My Favourite Terms From An Art History Glossary

'Aesthetic - originates from the Greek term aesthetics - what is perceived through the senses. From its origin arose a concern with how we respond to what we see. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, aesthetics concerned ideas of beauty and claims to judgements of taste. In the later part of the nineteenth century, aestheticism was a movement which attempted to situate art outside of context or history. More recently the word aesthetic is often used to refer to an artist's overall practice or style, ie. 'Picasso's aesthetic'. ' 

Aesthetic is crisp off the tongue and sounds medicinal like it belongs in a jar on the shelf of a French pharmacy.

'Grand Tour - an eighteenth century custom and rite of passage whereby the wealthy travelled to centres of classical culture, especially Rome and Naples, in order to complete their social, moral and aesthetic education. The more intrepid travelled on to Sicily and Greece.'

A Grand Tour is such a privilege yet charming none the less. Life itself is the greatest Grand Tour of them all surely.

'Hegemonic, hegemony - initially associated with the ideas of the Italian Marxist Antonia Gramsci, meaning power or control; typically used to suggest the (fluid) power dynamic between competing groups, classes and interests.'

She gyrated her hips and curled her lips in the most hegemonic of fashions!

'Jouissance - French word for orgasm (from the verb jouir, to come), originally used by Lacan in psychoanalytic theory to characterise an unbearable suffering which can also give an extreme pleasure, as in orgasm. The term jouissance is linked by the poststructuralist feminists Cixous and Irigaray to an essential feminine.'

Only the French could have such a juicy onomatopoeic word for life's delight - arrgh

'Kitsch - a German word used to refer to art and cultural objects judged to be in poor or bad taste.'

Phlegm into the spittoon. Just had to be a German word - to the point, sharp and comedic. The Germanic efficiency shines through as brightly as a kitsch Christmas decoration.

'id - the unconscious mind as understood by Freud; the origin and reservoir of human impulses.'

'Oeuvre - a French word used to describe the collective work of an artist or workshop.'

'Pastiche - describes an image, composition or installation which is made up from other sources; the deliberate adoption of a style which is that of another artist or period.'

The house was decorated in a pastiche of Asian styles.

'Romanticism - used to collectively refer to the artistic, literary and philosophical phenomena of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries which emphasised new aspects to human subjectivity, liberation of the emotions, and the cult of nature and imagination. Latterly the cohesiveness of the artistic activities it encompassed has been questioned.'

'Simulacrum, simulacra - an image or semblance derived from an original object or image; used by Baudrillard to describe copies which are increasingly detached from the original source.'

Sounds like a medical procedure which helps me remember its meaning. The simulacrum was successfully removed.

'Zeitgeist - literally in German, means 'spirit of the times' or more colloquially, the character of a period or moment.'