Ancient Through Medieval 2D Art - AP Art History

In the Christian tradition, Jesus is said to have given Peter the keys to his Kingdom, which the Roman Catholic church interpreted as making Peter the first Pope. In the highly symbolic and representative religious art of the middle ages, illiterate viewers could recognize St. Peter in painting by seeing him holding a set of keys.

A nimbus is a halo that appears painted around the head of a holy figure to symbolize his or her divinity.

Vellum is a calfskin surface prepared for painting. It is often used for manuscripts (handwritten documents or scrolls).

While "mosaic" is a very broad term, it refers to any artwork made by assembling together small pieces of glass and tile. Roman artists and architects frequently used mosaics to create artwork in homes and buildings, and these were frequently realistic depictions of people or landscapes. Mosaics are still used by artists today, but can often take on abstract forms.

The visual arts in Ancient Rome were well-respected across a number of genres, including painting, sculpture, and ceramics. Painting, according to ancient sources, was valued as highly as the other forms of art, but very little of it has survived to the present day. Among the well-preserved examples of Roman painting are those from the sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum, which were all buried under volcanic ash, rather than having the paint exposed to the elements.

Most people in Ancient Greece could not read, and vase paintings were a simple and cheap method of conveying religious stories and myths that the common person could understand.

The emperor (or Caesar) was often the subject of imperial art. The Romans saw their emperor as both a religious and political figure and celebrated their position through their art forms. Similar to the pharaohs of Egypt, the emperor was considered a "God" in his own right.

Art and architecture in Rome was greatly influenced by the Greeks. Greece was conquered by Rome in 146 BC and since then, Roman art was interwoven with Greek art.

The Romans were proud of their art and used it mostly for showing off to others and decoration. After Pompeii was excavated, it was obvious that the Romans liked adding decoration to not only their home, but also everyday objects such as utensils and furniture.

Classical Greek art took inspiration from beauty, nationalism and religion. These elements can be found throughout their architecture, paintings and sculptures. The beauty of Greek women were captured through paintings and sculptures of their form. Gods and deities are found throughout various pieces of art as well.

Most paintings from the classical world are lost, due to withering away and fading over time, unless they were in conditions that preserved them. The Fayum mummy portraits are the best collection of ancient portraits because they laid for centuries underground in the dry deserts of Egypt. While the creation of mummy portraits is descended from ancient Egyptian mummy practices, the Fayum portraits were typically painted by Greek artists for Roman patrons in Egypt, after Rome had accessioned Ptolemaic Egypt, following the Battle of Actium.

Phidian, a term which refers to work in the style of the sculptor Phidias, is known for his use of drapery to highlight the female form, which was not allowed to be shown in the nude.

The answer is marble; you must first identify that the Greek tradition is where marble is a prominent material for sculpture and architecture. You must also recognize that limestone, the other major building material of the Greek architectural tradition, would not have been used for sculpture as much as for large-scale architectural ventures.

Fresco-secco, or dry fresco painting, uses water-based pigment mixed with egg to paint a dry plaster surface that has only been moistened. This is not true fresco, or buon fresco, because in a true fresco the plaster would still be wet. Fresco painting was popular in Classical Greece.

The main ingredient of encaustic painting is beeswax, and the mixture is most often applied to wood, though it has other uses. Egg-yolk pigments are a characteristic of fresco, not encaustic painting.

Mosaics were one of the more common artistic forms of Ancient Greek and Roman art, being featured as key decorative elements in buildings on walls and floors. The key element of a mosaic is a "tessera" (plural "tesserae"), a Latin term for the small piece of stone or glass which is put together with others to make the much larger image of a full mosaic.

Roman and Greek styles of art are referred to as Classical Art. Classical art is known for its simplicity, humanism and naturally beautiful style.

In a continuous narrative, sequential moments of a narrative or story are depicted in a single scene. This type of image is used to tell a whole story within a single image instead of through separate images. A continuous narrative often is distinguished by the reappearance of a single character or characters multiple times within the image.

The term to remember is "canon," as it directly refers to the proportion principles employed by both the Ancient Greeks and the Ancient Egyptians.

"Scale" was given as an option to throw off the test-taker; though scale of proportions fits into the sentence quite well, "canon" is the art history term used (for example, we say that paintings are of nude figures, not naked figures).

"Ratio" cannot be the answer since that is a synonym for "proportion." Body does not fit the sentence at all. Table would work, but it is not the answer for the same reason that scale is not.

John the Baptist is one of the most significant figures in Christian history, and was a frequent figure in Medieval art. He is easily identified with his cloak of camel hair, a description taken from the Gospel of Mark. John the Baptist is also usually depicted with a dove, as both were seen as signals of the coming Messiah in Jesus Christ.