Art Glossary of Terms
The Art History Archive

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Art Glossary of Terms - Art Lexicon LA to LZ

  • l. - Abbreviation for liter.

  • labyrinth - Although sometimes used as a synonym for "maze," a labyrinth is classically a single (unicursal) pathway that leads physically to the center of a linear pattern and then back out by simply reversing direction on the same path. In a maze there are invariably riddles to be solved — dead-ends abound. Labyrinths have been known to the human race for over 3,500 years, conjuring up such images as the ancient Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, confined in a labyrinthine hallway at Knossos. Labyrinths have been thought to hold spiritual meanings in various cultures. They have been used as solar and lunar calendars in others. In Arizona, in the American Southwest, the Hopi use the form of a labyrinth in their religious symbolism, and the Tohono O'odham "Man in the Maze" is a "seven-circuit" labyrinth, a part of this native people's creation myth.

  • lacquer - The term popularly used for some commercially prepared clear or pigmented varnishes derived largely from cellulose in a vehicle of fast drying solvent, available in hardware stores. Its commercially available solvents are called either lacquer FLAMMABLE!solvent or lacquer thinner, and may contain acetone, methyl acetate, or banana oil. (pr. lack'er) Also see chinoiserie, Duco, oriental lacquer, paint, polyurethane, resin, shellac, and toluene.

  • lacquer, oriental - A material for a kind of sculpture in which layers are built up, often on a base of silk around a model of another material, typically plain or carved wood. When hard, those carefully cured layers can be carved. Also, used as a varnish, it gives any surface it covers a hard, highly polished finish. It is found on items imported from Asia, but is rarely available for use in the West. Oriental lacquer is produced from the resin (sap) of certain trees in the Far East (in China and Japan this tree is a sumac, Rhus vernicifera, aka Rhus verniciflua), and can be used on many different materials. Lacquer can carry several pigments, but red, black, or a combination were used most frequently. Lacquer has extraordinary adhesive qualities; once cured, it is virtually impervious to moisture, alcohol, food acids, or decay. (pr. oh'ree-en"tel lack'er)

  • lacuna - An empty space or a missing part; a gap, a void. A term used most by art historians and art conservators. The plural form is lacunae or lacunas; adjectival form lacunal. (pr. leh-kyoo'neh)

  • laid papers - Papers with a patterned texture of parallel impressed lines in each sheet. This pattern results from the pulp resting against wires on the mold screen as the paper is made. "Chain" lines are farther apart and run parallel with the grain direction of the sheet, while "laid" lines are closely spaced and perpendicular to the grain. Wove papers exhibit a more gridded pattern, like that seen in most weaving.

  • lamassu - A large carved stone sculpture of a sacred, winged bull with a man's head. The head is invariably bearded, because important Mesopotamian men always wore long beards. The top of the head is phallic, and sometimes bears the king's crown. Lamassu means "protective spirit" in Akkadian, and is also the plural form. Lamassu were placed on either side of the doorways of Assyrian palaces, and of gateways to cities to protect against evil spirits, and impress the neighbors. However it is displayed in a museum, in its original context, a lamassu is the guardian of a doorway, integral with a wall. For this reason, it is not an entirely freestanding sculpture. It was carved as if it were two reliefs joined at right angles. These guys always have five legs, because that's the way lamassu can present the correct number of legs when seen from each of the two points of view — two legs when seen from the front, and four when seen from the side. Additionally, the side view shows legs in motion, whild the frontal view shows the creature at rest.

  • lamelia - A laminated material. Also see metallic lamelia.

  • laminate - To build up a rigid surface over a framework by applying layers of material, adhering them to each other. Laminating is a technique used in sculpture with wood or resin. Plywood is a laminated product, the wood grain going in a different direction with each layer, in order to add strength. Corrugated cardboard and foam core (or foam board) are other laminated materials.

  • landscape architecture or landscape design - The decorative and functional modification and planting of grounds, especially at or around a building site.

  • lantern - In architecture, a small, often decorative structure with openings to admit light and ventilation, crowning a dome, turret, or roof. Many a great dome built in the Italian Renaissance was topped with a lantern (lanterna in Italian).

