature and (especially in Italy) cinema, shortly after the Second World War, that concentrated on real life.


point-and-click

(photography, of a camera) Point-and-shoot.


noirish

en-adj

noirish (comparative more noirish, superlative most noirish)

more noirish (comparative)
most noirish (superlative)

His feature directing career began with the third installment of the "Alien" franchise, and before "Benjamin Button" all his movies were noirish thrillers of a sort.

2009 January 2, Dennis Lim, “Journey of a Director, From Night Creature to Tender Time Traveler”, in New York Times:

It must be acknowledged that the now global recognition his work has received […] has no doubt to do with his works’ noirish mixture of extraordinary artistic delicacy and ultra-creepy subject matter […]

2011 July 28, Terry Castle, “Do I like it?”, in London Review of Books, volume 33, number 15, →ISSN:

(film, art) Having the character of film noir.


photoshoot

photoshoots (plural)
photo shoot (alternative)

(photography) A session in which a photographer takes a number of photographs of a person or group of people.


obturator

From Latin obtūrō (“to stop, block up”).


hatchwork

Look at the hatchwork around the edges!

(art) Crosshatching; ornamentation using a crosshatch pattern


mosaiclike

mosaiclike (comparative more mosaiclike, superlative most mosaiclike)

more mosaiclike (comparative)
most mosaiclike (superlative)

Davies has devised a mosaiclike film language.

2009 January 11, Dennis Lim, “Remembrance of Liverpool Past”, in New York Times:

(art) Resembling a mosaic, particularly in composition


maximalist

maximalist (comparative more maximalist, superlative most maximalist)

more maximalist (comparative)
most maximalist (superlative)
Maximalist (alternative)

From maximal + -ist, by analogy with minimalist.

This, his [Frank Stella's] second Museum of Modern Art retrospective, shows him in his second incarnation, turning his back on Minimalist rationality and opting for a “maximalist,” seemingly free-wheeling Baroque complexity that helped set the stage for New-Expressionism.

1987 December 6, Roberta Smith, “Schnabel and Stella: Art, Myth and Ego”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

Three elephantine examples of that trend have been in the news of late, and they call into question their underlying maximalist presumption that more is more.

1990 May 27, John Rockwell, “Complete Everything, or Is More Enough?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

Mr. Shadbolt's maximalist, when-in-doubt-be-vivid style capaciously suits “Monday's Warriors,” his novel of the wars between the Maoris and the British in New Zealand in the mid-19th century; […]

1992 May 3, Ivan Doig, “Maps Made by Blind Men”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

The biennial also includes a sprawling cityscape by Chris Burden incorporating thousands of model buildings, cranes and automobiles, a maximalist vision where Mr. Ashkin's is minimalist.

1997 April 6, Trip Gabriel, “Trafficking in Toxic Waste and Human Loneliness”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

Bach's choral music was once often heard in maximalist renditions, undertaken by large ensembles who by sheer vocal and instrumental weight emphasize the majestic side of his compositions.

1998 May 17, Sarah Bryan Miller, “Classical Brief”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

[Christian] Lacroix's maximalist aesthetic has been at odds with fashion trends in recent years. But fashion is just now beginning to swing back his way, with an emphasis on volume and flounce above sleekness.

2005 January 26, Jess Cartner-Morley, “Ovation for Lacroix as maximalist look makes a comeback”, in The Guardian:

At the moment, for example, while a minimalist aesthetic, or the tail end of one, still manifests itself in a lot of painting and music, we are living in age of maximalist novels—books less concerned with le mot juste than with being full-service entertainment centers.

2005 April 17, Charles McGrath, “The Souped-Up, Knock-Out, Total Fiction Experience”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

You might call [Louis] Wain’s ‘mad’ style a version of the outsider mode in its paranoid or maximalist aspect.

Such a bustling, maximalist extravaganza is in keeping with the excitable energy of the crowd, who are clearly thrilled to revisit the block-party beats of Cruel Summer and tribal doo-wop of Really Sayin’ Somethin’.

2017 November 14, Graeme Virtue, “Bananarama review – hi-NRG poignancy as pop trio return for first proper tour”, in The Guardian:

Returning to the sound of her maximalist electro-pop heyday, Gaga explores buried trauma, mental illness and the complexities of fame on this return to form

2020 May 29, Michael Cragg, “Lady Gaga: Chromatica review – Gaga rediscovers the riot on her most personal album”, in The Guardian:

[Chappell] Roan draws from the mega-pop of the 2010s, from Lady Gaga to Taylor Swift – then laces it with sexually frank asides and lavish doses of camp, and performs it with a maximalist, absurd aesthetic indebted to drag, John Waters and Freddie Mercury.

2024 August 9, Laura Snapes, “It’s a femininomenon! How Chappell Roan slow-burned her way to stardom”, in The Guardian:

(art, music, literature) Preferring redundancy; tending to do or provide more rather than less.


maximalist

maximalists (plural)
Maximalist (alternative)

Concerning his own purpose in making music, Mr. Babbitt says he would call himself a maximalist: “I try to make music as much as it has ever been or as much as it could be. I may try to put too much into a piece. […]”

1982 October 17, Joan Peyser, “Milton Babbitt's Serialism”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

The music, of course, for all of its determined frivolity, is wonderfully eloquent, and composers as diverse as Webern, the great Minimalist, and Mahler, a great “Maximalist,” have come to worship at the shrine.

1986 August 24, Tim Page, “Opera: ‘Die Fledermaus’ Gets a Change of Cast”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

Critics have aptly borrowed those terms to characterize the difference between Mr. Beckett, for example, and his erstwhile master James Joyce, himself a maximalist except in his early works.

1986 December 28, John Barth, “A Few Words About Minimalism”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

In the 1960's, he [Peter Gourfain] was a Minimalist, using wood beams to build allusive and ephemeral constructions. This show is primarily concerned with the artist since he became a maximalist.

1987 April 3, Michael Brenson, “Works by Gourfain at Brooklyn Museum”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

A maximalist, Mr. [Craig] Baldwin is at once a collector and curator of 20th-century visual culture.

2009 January 14, Manohla Dargis, “Star Log: Trippy Sci-Fi Mash-Up Alert!”, in New York Times:

David Foster Wallace was a maximalist. His masterpiece, Infinite Jest, is a 1,000-page, polyphonic epic about addiction and obsession in millennial America.

2015 May 25, Chris Power, “A brief survey of the short story: David Foster Wallace”, in the Guardian:

Mohawke is known as a musical maximalist, which is a polite way of saying that he lumps prodigiously distorted beats on top of each other, as if playing techno Jenga.

2015 December 11, Ian Gittins, “Hudson Mohawke review – ferocious, apocalyptic electro”, in The Guardian:

(art, literature, music) A person with maximalist beliefs or tendencies; someone who prefers redundancy or excess, especially in the arts.


overdeveloped

(photography, of film) Left too long in a chemical bath.

Excessively developed, as:
Left too long in a chemical bath.


snapshooter

At home, on the street, Zuleika was the smiling target of all snap-shooters, and all the snap-shots were snapped up by the press and reproduced with annotations […].

(photography) A photographer; someone who takes snapshots.


backcross

(juggling) Alternative form of back cross


lagre

(glassblowing) A larger sheet of glass on which glass-sheet cylinders are spread.


campness

From its beginning, the group had an “irretrievable air of campness.”

