Painting, anyone? This week we present words from the world of art.

putto (plural putti) – a representation of a naked child, especially a cherub or a cupid

Live models were drawn from every quarter of Florence…: scholars in black velvet; soldiers with bullnecks …; the wool dyers with stained arms; … plump house servants; … chubby children to serve as models for putti.
– Irving Stone, The Agony and the Ecstasy: A Biographical Novel of Michelangelo

abbozzo – a rough, preliminary sketch (not necessarily pictorial; could be a sketch of an opera)

An interesting thought in today's quotation.

… there were those in the sixteenth century who saw a relationship between unfinished works and archaic works. The crude and rough images of the earliest times, it was believed, were slowly brought to refinement by history, just as the artist brings a sketch (abbozzo) to perfection in the finished work.
– Alexander Nagel, Michelangelo and the Reform of Art

Lest you think all art words are Italian, here's one from the Dutch for "paint stick".

maulstick; mahlstick – a light stick on which a painter supports and steadies his brush hand, for detail work, without resting the hand on wet paint

See here. One end of the stick is placed on a dried part of the painting. It is typically leather-covered so as not to scratch the paint.

What is your Little Billee, with his stinking oil-bladders, sitting mum in his corner, his mahlstick and his palette in one hand …
– George Du Maurier, Trilby (translation)

chiaroscuro – the interplay of light and shade in drawing and painting; a work stressing that interplay
[Italian chiaro ‘clear, bright’ + oscuro ‘dark, obscure’]

Our second quote is a stunning example of using the term figuratively, for another complex combinations of contrasting elements.

… when …the power failed, hurricane lamps were produced, and the classroom became a chiaroscuro study of long shadows and illuminated faces.
– George Packer, The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq

Matthews maintained that he had been incarcerated because of a government conspiracy to silence him. … there was truth in his accusation. Negotiating his way through Matthews' swirling chiaroscuro of sanity and madness, [biographer] Jay reveals that while the Air Loom was an extravagant delusion, Matthews actually had been working on a secret British government mission to secure peace with France.
– Spectator, Jun 28, 2003

Here's a word that's too new to be in most dictionaries but has over 5 million google hits.

glicée – a high-quality copy of a painting, etc., made by digital scanning and ink-jet printing onto canvas or archival paper [French glicer to spray or squirt]

Images are reproduced using the Giclée (pronounced jhee-clay) method, which is known for its high standard of colour accuracy.
– NewswireToday, Sussex, United Kingdom, Sept. 1, 2006

a process called “giclée,” in which high-resolution digital scans are printed with archival quality inks for better color accuracy.
– Nashville Scene, Aug. 9, 2006

The glicée process yields high color accuracy and is often less costly than lithography, serigraphy or serilith.

lithography – printing with a plate whose areas are chemically treated to retain or repel ink
serigraphy – silk-screening: ink forced through silk mesh, parts of which have been impermeably coated

Two words today.

stipple – to paint, etc. in dots or short strokes (or otherwise produce that flecked or speckled effect: a field stippled with purple weeds – Flannery O'Connor) [noun: the technique, or the effect produced]

She … looked across the room, lit only by a stipple of moonlight through lace curtains.
– Alan Brennert, Moloka'i

contrapposto – the position with hips and legs turned somewhat in a different direction from the shoulders and head; typically most of the weight is on one foot

… the loose-hipped contrapposto favored by the models who appear in Obsession ads.
– Daniel Mendelsohn, The Elusive Embrace

He was standing casually at the door, contrapposto, looking directly at the spy-hole, as if he knew she was there looking out at him.
– Denise Mina, Garnethill: A Novel of Crime

quote:

glicée – a high-quality copy of a painting, etc., made by digital scanning and ink-jet printing onto canvas or archival paper [French glicer to spray or squirt]

I am in the process of purchasing some giclees from a woman who grew up near my library and is now a children's book illustrator. Very cool. Wish we'd had this word a few months ago so I wouldn't have had to say "what is a giclee?"