Christ in Majesty shown within a mandorla shape in a medieval illuminated manuscript.

A Mandorla is a Vesica Piscis shaped aureola which surrounds the figures of Christ and the Virgin Mary in traditional Christian art.^[4] It is especially used to frame the figure of Christ in Majesty in early medieval and Romanesque art, as well as Byzantine art of the same periods. The term refers to thealmond like shape: "mandorla" means almond nut in Italian. 

A maquette by architect Lorenzo Winslow exploring the structure of the Grand Staircase at the White House.

A maquette (French word for scale model, sometimes referred to by the Italian names plastico or modello) is a small scale model or rough draft of an unfinished architectural work or a sculpture. An equivalent term is bozzetto, from the Italian word that means "sketch".

Mary Cassatt, The Bath, drypoint combined with aquatint, 1890-1.

In the 20th century many artists produced drypoints, including Max Beckmann, Milton Avery, and Hermann-Paul. By adding aquatintwork on the plate and inking with various colours, artists such as Mary Cassatt have produced colour drypoints.

Michelangelo's systematizing of the Campidoglio, engraved by Étienne Dupérac, 1568 -  at the Palaces he combined giant pilasters of Corinthian order with small Ionic columns that framed the windows of the upper story and flanked the loggia openings below.

In Classical architecture, a giant order (also known as colossal order) is an order whose columns or pilastersspan two (or more) stories. At the same time, smaller orders may feature in arcades or window and door framings within the stories that are embraced by the giant order.

Cupola of St. Peter's Dome (Michelangelo) 

In architecture, a cupola ([image] /ˈkjuːpələ/) is a small, most-often dome-like, structure on top of a building.^[1] Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome.

Mihrab in Hagia Sophia, Istanbul,Turkey  

Mihrab is semicircular niche in the wall of a mosque that indicates the qibla; that is, the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca and hence the direction that Muslims should face when praying. The wall in which a mihrab appears is thus the "qiblawall."

Mihrabs should not be confused with the minbar, which is the raised platform from which an Imam (leader of prayer) addresses the congregation.

Minaret from the Great Mosque of Samarra, Iraq

A minaret sometimes مئذنه) is a distinctive architectural feature of Islamicmosques, generally a tall spire with an onion-shaped or conical crown, usually either free standing or taller than any associated support structure. The basic form of a minaret includes a base, shaft, and gallery.^[2] Styles vary regionally and by period. Minarets provide a visual focal point and are used for the call to prayer (adhan).

Detail of the Mona Lisa showing Da Vinci's use of Sfumato

Sfumato is one of the four canonical painting modes of the Renaissance (the other three being Cangiante, Chiaroscuro, and Unione).^[1]

The most prominent practitioner of sfumato was Leonardo da Vinci, and his famous painting of the Mona Lisa exhibits the technique. Leonardo da Vinci described sfumato as "without lines or borders, in the manner of smoke or beyond the focus plane."^[2]

Monotype by Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, probably a second impression

     Monotyping is a type of printmaking made by drawing or painting on a smooth, non-absorbent surface. The surface, or matrix, was historically a copper etching plate, but in contemporary work it can vary from zinc or glass to acrylic glass. The image is then transferred onto a sheet of paper by pressing the two together, usually using a printing-press. Monotypes can also be created by inking an entire surface and then, using brushes or rags, removing ink to create a subtractive image, e.g. creating lights from a field of opaque colour. The inks used may be oil based or water based. With oil based inks, the paper may be dry, in which case the image has more contrast, or the paper may be damp, in which case the image has a 10 percent greater range of tones.

Apse mosaic in the Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome

Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It may be a technique of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration, or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral. Small pieces, normally roughly cubic, of stone or glass of different colors, known as tesserae, (diminutive tessellae), are used to create a pattern or picture.

The San Bartolo murals of the Maya civilization in Guatemala, are the oldest example of this art in Mesoamerica and are dated at 300 BC.

     A mural is any piece of artwork painted or applied directly on a wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface. A particularly distinguishing characteristic of mural painting is that the architectural elements of the given space are harmoniously incorporated into the picture.

Fallen Monarchs by William Bliss Baker.

Naturalism in art refers to the depiction of realistic objects in a natural setting. The Realism movement of the 19th century advocated naturalism in reaction to the stylized and idealized depictions of subjects in Romanticism, but many painters have adopted a similar approach over the centuries. One example of Naturalism is the artwork of American artist William Bliss Baker, whose landscape paintings are considered some of the best examples of the naturalist movement.