2009 January 23, Dwight Garner, “The Mahvelous and the Damned”, in New York Times:


campiness

Still, here, as in the calculated Gong Show campiness of El Grande de Coca-Cola[…], excellence would simply get in the way.

1988 January 8, Lawrence Bommer, “Live Dancers Tonite”, in Chicago Reader:

Sometimes you embrace the danger of unintentional campiness. I'm not afraid to make State Fair as bright and colorful as possible and put bunch of prints and plaids on actors, and make it all saccharine-sweet.

2010 September, Lou Bird, quoted in "What It's Like to be a Costume Designer", St. Louis magazine, ISSN 1090-5723, volume 16, issue 9, page 32


nontechnique

Spaceballs and Amazon Women on the Moon were unwieldy messes, but they both had their moments of brilliance: the characters watching the videocassette of Spaceballs in the midst of Spaceballs, as well as some of Mel Brooks's ethnic humor and the flaunting of his nontechnique (qualities that seem to go together, as they do in Richard Marin's Born in East L.A.)[…].

1988 January 8, Jonathan Rosenbaum, “10 From '87”, in Chicago Reader:


semiabstract

In the second, only the tracks are visible, glowing luminously at night, and this semiabstract image is held on the screen for an extended length of time.

1988 January 22, Jonathan Rosenbaum, “Huckleberry Fem”, in Chicago Reader:

(art) Not entirely abstract; between abstract and concrete


imagist

Most critics group Lanyon with the Chicago imagists, artists who use ordinary objects and meticulous detail to explore fantasy.

1988 January 22, Holly Greenhagen, “Art Facts: Ellen Lanyon's magic art”, in Chicago Reader:

D. H. Lawrence would have been a poet of distinction without an imagist movement, but he became a modern poet, and a major one, by becoming an imagist, and in time he attained greater distinction than any of the other English poets who helped found the imagist movement.

1996, William Pratt, Singing the Chaos: Madness and Wisdom in Modern Poetry, page 162:

(art) A follower of any of the various artistic schools known as imagism


imagistic

imagistic (comparative more imagistic, superlative most imagistic)

more imagistic (comparative)
most imagistic (superlative)
Imagistic (alternative)

So much 'performance art' tends to be a kind of closed, aloof, imagistic, private vision.

1988 January 29, Justin Hayford, “Stage Business: a young director mixes it up at the Goodman”, in Chicago Reader:


understander

understanders (plural)
under-stander (alternative)
under stander (alternative)

He was a strongman and an understander for the acrobats.

(circus, acrobatics) One who physically supports a formation of acrobats, as a human pyramid.


letter art

(art) The use of letters and other text characters to form a picture.


dentelle

(bookbinding) An ornamental tooling like lace.


stewpot

It’s a nasty stewpot of intellectually untenable premises and irresponsible speculation that frequently reads like a “Saturday Night Live” parody of the crackpot right.

2007 February 6, Michiko Kakutani, “Dispatch From Gomorrah, Savaging the Cultural Left”, in New York Times:

(art, literature) A jumble, especially one that lacks intellectual coherence.


coloristic

Christian Tetzlaff […] played the work with exquisite control and coloristic fluidity.

2007 March 17, Allan Kozinn, “Muscular Approach Accented With a Ghostly Whisper”, in New York Times:

(art, music) Of, pertaining to, or focused on coloring or an enhanced use of colour


developable

developable (comparative more developable, superlative most developable)

more developable (comparative)
most developable (superlative)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-developable.wav

(photography, of a latent image) Which can be developed into a visible image.


hyperrealist

I find that I'm not a hyperrealist. I have to laugh, because Dali also told me I wasn't one, but rather ‘hypermetaphysical’…

1999, T. Raspail, Jean Olivier Hucleux, 1971–1999, Lyon: Skira, →ISBN, page 277:

(art) An artist of the school of hyperrealism.


multicharacter

I invite readers to sample Emma Thompson’s odious multicharacter turn in “Angels in America” […].

2007 April 15, “Handel and the Jews; Foreign Treasures; Accents and Acting”, in New York Times:

(art) Involving or performing multiple characters


microgenre

This looked incredibly cool, and borrowed visually from video games and from the YouTube microgenre of shopping-cart crashes.

2007 August 29, Virginia Heffernan, “For MySpace Viewers, a Terra Incognita With No Cellphones or Internet”, in New York Times:


collagelike

collagelike (comparative more collagelike, superlative most collagelike)

more collagelike (comparative)
most collagelike (superlative)

The sharp young company brings energy and wit to both the collagelike text, composed of odd tales of dispossession, and Michael Friedman’s eclectic cavalcade of pastiche songs.

2007 August 31, The New York Times, “Theater Listings”, in New York Times:

(art) Resembling or characteristic of a collage; presenting a jumble of different types of content


frontality

en-noun

frontality (countable and uncountable, plural frontalities)

Whereas the accentuated linearism, the angular stylization of the folds, the rhythmical course of the outlining and the solemn frontality conjoined with an air of regality in the pose seem to recall the formal repertory of the Corbolinus Master and his group […]

1993, Miklós Boskovits, The Origins of Florentine Painting, 1100-1270, volume 1, page 33:

Bold scale is the norm, as is a generally exuberant frontality.

2007 June 8, Roberta Smith, “When Home Was Where the Art Was”, in New York Times:

(art) The quality or state of being frontal.


mosaicked

(photography) Formed from a "mosaic" of images.


winkfest

The girl sleuth in a retro-pomo pop-culture winkfest that has everything but a good mystery, which was all it needed.

2007 June 29, The New York Times, “Movie Guide and Film Series”, in New York Times:

(art, rare) A work typified by winking, either literally or in the form of ironic self-reference.


symbolist

From French symboliste, coined by poet Paul Verlaine in 1885.

The general picture that has emerged is one of Cubism bubbling up out of a thick Parisian stew of symbolist poetry, Cézanne, cafe society, African masks, absinthe and a fascination with all things mechanical and modern, mostly airplanes and automatons.

2007 April 15, Randy Kennedy, “When Picasso and Braque Went to the Movies”, in New York Times:

(art, literature) Of or pertaining to the Symbolist movement in late 19th-century and early 20th-century European arts and literature


tastemaking

But her latest act has catapulted her into art’s tastemaking elite.

2007 June 10, Julia Chaplin, “Follow That Motoscafo”, in New York Times:

(art) Influential in the determination of current taste


nonpainting

The nonpainting trends of those years have been relentlessly celebrated and valorized by museums, art historians and biennials.

2007 February 16, Roberta Smith, “Painting in the Heady Days, After It Was Proclaimed Dead”, in New York Times:

(chiefly art) Not painting; other than painting


edgebanding

edgebandings (plural)
edge banding (alternative)
edge-banding (alternative)

Pressure-sensitive edgebanding tape is the simplest and fastest to apply.

1996, Jack Gavin, “Edgebanding Tools and materials for hiding a panel's edges”, in Veneering, Marquetry and Inlay, page 46:

(woodworking) Veneer or laminate of the same type of material as used for the surface of furniture and with width matching standard thicknesses of such material, used to conceal the exposed edges.


chromogenic

en-adj

chromogenic (comparative more chromogenic, superlative most chromogenic)

more chromogenic (comparative)
most chromogenic (superlative)

From chromo- + -genic or chromogen + -ic.

