Visual arts glossary

Terms that appear across this site's famous-painting and artist pages, explained once, on this page.

Public domain

A work whose copyright protection has expired — usually decades after the author's death, the exact term varies by country — so it can be freely reproduced, including on an ad-supported site.

Oil on canvas

A painting technique using pigment mixed with a drying oil (such as linseed oil), applied to a linen or cotton canvas stretched over a frame.

Fresco

A painting made directly on still-wet plaster on a wall or ceiling; the pigment dries together with the plaster and becomes part of the surface, which is why it lasts for centuries.

Tempera

A painting technique that predates oil paint, mixing pigment with egg yolk or another fast-drying binder, giving more opaque colour and a matte finish.

Chiaroscuro

A strong contrast between light and shadow used to give figures volume and dramatise a scene — a hallmark of Caravaggio and much of the Baroque.

Pointillism

A technique that builds an image out of thousands of small dots of pure colour, which the eye blends from a distance — developed by Georges Seurat.

Triptych

A work painted on three hinged panels, usually two smaller ones that fold over a larger central panel.

Curatorship

The work of selecting, organising and contextualising artworks for an exhibition or museum collection.