Neoclassical vs. Romanticism in Architecture

Just as Mannerism rejected Classicism, so did Romanticism reject the ideas of the Enlightenment and the aesthetic of the Neoclassicists. Romanticism rejected the highly objective and ordered nature of Neoclassicism, and opted for a more individual and emotional approach to the arts.^[9] Romanticism placed an emphasis on nature, especially when aiming to portray the power and beauty of the natural world, and emotions, and sought a highly personal approach to art. Romantic art was about individual feelings, not common themes, such as in Neoclassicism; in such a way, Romantic art often used colours in order to express feelings and emotion.^[10] Similarly to Neoclassicism, Romantic art took much of its inspiration from ancient Greek and Roman art and mythology, yet, unlike Neoclassical, this inspiration was primarily used as a way to create symbolism and imagery.

Robert Delaunay, 1912-1913, Le Premier Disque, 134 cm, 52.7 inches, Private collection.

Nonobjective art is another way to refer to Abstract art or nonrepresentational art. Essentially, the artwork does not represent or depict a person, place or thing in the natural world. Usually, the content of the work is its color, shapes, brushstrokes, size, scale, and, in some cases, its process. 

Notre Dame de Paris (French for Our Lady of Paris), is a Gothic, Roman Catholic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, France.

A cathedral (French cathédrale from Lat. cathedra, "seat" from the Greek kathedra (καθέδρα), seat, bench, from kata "down" + hedraseat, base, chair) is a Christian church which contains the seat of a bishop,^[1] thus serving as the central church of a diocese,conference, or episcopate.

The Oculus (top) in the dome of the Pantheon, Rome

An oculus, circular window, or "rain-hole" is a feature of Classical architecture since the 16th century. 

Grande Odalisque painted by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1814)

An odalisque (Turkish: Odalık) was a female slave in an Ottoman seraglio. She was an assistant or apprentice to the concubines and wives, and she might rise in status to become one of them. Most odalisques were part of the Imperial Harem, that is, the household of the sultan.

Detail of onion domes on Saint Basil's Cathedral in Moscow

An onion dome (Russian: луковичная глава, lúkovichnaya glava) is a dome whose shape resembles the onion, after which they are named. Such domes are often larger in diameter than the drum upon which they are set, and their height usually exceeds their width. These bulbous structures taper smoothly to a point.

It is the predominant form for church domes in Russia; mostly on Russian Orthodox churches, Bavaria, and Germany; mostly on Catholic churches, but can also be found regularly across Austria, Eastern Europe, Mughal India, the Middle East and Central Asia.

Otto Dix, Skull, 1924

Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix (German pronunciation: [ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈhaɪnʁiç ˈɔto ˈdɪks]; 2 December 1891 – 25 July 1969) was a German painter and printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of Weimar society and the brutality of war. Along with George Grosz, he is widely considered one of the most important artists of the Neue Sachlichkeit.

John Singer Sargent - Self Portrait, 1906, oil on canvas - was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury.

      Painterliness - is the opposite of linear, plastic or formal linear design. An oil painting is painterly when there are visible brushstrokes, the result of applying paint in a less than completely controlled manner, generally without closely following carefully drawn lines. Works characterized as either painterly or linear can be produced with any painting media, oils, acrylics, watercolors, gouache, etc. Some artists whose work could be characterized as painterly are Pierre Bonnard, Francis Bacon, Vincent van Gogh, Rembrandt, Renoir, and John Singer Sargent. In watercolor it might be represented by the early watercolors of Andrew Wyeth.

German parchmenter, 1568

Parchment is a thin material made from calfskin, sheepskin or goatskin, often split. Its most common use was as a material for writing on, for documents, notes, or the pages of a book, codex or manuscript. It is distinct from leather in that parchment is limed but nottanned; therefore, it is very reactive to changes in relative humidity and is not waterproof. Finer-quality parchment is called vellum.

Parts of a Stencil - To be reusable, they must remain intact after a design is produced and the stencil is removed from the work surface. With some designs, this is done by connecting stencil islands (sections of material that are inside cut-out "holes" in the stencil) to other parts of the stencil with bridges (narrow sections of material that are not cut out).

