1040 Glossary
pictograph—A picture, usually stylized, that repre-
sents an idea; also, writing using such means;
also, painting on rock. See also hieroglyphic.
Picturesque garden—An “unordered” garden de-
signed in accord with the Enlightenmenttaste for
the natural.
pier—A vertical, freestanding masonry support.
Pietà—A painted or sculpted representation of the
Virgin Mary mourning over the body of the dead
Christ.
pilaster—A flat, rectangular, vertical member pro-
jecting from a wall of which it forms a part. It usu-
ally has a base and a capital and is often fluted.
pillar—Usually a weight-carrying member, such as a
pier or a column;sometimes an isolated, freestand-
ing structure used for commemorative purposes.
pinakotheke—Greek, “picture gallery.” An ancient
Greek building for the display of paintings on
wood panels.
pinnacle—In Gothicchurches, a sharply pointed or-
nament capping the piersor flying buttresses;also
used on church facades.
Pittura Metafisica—Italian, “metaphysical paint-
ing.” An early-20th-century Italian art movement
led by Giorgio de Chirico, whose work conveys an
eerie mood and visionary quality.
pixels—Shortened form of “picture elements.” The
tiny boxes that make up digital images displayed
on a computer monitor.
plan—The horizontal arrangement of the parts of a
building or of the buildings and streets of a city or
town, or a drawing or diagram showing such an
arrangement. In an axial plan, the parts of a build-
ing are organized longitudinally, or along a given
axis; in a central plan, the parts of the structure
are of equal or almost equal dimensions around
the center.
plane—A flat surface.
plate tracery—See tracery.
Plateresque—A style of Spanish architecture char-
acterized by elaborate decoration based on Gothic,
Italian Renaissance,and Islamic sources; derived
from the Spanish word platero,meaning “silver-
smith.”
platero—See Plateresque.
plebeian—The Roman social class that included
small farmers, merchants, and freed slaves.
plein air—An approach to painting much popular
among the Impressionists,in which an artist
sketches outdoors to achieve a quick impression
of light, air, and color. The artist then takes the
sketches to the studio for reworking into more fin-
ished works of art.
poesia—A term describing “poetic” art, notably
Ve n e t i a n Renaissancepainting, which emphasizes
the lyrical and sensual.
pointed arch—A narrow archof pointed profile, in
contrast to a semicircular arch.
pointillism—A system of painting devised by the
19th-century French painter Georges Seurat. The
artist separates colorinto its component parts and
then applies the component colors to the canvas
in tiny dots (points). The image becomes compre-
hensible only from a distance, when the viewer’s
eyes optically blend the pigment dots. Sometimes
referred to as divisionism.
polis (pl.poleis)—An independent city-statein an-
cient Greece.
polyptych—An altarpiece composed of more than
three sections.polytheism—The belief in multiple gods.
pontifex maximus—Latin, “chief priest.” The high
priest of the Roman state religion, often the em-
peror himself.
Pop Ar t—A term coined by British art critic
Lawrence Alloway to refer to art, first appearing in
the 1950s, that incorporated elements from con-
sumer culture, the mass media, and popular cul-
ture, such as images from motion pictures and
advertising.
porcelain—Extremely fine, hard, white ceramic. Un-
like stoneware,porcelain is made from a fine white
clay called kaolin mixed with ground petuntse, a
type of feldspar. True porcelain is translucent and
rings when struck.
portico—A roofed colonnade;also an entrance porch.
positivism—A Western philosophical model that pro-
moted science as the mind’s highest achievement.
post-and-lintel system—A system of construction
in which two posts support a lintel.
Post-Impressionism—The term used to describe
the stylistically heterogeneous work of the group
of late-19th-century painters in France, including
van Gogh, Gauguin, Seurat, and Cézanne, who
more systematically examined the properties and
expressive qualities ofline,pattern,form,and
colorthan the Impressionists did.
postmodernism—A reaction against modernist for-
malism,seen as elitist. Far more encompassing
and accepting than the more rigid confines of
modernist practice, postmodernism offers some-
thing for everyone by accommodating a wide
range ofstyles,subjects, and formats, from tradi-
tional easel painting to installation and from ab-
stractionto illusionisticscenes. Postmodern art
often includes irony or reveals a self-conscious
awareness on the part of the artist of art-making
processes or the workings of the art world.
