The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (93 page)

 
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cartoon
.

A full-size drawing made for the purpose of transferring a design to a painting or tapestry or other (usually large) work. Cartoons were an essential part of the process of making stained glass, and it was perhaps from this art that painters borrowed the idea; they were used in painting certainly by the early 15th cent. The design was transferred either by pressing heavily along the outlines with a pointed metal implement called a stylus or by rubbing powdered charcoal through a series of pinpricks—a process called
pouncing
. In the 19th cent. designs submitted in a competition for frescos in the Houses of Parliament in London were parodied in the magazine
Punch
. From this the word has acquired its most common meaning today—a humorous drawing or parody.

 
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caryatid
.

A carved female figure, usually clad in long robes, serving as a column. They were first used in Greek architecture and the most famous caryatids are on the Erechtheum at Athens (
c.
421–406 BC). The male equivalent of the caryatid is the
atlas
; the term ‘canephorae’ is applied to caryatids with baskets on their heads.

 
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casein
.

A substance with strong adhesive powers made from the curd of milk, used in art as a binding material for paints and
grounds
and as a glue for joining parts of a wooden
panel
together.

 
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(1844–1926).
American painter and printmaker who worked mostly in Paris in the circle of the
Impressionists
. Persuaded to exhibit with the Impressionists by
Degas
, for whom she had a great admiration, she nevertheless retained the extremely personal character of her art and her affinities with them lay less in technique than in an interest in everyday subject-matter. Paintings such as
Lady at the Tea Table
(Met. Mus., New York, 1885) evoke with a delicate beauty the elaborate refinement of the society described by the novelist Henry James . Her draughtsmanship was outstanding and she was as skilful with pastel and the tools of printmaking as she was with oils. Her prints, in which she often combined etching and
drypoint
, show the influence of Japanese art (see
UKIYO-E
). Cassatt's eyesight began to fail when she was in her fifties and she had virtually stopped working by 1914. She came from a wealthy family and exercised an important influence on American taste by urging her rich friends to buy Impressionist works.

 
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cassone
.

Italian term for a large chest which contained the bride's dowry or was given as a wedding present. Decorated
cassoni
became the fashion in
Renaissance
Italy, and
quattrocento
Florence saw the development of the painted
cassone
front. These paintings usually represented episodes from the Bible or classical history or mythology which pointed a lesson or contained a happy augury for the newly-weds. Often the
cassoni
were made as pairs, bearing the coats of arms respectively of the bride and groom, as with a pair, dated 1472, in the Courtauld Institute Galleries, London (this pair is particularly noteworthy in retaining the original backboards—
spallieri
).
Cassone
paintings are rarely of high quality, although some major artists such as
Domenico Veneziano
,
Uccello
, and
Botticelli
seem to have done them once in a while. The chief documented exponent was Apollonio di Giovanni (1415–65).

 
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