          Stencil technique in visual art is also referred to as pochoir. A related technique (which has found applicability in somesurrealist compositions) is aerography, in which spray-painting is done around a three-dimensional object to create a negative of the object instead of a positive of a stencil design.

Degas, Ballet Rehearsal, 1875; Gouache and Pastel on canvas

Gouache is a type of paint consisting of pigment, a binding agent (usually gum arabic), and sometimes added inert material, designed to be used in an opaque method. It is also referred to as opaque watercolor orbodycolor (the term preferred by art historians).

Pastel is an art medium in the form of a stick, consisting of pure powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are the same as those used to produce all colored art media, including oil paints; the binder is of a neutral hue and low saturation.

Paul Signac, Femme au Puits, 1892

     Pointillism is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of pure color are applied in patterns to form an image. Georges Seurat and Paul Signac developed the technique in 1886, branching from Impressionism. The term Pointillism was first coined by art critics in the late 1880s to ridicule the works of these artists, and is now used without its earlier mocking connotation.^[1]Neo-impressionism and Divisionism are also terms used to describe this technique of painting.

Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (Bal du moulin de la Galette), 1876, Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Renoir's paintings are notable for their vibrant light and saturated colour, most often focusing on people in intimate and candid compositions.  One of the best known Impressionist works is Renoir's 1876 Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (Bal du moulin de la Galette). The painting depicts an open-air scene, crowded with people, at a popular dance garden on the Butte Montmartre, close to where he lived.

The Miracle of the Slave (also known as The Miracle of St. Mark, 1548) is a painting by the Italian Renaissance artistJacopo Tintoretto.

         A pigment is a material that changes the color of reflected or transmitted light as the result of wavelength-selective absorption. This physical process differs from fluorescence, phosphorescence, and other forms of luminescence, in which a material emits light.

         Miracle of the Slave by Tintoretto (c. 1548). The son of a master dyer, Tintoretto used Carmine Red Lake pigment, derived from the cochineal insect, to achieve dramatic color effects.

The Ghent Altarpiece or Adoration of the Mystic Lamb (completed 1432) is a very large and complex Early Flemish polyptych panel painting which is considered to be one ofBelgium's masterpieces and one of the world's treasures.  

     A polyptych generally refers to a painting (usuallypanel painting) which is divided into sections, or panels. The terminology that follows is in relevance to the number of panels integrated into a particular piece of work: "diptych" describes a two-part work of art; "triptych" describes a three-part work; tetraptych or quadriptych describes 4 parts, etc.

Richard Hamilton's collage Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing? (1956) is one of the earliest works to be considered "pop art".

Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States.^[1] Pop art presented a challenge to traditions of fine art by including imagery from popular culture such as advertising, news, etc. In Pop art, material is sometimes visually removed from its known context, isolated, and/or combined with unrelated material.^[1][2] The concept of pop art refers not as much to the art itself as to the attitudes that led to it.

Raising a plate of copper with burnisher on surface plate.

Engraving on copper is performed by cutting lines representing the subject on a copper plate by means of a steel instrument, called a graver, or burin, ending in an unequal-sided pyramidal point. Besides the graver, the other instruments used in the process are ascraper, a burnisher, anoil-stone, and a cushion for supporting theplate. In cutting the lines on the copper, the graver is pushed forward in the direction required, being held at a small inclination to the plane of the copper. The use of the burnisher is to soften down the lines that are cut too deeply, and for burnishingout scratches in the copper; it is about 3 inches long
.

The School of Athens, or Scuola di Atene in Italian, is one of the most famous frescoes by the Italian Renaissance artistRaphael. It was painted between 1510 and 1511 as a part of Raphael's commission to decorate with frescoes the rooms now known as the Stanze di Raffaello, in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. 

Fresco (plural either frescos or frescoes) is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls, ceilings or any other type of flat surface. The word fresco comes from the Italian word affresco [afˈfresːko] which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance. Declining in popularity, they enjoyed something of a revival in the 20th century.

The Meeting ("Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet"), 1854, Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet (10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. The Realist movement bridged the Romantic movement (characterized by the paintings of Théodore Géricaultand Eugène Delacroix) with the Barbizon School and the Impressionists. Courbet occupies an important place in 19th century French painting as an innovator and as an artist willing to make bold social commentary in his work.