Post-Painterly Abstraction—An American art
movement that emerged in the 1960s and was
characterized by a cool, detached rationality em-
phasizing tighter pictorial control. See also color-
field painting and hard-edge painting.
pou tokomanawa—A sculpture of an ancestor that
supports a ridgepoleof a Maori (New Zealand)
meetinghouse.
pouncing—The method of transferring a sketch
onto paper or a wall by tracing, using thin paper
or transparent gazelle skin placed on top of the
sketch, pricking the contours of the design into
the skin or paper with a pin, placing the skin or
paper on the surface to be painted, and forcing
black pigment through the holes.
poupou—A decorated wall panel in a Maori (New
Zealand) meetinghouse.
Poussiniste—A member of the French Royal Acad-
emy of Painting and Sculpture during the early
18th century who followed Nicolas Poussin in in-
sisting that formwas the most important element
of painting. See also Rubéniste.
powwow—A traditional Native American ceremony
featuring dancing in quilled, beaded, and painted
costumes.
prasada—In Hindu worship, food that becomes sa-
cred by first being given to a god.
Precisionism—An American art movement of the
1920s and 1930s. The Precisionists concentrated
on portraying man-made environments in a clear
and concise manner to express the beauty of per-
fect and precise machine forms.pectoral—An ornament worn on the chest.
pediment—In classical architecture, the triangular
space (gable) at the end of a building, formed by
the ends of the sloping roof above the colonnade;
also, an ornamental feature having this shape.
pendant—The large hanging terminal element of a
Gothicfan vault.
pendentive—A concave, triangular section of a
hemisphere, four of which provide the transition
from a square area to the circular base of a cover-
ing dome.Although pendentives appear to be
hanging (pendant) from the dome, they in fact
support it.
Pentateuch—The first five books of the Old
Te s t a m e n t.
peplos—A simple, long belted garment of wool worn
by women in ancient Greece.
Performance Art—An American avant-gardeart
trend of the 1960s that made time an integral ele-
ment of art. It produced works in which move-
ments, gestures, and sounds of persons
communicating with an audience replace physical
objects. Documentary photographs are generally
the only evidence remaining after these events.
See also Happenings.
period style—See style.
peripteral—See peristyle.
peristyle—In classicalarchitecture, a colonnade all
around the cella and its porch(es). A peripteral
colonnade consists of a single row ofcolumnson
all sides; a dipteral colonnade has a double row all
around.
Per pendicular—A Late English Gothic styleof archi-
tecture distinguished by the pronounced vertical-
ity of its decorative details.
personal style—See style.
personification—An abstractidea represented in
bodily form.
perspective (adj.perspectival)—A method of pre-
senting an illusion of the three-dimensional world
on a two-dimensional surface. In linear perspec-
tive, the most common type, all parallel lines or
surface edges converge on one, two, or three van-
ishing points located with reference to the eye
level of the viewer (the horizon line of the pic-
ture), and associated objects are rendered smaller
the farther from the viewer they are intended to
seem. Atmospheric, or aerial, perspective creates
the illusion of distance by the greater diminution
of color intensity, the shift in color toward an al-
most neutral blue, and the blurring of contours as
the intended distance between eye and object
increases.
pfemba—A Yombe (Democratic Republic of Congo)
mother-and-child group.
pharaoh (adj.pharaonic)—An ancient Egyptian
king.
philosophe—French, “thinker, philosopher.” The
term applied to French intellectuals of the
Enlightenment.
photomontage—A compositionmade by pasting to-
gether pictures or parts of pictures, especially
photographs. See also collage.
Photorealism—See Superrealism.
physical evidence—In art history, the examination
of the materials used to produce an artwork in or-
der to determine its date.
piano nobile—Italian, “noble floor.” The main (sec-
ond) floor of a building.
piazza—Italian, “plaza.”