(photography) Describing a process in which a black-and-white image is replaced by a coloured one.


line weight

(visual art) The relative thickness of a drawn rule or painted brushstroke.


midroll

(photography, film) In the middle of a roll of film.


entopic graphomania

In the case of entopic graphomania, the artist was to discover the impurities on a piece of paper, place dots on the impurities, and draw connections between the dots. This was considered an automatic drawing […]

2013, Whitney Sherman, Playing with Sketches: 50 Creative Exercises for Designers and Artists:

(art) A surrealist method in which dots are made at the sites of impurities in a blank sheet of paper, and lines are then made between the dots.


reductivism

en-noun

reductivism (countable and uncountable, plural reductivisms)

(art) A minimalist movement in abstract painting and sculpture from the 1950s onwards.


box camera

(photography) A very simple type of photographic camera, being box shaped, and with a simple lens, and using roll film for taking snapshot pictures.


pictorialism

pictorialism (countable and uncountable, plural pictorialisms)

(photography) A school of artistic photography that emphasized using photography to mimic certain styles of contemporary painting, that flourished in the late 19th and early 20th centuries


polystylistic

The more involving of the jazz sets included […] a group of shorter, polystylistic pieces by Jonathan Batiste; and a few standards dazzlingly played by Lee Musiker.

2008 January 23, Allan Kozinn, “Mystical to Muscular: Many Styles in Play at a Keyboard Marathon”, in New York Times:


sensualism

sensualism (countable and uncountable, plural sensualisms)

(art, architecture) A sensual style or aesthetic.


neoconceptualism

(art) A school of art of the 1980s and 1990s, characterised by appropriation and the rejection of traditional artistic methods and values, that derives from the conceptual art of the 1960s and 1970s.


reverse intaglio

reverse intaglio (plural reverse intaglios)

(art, printing) A design impressed into the back of transparent or translucent items.


butt joint

Using the lap joint in any of its applications provides strength in a cabinet where a butt joint would or could be used.

1990, Byron W. Maguire, Cabinetmaking: From Design to Finish, Carlsbad, CA: Craftsman, page 234:

(construction, woodworking) A joint formed by adjacent, separate section of material, such as where two neighboring pieces of insulation abut.


Mantegnesque

(art) Having a style similar to Andrea Mantegna, Italian Renaissance painter.


magot

(art) A seated oriental figurine, usually of porcelain or ivory, of a grotesque form


shutter speed

shutter speed (countable and uncountable, plural shutter speeds)

Shutter speeds are usually measured in seconds or fractions of a second, and are typically arranged in a sequence that includes 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, 1/250 and 1/500.

1993 November 21, Charles Hagen, “CAMERA: For Film Exposure, Timing Is the Key”, in New York Times, retrieved 2009-04-04:

(photography) The duration of time for which the shutter of a camera remains open when exposing photographic film or other photosensitive material to light for the purpose of recording an image.

快門速度 /快门速度

time during which the shutter of a camera remains open


stop down

en-verb

stop down (third-person singular simple present stops down, present participle stopping down, simple past and past participle stopped down)

stops down (present singular third-person)
stopping down (participle present)
stopped down (participle past)
stopped down (past)

The f/stops are arranged so that as you stop down, each stop allows half the amount of light to pass through as the stop before it did.

1982, Marvin J. Rosen, Introduction to photography: a self-directing approach, 2nd edition, →ISBN, page 71:

To get an image with a larger “depth of field”—ie, where more of the distant objects as well as the nearer ones in a scene are in focus—the photographer must “stop down” the aperture of the lens, restricting the amount of light admitted.

2002 December 12, “Images from a blurred world”, in The Economist, retrieved 2009-04-03:

(photography) To decrease the aperture of a photographic lens, moving from an f/stop represented by a lower number to an f/stop represented by a higher number.


BIF

(photography) Initialism of bird in flight.


biomorphism

From bio- + -morphism or biomorph + -ism. First used in 1936 by Alfred H Barr, Jr. (1902-1981), art historian.

(art) A surrealist art movement of the twentieth century that focuses on the power of natural life and uses organic shapes, with shapeless and vaguely spherical hints of the forms of biology.


verism

en-noun

verism (countable and uncountable, plural verisms)

In place of the high polish and artifice of, say, Friday the 13th, there is a rougher verism [in Jackass].

2007, Andrew Shanken, “The Sublime "Jackass"”, in Places, volume 19:

(art, literature) Presenting common, everyday subjects, specifically eschewing the heroic or legendary.

(art) Synonym of verismo (“19th-century art movement”)


end mark

end marks (plural)
endmark (alternative)

(typography, graphic design) A typographic element that signals the end of an article. Often they are simple bullets, but they can also be intricate symbols.


ordonnance

Borrowed from French ordonnance. Doublet of ordinance and ordnance.

August 15, 1833, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Table Talk
their dramatic ordonnance of the parts

(art) The disposition of the parts of any composition with regard to one another and the whole.


Moresque

en-adj

Moresque (comparative more Moresque, superlative most Moresque)

more Moresque (comparative)
most Moresque (superlative)


acutance

en-noun

acutance (countable and uncountable, plural acutances)

(photography) Edge contrast in an image; a component of sharpness.


marver

(glassblowing) A flat heatproof surface on which a gather of glass is rolled into shape.


lampworker

(glassblowing) Someone who works with lampwork


pontil

(glassblowing) Alternative form of punty (“rod used in glassblowing”)


punty

punties (plural)
punte (alternative)
puntee (alternative)
ponty (alternative)
pontil (alternative)
pontil rod (alternative)
puntil (alternative)
puntel (alternative)

1662, from French pontil, from Italian pontello or puntello, diminutive of punto, from Latin punctum (“a point”). Doublet of puntillo and pointel.

(glassblowing) A metal rod used in the glassblowing process. After a glass vessel has been blown to approximate size and the bottom of the piece has been finalized, the rod, which is tipped with a wad of hot glass, is attached to the bottom of the vessel to hold it while the top is finalized. It often leaves an irregular or ring-shaped scar on the base when removed, called the pontil mark.


bokeh

bokeh (usually uncountable, plural bokehs)

From Japanese 暈(ぼ)け (boke, “blur”), the nominalized form of 暈(ぼ)ける (bokeru, “to blur”).
The terminal -h, absent in the romanization boke, is a pronunciation guide so that it is not pronounced as /boʊk/ as it would be under standard English orthography. Contrast karate and karaoke, which have undergone sound changes.
The term has been used since at least 1996, with the spelling bokeh introduced by editor Mike Johnston in the March–April 1997 issue of Photo Techniques magazine, Johnston writing “it is properly pronounced with bo as in bone and ke as in Kenneth, with equal stress on either syllable”.

The quality of the out-of-focus area in a wide-aperture image is called bokeh, originally from the Japanese word boke, pronounced bo-keh, which means fuzzy. In photography, bokeh reflects the shape and number of diaphragm blades in the lens, and that determines, in part, the way that out-of-focus points of light are rendered in the image. Bokeh is also a result of spherical aberration that affects how the light is collected. Although subject to controversy, photographers often judge bokeh as being either good or bad. Good bokeh renders the out-of-focus areas as smooth, uniform, and generally circular shapes with nicely blurred edges. Bad bokeh, on the other hand, renders out-of-focus areas with polygonal shapes, hard edges, and with illumination that creates a brighter area at the outside of the disk shape.

2010, Charlotte K. Lowrie, “Exploring Canon Lenses and Accessories”, in Canon EOS Rebel T2i/550D Digital Field Guide, Indianapolis, Ind.: Wiley Publishing, →ISBN, page 186:

Shooting with natural light, I used a long lens (200mm) to compress the space and slightly blur the background by photographing at a large open aperture (f/2.5). This resulted in gorgeous bokeh, putting the city into a blur while keeping the couple razor sharp.