  • lapis - A bright blue stone containing golden specks, used in jewelry, intaglios, and decorative inlays and veneer. It is also the stone from which natural ultramarine pigment is ground, which was once widely used, but is now extremely expensive. Scientifically known as sodium aluminum silicate, until the nineteenth century it was obtained only from mines in what is now northeastern Afghanistan. The best lapis is called lapis lazuli. (pr. la'pis la'zyoo-li:)

  • lateral - Of, relating to, or situated at or on the side. Also, a lateral part, projection, passage, or appendage. Also see balance and trabeation.

  • laterality - Awareness of one side of the body in relationship to space around it; a directional sense. Also see balance.

  • latex - A rubbery substance used as binder in latex paints, as a cold cure molding compound, and also as the basis of certain adhesives. Although still used, latex has largely been replaced in many applications by silicon compounds and polyurethane plastics.

  • Latin cross - A cross in which the vertical member is longer than the horizontal member.

  • lattice - A gridded openwork structure of crossed strips or bars of wood, metal, plastic, etc., used as a screen, support, etc. Or something resembling such a structure. Windows, doors, and gates are often screened by lattices. Graphs, curtain walls, and the grids in city and landscape architectural plans are often described as lattices.

  • lb. - Abbreviation for pound. Originally it stood for Libra, an ancient Roman unit of weight.

  • lead - A soft, malleable, ductile, easily fusible, dull medium-gray, dense metal used in containers for corrosives, solder, tire-ballancing weights, bullets, and radiation shielding. Lead has been removed as a POISONOUS!component of pencils, house paints (white lead) and much gasoline because of its toxicity. Lead was added to bronze alloys by the ancient Chinese, by the Etruscans, and by the Romans, forming an alloy known as leaded bronze. Lead was used also as the principal metal in some alloys used for cast sculpture generally combined with tin in making pewter, or with antimony. Such sculpture often requires an armature. Elemental symbol Pb; atomic number 82; atomic weight 207.19; melting point 327.5°C; specific gravity 11.35; valence 2, 4. Also refers to the grooved lead strips called came used in making stained glass. (pr. led)

  • lead glaze - A vitreous coating applied for practical and ornamental purposes to earthenware, consisting of powder of lead oxide with POISONOUS!silacious sand, salt and potash which fuses when fired. It is transparent but color can be added. Because of lead's toxicity, lead glazes must never be used on surface which might ever contact food, drink, or a mouth; and containers of lead glazes must be labeled with such warnings. All glazes should be labeled to reflect their lead and cadmium content. The following chart describes six different types of ceramic glazes, each carrying levels of concerns about lead content, in order to help you to determine which are safe to use on dinnerware — vessels for food or drink.

  • leading - In typography, the horizontal spaces between lines of type, its thickness (height on a page) measured in points. Desk-top publishing software application programs employ this term (including Adobe FrameMaker, Adobe PageMaker, QuarkXpress, and Ventura Publisher), although some have incorrectly used it to mean the combined height of the leading plus an adjacent line of type. (If font is 12 points and leading is 2 points, for example, such programs mistakenly say you're using 14 points of leading). The term originated with the actual lead strips used with hand- and mechanically-aligned type. The space between characters side-to-side horizontally is called letter space. (pr. led'ng)

  • lead tin yellow - A particular yellow pigment.

  • leaf - Metal beaten into extremely thin sheets used especially for gilding. Leaf is traditionally made of gold or silver, but may be made of other metals, including aluminum, copper, and other less expensive ones which look like gold and silver. In a book, a leaf is a sheet of paper with, front-to-back (recto-to-verso), two pages. Also see a chart of jewelry, ormolu, signature, and steel sheet gauges.

  • lean - When used to describe paint, signifies one with little oil in relation to pigment. Also see fat and fat over lean.

  • leather-hard - In ceramics, a state in which clay has lost moisture to evaporation, but has not yet completely hardened; clay damp enough to be joined to other pieces with scoring and slip. Also see greenware, krater, kylix, lekythos, vase, and vessel.

  • lectionary - In Christian tradition, a list, often illustrated, of lections — selections from the Bible that are read in church services.

  • left brain - Refers to a theory in which the left side of the brain is responsible for reading and verbal tasks, while the right brain is the creative side, responsible for art and spatial comprehension.

