If you are new to art, some of these definitions might help you make better decisions when considering a purchase. Some of these terms were new to me. If you have a suggestion on more information to provide, please send it to: customerservice@chevychasejewelry.net.
Abstract Art: a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which exists independently of visual references to the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an attempt to reproduce an illusion of visible reality. The arts of cultures other than the European had become accessible and showed alternative ways to the artist, of describing visual experience (see:Paul Gauguin, Vincent Van Gogh). By the end of the 19th century many artists felt a need to create a 'new kind of art' which would encompass the fundamental changes taking place in technology, science and philosophy. The sources from which individual artists drew their theoretical arguments were diverse, and reflected the social and intellectual turmoil in all areas of Western culture at that time.
Artist Paper: An extremely high quality paper excellent for pen & ink, technical pens, and markers. The paper is designed so that ink and markers will not feather or bleed. The smooth surface is ideal for detailed work and is acid free. Usually made of 100% cotton fiber. Some artist paper has a medium surface with a toothy surface suitable for any dry media, as well as pen and ink. Each individual sheet of paper is hand-inspected prior to leaving the factory.
Artist Proof: One of a small group of prints set aside from an edition for an artist's use; a number of printer's proofs are sometimes also done for a printer's use. An artist's proof is typically one of the first proofs from a limited edition of prints, for the artist's own copyright use, and marked as an A.P., and not numbered. Artist's proofs generally draw a higher price than other impressions. The equivalent in French is épreuve d'artiste, abbreviated E.A.
Asian Art: one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world. Earliest paintings were ornamental, not representational; they consisted of pattern or designs, not pictures. Stone Age pottery was painted with spiral, zigzags, dots, or animals. It was only during the Warring States Period (403-221 B.C.) that artists began to represent the world around them.
Painting in the traditional style is today known in Chinese as guó huà 国画, meaning 'national' or 'native painting', in opposition to Western styles of art which became popular in China in the 20th century. Traditional painting involves essentially the same techniques as calligraphy and is done with a brush dipped in black or colored ink; oils are not used. As with calligraphy, the most popular materials on which paintings are made of paper and silk. The finished work is then mounted on scrolls, which can be hung or rolled up. Traditional painting also is done in albums and on walls, lacquerwork, and other media.
There are mainly two techniques in Chinese painting, which areMeticulous - Gong-bi (工筆) often referred to as "court-style" painting Freehand - Shui-mo (水墨) loosely termed watercolour or brush painting. The Chinese character "mo" means ink and "shui" means water. This style is also referred to as "xie yi" (寫意) or freehand style.
Artists from the Han (202 BC) to the Tang (618-906) dynasties mainly painted the human figure. Much of what we know of early Chinese figure painting comes from burial sites, where paintings were preserved on silk banners, lacquered objects, and tomb walls. Many early tomb paintings were meant to protect the dead or help their souls get to paradise. Others illustrated the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius or showed scenes of daily life.
Many critics consider landscape to be the highest form of Chinese painting. The time from the Five Dynasties period to the Northern Song period (907-1127) is known as the "Great age of Chinese landscape". In the north, artists such as Jing Hao, Fan Kuan, and Guo Xi painted pictures of towering mountains, using strong black lines, ink wash, and sharp, dotted brushstrokes to suggest rough stone. In the south, Dong Yuan, Ju Ran, and other artists painted the rolling hills and rivers of their native countryside in peaceful scenes done with softer, rubbed brushwork. These two kinds of scenes and techniques became the classical styles of Chinese landscape painting.
Canvass: Fabrics that are prepared for painting. Available in panels, stretched on frames, or obtained by the yard.
Cel (formally called celluloid): Collecting animation cels can be an exciting, if expensive, hobby. Cels are the thousands of plastic cellulose acetate or cellulose nitrate "frames", usually hand-painted, that make up an animated show. Each one is completely one-of-a-kind, and it is for this reason that they are popular among collectors. Once considered worthless, cels have now become works of art, and studios are realizing that their old sketches and cellulose are in high demand by fans. Prices can rise into the thousands between collectors for a "valuable" scene in a show - for example, in a 1991 official auction, cels from the popular show The Simpsons went for an average price of four thousand dollars, and a record-setting Mickey Mouse cel sold in 1989 for $450,000!
Certificate of Authenticity: Certifies the authenticity of an individual piece in an edition and states the current market value.
Edition: A group of identical prints that can be numbered and signed by the artist.
Embossing: A method of raising a design in relief on metal or paper through the use of mechanical dies or punches or plates. Embossing provides a three-dimensional effect to a piece of art.
Embossed lithograph: The embossing adds a sculptured effect to the lithograph bringing about additional design and subtle highlights. The embossing is the last step in the process but it still must be in register with the overall design. These are also unframed and ready for framing with double matting and foam core backing. The inner mat is white with a black core. When beveled it produces a fine black line around the art setting the art off from the mat. The outer mat is eggshell . . . a neutral solution for your color scheme. Click on any picture for a larger view of the entire piece together with information of the mat size, colors used and the edition size.