2014, Bob Davis, Dawn Davis, “Blackhawks Fans: The Back Story, Posing, Lighting and Lens Selection, Colleagues”, in We’re Engaged!: Photographing Vibrant and Joyful Portraits of the Happy Couple, Buffalo, N.Y.: Amherst Media, →ISBN, pages 102–103:

More expensive lenses usually go down to f/2.8, letting you shoot at faster shutter speeds and get great, creamy bokeh in your background.

2014, Krista Smith, “What You Need”, in The Right Light: Photographing Children and Families Using Natural Light, Buffalo, N.Y.: Amherst Media, →ISBN, page 13:

(photography) A subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image projected by a camera lens.


Bauhaus

Borrowed from German Bauhaus (“house of architecture”), from Bau (“building, construction”) + Haus (“house”). The word is derived from the Staatliches Bauhaus (State School of Construction), an art school in Weimar, Germany, founded in 1919 by German architect Walter Gropius (1883–1969).

bor

[J]une 22 unanimous approval of the projected bauhaus building, the first of the bauhaus books appears.

1968, 50 Years Bauhaus: German Exhibition; Royal Academy of Arts, September 21 – October 27 1968, Stuttgart: Württembergischer Kunstverein; Cambridge, Mass.: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, →OCLC, page 26:

Not until the 1930's was the American public aware of the significance of the Bauhaus. Several factors contributed to this: American Bauhaus students were returning from Germany; Bauhaus design, as tubular steel chairs and lighting fixtures, were being imported from Germany; […]

1974, Barbara Ann Henriksen, The Bauhaus and American Art Education (unpublished M.A. dissertation), Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin, →OCLC, page 17:

While the direct impact of the iconoclastic Bauhaus typography on bookwork is limited, its indirect influence, encouraging designers such as Jan Tschichold to re-examine the whole tradition of typography and its relationship to twentieth-century life, is difficult to overestimate.

2004, Alan Bartram, Bauhaus, Modernism and the Illustrated Book, London: British Library, →ISBN, page 49, column 2:

The Bauhaus has long been celebrated as the most influential art school of the twentieth century. The word Bauhaus means many things to many people: some are inspired by so-called ‘Bauhaus style’ – from tubular-steel furniture to the strict geometry of primary-coloured triangles, circles and squares; others worship its position as one of the greatest emblems of the Modern movement’s ambitious desire to change the world.

2012 May 3, “Exhibition in focus: Bauhaus: Art as Life, Barbican Art Gallery”, in The Daily Telegraph, London:

Two sites with cultural treasures separated by more than 40,000 years – caves with art dating to the Ice Age and buildings designed by a Bauhaus master less than 100 years ago – highlight Germany's submissions for the prestigious World Heritage Site designation by the U.N.'s cultural agency, UNESCO. […] The Bauhaus buildings in northeastern Germany were designed by the school's second director, Hannes Meyer.

2017 July 3, Michael Faulhaber, David Rising, “Ice Age Art, Bauhaus Buildings Highlight German UNESCO Hopes”, in U.S. News & World Report, [Washington, D.C.]:

(architecture, design, also attributively) A modernist style characterized by the absence of ornamentation and by harmony between the function of a building or an object and its design.

Fritz Lang
Isokon
Isokon Long Chair
Marcel Breuer
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Thea von Harbou
Walter Gropius


mirrorless

(photography) A mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera, similar to a digital SLR, but usually made smaller by incorporating an electronic viewfinder instead of a mirror and prism.

digital interchangeable-lens system camera

electronic viewfinder with interchangeable lens


representationalism

en-noun

representationalism (countable and uncountable, plural representationalisms)

(art) Realistic representation of the world in art.


cigar box

cigar boxes (plural)
cigar-box (alternative)

(juggling) A square box usually made of wood or plastic used as a juggling prop.


Mills Mess

the Mills Mess (canonical)
Mills' Mess (alternative)

From the surname of Steve Mills (the inventor of the pattern) + mess.

(juggling) A pattern that involves crossing and uncrossing the arms while juggling.


socialist realism

Derided, lampooned and long since consigned to the dustbin of aesthetic history, the art of Soviet Socialist Realism has not enjoyed a happy afterlife following the collapse of communism.

2009 October 24, Vanessa Thorpe, “New exhibition in Berlin brings forgotten Soviet art back to reality”, in The Observer:

dictatorship of the proletariat
dictatorship of the proletariat

(art) A Stalinist idealization of the dictatorship of the proletariat applied to art that used realistic techniques to show the struggle for socialism in a positive and optimistic manner.


solarization

solarization (countable and uncountable, plural solarizations)

solarizations (plural)
solarisation (alternative)

/ˌsoʊləɹaɪˈzeɪʃən/

/ˌsəʊləɹaɪˈzeɪʃən/

(photography) Whole or partial reversal of tone in a negative or photographic print, such that dark areas appear light or vice versa


solarize

en-verb

solarize (third-person singular simple present solarizes, present participle solarizing, simple past and past participle solarized)

solarizes (present singular third-person)
solarizing (participle present)
solarized (participle past)
solarized (past)
solarise (alternative)

(transitive, dated, photography) To overexpose.

(intransitive, dated, photography) To become overexposed.


RtoL

RtoL: Bill, Sam and Phil.

(photography, graphic design) Alternative form of RTL (right to left)


cognitivism

(art) The view that a work of art is valuable if it contributes to knowledge.


pentamirror

(photography) A system of three (not five) mirrors used as a cheaper substitute to a pentaprism in the viewfinders of some single-lens reflex cameras


pentaprism

(photography) A five-sided prism used in the viewfinder of most single-lens reflex cameras


quartersaw

quartersaw (third-person singular simple present quartersaws, present participle quartersawing, simple past quartersawed, past participle quartersawn)

quartersaws (present singular third-person)
quartersawing (participle present)
quartersawed (past)
quartersawn (participle past)
quarter saw (alternative)
quarter-saw (alternative)

(woodworking) Cut radially (towards the heart of the log), at right angles to the growth rings, for stability or the production of decorative patterns.


toss juggling

(juggling) A form of juggling that involves throwing props in the air and catching them, in contrast to contact juggling.

jonglerie de lancer

Form of juggling involving throwing and catching


reverse cascade

en-noun

reverse cascade (plural reverse cascades)

(juggling) A pattern performed with an odd number of props where each prop is caught by the opposite hand and thrown over the incoming prop, in contrast with the traditional cascade where the prop is thrown under.


editioned

Two Palms has a suite of intaglio prints by Chris Ofili (similar to those on view through tomorrow at David Zwirner) and editioned hand-painted collages by Richard Prince, who merges covers of nurse-themed pulp-fiction titles with images clipped from pornographic sources.

2007 November 2, Karen Rosenberg, “Rembrandt and Modernists at a Weekend Red-Tag Sale”, in New York Times:


editioning

(printing, art) The process of making a small number of prints available, in order to make the print more lucrative.


megilp

megilp (countable and uncountable, plural megilps)

megilps (plural)
magilp (alternative)
magilph (alternative)
megilph (alternative)

He was in a hurry […] and instead of replicating the twenty or so layers of paint in the original he used megilp to give the impression of thickly applied paint.