  • leitmotif - Originally a musical term, used to describe a device employed by composer Richard Wagner (German, 1813-1883). A specific musical phrase was associated with the first and each recurring appearance of a character, idea, or emotion. Then, by extension, a leitmotif came to have the general meaning of a recurring and often dominant theme in art, writing, or in life itself. Literally the German word means "leading or guiding motive." (pr. lite"moh-teef')

  • lekythos - In ancient Greece, an oil jug with an ellipsoidal body, a narrow neck, a flanged mouth, a curved handle extending from below the lip to the shoulder, and a narrow base terminating in a foot. It was used chiefly for ointments and funerary offerings. Among the other types of Greek vases are the alabastron, amphora, hydria, kantharos, krater, kyathos, kylix, oinochoe, pelike, phiale, pinax, pithos, pyxis, and rhyton.

  • lemon yellow - A particular yellow pigment.

  • length - Usually refers to the longest dimension. Synonyms for lengthwise are longtitudinal and axial.

  • lens - Physically essential to sight, a transparent tissue that bends light passing through the eye. To focus light, the lens can change shape by bending. Also, a transparent piece of glass or another material, which is shaped to focus the passage of light through it and into or onto another surface in some other optical device, such as a camera, camera lucida, camera obscura, magnifying glass, telescope, microscope, mirror, projector, etc.

  • letterform - The shape of a letter (or character) of an alphabet, especially from the standpoint of its design or historical development — i.e., in calligraphy and typography. When one is interested in letterforms, one pays particular attention to those aspects of a letter's shape that differentiate it from the shapes of other letters, as in the nuances distinguishing an "O" from a "Q," a "g" from a "q," or an "E" from an "F." When a person writes or designs a letter, the degree to which that person honors the essence of the letterform of that character determines the letter's legibility.

  • letterhead - A heading which usually consists of a name and an address (and often includes a monogram or logo, and other design elements, along with other text: street / postal, email, and Web addresses, telephone numbers, tag line, and perhaps more) printed on a sheet of letter-writing paper. Although traditionally a "letterhead" was at the top edge of a page, it has become common for graphic designers to place them along other edges, and even include a faint image in the center of a page. A letterhead can be vital to establishing the identity of an organization or individual. As an important part of a unified program to promote a client's goals, graphic designers often employ variations on a client's letterhead in a system of designs placed on envelopes, business cards, product packaging, signage, advertising, Web sites, etc. "Letterhead" can also refer to full sheets of stationery imprinted with a heading. Also see ephemera, graphic design, and typography.

  • lettering - Drawing or creating letters used in words. To differentiate it from cursive writing, this action is sometimes referred to as printing. But the use of the term printing in this sense should be used cautiously, since it may be confused with its sense as a means of making multiply identical images. Also see calligraphy, dingbat, dry transfer graphics, font, glyph, graphic design, hieroglyphics, icon, ideogram, leading, letter spacing (and kerning), logo, petroglyph, pictograph, text, type, typeface, and typography.

  • letter space - In typography, letter space is the placement or retention of space between characters. Kerning, by contrast, is the technique of adjusting the spacing between two letters to bring them close enough to overlap. The horizontal spaces between lines of type are called leading. Also see alias, calligraphy, graphic design, lacuna, leading, lettering, text, type, and typeface.

  • levigation - Reduction of material to fine smooth paste or powder. Another (rarer!) term for this is trituration.

  • lexicon - A dictionary, especially of the terms of a particular profession or subject. (This word has provided the last half of the title ArtLex.) Lexicography is the work of writing a dictionary. Also see iconography.

  • Liao - A Chinese dynasty which lasted 916 - 1125.

  • liberal arts - The humanities — non-scientific branches of study, such as philosophy, literature, and art, that are concerned with human thought and culture. Also see art criticism, art history, cognitive, empiricism, epistemology, knowledge, memory, metaphysics, mind, music, ontology, phenomenology, science and art, sense, and teleology.