Romanticism - William Blake, A Prophecy - Relief Etching & Hand Coloring In 1788 Blake began to experiment with relief etching, a method he would use to produce most of his books, paintings, pamphlets and poems. The process is also referred to as illuminated printing, and final products as illuminated books or prints. Illuminated printing involved writing the text of the poems on copper plates with pens and brushes, using an acid-resistant medium. Illustrations could appear alongside words in the manner of earlier illuminated manuscripts. He then etched the plates in acid to dissolve the untreated copper and leave the design standing in relief (hence the name).

     This is a reversal of the normal method of etching, where the lines of the design are exposed to the acid, and the plate printed by the intaglio method. Relief etching (which Blake also referred to as "stereotype" in The Ghost of Abel) was intended as a means for producing his illuminated books more quickly than via intaglio.

The Great Dish, or Great Plate of Bacchus, from the Roman Mildenhall Treasure

Repoussé) is a metalworking technique in which a malleablemetal is ornamented or shaped by hammering from the reverse side to create a design in low relief. There are few techniques that offer such diversity of expression while still being relatively economical. Chasing is the opposite technique to repoussé, and the two are used in conjunction to create a finished piece. It is also known as embossing.

Romanesque nave of the abbey church of Saint-Georges-de-Boscherville,Normandy, France has a triforium passage above the aisle vaulting.  

     In Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar, the main body of the church. "Nave" (Medieval Latin navis, "ship") was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting.^[1] The nave of a church, whether Romanesque, Gothic or Classical, extends from the entry — which may have a separate vestibule, the narthex — to the chancel and is flanked by lower aisles^[2] separated from the nave by an arcade. If the aisles are high and of a width comparable to the central nave, the structure is sometimes said to have three naves.

Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, 1818

Romanticism (or the Romantic era/Period) was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1840. Partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution,it was also a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature.  It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography,education and the natural sciences. Its effect on politics was considerable, and complex; while for much of the peak Romantic period it was associated with liberalism and radicalism, in the long term its effect on the growth of nationalism was probably more significant.

Sleeping Putto, by Léon Bazille Perrault, 1882

A putto (plural putti) is a figure in a work of art depicted as a chubby male child, usually nude and sometimes winged. Putti are distinct from cherubim, but some English-speakers confuse them with each other, except that in the plural, "the Cherubim" refers to the biblical angels. While "cherubs" represent the second order of angels,^[2] putti are secular, profane and present a non-religious passion.^[3] However, in the Baroque period of art, the putto came to represent the omnipresenceof God.^[3] A putto representing a cupid is also called an amorino (plural amorini).

Initials from the beginning of psalms in the St. Albans Psalter.

A psalter is a volume containing the Book of Psalms, often with other devotional material bound in as well, such as a liturgical calendar and litany of the Saints. Until the later medieval emergence of the book of hours, psalters were the books most widely owned by wealthy lay persons and were commonly used for learning to read. Many Psalters were richly illuminated and they include some of the most spectacular surviving examples of medieval book art.

St. Peter's Basilica Colonnades

The colonnades define the piazza. The elliptical center of the piazza, which contrasts with the trapezoidal entrance, encloses the visitor with "the maternal arms of Mother Church" in Bernini's expression. On the south side, the colonnades define and formalize the space, with the Barberini Gardens still rising to a skyline of umbrella pines. On the north side, the colonnade masks an assortment of Vatican structures; the upper stories of the Vatican Palace rise above.

Statue of a kouros youth, 590-580 BC

A kouros (plural kouroi, Ancient Greek κοῦρος) is the modern term^[1] given to those representations of male youths which first appear in the Archaic period in Greece. The term kouros, meaning (male) youth,

Jacopo de' Barbari (c. 1440–before 1516), Still-Life with Partridge and Gauntlets (1504), Alte Pinakothek,Munich

A still life (plural still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural (food, flowers, plants, rocks, or shells) or man-made (drinking glasses, books, vases, jewelry, coins, pipes, and so on). With origins in the Middle Ages and Ancient Greek/Roman art, still life paintings give the artist more leeway in the arrangement of design elements within a composition than do paintings of other types of subjects such as landscape or portraiture. Still life paintings, particularly before 1700, often contained religious and allegorical symbolism relating to the objects depicted.

In a drawing or painting, the dots are made of pigment of a single colour, applied with a pen or brush; the denser the dots, the darker the apparent shade—or lighter, if the pigment is lighter than the surface. This is similar to—but distinct from—pointillism, which uses dots of different colours to simulate blended colours.