2002, Victoria Finlay, Colour, Sceptre, published 2003, page 202:

(art) A mixture of linseed oil with turpentine or mastic varnish, used as a thickener for oil paints but later discredited as a source of cracking and yellowing.


calotype

From Ancient Greek καλός (kalós, “good”) and τύπος (túpos, “impression”).

Calotypes have a hazy and mysterious feeling about them and feel painterly in the way they look. Mastery of calotypes takes time. Every calotype is distinct and difficult to duplicate.

2022, Morgan Post, Alternative Process Photography for the Contemporary Photographer: A Beginner's Guide, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN:


photobook

(photography) A book of photographs, often by a single photographer


prestezza

(art) A painting technique which uses a series of fast brushstrokes to create the impression of faces and objects, rather than working out their details


half-shower

(juggling) A pattern which consists of throwing the objects thrown by one hand over the top of the objects thrown by the other hand. Each object is thrown to the opposite hand.


tondino

Iznikware tondinos survive with other styles of decoration: […]

2002, Rosamond E. Mack, Bazaar to Piazza: Islamic Trade and Italian Art, 1300-1600, page 207:

(art) A small ceramic plate in the Italian style.


jackalope

/ˈd͡ʒækələʊp/

Most jackalopes are furry and a foot or two tall; many are only heads, mounted on wood plaques; there are some six-footers, covered with fur…

1993, Jane Stern, Michael Stern, Way out west:

(folklore, mythology) A folkloric animal, a supposed cross between a jackrabbit and an antelope, goat, or deer, usually portrayed as a rabbit with antlers.


anaglyptics

(art) The art of carving or embossing in low relief


basse-taille

(art) A bas-relief enamelling technique used on metal.


quick light

(photography) A light exhibiting very rapid regular alternations of light and darkness, normally sixty flashes per minute.


hypermodernism

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-hypermodernism.wav

(art) An art movement distinguished from modernism and postmodernism chiefly by its extreme and antithetical (inverted) approach.


zoomy

en-adj

zoomy (comparative zoomier, superlative zoomiest)

zoomier (comparative)
zoomiest (superlative)

relies upon zoomy close-ups

wobbly, zoomy, headachey shots

However, the photography is at moments too poorly exposed, too zoomy, and the camera positioned too closely, for the footage to be useful

1977, American anthropologist, volume 79, page 760:

(photography) Obviously characteristic of a zoom lens


Statue of Liberty

Famous tricks such as the Mills Mess, Burke's Barrage, and Rubenstein's Revenge are covered, along with fundamentals (Statue of Liberty, the Snake, the Machine, 4 4 1)[…]

1991, George Gillson, Beyond the Cascade:

(juggling) A pattern where the props are thrown from one hand to the other in a circular motion, with one hand raised significantly above the other.


multiton

creational design pattern
creational pattern

(software, design) A creational design pattern resembling the singleton pattern except that multiple keyed instances of the class can be created.


esquisse

(art) The first sketch of a picture or model of a statue.


cpi

characters per inch
characters per inch#English

(graphic design, typography) The measure of a number of typeset font characterss per inch used or supported by a digital display device


dots per inch

My printer prints at 300 dots per inch.

(graphic design, typography) The measure of a number of pixels per inch used in a graphic or supported by a digital display device, used to specify type or image resolution.


Verdadism

From Spanish verdad + -ism, coined by Soraida Martinez circa 1992 to describe her own works.

(art) A style of art that juxtaposes figurative abstract paintings with written social commentary drawing from personal experiences.


antiart

The weakness exists within culture itself, in the form of certain desires, dreams, and deliriums called up by "entertainment," mass culture, by certain types of antiart.

1989 June 16, Gary Kamiya, “Reading: Children of the Void”, in Chicago Reader:

(art) Art created in opposition to the concept of art


linocut

/ˈlʌɪnəʊkʌt/

Still, this book's offbeat settings and strong, simple illustrations, in acrylic paint with pencil and rough-hewn linocut outlines, should help preschoolers — and parents — realize that when you bring some creativity to pet ownership, even a fish can be fun.

2009 June 14, Ann Hodgman, “A kid’s best friends: goldfish”, in The New York Times:

(art, printing) A type of woodcut in which a block of linoleum is used for the relief surface; the design cut into the block.


teleconverter

(photography) A secondary lens mounted between the camera and a photographic lens so as to enlarge the central part of an image obtained by the objective lens.


multiflash

(photography) Involving more than one flash.


life class

(art) A teaching session in which art students practice drawing or painting the human figure using a live (often naked) model


sculptured painting

en-noun

sculptured painting (plural sculptured paintings)

A sculptured painting in the grand temple of Karnak furnishes the explanation; wherein they appear filled by great trees or masts, their elevation inferring they were spliced as our present masts.

1824, Edward Upham, Rameses: an Egyptian tale, with historical notes of the era of the pharaohs, page 315:

(art) A painting in which materials are used to add relief in a third dimension.


calcography

From Latin calx (“chalk”) + English -graphy (“written”).


glamour photography

(photography) A form of photography involving the taking of pictures of models which are intended to be erotic without being pornographic.

(photography) Photography intended to glamorize the subject.


bambocciante

(art) Any of a group of Dutch painters, from the seventeenth century, who painted scenes from ordinary life; used attributively to describe the style of their paintings


performing arts

performing arts pl (normally plural, singular performing art)

(art) The arts involving performance, such as dance, theatre, music, etc.


lens board

lens boards (plural)
lensboard (alternative)

(photography) A part used for securing a lens to the front standard of a large-format view camera.


Suprematism

The Suprematism of Kasimir Malevich is an even more extreme version of similar character.

2004, Mary Acton, Learning to Look at Modern Art, Psychology Press, →ISBN, page 166:

(art) A genre of abstract art based on simple geometric forms championed by the Russian avant-garde in the early twentieth century.


cave painting

cave painting (countable and uncountable, plural cave paintings)

cave paintings (plural)
cave-painting (alternative)

For several decades, now, he [the modern artist] has taken the liberty of learning how to draw and compose by studying and borrowing ideas from the high periods in all art, as far back as prehistoric cave painting.

1959, Erle Loran, Cézanne’s Composition: Analysis of His Form with Diagrams and Photographs of His Motifs, 2nd edition, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Calif., London: University of California Press, →OCLC, page 4, column 2:

[C]ave painting appears to have flourished during the last 8–10,000 years of this period and to be concentrated in limestone caves of southwestern Europe (especially southwestern France and north coastal Spain), [...]

1989, Margaret W. Conkey, “The Structural Analysis of Paleolithic Art”, in C[lifford] C[harles] Lamberg-Karlovsky, editor, Archaeological Thought in America, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, New York, N.Y.: Cambridge University Press, published 1995, →ISBN, page 135:

In another topic on prehistoric man, pupils used 'active learning' methods to construct a 'cave set'; re-enacted cave-painting by homemade candlelight; [...]

1995, Alex Webster, “Differentiation”, in Geoffrey Moss, editor, The Basics of Special Needs: A Routledge/Special Children Survival Guide for the Classroom Teacher, London, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, published 1996, →ISBN, page 42:

Art-making may have emerged as early as 1.5 million years ago with the arrival of Homo erectus, our humanlike ancestors. [...] Cave painting and early sketching were ways to enhance thinking, serving as a medium for idea manipulation, enhancement, and storage.

