[ah kuh-PEL-uh] From the Italian, "in chapel style"; music sung without instrumental accompaniment.
chiaroscuro
[key-ahr-uh-SKOOR-oh] In painting, the use of dark and light contrast to create the effect of modeling of a figure or object.
Early Renaissance style
A style inspired by Classical rather than Gothic models that arose among Florentine architects, sculptors, and painters in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century.
imitation
In music, a technique in which a musical idea, or motif, is presented by one voice or instrument and is then followed immediately by a restatement by another voice or instrument; the effect is that of a musical relay race.
Mass
In religion, the ritual celebrating the Eucharist, or Holy Communion, primarily in the Roman Catholic Church. The Mass has two parts, the Ordinary and the Proper; the former remains the same throughout the church year, whereas the latter changes for each date and service. The Mass Ordinary is composed of the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei; the Mass Proper includes the Introit, Gradual, Alleluia or Tract, Sequence, Offertory, and Communion. In music, a musical setting of certain parts of the Mass, especially the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei. The first complete Mass Ordinary was composed by Guillaume de Machaut [mah-SHOH] (about 1300-1377) in the fourteenth century.
motet
A multivoiced song with words of a sacred or secular text, usually sung without accompanying instruments; developed in the thirteenth century.
pilaster
[pih-LAS-tuhr] In architecture, a vertical, rectangular decorative device projecting from a wall that gives the appearance of a column with a base and a capital; sometimes called an applied column.
relief
In sculpture, figures or forms that are carved so they project from the flat surface of a stone or metal background. High relief projects sharply from the surface; low relief, or bas relief, is more shallow.
Renaissance
[ren-uh-SAHNS] From the French for "rebirth"; the artistic, cultural, and intellectual movement marked by a revival of Classical and humanistic values that began in Italy in the mid-fourteenth century and had spread across Europe by the mid-sixteenth century.
sfumato
[sfoo-MAH-toh] In painting, the blending of one tone into another to blur the outline of a form and give the canvas a smokelike appearance; a technique perfected by Leonardo da Vinci.
studia humanitatis
[STOO-dee-ah hu-man-ih-TAH-tis] (humanistic studies) The Latin term given by Renaissance scholars to new intellectual pursuits that were based on recently discovered ancient texts, including moral philosophy, history, grammar, rhetoric, and poetry. This new learning stood in sharp contrast to medieval scholasticism.
vanishing point
In linear perspective, the point on the horizon at which the receding parallel lines appear to converge and then vanish.
