1032 GlossaryCarolingian (adj.)—Pertaining to the empire of
Charlemagne (Latin, “Carolus Magnus”) and his
successors.
carpet page—In early medieval manuscripts, a dec-
orative page resembling a textile.
cartography—The art of mapmaking.
cartoon—In painting, a full-size preliminary draw-
ing from which a painting is made.
carving—A techniqueof sculpture in which the artist
cuts away material (for example, from a stone
block) in order to create a statueor a relief.
caryatid—A female figure that functions as a sup-
porting column.See also atlantid.
cassone (pl.cassoni)—A carved chest, often painted
or gilded, popular in Renaissance Italy for the
storing of household clothing.
castellum—See westwork.
casting—A sculptural techniquein which the artist
pours liquid metal, plaster, clay or another mater-
ial into a mold.When the material dries, the sculp-
tor removes the cast piece from the mold.
castrum—A Roman military encampment.
catacombs—Subterranean networks of rock-cut gal-
leries and chambers designed as cemeteries for
the burial of the dead.
cathedra—Latin, “seat.” See cathedral.
cathedral—A bishop’s church. The word derives
from cathedra,referring to the bishop’s chair.
cavea—Latin, “hollow place or cavity.” The seating
area in ancient Greek and Roman theaters and
amphitheaters.
celadon—A Chinese-Korean pottery glaze,fired in
an oxygen-deprived kiln to a characteristic gray-
green or pale blue color.
cella—The chamber at the center of an ancient tem-
ple; in a classical temple, the room (Greek,naos)
in which the cult statueusually stood.
celt—In Olmec Mexico, an ax-shaped form made of
polished jade; generally, a prehistoric metal or
stone implement shaped like a chisel or ax head.
centaur—In ancient Greek mythology, a creature
with the front or top half of a human and the back
or bottom half of a horse.
centauromachy—In ancient Greek mythology, the
battle between the Greeks and centaurs.
central plan—See plan.
cestrum—A small spatula used in encausticpainting.
chacmool—A Mesoamerican statuary type depict-
ing a fallen warrior on his back with a receptacle
on his chest for sacrificial offerings.
chaitya hall—A South Asian rock-cut temple hall
having a votive stupaat one end.
chakra—The Buddha’s wheel, set in motion at Sarnath.
chakravartin—In South Asia, the ideal king, the
Universal Lord who ruled through goodness.
chamfer—The surface formed by cutting off a cor-
ner of a board or post; a bevel.
chancel arch—The arch separating the chancel (the
apse or choir) or the transept from the nave of a
basilica or church.
Chan—See Zen.
chantry—An endowed chapel for the chanting of the
mass for the founder of the chapel.
chaplet—A metal pin used in hollow-casting to con-
nect the investmentwith the clay core.
chapter house—The meeting hall in a monastery.
characters—In Chinese writing, signs that record
spoken words.
chartreuse—A Carthusian monastery.
charun—An Etruscan death demon.chasing—The engraving or embossing of metal.
château (pl.châteaux)—French, “castle.” A luxuri-
ous country residence for French royalty, devel-
oped from medieval castles.
chatra—See yasti.
chiaroscuro—In drawing or painting, the treatment
and use of light and dark, especially the grada-
tions of light that produce the effect ofmodeling.
chiaroscuro woodcut—A woodcuttechnique using
two blocks of wood instead of one. The print-
maker carves and inks one block in the usual way
in order to produce a traditional black-and-white
print. Then the artist cuts a second block consist-
ing of broad highlights that can be inked in
gray or color and printed over the first block’s
impression.
chigi—Decorative extensions of the raftersat each
end of the roof of a Japanese shrine.
chimera—A monster of Greek invention with the
head and body of a lion and the tail of a serpent. A
second head,that of a goat,grows out of one side
of the body.
chisel—A tool with a straight blade at one end for
cutting and shaping stone or wood.
chiton—A Greek tunic, the essential (and often only)
garment of both men and women, the other being
the himation,or mantle.
choir—The space reserved for the clergy and singers
in the church, usually east of the transeptbut, in
some instances, extending into the nave.