2001, Eric Jensen, “Visual Arts”, in Arts with the Brain in Mind, Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, →ISBN, page 50:

(uncountable) The activity of applying pigments to the interior surfaces of caves to create images, especially when carried out in prehistoric times.

grotschildering

I understand from Paṇḍita Baghavánlál, who lately visited the caves, that the painting and writings in these caves are fast going to decay. Those at Ajaṇṭhá are more durable, whereas the Bagh cave paintings will, it is feared, be entirely obliterated after some years.

1818 July 28, F. Dangerfield, “IX. Some Account of the Caves near Baug, Called the Panch Pandoo”, in Transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay, volume II, London: […] Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and John Murray, […], published 1876, →OCLC, editorial note, page 216:

No natives of this country could, I think, have drawn the cave-paintings [in Buddhist caves found in Khandesh].

1851 January, J. Rose, “Art. VIII.—Extracts from the Proceedings of the Society for the Year 1849–50.”, in The Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, volume IV, Bombay, Maharashtra: American Mission Press; T. Graham, […], →OCLC, page 351:

Mr. George W. Stow, of Queenstown, South Africa, refers in a letter to the interesting subject of the old cave-paintings by the Bushmen, [...]

1871 February 4, “Scientific Notes. Cave-paintings by Bushmen.”, in Appletons’ Journal of Literature, Science, and Art, volume V, number 97, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, […], →OCLC, page 143, column 2:

Prehistoric pottery, art, cave painting, engraving can be incorporated into the exhibition as an added colourful attraction.

1972 January–March, Dilip Kumar Ray, “Some Thoughts on the Problems of Arrangement of Anthropological Specimen in Museums”, in Amalendu Bose, editor, The Calcutta Review, volume III, number 3 (New Series), Calcutta, West Bengal: University of Calcutta, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 232:

Although somewhat difficult to date, the earliest direct evidence of human interest in honey occurs in the famous stone-age cave painting from southern Spain, of a man robbing a wild bees' nest.

1998, Don Brothwell, Patricia Brothwell, “Sugars”, in Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Ancient Peoples, expanded edition, Baltimore, Md., London: Johns Hopkins University Press, →ISBN, page 72:

Rooted in precinematic cultural activities such as walking and traveling, on the one hand, and in all forms of visual representation – including cave painting – on the other, the compound term ["mobilized virtual gaze"] is meant to describe forms of scopic pleasure that travel "in an imaginary flânerie through an imaginary elsewhere and an imaginary 'elsewhen'.'"

1999, Lutz Koepnick, “Benjamin’s Actuality”, in Walter Benjamin and the Aesthetics of Power (Modern German Culture and Literature), Lincoln, Neb., London: University of Nebraska Press, →ISBN, part 2 (Rethinking the Spectacle), page 213:

The well-known Neolithic cave painting from Morella la Villa in Spain unmistakably shows a battle between two small groups of archers.

2002, Christon I. Archer, John R. Ferris, Holger H. Herwig, Timothy H. E. Travers, “Introduction: The Origins of Warfare”, in World History of Warfare, Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, →ISBN, page 1:

By 30,000 years ago, modern humans in Europe were producing stunning cave paintings of ice age animals, and carved human figurines.

2009, Jonathan Adams, “The March of Cain: Humans as a Destroyer of Species”, in John Mason, editor, Species Richness: Patterns in the Diversity of Life (Springer–Praxis Books in Environmental Sciences), Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; Chichester, West Sussex: Praxis Publishing, →ISBN, section 5.3 (The Secrets of Our Success over Other Human Species), page 211:

Human beings have been students of animal behavior from their earliest days. [...] Further evidence for this appreciation of animal behavior can be seen in the many cave paintings depicting animals, while not depicting any of the other facets of the painters' lives.

2011, “Introduction”, in Victor S. Lamoureux, editor, Animal Behavior: An Evolutionary Approach, Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press; Oakville, Ont.: Apple Academic Press, →ISBN, page 7:

(uncountable) The paintings resulting from this activity regarded collectively, especially if prehistoric; cave art; (countable) an individual painting of this type.

grotkuns

paintings resulting from this activity regarded collectively, especially if prehistoric; an individual painting of this type


portholed

(photography) Exhibiting the defect called portholing.


oleograph

(art) A type of chromolithograph, using oil paint on canvas, that attempts to imitate oil painting


postdigital

The essayist Wolf Lotter understands «postdigital» not as the end of digitalization, but as the end of the myth of digitalization. In the postdigital age after techlash, people are developing a radically pragmatic attitude toward all things digital.

2020, Thomas Ramge, Postdigital: Using AI to Fight Coronavirus, Foster Wealth and Fuel Democracy, Murmann Publishers GmbH, →ISBN:

(art) Of or relating to a movement that renounces digital technology in favour of a return to a human approach.


macrostereoscopic

(photography) Describing stereoscopic macrophotography or the equipment or techniques used in it


Warholian

en-adj

Warholian (comparative more Warholian, superlative most Warholian)

more Warholian (comparative)
most Warholian (superlative)

(art) Of or pertaining to Andy Warhol (Andrew Warhola, 1928–1987), American painter, printmaker and filmmaker, or his style or works.


MDA

en-noun

MDA (countable and uncountable, plural MDAs)

message-driven architecture
message-driven architecture#English

(software, design) Initialism of message-driven architecture.

model-driven architecture
model-driven architecture#English

(software, design) Initialism of model-driven architecture.


strapwork

strapwork (usually uncountable, plural strapworks)

It has a geometrical strapwork interlace of linked octograms with central eight-pointed stars.

1981, Gulnar Kheirallah Bosch, Islamic Bindings & Bookmaking:

(art, historical) A stylized representation of strips or bands of curling leather parchment or metal cut into elaborate shapes, with piercings and often interwoven.


desat

en-verb

desat (third-person singular simple present desats, present participle desatting, simple past and past participle desatted)

desats (present singular third-person)
desatting (participle present)
desatted (participle past)
desatted (past)

(visual arts, visual effects) To remove colour saturation.


singerie

(art) A satirical genre of visual arts depicting monkeys imitating human behaviour, often fashionably dressed.


blottesque

en-adj

blottesque (comparative more blottesque, superlative most blottesque)

more blottesque (comparative)
most blottesque (superlative)

(art) Characterized by blots or heavy touches; coarsely depicted; lacking delineation.


blottesque

(art) An artwork characterized by blots or heavy touches.


albarium

(art) A form of lime, made by heating marble, used for stucco.


superwide

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-superwide.wav

(photography, of a lens) Extremely wide; panoramic.


superwide

(photography, informal) A wide panoramic lens.


abstractionistic

abstractionistic (comparative more abstractionistic, superlative most abstractionistic)

more abstractionistic (comparative)
most abstractionistic (superlative)


eyeshot

en-noun

eyeshot (usually uncountable, plural eyeshots)

From eye + shot, on the pattern of earshot.


false shower

(juggling) A pattern in which all the props (usually balls) are thrown in the same direction like a shower, but with the hands crossing and uncrossing.


Burke's Barrage

(juggling) A pattern involving juggling three or more props whilst crossing and uncrossing one's arms.


Rubenstein's Revenge

Named by George Gillson after its inventor, Rick Rubenstein.

