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EveryLingua

 ·  26 lists  ·  929 words

Art and culture

The words for talking about a work.

What holds these lists together

What is said when a painting, a play, a concert or a photograph is not just looked at but discussed: the technical words of painting, music, theatre, printing and restoration. They describe the same situation — you stand in front of a work with everyday words for it, but not the ones the people who made it use. English has borrowed much of this vocabulary from Italian, and the loans mislead. In a score allegro is a tempo; in Italian it simply means cheerful. Piano means softly or slowly, and il piano is also the floor of a building.

The 26 lists

C1Music: the technical wordsPitch, bar, key, and who plays what in the orchestra.48 wordsC1Theatre and stageRehearsals, technicians, audience — from the read-through to the get-out.63 wordsC1Textiles and fashionCloth, cut and fitting — and how a collection comes into being.44 wordsC1Photography and compositionAperture, exposure, composition — and how to talk about them.46 wordsC1Typography and printingType, setting, sheet — from the letter to the print run.38 wordsC1Ceramics and potteryFrom the clay to the firing, and the faults along the way.37 wordsC1The visual artsWhat the picture shows, how it was made, and who owned it.47 wordsC1Journalism and researchSource, evidence, right of reply — and when a story does not stand up.42 wordsC2DanceAn art whose works are stored in bodies and nowhere else.30 wordsC2Bookselling and publishingA product with a fixed price and an open return.25 wordsC2Opera and singingScore, pit and voice — the language spoken behind the curtain.26 wordsC2Literary studiesNarrative voice, character speech, motif — tools for reading rather than verdicts.42 wordsC2BookbindingWhat makes a block of paper go on opening for a long time.26 wordsC2Comics and the graphic novelA way of telling a story that happens between the pictures.24 wordsC2Organ buildingAn instrument that is built into a building.52 wordsC2Museum and conservationCollection, condition, loans — the work behind the display case.34 wordsC2Screenwriting and dramatic structureTurning point, conflict, resolution — and the argument about the format.36 wordsC2MuseologyA museum does not collect things, it collects responsibility.25 wordsC2Film editingWhere a cut falls, and why nobody notices it.27 wordsC2Art historyAttribution, provenance, iconography: how a picture is questioned.40 wordsC2Building conservationKeeping the old fabric of a building rather than replacing it with new.34 wordsC2Architecture and building historyStructure, articulation, and what a building says to the street.32 wordsC2Stage technologyWhat hangs above the heads of the audience.20 wordsC2Sound engineeringWhy something sounds good, and what is to blame when it does not.35 wordsC2Music productionFrom the recording to the finished mix.31 wordsC2RestorationA treatment that has to be capable of being undone.25 words

Spread across the levels

The category runs across the levels — it is an area, not a difficulty. If you practise it, you can also choose a level at the top of the practice page and then get only the part that sits there.

LevelWordsShare
B210 %
C136439 %
C256461 %

Practise this category

Multiple choice and gaps, across all 26 lists and all 929 words. Whatever you get wrong comes back tomorrow.