Christogram—The three initial letters (chi-rho-iota,
or ) of Christ’s name in Greek, which came to
serve as a monogram for Christ.
chromatic abstraction—A kind ofAbstract Expres-
sionism that focuses on the emotional resonance
of color, as exemplified by the work of Barnett
Newman and Mark Rothko.
chronology—In art history, the dating of art objects
and buildings.
chryselephantine—Fashioned of gold and ivory.
circumambulation—In Buddhist worship, walking
around the stupa in a clockwise direction, a pro-
cess intended to bring the worshiper into har-
mony with the cosmos.
cire perdue—See^ lost-wax process.
cista (pl.cistae)—An Etruscan cylindrical container
made of sheet bronze with cast handles and feet,
often with elaborately engraved bodies, used for
women’s toiletry articles.
city-state—An independent, self-governing city.
Classical—The art and culture of ancient Greece be-
tween 480 and 323 BCE. Lowercase classicalrefers
more generally to Greco-Roman art and culture.
clerestory—The fenestratedpart of a building that
rises above the roofs of the other parts. The oldest
known clerestories are Egyptian. In Roman basili-
cas and medieval churches, clerestories are the
windows that form the nave’s uppermost level be-
low the timber ceiling or the vaults.
cloison—French, “partition.” A cell made of metal
wire or a narrow metal strip soldered edge-up to a
metal base to hold enamel,semiprecious stones,
pieces of colored glass, or glass paste fired to re-
semble sparkling jewels.
cloisonné—A decorative metalwork technique em-
ploying cloisons;also, decorative brickwork in
later Byzantine architecture.
cloister—A monasterycourtyard, usually with cov-
ered walks or ambulatoriesalong its sides.
cluster pier—See compound pier.X
buon fresco—See fresco.
burgher—A middle-class citizen.
burin—A pointed tool used for engraving or incising.
buttress—An exterior masonry structure that op-
poses the lateral thrustof an archor a vault.A pier
buttress is a solid mass of masonry. A flying but-
tress consists typically of an inclined member car-
ried on an arch or a series of arches and a solid
buttress to which it transmits lateral thrust.
byobu—Japanese painted folding screens.
Byzantine—The art, territory, history, and culture of
the Eastern Christian Empire and its capital of
Constantinople (ancient Byzantium).
caduceus—In ancient Greek mythology, a magical
rod entwined with serpents, the attribute of Her-
mes (Roman, Mercury), the messenger of the
gods.
caldarium—The hot-bath section of a Roman
bathing establishment.
caliph(s)—Islamic rulers, regarded as successors of
Muhammad.
calligrapher—One who practices calligraphy.
calligraphy—Greek, “beautiful writing.” Handwrit-
ing or penmanship, especially elegant writing as a
decorative art.
calotype—From the Greek kalos,“beautiful.” A pho-
tographic process in which a positive image is
made by shining light through a negative image
onto a sheet of sensitized paper.
came—A lead strip in a stained-glasswindow that
joins separate pieces of colored glass.
camera lucida—Latin, “lighted room.” A device in
which a small lens projects the image of an object
downward onto a sheet of paper.
camera obscura—Latin, “dark room.” An ancestor
of the modern camera in which a tiny pinhole,
acting as a lens, projects an image on a screen, the
wall of a room, or the ground-glass wall of a box;
used by artists in the 17th, 18th, and early 19th
centuries as an aid in drawing from nature.
campanile—A bell tower of a church, usually, but not
always, freestanding.
canon—A rule, for example, of proportion. The an-
cient Greeks considered beauty to be a matter of
“correct” proportion and sought a canon of pro-
portion, for the human figure and for buildings.
The fifth-century BCEsculptor Polykleitos wrote
the Canon, a treatise incorporating his formula for
the perfectly proportioned statue.
canon table—A concordance, or matching, of the
corresponding passages of the four Gospelsas
compiled by Eusebius of Caesarea in the fourth
century.
canopic jar—In ancient Egypt, the container in
which the organs of the deceased were placed for
later burial with the mummy.
capital—The uppermost member of a column,serv-
ing as a transition from the shaft to the lintel.In
classical architecture, the form of the capital
varies with the order.
Capitolium—An ancient Roman temple dedicated
to the gods Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva.
capriccio—Italian, “originality.” One of several terms
used in Italian Renaissanceliterature to praise the
originality and talent of artists.
cardo—The north-south street in a Roman town, in-
tersecting the decumanusat right angles.
Caroline minuscule—The alphabet that Carolingian
scribes perfected, from which the modern English
alphabet was developed.