In printmaking, dots may be carved out of a surface to which ink will be applied, to produce either a greater or lesser density of ink depending on the printing technique.

Stonehenge,  Cromlech/Megalith

Cromlech is a Brythonic word (Breton/Welsh) used to describe prehistoricmegalithic structures, where crom means "bent" and llech means "flagstone". The term is now virtually obsolete in archaeology, but remains in use as a colloquial term for two different types of megalithic monument.

Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire, about 2.0 miles (3.2 km) west ofAmesbury and 8 miles (13 km) north of Salisbury. One of the most famous sites in the world, Stonehenge is composed of a circular setting of large standing stones set within earthworks. It is at the centre of the most dense complex of Neolithicand Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred burial mounds

A sunk-relief depiction of PharaohAkhenaten with his wife Nefertiti and daughters. The main background has not been removed, merely that in the immediate vicinity of the sculpted form. Note how strong shadows are needed to define the image.

Sunk or sunken relief is largely restricted to the art of Ancient Egypt where it is very common, becoming after the Amarna period ofAhkenaten the dominant type used, as opposed to low relief. It had been used earlier, but mainly for large reliefs on external walls, and for hieroglyphs and cartouches. The image is made by cutting the relief sculpture itself into a flat surface. In a simpler form the images are usually mostly linear in nature, like hieroglyphs, but in most cases the figure itself is in low relief, but set within a sunken area shaped round the image, so that the relief never rises beyond the original flat surface.

Martyrdom of St Andrew by Jusepe de Ribera, 1628

Tenebrism, from the Italian tenebroso (murky), also called dramatic illumination, is a style of painting using very pronouncedchiaroscuro, where there are violent contrasts of light and dark and darkness becomes a dominating feature of the image.Caravaggio, a Baroque artist, is generally credited with the invention of the style.

Tracery of Strassburg Cathedral's Rose Window Exterior

In architecture, Tracery is the stonework elements that support the glass in a Gothic window. The term probably derives from the 'tracing floors' on which the complex patterns of late Gothic windows were laid out.^[1]

A transept (with 2 semitransepts) is a transverse section, of any building, which lies across the main body of the building.  In Christian churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform ("cross-shaped") building inRomanesque and Gothic Christian church architecture. Each half of a transept is known as a semitransept.  ^{The transept of a church separates the nave from the sanctuary, whether apse, choir, chevet, presbytery or chancel. The transepts cross the nave at the crossing, which belongs equally to the main nave axis and to the transept. Upon its fourpiers, the crossing may support a spire, a central tower (see Gloucester Cathedral) or a crossing dome. Since the altar is usually located at the east end of a church, a transept extends to the north and south. The north and south end walls often hold decorated windows of stained glass, such as rose windows, in stone tracery.}

The Garden of Earthly Delights is the modern title^[1] given to a triptych painted by theEarly Netherlandish master Hieronymus Bosch

Dating from between 1490 and 1510, when Bosch was about 40 or 50 years old,^[2] it is his best-known^[3] and most ambitious, complete work.^[4]It reveals the artist at the height of his powers; in no other painting does he achieve such complexity of meaning or such vivid imagery

Escaping Criticism by Pere Borrell del Caso, 1874

     Trompe-l'œil is an art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects appear in three dimensions.

     Although the phrase has its origin in the Baroque period, when it refers to perspectival illusionism, use of trompe-l'œil dates back much further. It was (and is) often employed inmurals. Instances from Greek and Roman times are known, for instance in Pompeii. A typical trompe-l'œil mural might depict a window, door, or hallway, intended to suggest a larger room.

Vanitas, by Pieter Claesz

In the arts, vanitas is a type of symbolic work of art especially associated with Northern European still life painting in Flanders and theNetherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries, though also common in other places and periods. The Latin word means "emptiness" and loosely translated corresponds to the meaninglessness of earthly life and the transient nature of vanity.

Albrecht Dürer, Young Hare, 1502, watercolor and body color, Albertina, Vienna

Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth and Ireland), also aquarelle from French, is a paintingmethod. A watercolor is the medium or the resulting artwork in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle.

