ART (part 1)

I. Painting Genres and Techniques

1. Complete the chart with the words from the list:

battle piece water colour shade brush landscape

oil painting fade drawing etching wood cut
easel tone crayon cartoon canvas
sepia mosaic sculptor flower piece tint
engraver (Indian) ink tempera copyist painter acrylics
palette self-portrait still life pastel picture view
colourist charcoal mural nude icon
paintbox portraitist print marine hue

Artists Genres of Types of Colouring Tools and Types of paint

paintings pictures equipment

2. Explain the difference between the words below:

drawing – painting to paint – to represent
 art gallery – art house canvas – painting
art dealer – art critic sketch – study

3. Match the words with their definitions:

1. colourist a) someone who draws well
2. art critic b) a painter who uses colour itself as a subject of a painting
3. atelier c) someone who produces art, especially paintings or
drawings
4. connoisseur d) someone who sits or stands while someone
else paints them or takes photographs of them
5. art dealer e) someone whose job is to make judgments
about the good and bad qualities of art
6. artist f) someone who buys and sells works of art
7. sitter g) someone who knows a lot about something such as art,
food, or music
8. draughtsman h) a room or building where an artist works
4. Supply synonyms to the following words:
seascape artist to represent portraitist fresco atelier
5. Match the words and word combinations with their meanings:
1) pastels a) a thin, curved board that an artist uses to mix paints,
holding it by putting his or her thumb through a hole at the edge
2) palette knife b) a stick of coloured wax or chalk that children use to draw
pictures
3) crayon c) a small amount of a soft or sticky substance
4) stencil d) a small amount of a substance that is added to something
else
5) perspective e) the way different elements in a painting relate to each other
in terms of size
6) daub f) a painting done with oil paints, or the piece of cloth it is
painted on
7) palette g) the lightness or darkness of a colour, rather than what the
actual colour is
8) dash h) a piece of plastic, metal, or paper in which designs or
letters have been cut out, that you put over a surface and paint
over, so that the design is left on the surface
9) stained glass i) a long spatula used for mixing paints; it can be made from
plastic, or wood and metal
10) tone (value) j) glass of different colours used for making pictures and
patterns in windows, especially in a church
11) canvas k) sticks of ground pigment mixed with chalk and gum or oil;
they cannot be mixed on a palette like paints, but are mixed on
the paper by overlaying or blending
12) proportion l) the way in which artists create an illusion of depth on a flat
surface; one of the ways to create this illusion is to make the
objects that are far away smaller than those that are closer to the
viewer
13) chiaroscuro m) 1. of or relating to painting in outdoor daylight; 2. of or
relating to a branch of impressionism that attempts to represent
outdoor light and air
14) plein-air n) 1. the use of deep variations in and subtle gradations of
light and shade; 2. the distribution of light and shade in a
picture.

6. Before reading answer the following questions:

1. What genres in painting do you know? What are their main features?
2. What do you know about the hierarchy of genres?
7. Read the information about genres in painting and fill in the table.
Genre Main features