(juggling) A pattern involving juggling three or more props whilst crossing and uncrossing one's arms, similar to Mills Mess but with a more complicated exchange of the two middle props.


frame counter

(photography) An indicator, in roll film cameras, that shows the number of frames that have moved through the camera (number of exposures taken).


chinrest

chinrests (plural)
chin-rest (alternative)
chin rest (alternative)

(music, lutherie) A shaped piece of wood, plastic, etc. attached to the body of a violin or viola to aid in the positioning of the player's chin against on the instrument.


ombré

ombré (countable and uncountable, plural ombrés)

PrettyLittleThing had hundreds of leggings listed on its website, and I looked at all of them: white faux leather, flame-print mesh, seamless gray ombré.

2021 February 6, Rachel Monroe, “Ultra-fast Fashion Is Eating the World”, in The Atlantic:

(fashion, design) A gradual blending of one color hue to another, usually moving tints and shades from light to dark.


ass catch

(juggling) A catch made by bending over forward with one hand between one's legs and catching the prop behind one's buttocks.


stage ball

(juggling) A type of hollow juggling ball with a hard, shiny outer shell, designed to be more visible than beanbags.


point-and-shoot

The majority of digital cameras are automatic, point-and-shoot models. They offer convenience and ease of use […]

2005, Julie Adair King, Digital photography for dummies:

The Instamatic was typical of second generation point-and-shoot cameras in that it incorporated artificial illumination and was designed to use color film.

2006, Lynne Warren, Encyclopedia of 20th century photography:

(photography, of a camera) Designed for quick, simple use with minimal configuration.


grattage

grattage (countable and uncountable, plural grattages)

Automatism in art can arise quite deliberately from manual techniques (such as frottage, grattage and decalcomania in the visual arts, algorithmic or statistical procedures in musical composition, or random verbal collages in poetry) or accidentally from altered states of consciousness (for example, intoxication, hallucination, trance and ecstasy).

2010, Eran Guter, Aesthetics A-Z, page 25:

These same forest images appeared when he adapted his frottage technique to the roughly rubbed and scratched painting techniques of grattage.

2013, M. E. Warlick, Max Ernst and Alchemy: A Magician in Search of Myth, page 193:

They test the possibilities of collage, frottage, grattage, different methods of painting and printing, but also wordplay—and the mutual imitation and intersection ofthese devices.

2013, Ralph Ubl, Prehistoric Future: Max Ernst and the Return of Painting between the Wars:

(art) A technique popularized by Max Ernst involving scraping at dried paint in order to form patterns.


ortho

ortho (countable and uncountable, plural orthos)

Wherever the exposure is likely to be cut short— and this includes all high speed work and most portraiture — the ortho is not so suitable as the ordinary plate.

1908 June, Charles F. Rice, “On the Use of Orthochromatic Plates”, in Photographic Times, page 174:

(countable, photography, dated) An orthochromatic plate.

The typical orthophoto building process is a long one, however, and the photography that the orthos are based may be several years old before an orthophoto is ready for distribution.

2001, Drew Decker, GIS Data Sources, page 105:

(countable, photography) Clipping of orthophoto.


lehr

lehrs (plural)
leer (alternative)
lear (alternative)

(glassblowing) A long oven or kiln, often having a moving belt, used for annealing glass.


appropriationist

(art) An artist who adopts or reworks images made famous by other artists

apropriacionista

an artist who adopts or reworks images made famous by other artists


sandiver

From Old French suin de verre, suint de verre, literally "grease of glass".

(glassblowing, archaic) A scum that forms on molten glass.


pallophotophone

Coined by the inventor Charles Hoxie ca. 1922 from πάλλω (pállō, “shaking”) + φωτός (phōtós, “light”) + φωνή (phōnḗ, “sound”)

(historical, photography) A device that records sounds on photographic film.


body throw

(juggling) Any throw that is made around a part of the body, as opposed to in front of the head or chest.


body catch

(juggling) Any catch that is made around or behind a part of the body, as opposed to in front of the head or chest.


reverse chops

(juggling) A pattern involving carrying each object under the next object before throwing it to the opposite hand.


back cross

back crosses (plural)
back-cross (alternative)
backcross (alternative)

(juggling) A throw where the object is caught and then thrown from behind the back.


workly

en-adj

workly (comparative more workly, superlative most workly)

more workly (comparative)
most workly (superlative)
warkly (alternative)

From Middle English *workly, *werklich, from Old English *weorclīċ (“suitable for work”) (attested in unweorclīċ), equivalent to work + -ly. Compare Scots warkly (“diligent, industrious”), West Frisian werklik (“real, actual”), Dutch werkelijk (“real, actual, factual, effective”), German wirklich (“real, actual, true, substantial”), Hunsrik werklich, Swedish verklig (“real, actual, true”).

gloss

attested in <i class="Latn mention" lang="ang">unweorclīċ</i>

cog

workly nature

(philosophy, art, linguistics) Of, pertaining to, or performing some action or work; performative.


tailpiece

(music, lutherie) An element, often triangular, to which the strings of a violin, guitar, etc. are attached at the lower end of an instrument.


neoplasticism

(art) A style of abstract painting, developed by Piet Mondrian, that used only vertical and horizontal lines with the spaces filled in black, white, grey, and primary colours


blinky

Blinkies visually indicate the areas of a photograph where the exposure is beyond the range of the film.

(photography) in digital photography, a flashing pixel.


upsetter

(metalworking) A kind of forging machine that moves horizontally.


unbacked

en-adj

unbacked (comparative more unbacked, superlative most unbacked)

more unbacked (comparative)
most unbacked (superlative)

(photography, holography) (of a plate) Not having an antihalation backing.


scratchboard

(art) A technique in which drawings are created using sharp knives and tools for etching into a thin layer of white china clay that is coated with black India ink.


catchlight

catchlights (plural)
catch light (alternative)

(photography) A gleam of reflected light in a subject's eye.


contrasty

contrasty (comparative more contrasty, superlative most contrasty)

more contrasty (comparative)
most contrasty (superlative)

His inherently less contrasty and detailed paper negative work, toward the end of his life, is at least more ambivalent and not so cold.

1982 February 6, Martin Krieger, “Stark/Erotic”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 28, page 10:

The WFM display above shows a very contrasty picture with clipped whites and blacks.

2004, John Jackman, Lighting for Digital Video and Television, page 25:

(photography, television) Having great contrast between light and dark areas (of a subject or photograph).


profilist

(art) An artist who draws or paints profiles


enprint

(photography) A moderately enlarged print made from a relatively small (e.g. 35 mm) negative


autowinder

autowinders (plural)
auto winder (alternative)
auto-winder (alternative)

(photography) A device that winds on the film in a camera after each exposure


hyperfocal

(photography) Describing the distance on which a camera must be focused in order to achieve the maximum depth of field


glyptography

(art) carving or engraving on precious stone


relievo

Moreover, a perfect Medal has its Profile and out-ſtroaks ſharp (Nummus aſper) and by no means rugged; the Figures clean and well poliſh'd; the Contours neatly trimm'd, and exactly round and carefully preſerv'd; that the Extancy and Relievos correſpond with the Ingraving, and have not ſuffer'd in Percuſſion; in all which, there is a certain Spirit of Antiquity and Excellency to be diſcern'd in Antient Medals almoſt inimitable.

1697, J[ohn] Evelyn, “Instructions How to Collect, and Procure such Medals as are Antique, and Rare; and to Distinguish the True from the False, for the Prevention of Frauds and Impostures”, in Numismata. A Discourse of Medals, Antient and Modern. […], London: […] Benj[amin] Tooke […], →OCLC, page 201:


thingly

thingly (comparative more thingly, superlative most thingly)

more thingly (comparative)
most thingly (superlative)

From Middle English thingli, þingly; equivalent to thing + -ly. For sense development, compare Latin reālis.