  • lierne - A short rib that runs from one main rib of a vault to another. (pr. lee-ern')

  • life drawing - The act of drawing the human figure from a live (often nude) model, and each such drawing produced. Widely considered an essential component of an artist's education, life drawing trains the simultaneous workings of the eyes, the brain, and the hand; and increases skills needed for representation of the human form — arguably the most important subject in art in its long history. Life drawing should increase knowledge of the underlying structure of the human figure — from skeletal to muscle, fat, and skin — the form to which any costume must correspond. Life drawing establishes the importance of seeing the figure dynamically — in its cababilities for variety of pose and composition, action and expression. There are many ways to intensify the learning experience of life drawing. One is the practice of gesture drawing — drawing at relatively great speeds, for as long as five minutes, and as short as a few seconds. Others are continuous-line and contour drawing.

  • life mask - A cast of the face of a living person. Usually such casts have been made from a mold produced by placing gesso or plaster on the face, with a passage provided for breathing through the mold. Such a mold is likely to be of one piece, since the face is generally sufficiently flexible to enable removal of the hardened mold, as long as a release agent has been applied. A death mask is very similar. Also see mask, and a lesson on mask making using plaster bangages.

  • life size - Full-scale.

  • ligature - In calligraphy and typography, two or more letters joined together to create a single character. Among the most common such combinations: æ (a+e) and Æ (A+E). Among other letters most commonly combined include oe, fi, ff, and ffl. When cast type was employed (before the digital revolution), a ligature was cast on the same body of type. Kerning, by comparison with ligature, is the technique of adjusting the spacing between two letters to bring them close enough to overlap. Some ligatures, including "æ", might be described as made by kerning. The horizontal spaces between lines of type are called leading. Example ligatures:

  • lightfast - Having the ability to resist fading on long exposure to sunlight. Denotes permanence when applied to pigment. The opposite quality is called fugitive.

  • lightness - The dimension of a color which is correlated with luminance and by which visual stimuli are ordered continuously from very dim to very bright. Pure white has the maximum brightness, and pure black the minimum brightness. Also see light.

  • light perception - Discrimination between light and dark. Or, between brighter and darker light.

  • light table - A work surface of translucent white glass or plastic with a lamp beneath it, used especially for looking at transparencies and for tracing.

  • likeness - A loose way of referring to what may be appropriation, comparable, copy, counterfeit, facsimile, fake, forgery, homage, imitation, mirror, positive, representation, reproduction, simulacrum, and/ or simulation.

  • limestone - Stone composed mainly of calcium carbonate, much of it sedimentary rock and formed by fossil deposits. Marble is actually a limestone that can be polished.

  • limit and limitation - Limitation is showing restraint, taking something only so far and then stopping before doing to much; a principle of design in contrast to horror vacui, and to emphasis or dominance.

  • limited edition - An edition or set of prints of a known number of impressions, usually fewer then 200, numbered and signed.

  • limners - May refer to any painter, but more often to itinerant American painters of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, who made literal and naïve portraits. They were largely self-taught. Also, may refer to a painter of miniatures in medieval illuminated manuscripts.

  • line - A mark with length and direction(-s). An element of art which refers to the continuous mark made on some surface by a moving point. Types of line include: vertical, horizontal, diagonal, straight or ruled, curved, bent, angular, thin, thick or wide, interrupted (dotted, dashed, broken, etc.), blurred or fuzzy, controlled, freehand, parallel, hatching, meandering, and spiraling. Often it defines a space, and may create an outline or contour, define a silhouette; create patterns, or movement, and the illusion of mass or volume. It may be two-dimensional (as with pencil on paper) three-dimensional (as with wire) or implied (the edge of a shape or form).

  • linear - A painting technique in which importance is placed on contours or outlines. (li'nee-er)

  • linear perspective - A system of drawing or painting in which the artist attempts to create the illusion of spatial depth on a two-dimensional surface. It works by following consistent geometric rules for rendering objects as they appear to the human eye. For instance, we see parallel lines as converging in the distance, although in reality they do not. Stated another way, the lines of buildings and other objects in a picture are slanted inward making them appear to extend back into space. If lengthened these lines will meet at a point along an imaginary horizontal line representing the eye level. Each such imaginary line is called an orthogonal. The point at which such lines meet is called a vanishing point.

  • linen - A cloth woven from thread made from fibers of the flax plant. Although it has been used in many ways, linen has been an especially desireable support for painting. As such it is one of several textiles that may be called canvas.

