Glossary

Terms used in the commentaries and catalogue entries.

Bacchus: In Greek and Roman mythology, the god of wine and fertility. Bacchic rites were often orgiastic.
baldachin: Originally a textile canopy supported on poles and carried dignitaries and relics. Later, an architectural canopy of stone or wood set over a high altar or bishop's throne.
balustrade: A rail supported by a row of small posts or open-work panels.
Bambocciati: Group of relatively small, often anecdotal, paintings of everyday life, made in Rome in the mid-17th century. The word derives from the nickname "Il Bamboccio" ("Large Baby"), applied to the physically malformed Dutch painter Pieter van Laer (1592/95-1642). Generally regarded as the originator of the style and its most important exponent, van Laer arrived in Rome from Haarlem about 1625 and was soon well known for paintings in which his Netherlandish interest in the picturesque was combined with the pictorial cohesiveness of Caravaggio's dramatic tenebrist lighting. Because van Laer and his followers depicted scenes of the Roman lower classes in a humorous or even grotesque fashion, their works were condemned by both court critics and the leading painters of the classicist-idealist school as indecorous and ridiculous. The painter Salvator Rosa was particularly savage in his comments about the later followers of the style, whom he criticized for painting "baggy pants, beggars in rags, and abject filthy things." The Bamboccianti (painters of Bambocciati) influenced such Dutch genre painters as Adriaen Brouwer and Adriaen van Ostade.
banderole: A long flag or scroll (usually forked at the end) bearing an inscription. In Renaissance art they are often held by angels.
baptistery: Hall or chapel situated close to, or connected with, a church, in which the sacrament of baptism is administered. The form of the baptistery originally evolved from small, circular Roman buildings that were designated for religious purposes (e.g., the Temple of Venus, Baalbek, Lebanon, AD 273, and the Mausoleum of Diocletian, Spalato [Split, Croatia], AD 300); but because baptism originally was performed on only three holidays, Easter, Pentecost, and Epiphany, enlargement of the older Roman buildings became necessary to accommodate the growing numbers of converts. Baptisteries were among the most symbolic of all Christian architectural forms; and the characteristic design that was developed by the 4th century AD can be seen today in what is probably the earliest extant example, the baptistery of the Lateran palace in Rome, built by Sixtus III, pope between 432 and 440. The baptistery was commonly octagonal in plan, a visual metaphor for the number eight, which symbolized in Christian numerology a new beginning. As eight follows the "complete" number, seven, so the beginning of the Christian life follows baptism. Customarily, a baptistery was roofed with a dome, the symbol of the heavenly realm toward which the Christian progresses after the first step of baptism. The baptismal font was usually octagonal, set beneath a domical ciborium, or canopy, and encircled by columns and an ambulatory--features that were first used in the baptistery by the Byzantines when they altered Roman structures. Baptisteries commonly adjoined the atrium, or forecourt, of the church and were often large and richly decorated, such as those at Pisa, Florence, Parma, and Nocera in Italy; el Kantara, Alg.; and Poitiers, France. After the 6th century they were gradually reduced to the status of small chapels inside churches. In the 10th century, when baptism by affusion (pouring liquid over the head) became standard practice in the church, baptisteries, or baptismal chapels, were often omitted entirely. In most modern churches the font alone serves for baptism; something of earlier symbolism survives, however, in its usual location near the church door - an allusion to entering the Christian life.
Barbizon School: A group of naturalist landscape painters who worked in the vicinity of Barbizon, a village on the outskirts of the Forest of Fontainebleu, southeast of Paris, in the 1840s and 1850s. Théodore Rousseau (French, 1812-1867) was the founder of the group. Other members of the group were Jean-Baptist Corot (French, 1796-1875), Narcisse Diaz de la Pena (French, 1807-1876), Constant Troyon (French, 1810-1865), Jules Dupré (French, 1811-1889), Jean-François Millet (French, 1814-1875), and Charles-François Daubigny (French, 1817-1878). Their approach constituted an art movement which eventually led to both Realism and Impressionism. Daubigny was the first of the plein air painters.
