Art Glossary
A comprehensive glossary of art terms, techniques, movements, and materials. From chiaroscuro to creative coding, find clear definitions for every art concept.
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Letterpress: Relief Printing From Movable Type, From Gutenberg to Today
Letterpress is relief printing from movable type, invented by Gutenberg in 1440. Learn its history, technique, and contemporary revival in fine art printing.
Linocut: Relief Printing From Carved Linoleum
Linocut is relief printmaking from carved linoleum, cheaper and easier than woodcut. Learn its history from 1905 to Picasso's reduction technique and today.
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Relief Printing: The Raised Surface That Started Printmaking
Relief printing is the oldest printmaking family, printing from a raised surface. From woodcuts to linocuts to Japanese mokuhanga, learn how it works.
Repousse: Hammering Metal Into Relief From the Reverse Side
Repousse is hammering malleable metal from the reverse side to create relief designs. Learn its ancient history, technique, and famous examples.
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Wood Engraving: Fine Relief Printing From End-Grain Boxwood Blocks
Wood engraving is fine relief printing from end-grain boxwood, developed by Thomas Bewick in the 18th century. Learn its history, technique, and key artists.
Woodcut: Relief Printing From Carved Wood Blocks
Woodcut is the oldest printmaking technique, carving images into wood blocks for relief printing. Learn its history from China to Durer to Hokusai's ukiyo-e.
Why an Art Glossary?
Art has always had a language problem. Walk into any gallery and you will hear terms like chiaroscuro, impasto, sfumato, and pentimento thrown around as if everyone knows what they mean. Most people do not. They nod along, afraid to ask, and miss half of what the painting is actually doing.
This glossary exists to fix that. Every entry is written in plain English with real examples: specific paintings, specific artists, specific dates. When we explain plein air, we point you to Monet working beside the Seine in 1873, not a generic definition copied from a dictionary. When we cover creative coding, we start with Casey Reas and Ben Fry at MIT in 2001, not a vague paragraph about "art and technology."
The terms here span centuries and disciplines. You will find Renaissance techniques sitting next to digital art movements, printmaking terminology next to motion graphics concepts. That mix is intentional. Art does not stay in neat historical boxes, and neither does the vocabulary we use to talk about it. A painter working today might need to understand glazing just as much as a 3D animator needs to know what kinetic typography means.
Each definition is a starting point, not a finish line. We write them to be specific enough that you can recognize the technique the next time you see it, but short enough that you can read one in under five minutes. If a term leads you to a painting you had not considered before, or sends you down a rabbit hole about a movement you had never heard of, the glossary is doing its job.
New terms are added regularly. If there is a concept you keep running into but cannot find here, that is a gap we want to fill. The best art terminology does not stay still. It grows as artists invent new ways of working, and the language has to keep up.