Framing Prints: Prints require a non humid, pest free environment. They should be matted under glass using archival materials or stored flat. Keep them away from the light to prevent fading. Use cotton gloves when handling prints as body oils cause deterioration. Never use scotch or any type of sticky tape. Don't stack prints on top of each other. Leave rips, foxing, and other maladies to professional restorers.
Gem Art: Gemstone art is meticulously done art form made by expert artists using natural, genuine gemstones. These gem arts will help you enjoy the gem as well as the underlying art. Gem art are pictures or figurines made with low-quality gemstones obtained as a by-product of high-quality gem production (cast-off gems too small to use). Gem art has been around for centuries in Thailand, Japan and Singapore, and has become more popular lately in other Southeast Asian countries. In Thailand, gem art is a common gift or souvenir, as they highlight the country's culture and arts, and also symbolize its prosperous and varied gem trade.
Giclée (or iris): A computerized reproduction technique in which the image and topography are generated from a digital file and printed by a special ink jet printer, using ink, acrylic or oil paints. Giclée printing offers one of the highest degree of accuracy and richness of color available in any reproduction techniques.
Giclee on canvass: With the advent of giclee, (pronounced gee-clay) the art of fine printing has become even more precise. Because no screens are used, the prints have a higher apparent resolution than lithographs. The dynamic color range is like serigraphy. In the giclee process, a fine stream of ink- more than four million droplets per second- is sprayed onto a specially treated canvas. The effect is similar to an airbrush technique but much finer. Each piece is carefully hand-mounted onto a drum which rotates during printing. Exact calculations of hue, value and density direct the ink of 6 nozzles. This produces a combination of 512 chromatic changes, (with over million color possibilities) of saturated, nontoxic water-based ink. The artist's color approval and input are essential for creating the final custom setting for the edition. The latest advancements in the giclee process have been in the higher resolution machines, more colorful and light resistant inks, and protective coatings for canvas art. The digital printers that we are using for "First Recital" have a cutting edge resolution of 1800 dpi (dots per square inch.). The inks that we use are rated to undergo no less than 20 years of normal exposure to light without any measurable fading. Finally, each canvas is applied with a special UV coating varnish. This coating insures UV light protection and protects the surface from scratching and other normal hazards. Displaying a full color spectrum, giclee prints on canvas have the ability to capture minute nuances in original painting in which other processes fall short. The highlights are brighter, contrasts are better defined, and the colors are more exact than any comparable reproduction process. Simply, this is as close to an original artwork as can be reproduced.
Gouache (Tempera): The technique of applying opaque watercolor to paper; also a work of art so produced. The usual gouache painting displays a light-reflecting brilliance quite different from the luminosity of transparent watercolors.
Hand embellished giclee: Sometimes artists paint over giclee prints. When referring to embellished giclee, the work can range from a few brushstrokes to completely repainting over the print. There is no fine line between what constitutes an original and what just a print is when an artist paints over a giclee. Generally speaking a few brushstrokes cannot define a giclee as an original.
Hand Signed/Signature: A signature of the artist proving that the original or print is real. The signature adds value to the piece of art. There are some pieces of art with fake signatures. As a safety measure, ask for a certificate of authenticity for any hand signed original or print.
Impressionism: Impressionism is referred to as the most important art movement of the 19th century. The term impressionism came from a painting by Claude Monet. His painting was titled Impression Sunrise. Impressionism is about capturing fast fleeting moments with color, light, and surface.
Limited Edition: Prints that have a known number of impressions, and are usually signed and numbered by the artist.
Lithograph: This is a printing process. A small stone or metal plate is used. The printer, usually with the artist’s supervision covers the plate with a sheet of paper which is then run through the printer.
Lithography: In the graphic arts, a method of printing from a prepared flat stone, metal or plastic plate, invented in the late eighteenth century. A drawing is made on the stone or plate with a greasy crayon or tusche, and then washed with water. When ink is applied it sticks to the greasy drawing but runs off (or is resisted by) the wet surface allowing a print - a lithograph - to be made of the drawing. The artist, or other print maker under the artist's supervision, then covers the plate with a sheet of paper and runs both through a press under light pressure. For color lithography separate drawings are made for each color.
Lithograph Paper: A paper made for use in lithography. It is produced from bleached chemical wood pulps, or a combination of chemical and mechanical pulps. In England it is produced mainly from esparto (grass). The principal characteristics required of this paper relate to the printing process to be used, and include, water resistance, pick strength, curl resistance, and the like. Both coated and uncoated lithograph paper are produced, in basis weights of 45 to 0 pounds (uncoated) and 50 to 100 pounds (coated) (25 X 38—500). Because any stretch of the sheet to be printed must be along the narrow dimension, lithograph papers are usually positioned the narrow way across the printing press.