All works have this thingly character.

2009, Donald Preziosi, The art of art history: a critical anthology:

(philosophy, art, linguistics) Pertaining to the substance of a work, separate from what is conveyed; material, substantive.


pastellist

pastellists (plural)
pastelist (alternative)


crown molding

(woodworking, interior decorating) A molding at the edge of a room between the ceiling and the wall.


underdrawing

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-underdrawing.wav

Depending on the medium used, underdrawing in embroidery and other decorative techniques may be revealed by radiography where it is relatively radio-absorbent in comparison to other materials used either in the original artefact or in later mounting and conservation methods.

2007, Sonia O'Connor, Mary Brooks, X-Radiography of Textiles, Dress and Related Objects, page 153:

When subjected to printing or photocopying, the blue underdrawing will disappear, leaving only the ink lines.

2013, Chip Sullivan, Drawing the Landscape, pages 3-35:

The 'Aegyptiaca' would thus have removed herself from the embrace in the underdrawing and have turned towards the woman who is just awakening from her dream.

2018, Meinhard Michael, Hieronymus Bosch ́s The Garden Of Earthly Delights, page 161:

(art) A sketch done on the ground of a work of art before paint, pastel, ink, or other more permanent medium is applied.

You can use a croquis as an underdrawing for fashion drawing

2016, Irina V Ivanova, Haute Couture Fashion Illustration Resource Book, page 11:

Used as a base or underdrawing, it can be slipped under a page in the sketchbook and worked off of from there.

2022, Linda Tain, Portfolio Presentation for Fashion Designers, page 75:

To ensure that their focus is on the design of the garment, not the proportions of the figure, they may rely on an underdrawing or lay figure—a well-proportioned pose that can be slid under a page and used as a template to help control proportions and the location of garment details.

2022, Sandra Keiser, Deborah Vandermar, Myrna B. Garner, Beyond Design: The Synergy of Apparel Product Development:

(fashion design) An image of a figure that is slid under the page on which a designer draws a garment, so that the result conforms to the figure's proportions.


hardstone

en-noun

hardstone (countable and uncountable, plural hardstones)

I was curious what it would take, so doing some calculations based on instamining hardstone, and comparing hardness, I've determined you need 45k mining speed to instamine mithril. 11.25k with mining speed boost. Is this achievable? Well, looking at the ways of increasing speed on the wiki: […]

2022 August 24, Yazinator, Hypixel Forums:

(art) Precious stone or semi-precious stone used to make intaglio, mosaics etc.


favrile

(art) An iridescent form of Tiffany glass.


underpainting

underpainting (countable and uncountable, plural underpaintings)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-underpainting.wav

He would start with a stenciled acrylic underpainting and finish by making marks with the chalk and charcoal shells.

2007 May 13, Carol Kino, “Something There Is That Loves a Wall”, in New York Times:

(art) An initial layer of paint, often monochromatic, applied to a ground as a base for subsequent layers.

At first they wouldn't believe him, but he gave them proof. X-ray the Adulteress, he told them, and you will find an underpainting. They did and found the underpainting van Meegeren had described.

2012, Leo Katz, Bad Acts and Guilty Minds: Conundrums of the Criminal Law:

(art) A painting that the artist later painted over to create the final work.


stop off

en-verb

stop off (third-person singular simple present stops off, present participle stopping off, simple past and past participle stopped off)

stops off (present singular third-person)
stopping off (participle present)
stopped off (participle past)
stopped off (past)

(transitive, metalworking) To fill (a part of a mould) with sand, where a part of the cavity left by the pattern is not wanted for the casting.


(art) Ellipsis of MoMA PS1, a contemporary art institution in Long Island City.


blort

en-noun

blort (countable and uncountable, plural blorts)

Onomatopoetic; in sense 1, also blend of blow + snort.

(ABDL, chiefly art and comics, uncommon) Indicates the sound of defecation, especially into a diaper.


bar stock

(metalworking) Portions of metal (stock) in the form of bars, suitable for machining (such as turning) or fabrication (such as welding). It comes in standard cross-sections and certain lengths, such as 6 to 12 feet.


vrykolakas

Borrowed from Greek βρυκόλακας (vrykólakas).

(folklore) In Greek folklore, a harmful undead creature that eats flesh, somewhat like a vampire or zombie.


Orphism

From Orpheus + -ism; art sense coined by French poet Guillaume Apollinaire in 1912 as orphisme.

coin

“Orphism,” he writes wearily, italicizing the word for effect, “and now we speak of Orphism. Or rather, we do not speak of it. All that we've tried to say has only clouded the question.” The same day Goth's article appeared, two separate caricatures of Orphism also showed up in the popular press—one in Le rire (figure 1.26), the other in Le journal amusant[…]

2014, Gordon Hughes, quoting Max Goth, Resisting Abstraction: Robert Delaunay and Vision in the Face of Modernism, University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 28:

(art) A minor Cubist art movement focusing on pure abstraction and bright colours.


Saci

Borrowed from Brazilian Portuguese saci, from Old Tupi sa'si.

(folklore) A black, one-legged, prankster youngster in Brazilian folklore, who smokes a pipe and wears a magical red hat that enables him to disappear.


DTW

(art) Dance Theater Workshop, a performance venue in New York City, New York


stigmat

Probably a back-formation from stigmatic. Compare anastigmat.

(photography) A stigmatic lens or combination of lenses.


apostolado

/əˌpɒstəˈlɑːdəʊ/

Borrowed from Spanish apostolado. Doublet of apostolate.

(Christianity, art) A series of portraits of the apostles, sometimes also including those of Jesus Christ or other close disciples of Christ.


Adurol

(photography) A chlorinated (or brominated) derivative of hydroquinone once used as a photographic developer


rule of thirds

(photography, film, visual arts) A normative rule that an image should be mentally or representationally divided in three horizontally and diagonally, and that the focus of the image should not be in the center of the resulting shape.


merese

Perhaps via French [Term?] (compare French mérèse (growth by cell division), mérisme (merismus, merism)), ultimately from Ancient Greek μερίζω (merízō), from μέρος (méros, “part”) + -ίζω (-ízō, “-ize”), from Proto-Hellenic *(h)méros. First English attestation in 1923 on page 44 of Glass-making in England by Harry J. Powell.

af

(glassblowing) A flat, sharp-edged button, often a disc-shaped knob, separating the stem of a drinking-glass from the foot.


academic art

After a three years’ study in Italy, where he [Benjamin West] became imbued with the traditions of Academic art, but remained curiously insensible to the real excellences, especially that of colour, of the old masters, […]

1873, Mrs. Charles Heaton, A concise history of painting, Bell and Daldy, pages 511–512:

So let me finally quote again from Véron who made a bitter fight against the fossilism of the old Academic Art of his day, one who may be said to be the real father of modern Individualism in æsthetics, and the best friend that mere “technicians” ever had.

1917 February, Frederick Wellington Ruckstull, “A Standard of Art Measurement, Part I”, in The Art World: Volume 1 Number 5, page 327:

(art) A style of art influenced by European art academies, especially one which lacks innovation or individualism; academism.


tenebrism

From Italian tenebrismo, from tenebroso + -ismo, from Latin tenebrōsus (“dark, gloomy”).

(art) A style of painting using very pronounced chiaroscuro, with darkness a dominating feature of the image.


representationalist

(art) An artist who aims to produces realistic depictions.