Genres in Painting
History (historical) painting is the painting of scenes with narrative content
from classical history, Christian history, and mythology, as well as depicting the
historical events of the near past. These include paintings with religious,
mythological, historical, literary, or allegorical subjects – they embodied some
interpretation of life or conveyed a moral or intellectual message. It was taught in the
academies of art, from the Renaissance to the 19th cent., as the highest form of art in
a hierarchical grouping that ranked still-life painting lowest on the list. A modern
work cited as falling within the history-painting tradition is Picasso's Guernica.
History painting also known as the grand genre, it was the noblest form of art.
Portrait painting is a genre in painting, where the intent is to depict the visual
appearance of the subject. Beside human beings, animals, pets and even inanimate
objects can be chosen as the subject for a portrait. Portraitists create their work by
commission, for public and private persons, or are inspired by admiration or affection
for the subject.
Landscape art depicts scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and
forests. Sky is almost always included in the view, and weather usually is an element
of the composition. In the first century A.D., Roman frescoes of landscapes decorated
rooms that have been preserved at Pompeii and Herculaneum. Traditionally,
landscape art depicts the surface of the earth, but there are other sorts of landscapes,
such as moonscapes, for example. The word landscape is from the Dutch, landschap
meaning a sheaf, a patch of cultivated ground. The word entered the English
vocabulary of the connoisseur in the late 17th century.
Genre painting, also called genre scene or petit genre, depicts aspects of
everyday life by portraying ordinary people engaged in common activities. These
depictions can be realistic, imagined, or romanticized by the artist. Because of their
familiar and frequently sentimental subject matter, genre paintings have often proven
popular with the bourgeoisie, or middle class. The petit name contrasts this with the
grand genre, history painting.
A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically
commonplace objects which may be either natural (food, flowers, plants, rocks, or
shells) or man-made (drinking glasses, books, vases, jewelry, coins, pipes, and so on)
in an artificial setting.
8. Match the words with their definitions.
1. fresco a) a simple, quickly-made drawing that does not show much detail
2. landscape b) a painting consisting of two panels, traditionally hinged
together
3. view c) an illustration made by cutting lines into a surface (usually
wood or metal), inking the surface, and then printing it.
4. diptych d) a painting done on a wall or technique of painting on a moist,
plaster surface with colors ground up in water or a limewater
mixture
5. etching e) a portrait that exaggerates a person's physical characteristics for
comic effect
6. print f) a picture showing an area of countryside or land
7. study g) a small detailed drawing, especially one which is done in order
to prepare for a larger picture, or as part of a series of drawings
of the same kind of subject
8. sketch h) a picture showing a beautiful or interesting place
9. engraving i) a photographic copy of a painting, or a picture made by
pressing paper onto a special surface covered in ink, or a single
photograph from a film
10. caricature j) an illustration made by drawing through a wax covering on a
metal plate, which is then put into acid to eat away (etch) the
metal where it has been uncovered; the plate is then inked and
printed
11. likeness k) relief sculpture in which the figures project slightly from the
background
12. low relief l) a representation, picture, or image, esp. a portrait
13. high relief m) a large picture painted or affixed directly on a wall or ceiling; a
greatly enlarged photograph attached directly to a wall; a
wallpaper pattern representing a landscape or the like, often
with very widely spaced repeats so as to produce the effect of a
mural painting on a wall of average size
14. mural n) relief sculpture in which the figures project more than 50 per
cent from the background
15. nude o) nude sitter
 16. the nude p) naked or unclothed
17. altogether q) a representation of a nude human figure

9. Find the odd one out in each line of the words given below and explain your
choice:
a) battle painting landscape painting mural painting historical painting
b) still life canvas seascape portrait
c) soft pale dark pastel
d) brush easel palette scenery
e) colourist sitter engraver portraitist
f) oil painting print wood cut landscape
g) pen crayon ink hue
h) bright vivid brilliant gaudy;
i) show display exhibition collection;
j) oil water-colour texture tempera.
10. Complete the sentences with the words from the box.
still life collector collection taste background
portrait artist subject style spot
work paint symbol condition
1. This is Hogarth's most ambitious _____ of children. 2. The painting was bought
by a private ______. 3. This large _______ of fruit and flowers spilling from a
terracotta vase is painted in bright, light tones against the ________of an imposing
classical building set in an elegant park. 4. This painting is in excellent ______. 5.
The tonal changes which occur over the receding landscape have been achieved by
the use of oil _____. 6. The light, feathery brushstrokes used to describe the
landscape are typical of Gainsborough's late _____. 7. In the Protestant
contemporary world, the theme of the prodigal son was a frequent ______ for
works of art due to its moral background. 8. The ______ Hans Holbein was best
known for painting portraits. 9. "Just try going outside and painting things on the
_____! 10. Unlike the other flower still lifes in the National Gallery's ______, Jan
van Os's paintings, with their crowded compositions, lighter colours and light
backgrounds, alluding to classical architecture and garden settings, reflect 18th-
century ______. 11. This is an important early _____
by Jacob van Ruisdael painted at the end of the 1640s. 12. A cat is sometimes
included in portraits of children as a _____of the wildness of nature intruding upon
the innocence of childhood.