Marquette: A Marquette is a 3D model that animators use and reference when animating a character. A Marquette helps bring consistency, along with model sheets, among the drawings of the same character by different animators. The word Marquette comes from a French source. It originally meant unfinished architectural piece or a "small scale of a sculpture." According to the glossary on the Tate Gallery website, smaller more impromptu versions of sculptures or mosaics are often highly valued by art buyers. This is because the quickly made prototype is a likely to capture the immediacy of the creative moment. If the artist creates a series of Maquettes, the process through which the idea was developed is visible. Teachers can use developmental Maquettes to explain to students how creative ideas are visualized. Understanding this process will stimulate creative ideas and encourage novel approaches to planning when students design their projects. By creating a small inexpensive version of the real thing, artists can show collaborators what artworks will look like, without wasting the time and money it would require to make a test run of the real thing.
Medium: The art material that is used in a work of art such as clay, paint or pencil. Describing more than one art medium is referred to as media. Any substance added to color to facilitate application or to achieve a desired effect.
Mixed media: Descriptive of art that employs more than one medium – e.g., a work that combines paint, natural materials (wood, pebbles, bones), and man-made items (glass, plastic, metals) into a single image or piece of art.
Modern Art: a term that refers to artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s through the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of experimentation. Modern artists experimented with new ways of seeing, and with fresh ideas about the nature of materials and functions of art. A tendency toward abstraction is characteristic of much modern art. More recent artistic production is often called Contemporary art or Postmodern art.
Numbered: A numbered print is one which is part of a limited edition and which has been numbered by hand. The numbering is usually in the form of x/y, where y stands for the total number of impressions in this edition and x represents the specific number of the print. The number of a print always indicates the order in which the prints were numbered, not necessarily the order in which the impressions were pulled. This, together with the fact that later impressions are sometime superior to earlier pulls, means that lower numbers do not necessarily indicate better quality impressions. As with signed prints, the numbering of prints is a development of the late nineteenth century.
Official company stamps on sericels: This is the equivalent to a hand signature of a print. It authenticates the origin of the sericel.
Offset lithography: A special photo-mechanical technique in which the image to be printed is transferred to the negative plates and printed onto paper. Offset lithography is very well adapted to color printing.
Open Edition: An unlimited number of prints.
Original: Considered as a work of art conceived and produced solely by the artist, or under his direct supervision. Graphic works such as lithographs, silkscreens, etchings, etc, are considered to be "original multiples" as the finished print is the only manifestation of such work.
Pointillism: A branch of French Impressionism in which the principle of optical mixture or broken color was carried to the extreme of applying color in tiny dots or small, isolated strokes. Forms are visible in a pointillist painting only from a distance, when the viewer's eye blends the colors to create visual masses and outlines. The inventor and chief exponent of pointillism was George Seurat (1859-1891); the other leading figure was Paul Signac (1863-1935).
Print: An image created from a master wood block, stone, plate, or screen, usually on paper. Prints are referred to as multiples, because as a rule many identical or similar impressions are made from the same printing surface, the number of impressions being called an edition. When an edition is limited to a specified number of prints, it is a limited edition. A print is considered an original work of art and today is customarily signed and numbered by the artist.
Sericel: Recently another type of cel has appeared on the collectors' market, called the "sericel". Silk-screened for perfect color and shading, sericels are produced specifically to appease the demand for limited edition production art without actually selling off the cels used for the show. Nicely framed, a sericel is often more attractive than a production cel, whose paint might be sloppily applied and pencil sketch permanently stuck, background missing and clumsily stapled together.
Serigraph: Serigraphy (also referred to as 'silkscreen' or 'screenprint') is a color stencil printing process in which a special paint is forced through a fine screen onto the paper beneath. Areas which do not print are blocked with photo sensitive emulsion that has been exposed with high intensity arc lights. A squeegee is pulled from back to front, producing a direct transfer of the image from screen to paper. A separate stencil is required for each color and one hundred colors or more may be necessary to achieve the desired effect. A serigraph differs from other graphics in that its color is made up of paint films rather than printing ink stains. This technique is extremely versatile, and can create effects similar to oil color, transparent washes as well as gouache and pastel.
Sold out edition: When a numbered print is made, the number of prints made is the second number. Because all of the limited numbers of prints are sold, the particular art piece is considered to be more valuable.
Vintage Art: Whether the revival of the 1940's old school glamour is brought about by a certain amount of nostalgia or by an effort to recapture the sophistication and elegance of those times and an effort to counter-balance the more extreme fashion trends of the new millennium, one thing is for sure: America is currently experiencing the rebirth of the Art Deco style as vintage modern. The new Art Deco goes by several names, retro modern. vintage style and vintage modern among them and still possesses that timeless, enduring quality which made it distinctive from the very beginning. The first thing we should all borrow from an era when no lady left her home without putting on dark red lipstick and dark eyeliner is the everyday elegance and sophistication of those times. Simple geometric shapes, curved lines and exotic influences defined the pre-world war era, and are to be found in contemporary trends alongside more modern elements of style such as the glamorous dresses with geometric details, the 30's style hats, the wide leg pants and the attention to exotic jewelry. Many of the artwork is of tourist locations, high-end destinations, movies, advertisements for cigarettes, cigars, alcohol, matches, etc. and glamorous people and activities.
