AP Art History

Art historians describe and explain a work by asking what it is made of, what it looks like, what it was for, what it shows and where it came from. The vocabulary below is used for every work in the course, from a cave painting to an installation, so it is worth having it exact before looking at any individual object.

Describing what a work is

The medium is the material the work is made from, such as oil paint on canvas, bronze, limestone or video. The technique is the process used to work the material: carving, casting, weaving, etching, or building up paint in layers. Two works in the same medium can be made by very different techniques, and a choice of technique often tells you something about the maker's training, the tools available and the time the work took.

Form is a work's visible physical qualities: its shape, size, materials, color and the way it is put together. Composition is the arrangement of the elements within the work, for example whether a painting is symmetrical, whether figures are placed in a pyramid, or whether a building is organized around a central axis. Style is the recognizable manner shared by a group of works, whether by one artist, one period, one region or one movement. Style is how an art historian recognizes that a work belongs with others.

Design elements and principles

The design elements are the basic components an artist works with: line, shape, color, texture, space, value (lightness and darkness) and form. The design principles are the ways those components are organized: balance, contrast, emphasis, movement, rhythm, repetition, proportion, scale, unity and variety. Describing a work with these terms means saying something specific, such as "strong diagonal lines lead the eye to a lit figure" or "repeated columns create a regular rhythm along the facade", rather than "the picture is balanced".

Explaining what a work means and does

Content is the subject matter and meaning of the work: what it depicts and what ideas it carries. Iconography is the study of the symbols and conventions by which content is conveyed, such as a lamb standing for Christ, an attribute identifying a saint, or a particular crown identifying a ruler. A reading of iconography needs knowledge of the culture that made the work, because the same image can mean different things in different traditions.

Function is what the work was made to do. Works can serve religious ritual, commemoration of the dead, display of political power, instruction, personal devotion, decoration or commerce, and many do several of these at once. Function changes when a work moves. A temple statue that once received offerings becomes, in a museum, an object that is looked at, and the same object may have had several functions across its history.

Context is everything surrounding the making and use of the work: the historical moment, the religion, the economy and politics, the place where it was made and meant to be seen, and the life of the maker. Context explains why a work looks the way it does, which is why two works with a similar subject can differ so much.

Who made it, who paid, and where it has been

An attribution is the naming of the person, workshop or group who made a work. Many early and non-Western works are anonymous, and attributions are sometimes disputed. A work may be given to an artist, to the workshop of an artist, to a follower, or to the "circle" of an artist, each of which claims less certainty than the one before.

The patron is the person or institution that commissioned and paid for the work, such as a pope, a monarch, a guild, a merchant family or a temple community. Patrons often shaped content, size and materials, so the patron's aims are part of the work's meaning.

Provenance is the recorded history of a work's ownership and location from its making to the present, including where it was found. A gap in provenance can raise questions about authenticity or about whether an object was removed from its place of origin lawfully. Modern debates about restitution depend on provenance.

A primary source is evidence from the time of the work or created by someone involved with it, such as a contract with the artist, a letter, an inscription on the object, or a contemporary description. Secondary sources are later interpretations by scholars. Art historians weigh the two together, and a conclusion changes when new evidence turns up, which is why dates and attributions are sometimes revised.

Vocabulary of the earliest art

The vocabulary used for prehistoric works comes up again in many later areas, so the common terms are given here.

Periods and ways of life

The Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) is the longest period of human prehistory, lasting until about 10,000 BCE. People lived as hunter-gatherers, moving with the seasons to hunt animals and gather wild plants, and made tools of stone, bone and wood. The Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) is the transitional period after the last Ice Age, when climates warmed, large herds changed range and people adapted their tools and food sources. The Neolithic (New Stone Age) is the period in which people began farming and herding, settled in villages and made pottery and polished stone tools. The dates of these periods differ from region to region, because farming began in different places at different times.

Materials and processes

Ocher is a natural earth pigment, found in reds, yellows and browns, which was ground and mixed with a binder or used dry, and was used from the earliest painting. Terra cotta (Italian for "baked earth") is fired clay, usually unglazed and reddish-brown, used for vessels, figures and building elements. Incising is cutting lines into a surface with a sharp tool, whether into clay, stone, bone or metal.

Forms and shapes

A megalith is a very large stone used in a monument. Megalithic structures are often built with post and lintel construction, in which two upright stones (posts) support a horizontal stone (the lintel). A stele (plural stelae) is an upright stone slab or pillar, usually carved or inscribed, set up as a marker, memorial or boundary. A figure or image shaped like a human being is anthropomorphic, and one shaped like an animal is zoomorphic. An effigy is a representation of a person or being, often made so that it can stand in for that being in a ritual or a burial.