  • linocut - Linoleum cut.

  • linoleum cut, linocut, or lino-cut - A linoleum block or plate used for making relief prints. Linoleum is a durable, washable material formerly used more for flooring as vinyl flooring is used today. It is usually backed with burlap or canvas, and may be purchased adhered to a wooden block. The linoleum can be cut in much the same way woodcuts are produced, however its surface is softer and without grain. Also refers to a print made with this method. Linoleum cuts have been made by Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954) and Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973).

  • linseed oil - A drying oil used in paints, usually boiled to make it faster drying. Also see marbling.

  • lintel - In architecture, a horizontal beam of any material spanning an opening, usually between two walls or posts.

  • liter - A unit of liquid measurement equal to 1000 milliliters. To convert liters into gallons (US, liquid), multiply them by 0.26417; into pints, x 2.1134. Abbreviated l.

  • literal qualities - The realistic presentation of subject matter in an artwork, along with the elements of art found in it; avoiding distortions, exaggerations, or embellishments. This aesthetic quality is favored by imitationalism. In describing a work, one makes an inventory of its literal qualities. Also see aesthetics, art criticism, and art history.

  • litharge painting - A small amount of oil is added to paint so that it covers a surface such as a lacquered one.

  • living rock - Rock that is carved or in some other way used in situ. Often said of sculpture or architecture carved from rock that is so huge it could never have been moved anyway.

  • loaded - In painting, a loaded brush is one that is charged or filled with paint to its capacity. Also see impasto.

  • loan - Museums and patrons often work closely together to lend objects to each other to improve the range of works in the collections they exhibit.

  • local color - The true color of an object or a surface as seen in typical daylight, rather than its color as seen through atmosphere or interpreted by the taste or imagination of the artist. Thus the characteristic local color of a lemon is yellow.

  • loggia - In architecture, a gallery that has an open arcade or a colonnade on one or both sides. (pr. law'jee-uh, lah'jee-uh)

  • longtitudinal stage - Of Victor Lowenfeld's Stages of Artistic Development, the longtitudinal stage is the second sub-stage of the first stage, the scribble stage. The Scribble stage typically occurs at 2-4 years old. The Longitudinal stage is characterized by controlled repetitions of motions. A child at this stage of development demonstrates visually an awareness and enjoyment of kinesthetic movements. Also see preschematic stage (4-6), schematic stage (6-9), dawning realism stage (9-11), and the pseudorealistic stage (11-13).

  • lookism - Prejudice or discrimination on the grounds of appearance. Thinking less of a person whose appearance is less than ideal (too far below fashion model), or thinking more of a person because his / her appearance is ideal enough. Such factors of appearance may include the shape, color, texture or expression of facial or bodily features, hairstyle, costume, or body language. A person who practises lookism is a lookist. The earliest citation of lookism's appearance in print is in the Washington Post Magazine in 1978, which reported that fat people had coined it as a defensive word: "lookism — discrimination based on looks." It's coinage has followed those of the words racialism / racism (1907 / 1935), sexism (1968), and ageism (1969). Also see ethnocentrism, feminism and feminist art, gender issues, humanism, idealized, isms and -ism, multiculturalism, political correctness, stereotype, ugly, xenophilia, and xenophobia.

  • loom - An apparatus for producing textiles, rugs, blankets, wall hangings, etc., by weaving thread or yarn into cloth. Also see fabric and fiber.

  • loop tool - A tool consisting of a loop of nonferrous metal attached to a handle, and used in carving plastic and leather-hard clay. A loop tool can easily be improvised with a piece of wire. Even a paperclip can serve well. Also see ceramics, ferrule, modeling tools, and subtraction.

  • lorem ipsum - The first two words of a string of Latin words used as placeholder or dummy text in graphic design layout proposals. Placing this filler text is incongruously known as "greeking." It is quoted fully below.

  • lossless compression - A process that reduces the storage space needed for an image file without loss of data. If a digital image that has undergone lossless compression is decompressed, it will be identical to the digital image before it was compressed. Document images (i.e. in black and white, with a great deal of white space) undergoing lossless compression can often be reduced to one-tenth their original size; continuous tone images under lossless compression can seldom be reduced to one-half or one-third of their original size. Also see lossy compression.

