Ancient Through Medieval 2D Art - AP Art History

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.

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.

St. Stephen is sometimes referred to as "the Protomartyr," as he was the first martyr recounted in the Bible, as his testimony of a vision of Christ to the Jewish leadership caused him to be stoned. This story made him immensely popular from the rise of Christianity through the Middle Ages, and St. Stephen became a common depiction in icons, paintings, and stained glass. St. Stephen is recognizable through having a stone implanted in his skull.

The Greek cross has four equal-sized arms. The Latin cross has a longer vertical section with shorter arms on the sides.

The image of Christ Pantocrater suggests that Christ is the all-powerful ruler and judge of humanity. It is a popular depiction in many Byzantine churches.

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).

Although there are an unfortunate few surviving examples of Romanesque stained glass, the first examples of stained glass are remnants from the beginning of the Romanesque era. The larger quantities of stained glass from the Romanesque period have been dated to its later years.

The cult of Saint George flourished in Western Europe (especially in England and Portugal) and Eastern Europe (especially Georgia and Southern Russia). This widespread devotion made Saint George an extremely significant figure in various kinds of medieval art. The legend of St. George is that he was a Roman soldier who was martyred for his faith, and the Crusades later brought back the story that Saint George had slain a dragon with a spear before his martyrdom.

Medieval art was mostly influenced by the dictates of the Roman Catholic Church, even in secular art. The Christian attitude of shame about the human body meant that art of the time period could not show nudes. One major exception was the depiction of Adam and Eve, who needed to be shown as not realizing they were naked before eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Indeed, the story of Adam and Eve was often used to justify the practice of banning of nude religious images to which the images of Adam and Eve were the exception.

The pietàwas a common theme among Gothic and Medieval artists who were Christians and used religious themes because it was one of the most dramatic moments of Christ's crucifixion story. The pietà depicts a dead Jesus who has just been taken down from the cross laying across the Virgin Mary's lap, with Mary looking extremely sorrowful.

The Poor Man's Bible was a way for the largely illiterate Medieval peasantry to be able to learn Bible stories despite their inability to actually read the Bible. In many cathedrals, most notably at Canterbury Cathedral in England, the Poor Man's Bible was a giant stained-glass window that had dozens of Biblical stories that could be easily referenced by priests and parishioners alike.

"Adoration of the Magi" is an Anglicization of the Vulgate Latin phrase "a Magis adoratur," a phrase found in the Gospel of Matthew. The scene, which features three distinguished men from the East visiting the newborn Jesus, was a popular one in Medieval art, thanks to its portrayal of precious gifts, ostentatious figures, and the Christ child in one scene.

Grisaille is a type of painting done entirely in shades of gray or another neutral, monochromatic shade. By reducing the color palette to shades of gray, the artist can emulate the appearance of sculpture. It's also much less demanding on the artist, and is often used for sketches.

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.