chapter 7
Order by
40 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Humanist | One who practices humanism Humanists strove to understand in ever more precise and scientific terms the nature of humanity and its relationship to the natural world Where the Middle Ages had been an age of faith, in which the salvation of the soul was an individual's chief preoccupation, the Renaissance was an age of intellectual exploration |
| Humanism | a focus on the actions of human beings, especially political action; more specifically, in the Renaissance, the study of the art and literature of Roman and Greek cultures in order to cultivate one's own unique talents and abilities • Humanism can be defined as the recovery, study and the spread of the art and literature of Greece and Rome, and the application of their principles to education, politics, social life, and the arts in general. • In turn, humanism stimulated a new appreciation for the value of an individual. Each person possesses the capacity for self-determination in the search for truth and morality • Faith, sacred texts, or religious tradition were no longer the only guides available to the inquiring mind |
| Baptistery | a building standing in front of the cathedral and used for the Christian site of baptism |
| Foreshortening | a technique used to suggest that forms are sharply receding |
| Lantern | a windowed turret at the top of a dome |
| Oculus (hole) | a circular opening at the top of a dome |
| Motet | a polyphonic form consisting of three (and sometimes) four voices The form of polyphonic vocal work that had gained increasingly popularity since the mid-thirteenth century |
| Cantus firmus | "fixed melody" on which the composition is based is stated in not one but two voices, both moving in different speeds |
| Scientific perspective (linear perspective) | a technique that allowed artists to translate three-dimensional space onto a two-dimensional surface No aspect of the renaissance better embodies the spirit of invention evidenced by both Brunelleschi's dome and Dufay's music than scientific perspective (linear perspective), which allowed artists to translate 3-D space into a 2-D surface, thereby satisfying the age's increasingly taste for naturalistic representation of the physical world |
| One-point perspective | a type of scientific (linear) perspective in which all lines appear at converge at a single vanishing point on the horizon |
| Vanishing point | the point on the horizon where lines of perspective meet |
| Picture plane | the two-dimensional surface of a panel or canvas |
| Orthogonals | a diagonal line |
| Vantage point | the position from which something is viewed |
| Atmospheric perspective | this system depends on the observation that the haze in the atmosphere makes distant elements appears less distinct and bluish in color Atmospheric perspective also gives the painting the feeling of naturalism; this system depends on the observation that the haze in the atmosphere makes distant elements appears less distinct and bluish in color, even as the sky becomes paler as it approaches the horizon. |
| Platonic love | the ideal spiritual relationship between two people |
| Neoplatonist | a modern term that distinguishes Renaissance Platonists from their Greek antecedents |
| Palazzo | a palace |
| Frottola | a musical form that usually consists of three parts, with the melodya in the highest register |
| Sprezzatura | for an Italian Renaissance courtier, the undertaking of difficult tasks as if effortlessly and with an attitude of nonchalance |
| Sfumato | the process of blurring outlines in painting by subtle tonal variations so that objects in the foreground blend into the background; literally "smokiness." |
| Glazing | the building up of color with many layers of transparent oil paint |
| Music of the spheres | the theory that each planet produces a musical sound, fixed mathematically by its velocity and distance from earth, which harmonizes with those produced by other planets and is audible but not recognized on earth |
| Octave | the interval that gives the impression of duplicating the original note at a higher or lower pitch |
| Basilica | a large, rectangular building with an apse at one or both ends |
| Greek cross | a cross in which the upright and transverse shafts are of equal length and intersect at their middles |
| Indulgences | dispensations granted by the church to shorten a sinner's stay in purgatory for a fee |
| Ignudi | nude youths |
| Pendentive | a triangular curving vault section that supports a dome over a square space |
| Cartoon | a full-scale drawing used to transfer a design onto another surface |
| A cappella | without instrumental accompaniment |
| Paraphrase | free variation on an existing melodic line in a polyphonic work |
| Point of imitation | unit of music in which all the voices of a polyphonic composition take up more or less the same musical idea in succession |
| Double entendre | a figure of speech in which a phrase can be understood in either of two ways |
| Madrigal | a secular vocal composition for three or more voices |
| Through-composed | used to describe a song in which each line of text is set to new music |
| Word painting | the effect created when musical elements imitate the meaning of the text in mood or action |
| Polychoral style | a style in which choirs sing to and against each other in increasingly complicated forms |
| Intonazione | a short prelude |
| Toccata | a virtuoso composition, usually for organ, designed to feature both the range of the instrument and the dexterity of the performer |
First Time Here?
Welcome to Quizlet, a fun, free place to study. Try these flashcards, find others to study, or make your own.