Four horsemen of the Apocalypse byAlbrecht Dürer

Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges. The areas to show 'white' are cut away with a knife or chisel, leaving the characters or image to show in 'black' at the original surface level. The block is cut along the grain of the wood (unlike wood engraving where the block is cut in the end-grain). The surface is covered with ink by rolling over the surface with an ink-covered roller (brayer), leaving ink upon the flat surface but not in the non-printing areas.

Yves Tanguy, Indefinite Divisibility 1942

Raymond Georges Yves Tanguy (January 5, 1900 – January 15, 1955), known as Yves Tanguy, was a French surrealist painter.

Art Nouveau is an international philosophy^[1] and style of art, architecture andapplied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910.^[2] The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art". A reaction to academic art of the 19th century, it was inspired by natural forms and structures, not only in flowers and plants but also in curved lines. Architects tried to harmonize with the natural environment. It is also considered a philosophy of design of furniture, which was designed according to the whole building and made part of ordinary life.

The style was influenced strongly by Czech artist Alphonse Mucha (featured work: "Poetry")

Coffering on the ceiling of the Pantheon,Rome

A coffer (or coffering) in architecture, is a sunken panel in the shape of a square, rectangle, or octagon in a ceiling, soffit or vault.  A series of these sunken panels were used as decoration for a ceiling or a vault, so that a coffered ceiling can be called a lacunar ceiling: the strength of the structure is in the framework of the coffers. The stone coffers of the ancient Greeks^[3] and Romans^[4] are the earliest surviving examples.

The Pantheon provided a prominent model for Renaissance and later architects, through the medium of engravings.  

The Corinthian order is one of the three principal classical orders of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. The other two are theDoric and Ionic. When classical architecture was revived during the Renaissance, two more orders were added to the canon, theTuscan order and the Composite order. The Corinthian, with its offshoot the Composite, is stated to be the most ornate of the orders, characterized by slender fluted columns and elaborate capitals decorated with acanthus leaves and scrolls.  The abacus upon the capital has concave sides to conform to the outscrolling corners of the capital, and it may have a rosette at the center of each side.

The Doric order of the Parthenon  -  Pronounced features of both Greek and Roman versions of the Doric order are the alternating triglyphs and metopes. The triglyphs are decoratively grooved with three vertical grooves ("tri-glyph") and represent the original wooden end-beams, which rest on the plain architrave that occupies the lower half of the entablature. A triglyph is centered above every column, with another (or sometimes two) between columns, though the Greeks felt that the corner triglyph should form the corner of the entablature, creating an inharmonious mismatch with the supporting column. The spaces between the triglyphs are the "metopes". They may be left plain, or they may be carved in low relief.

Clay Tools

Quality tools of finest stainless steel and select, smooth hardwood. Includes a potter's rib, steel scraper, wood modeling tool, needle tool, ribbon tool, loop tool, sponge, and wire clay cutter.

Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio - Atrium & Narthex  

an atrium (plural: atria) refers to the open central court, from which the enclosed rooms led off, in the type of large ancient Roman house known as a domus. Atria are a popular design feature because they give their buildings "a feeling of space and light."

The Harmandir Sahib (The abode of God), informally known as the Golden Temple also referred to as the Golden Temple, is a prominent Sikh gurdwara located in the city of Amritsar, Punjab, India.

A gurdwara, meaning the Gateway to the Guru, is the place of worship for Sikhs,^[1] the followers of Sikhism.  The most holy text of Sikhism, the Guru Granth Sahib^[5], is always present inside the gurdwara. Its construction was mainly intended to build a place of worship for men and women from all walks of life and all come and worship God equally

A mordant is a substance used to set dyes on fabrics or tissue sections by forming a coordination complex with the dye which then attaches to the fabric or tissue. It may be used for dyeing fabrics, or for intensifying stains in cell or tissue preparations. The term mordant comes from the Latin word, "mordere", to bite. In the past, it was thought that a mordant helped the dye bite onto the fiber so that it would hold fast during washing. A mordant is often a polyvalent metal ion. The resulting coordination complex of dye and ion iscolloidal and can be either acidic or alkaline.

Acids in Etching: Nitric, hydrochloric, and terric

The upper part of the Greek National Academy building in Athens, showing the pediment.  A pediment is a classical architectural element consisting of the triangular section found above the horizontal structure (entablature), typically supported by columns. The gable end of the pediment is surrounded by the cornice moulding. The tympanum, or triangular area within the pediment, was often decorated with sculptures and reliefs demonstrating scenes of Greek and Roman mythology or allegorical figures.