Baroque: The period in art history from about 1600 to about 1750. In this sense the term covers a wide range of styles and artists. In painting and sculpture there were three main forms of Baroque: (1) sumptuous display, a style associated with the Catholic Counter Reformation and the absolutist courts of Europe (Bernini, Rubens); (2) dramatic realism (Caravaggio); and (3) everyday realism, a development seen in particular in Holland (Rembrandt, Vermeer). In architecture, there was an emphasis on expressiveness and grandeur, achieved through scale, the dramatic use of light and shadow, and increasingly elaborate decoration. In a more limited sense the term Baroque often refers to the first of these categories. The development of the Baroque reflects the period's religious tensions (Catholic versus Protestant); a new and more expansive world view based on science and exploration; and the growth of absolutist monarchies.
barrel vault: A ceiling that is like a continuous circular arch or tunnel, contrasted with vaults that are supported on ribs or a series of arches. Also tunnel vault.
bas-relief: low relief, a sculptured relief in which the desighn stands out only a little from the background.
base: molded foot of a pillar or column providing the transition from the plinth to the shaft.
basilica: a church building, usually facing east, with a tall main nave and two or four side aisles of lesser height. There may also be a transept between the nave and the choir, which is reserved for the clergy. Originally, the basilica was an ancient Greek administrative building, and the Romans used this form for markets and law courts; it then became a place of assembly for the early Christians, and thus a church.
Batignolles Group: Contemporary designation of the early representatives of Impressionism surrounding Edouard Manet, Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, and Henri Fantin-Latour; the latter portrayed the group in his renowned painting of the atelier in 1870, The group took its name from the Batignolles quarter in the northwest of Paris, where the famous artists' meeting place Café Guerbois was located.
battle of Anghiari: A Florentine and papal army defeated a Milanese force under Piccinino outside this town near Arezzo (29 June 1440). Macchiavelli, in his History of Florence, used it shamelessly as an example of the reluctance of mercenaries to risk death in battle: he put the casualties as 'one man killed, and he fell off his horse and was trampled to death', whereas sources available to him put the joint fatalities at some 300. It was a subject of a fresco painted by Leonardo da Vinci in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence (chosen because it was primarily a cavalry engagement and he could show horses in combat). The fresco rapidly decayed and its composition is best known from the sketch Rubens made of its central part.
battle of Cascina: The Florentines defeated a Pisan force here on 28 July 1364, taking some of them by surprise while they bathed in the Arno. The engagement is best known as the subject of a fresco commissioned for the Palazzo Vecchio from Michelangelo. Worked on at intervals 1504-06, this remained unfinished and is known (partly)only from a somewhat later copy of the cartoon, and from the contemporary fame the cartoon acquired for its treatment of the abruptly alerted bathers.
Battle of Lepanto: Naval battle during the course of which the 208 ships belonging to the Holy League gained a decisive victory on 7 October 1571 over the 210 ships of the Ottoman Turkish fleet on the edge of the Gulf of Corinth.
bay: a vaulted division of a nave, aisle, choir, or transept along its longitudinal axis.
Beaux-Arts architecture: The Beaux-Arts style is associated with the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In architecture it is an Academic and Eclectic style of the 19th and 20th century, practiced by graduates of the École des Beaux-Arts and those following the same principles.
Berlin Secession: The Berlin Secession was founded by artists in 1898 as an alternative to the conservative exhibition and patronage policies of the art associations and of the state. In 1898, when the official salon jury rejected a landscape painting by Walter Leistikow — a leader of the group of Berlin artists supportive of modernist trends — the group broke away from the Association of Berlin Artists to found the Secession. Throughout Central Europe at the time, artists were forming secessions in order to organize their own exhibitions, establish their own galleries and publications, and nurture a more progressive art public. Among the sixty-five founding members, painter Max Liebermann served as the first president of the Berlin Secession.
bevel: a sloping surface, usually on an edge.
Biedermeier: Term applied to a style characteristic of much German and Austrian art and interior decoration in the period roughly between the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1815) and the Year of Revolutions (1848). The name derives from a fictional character called Gottlieb Biedermaier (sic) from the journal Fliegende Elssner (Flying Leaves), who personified the solid yet philistine qualities of the bourgeois middle classes, and the art to which he lent his name eschewed flights of the imagination in favour of sobriety, domesticity, and often sentimentality. There were, as is to be expected, no major painters associated with Biedermeier but many excellent practitioners, such as Waldmüller. The term is sometimes extended to cover the work of artists in other countries.
biscuit: Unglazed ceramic, particularly porcelain, which is either not yet glazed, or which is to be left as it is. Biscuit porcelain, also incorrectly called bisque, is often employed to make miniature versions of marble statuary. It takes its name from its grainy texture.