  • lossy compression - A process that reduces the storage space needed for an image file. If a digital image that has undergone lossy compression is decompressed, it will differ from the image before it was compressed (though this difference may be difficult for the human eye to detect). The most effective lossy compression algorithms work by discarding information that is not easily perceptible to the human eye. Also see lossless compression.

  • lost-wax casting - A casting process for which a sculptor must first produce his sculpture in wax. He creates a mold around this made of refractory materials. When the mold is heated, the wax melts away, so that molten metal can replace it, reproducing exactly the original wax sculpture. Also known by the French term cire-perdue (pr. seer'pair-doo"). Also see core, direct casting, indirect casting, investment, rodding, sincere, sprue, and articles about the various metals.

  • lotiform - In the form of a lotus petal. See Buddhism.

  • love - Strong affection or compassion for another arising out of familial or personal bonds, or an affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests; or based on romantic or sexual desire. An enthusiasm, devotion, or desire. Or the object of devotion, admiration, or attraction. Or unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another. Or sexual intercourse; copulation.

  • low art - Refers to the lesser or minor arts, including the decorative or applied arts, with the inference that these are low partly because of shoddy manufacturing in inferior materials of superficial kitsch, simply catering to popular taste, unreflective acceptance of realism, and a certain "couch potato" mentality. The boundary between high and low art has faded in the contemporary art scene. Its place has been taken by discussion of popular or mass culture. Also see bad art, brummagem, buckeye, gewgaw, high art, paint-by-number, and realia.

  • lowercase - To write faster than they could when writing only capital letters (uppercase), sixth-century scribes simplified capital letter forms and developed "miniscule" letters. This was the origin of lowercase letters, which now comprise most of our typographic communications. They got the name lowercase from the standard location in which typesetters stored these letters — in large thin drawers known as cases, the lower ones rather than the upper ones. The lowercase letters shown here are more contemporary designs.

  • low relief - In relief sculpture, a very slight extension of a form out of the background.

  • lozenge - A four-sided two-dimensional figure with a diamondlike shape; a rhombus that is not a square. Also, a thing having this shape. (pr. lah'zenzh)

  • Lucite® - A trademark for a plastic material, which is a family of acrylics in the smaller group called a methacrylates, available in many forms, including liquid for casting. It can be made highly transparent, translucent, or opaque. Visit luciteinternational.com for much more information. Also see cellocut, fiberglass, PlexiGlas®, polyester resins, and resins.

  • luminosity - A quality seen in some paintings of a glow coming from within, the illusion that there is actually a light coming out of the picture. Glossy colors are more likely to provide this luminous effect than matte colors.

  • luminous - See candela, color, light, luminosity, and value.

  • luminous paint - A paint which actually glows in the dark. It contains a phosphor, which is usually a form of zinc or calcium sulfide. It stores light when exposed to it for a length of time, emitting it as a greenish or bluish glow for a relatively short length of time when the light source is removed. Versions of luminous paints RADIOACTIVE HAZARDwith radioactive ingredients are used in situations in which the duration of glow must be prolonged, as on watch faces, but these paints are considerably more hazardous, and less commonly available. Also see fluorescence, fluorescent colors, fugitive colors, glitter, opalescence, and pigment.

  • lump hammer - A hammer with a heavy, rectangular head, usually made of iron, used to strike stone cutting tools. Also see ballpein hammer, bush hammer, chisel, claw hammer, and mallet.

  • lunette - In architecture, a semicircular (fan-shaped) opening (with the flat side down) in a wall or a door. The word comes from the French for half-moon. Also, "lunette" can refer to a semicircular painting set separately within a work's frame, as in the design of a fan. (pr. loo-net')

  • luster - A high-gloss finish with iridescence. It may refer to a thin glaze (usually metalic) sometimes used on pottery to produce a rich iridescent color, especially reknowned in Persian pottery and in majolica. Also see encaustic, moiré, opalescence, and semi-gloss.

  • luting - In pottery, the attachment of any smaller molded, modeled, or turned ceramic component to a larger molded, modeled or turned form using slip as a cement. [Perhaps this is primarily a British term. If you can report American usage, please contact ArtLex.]