B. W. S. 
British Watercolor Society

Barbizon school
A group of French naturalist painters who lived in the village of Barbizon on the outskirts of the Forest of Fontainebleau from the 1830s on. Most were landscape painters, committed to portraying nature as a worthwhile subject in its own right. They
are also considered the first "plein-air" painters, those who painted directly in nature rather than completing their scenes in studios from sketches. Chief among them were Frenchmen Camille Corot, Francois Millet, Theodore Rousseau, and Charles Daubigny and American William Morris Hunt. Their approach presaged Impressionism. 

Baroque*
A theatrical style usually associated with European art and architecture ca. 1550-1750, characterized by much ornamentation and curved rather than straight lines; gaudily ornate. 

Bas Relief*
Sculpture in which figures project only slightly from a background, as on a coin. Also known as low relief sculpture.

Batik
Batik is a technique of producing designs on fabric through a series of wax treatments and dyes. The process originated thousands of years ago, likely in China. The Javanese of Indonesia advanced the skill and produced richly colored textiles. The 
batik process begins with a design sketched on fabric, usually silk. The artist has to visualize the finished piece from a negative image, because light and dark areas are reversed during the process. A wax resist is applied to the lighter areas, and then the  fabric is immersed in dye with the wax areas repelling the dye. The process continues with colors dyed on top of each other, often seeping through cracked places in the wax. When the work is finished the artist removes the wax by ironing the fabric between absorbent layers of cloth. Usually the pieces are mounted on a backing and displayed under glass to protect the colors.

Bauhaus*
A design school founded by Walter Gropius in 1919, in Germany. The Bauhaus attempted to achieve reconciliation between the aesthetics of design and the more commercial demands of industrial mass production. Artists include Klee, Kandinsky,
and Feininger.

Bay Area Figurative
A style of art or painting that started in the 1940s in the San Francisco Bay Area and lasted until the mid 1960s. It was a reaction to the Abstract Expressionism that was starting in New York. San Francisco was the second most influential art center, behind New York, after World War II. A few of the painters who were familiar with work going on in New York were teaching in the bay area and introduced the Abstract Expressionist style. Artists of the Bay Area altered this approach by going back to nature and included a more figurative imagery. The images were very abstract and painted with much expressionist style, but with a rejection of total abstraction. Painters known for this style include Richard Dieberkorn and David Park.

Beautiful
A type of landscape, as defined by 19th century theoreticians and passed on by Thomas Cole. . .smooth, benign scenes such as bucolic countryside with grazing cattle � bathed in sunlight. Serene and classically proportioned.

Beaux-Arts*
A school of fine arts located in Paris, which stressed the necessity of academic painting. French term for the �high arts�

Bibelot
A decorative or rare object of art, notably small.

Binder
The substance mixed with pigment to make paint adhere to a surface: oil for oil paints, gum Arabic for watercolor, etc. Sometimes wrongly called binding.

Bleed
(1) To allow a wash of watercolor or other thin medium to run into and combine with another area of color. (2) To make artwork, that is to be reproduced by printing, larger than the final page size so that, when the page is trimmed, there is no margin.

Bleeding through
The gradual visibility of under layers of paint, caused when oil-based pigments of the upper layers become transparent with the passage of time.

Blisters
These appear on oil painting when dampness attacks the back of the canvas or when the pigment adheres incompletely because of dampness, oiliness, or non-absorbency.

Bloom
An oil painting that has been improperly varnished or stored may develop a 'bloom' or film on the surface. This first appears as an opaque blue tinge, which turns white, yellow, and eventually black as the condition (sometimes known as a 'chill') advances.

Body colors
Pigments which possess "body," or opacity, in contrast to transparent pigments.

Bohemian Club
Not to be confused with the Bohemian Sketch Club of New York, the Bohemian Club is a private men�s club in San Francisco, established in 1872. Its early members included architects, designers, journalists, artists, vintners, writers, actors, and businessmen. The club has gone on to claim a veritable �who�s who� of American art. Some notable members (artists and others) are Thomas Hill, Jules Tavernier, William Keith, Jules Pages, Maurice Logan, John Gamble, Maynard Dixon, Ralph Borge, Haig Patigian, William Gaw, Millard Sheets, Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, Jack London, Arpad Harazthy, and many others who are significant in their respective fields.

Bohemianism 
A way of life with roots from the Bohemian region of Czechoslovakia. In the 19th century, an alternative lifestyle of the avant-garde, characterized by anti-intellectual philosophies and anti-bourgeois.

Bottega
Italian term meaning workshop or studio.

Brindled
The effects of a darker color on a work, usually spotted or streaked
.
Broadmoor Academy
Flourishing in Colorado Springs from 1919 through the late 1940s, the Broadmoor Academy was an important cultural center in the Rocky Mountain West. Influences on the Academy were felt from the neighboring Taos and Santa Fe art centers as well as from eastern artists who came West to teach. John Fabian Carlson was the Center's first director and also taught landscape painting. Other prominent artists associated with the Academy were Birger Sandzen, Robert Reid, Ernest Lawson, and Boardman Robinson.

Bronze*
An alloy of copper and tin, sometimes containing small proportions of other elements such as zinc or phosphorus. It is stronger, harder, and more durable than brass, and has been used most extensively since antiquity for cast sculpture. Bronze alloys vary in color from a silvery hue to a rich, coppery red. U.S. standard bronze is composed of 90% copper, 7% tin, and 3% zinc.

Brown
The combination of all three primary colors (red, blue, yellow) in unequal proportions, dominated by red. Brown paints readily available from the artists' color menu are: Brown Madder; Brown Ochre; Brown Pink; Burnt Sienna; Burnt Umber; Madder Brown; Mars Brown; Raw Sienna; Raw Umber; Rowney Transparent Brown; Sepia and Vandyke Brown.

Brushwork*
The characteristic way each artist brushes paint onto a support.

Burnishing*
The act of rubbing greenware (clay) with any smooth tool to polish it, and tighten the surface.

Buy-In
A lot that was not sold at an auction, not achieving the preset minimum set by the auction house and/or the consignor.