blind: an arch or arcade with no opening, usually as decoration on a wall.
block book: Block books, also known as xylographica, were short books of up to 50 leaves that emerged in Europe during the second half of the 15th century. These books were block printed using woodcuts, with text and illustrations carved into the same wooden blocks. Some block books, called chiro-xylographic, contained only printed illustrations, with the text added by hand. Others had illustrations printed from woodcuts but used movable metal type for the text. Most block books contained religious themes, interpreting events from the Bible or other sources in medieval religious thought.
bodegón: Image, especially Spanish, in which still-life predominates, though it is often part of a kitchen or eating scene. The term was mainly used up to c. 1650 in Spain. These genre scenes were sometimes set in the rough public eating establishments from which they take their name. By association, however, the term was applied to a wide range of genre paintings depicting figures of humble origin, often with food and drink. As early as the 1590s Flemish and Italian kitchen and market scenes were referred to as bodegónes in Spanish inventories. Such paintings were imitated by Spanish artists. Bodegónes, such as those by Diego Velázquez, were often regarded as inconsequential and even disreputable by contemporary society. They were generally monochromatic so as to emphasize relief and volume. Due to the still-life aspects of bodegónes, over time the term came to refer to still-lifes in general; up until the mid-17th century, Spanish still-lifes, like their Dutch counterparts, were referred to by their specific contents.
Bolognese school: In the most restricted sense, the works produced and the theories expounded by the late 16th- and early 17th-century Italian painters Lodovico Carracci and his cousins, the brothers Agostino and Annibale Carracci.
Book of Hours: A prayer book used by laymen for private devotion, containing prayers or meditations appropriate to certain hours of the day, days of the week, months, or seasons. They became so popular in the 15th century that the Book of Hours outnumbers all other categories of illuminated manuscripts; from the late 15th century there were also printed versions illustrated by woodcuts. The most famous Book of Hours and one of the most beautiful of all illuminated manuscripts is the Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry (Musée Condé, Chantilly), illuminated by the Limburg Brothers for Jean de Berry.
boss: a projecting keystone, usually painted or carved, that forms the meeting point of the ribs of a vault.
Boston School: The Boston School is both a historic group of painters and an ongoing tradition of painting centred around the city of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Beginning with artists such as Edmund C. Tarbell and William Paxton, a combination of detail, full-range vibrant colour, and painting outdoors characterizes this style. Moving beyond French and American Impressionism, this style seeks to evoke more than a sensation of color, action scene from modern life, or fleeting effect of weather condition and time of day. A sense of space is created in these works using colour realism mixed with traditional oil paint handling and technique.
bottom view: A form of perspective in painting that takes account of the viewer's position well below the level of the picture.
bozzetto: Usually applied to models for sculpture, but can also be used for painted sketches, though these are more often called 'modelli'.
bozzetto: Strictly speaking, a small three-dimensional sketch in wax or clay made by a sculptor in preparation for a larger and more finished work. By extension, a rapid sketch in oil, made as a study for a larger picture.
breviary: A book of daily prayers and readings used by priest and monks.
bronze: An alloy of copper (usually about 90 per cent) and tin, often also containing small amounts of other metals such as lead or zinc. Since antiquity it has been the metal most commonly used in cast sculpture because of its strength, durability, and the fact that it is easily workable - both hot and cold - by a variety of processes. It is easier to cast than copper because it has a lower melting-point, and its great tensile strength makes possible the protrusion of unsupported parts - an advantage over marble sculpture. The colour of bronze is affected by the proportion of tin or other metals present, varying from silverish to a rich, coppery red, and its surface beauty can be enhanced when it acquires a patina.
buttress: A mass of stone built up to support a wall, usually necessary to strengthen those of great height. See flying buttress.
Byzantine art: The art ofthe Byzantine Empire, which had its capital in Constantinople (Byzantium), from the 5th century to the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453. Based largely on Roman and Greek art, Byzantine art also absorbed a wide of influences, notable from Syria and Egypt. Byzantine art was essentially a spiritual and religious art, its forms highly stylized, hieratic and unchanging (central images were thought to derive from original portraits). It also served to glorify the emperor. Among its most distinctive products were icons, mosaics, manuscript illuminations, and work in precious metals. The strong influence of the Byzantine style on medieval Italian painting can be seen in the works of Cimabue, Duccio, and Giotto.

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