Museum and art glossary
Quick answer
World Museum Guide’s glossary defines 35 terms you will meet when planning a visit or reading a label, in plain English: ticket and access terms, painting techniques, art movements and how museums look after their collections. Where we have a guide to a work that shows the term, the definition links to it.
Visiting a museum
- Timed-entry ticket
- A ticket for a set date and entry slot. Popular museums use them to limit crowds; you can usually stay as long as you like once inside.
- Last admission
- The latest time visitors are let in, often 30 to 60 minutes before closing. Each museum guide lists both times where the museum publishes them.
- Free day
- A recurring day or evening when entry is free for everyone or for residents, such as the first Sunday of the month at some European state museums. Free days calendar
- Free admission
- Entry to the permanent collection costs nothing on any day. Temporary exhibitions in free museums often still charge. Free museums
- Concession
- A reduced ticket price for groups such as students, older visitors, children or disabled visitors and their companions. Most museums ask for proof.
- Museum pass
- One card that covers entry to several museums in a city or country for a set period, such as the Paris Museum Pass. It pays off only if you visit enough museums.
- Permanent collection
- The works a museum owns and normally keeps on display. Rooms can still close for rehanging or loans.
- Temporary exhibition
- A show that runs for a limited period, often with loans from other museums and a separate ticket.
- Audio guide
- A recorded tour played on a handset or your phone, usually rented at the entrance or downloaded from the museum’s app.
- Cloakroom
- Where you leave coats and bags. Many large museums do not allow big bags or backpacks in the galleries.
Materials and techniques
- Fresco
- Painting on wet lime plaster, so the pigment binds into the wall as it dries. Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling is fresco. The Creation of Adam
- Secco
- Painting on dry plaster. Leonardo’s The Last Supper is often called a fresco, but he painted it on a dry wall, one reason it began to flake within decades. The Last Supper
- Tempera
- Paint made by mixing pigment with a binder such as egg yolk. It dries fast and was the main panel medium in Europe before oil. The Birth of Venus
- Oil paint
- Pigment bound in a drying oil such as linseed. It dries slowly, so painters can blend colours and build up thin glazes. Mona Lisa
- Sfumato
- Leonardo da Vinci’s way of softening outlines and transitions into smoky gradations, seen in the Mona Lisa’s face. Mona Lisa
- Chiaroscuro
- Strong contrast between light and dark to model forms and focus attention, as in Rembrandt’s The Night Watch. The Night Watch
- Triptych
- A work in three panels, usually hinged so the side panels fold over the centre. The Garden of Earthly Delights
- Woodblock print
- A print made by carving an image into a block of wood, inking it and pressing paper onto it, with one block per colour. The Great Wave
- Gold leaf
- Gold beaten into very thin sheets and laid onto a surface, used in medieval altarpieces and in Klimt’s golden-phase paintings. The Kiss
Periods and movements
- Hellenistic
- Greek art from about 323 to 31 BC, after Alexander the Great, known for movement and emotion. The Venus de Milo is Hellenistic. Venus de Milo
- Renaissance
- The revival of classical art and learning in Europe from about the 14th to the 16th century, starting in Italy. The School of Athens
- Baroque
- A 17th-century style of drama, movement and strong light, from Caravaggio to Velázquez. Las Meninas
- Romanticism
- A movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries that valued emotion, nature and the sublime over classical order. Wanderer above the Sea of Fog
- Impressionism
- A movement that began in Paris in the 1860s and 1870s, painting light and everyday life with visible brushstrokes. It took its name from Monet’s Impression, Sunrise. Impression, Sunrise
- Pointillism
- Painting in small dots of pure colour that blend in the viewer’s eye, developed by Georges Seurat. A Sunday on La Grande Jatte
- Post-Impressionism
- Work by artists such as Van Gogh, Cézanne and Gauguin who built on Impressionism but used colour and form more freely and expressively. The Starry Night
- Expressionism
- Art that distorts form and colour to convey feeling rather than appearance. Munch’s The Scream is one of its forerunners. The Scream
- Cubism
- A style developed by Picasso and Braque from about 1907 that shows objects from several viewpoints at once in broken, geometric planes. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
- Surrealism
- A movement founded in the 1920s that drew on dreams and the unconscious, as in Dalí’s melting clocks. The Persistence of Memory
- Ukiyo-e
- Japanese woodblock prints and paintings of the “floating world” (actors, landscapes, city life) from the 17th to the 19th century. The Great Wave
How museums work
- Provenance
- The documented history of who has owned a work. Museums research it to confirm authenticity and legal title, including gaps during the Nazi era.
- Restitution
- Returning a work or object to the people, family or country it was taken from.
- Conservation
- The work of examining, stabilising and caring for objects so they last. It aims to change as little as possible, unlike older restoration.
- Loan
- A work lent by one museum or collector to another for a period, often for a temporary exhibition. A famous work may be away when you visit.
- Old Master
- A skilled European painter working before about 1800, or a painting by one.
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Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between fresco and secco?
Fresco is painted onto wet lime plaster, so the colour becomes part of the wall. Secco is painted onto dry plaster and flakes more easily. Leonardo’s The Last Supper is secco, which is one reason it has needed so much conservation.
Do free museums charge for anything?
Often, yes. Many museums with free entry to the permanent collection charge for temporary exhibitions, audio guides and some events. Each museum guide shows what is free and what is not.
Is a museum pass worth it?
Only if you will visit enough museums in its validity period to beat the cost of single tickets. Check that the museums you want are included and whether the pass still needs a timed-entry booking.