The middle panel of the Annunciation Triptych by the Workshop of Robert Campin depicts an angel telling the Virgin Mary that she will give birth to the Christ child. The Annunciation was an extremely common subject of medieval European art due both to its obvious important to Christian faith and its ease of communication to parishioners who were not able to read. Campin's piece is littered with extra significance, including the Old and New Testaments to demonstrate the believed fulfillment of prophecies that the birth of Christ brought.

Image is in the public domain, accessed through Wikipedia Media Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robert\_Campin\_-\_Triptych\_with\_the\_Annunciation,\_known\_as\_the\_%22Merode\_Altarpiece%22\_-\_Google\_Art\_Project.jpg

A triptych, from Greek words meaning "three fold," was often placed at the altar of medieval and early modern European churches. The paintings allowed for three separate scenes to be shown in one place, which allowed both the artist to depict three related topics and show the viewer a larger scene than one panel would allow. Triptychs were largely used for religious topics in the middle ages, but have remained a popular style up to the present day.

A "golden age" typically refers to a time of great prosperity and wealth. The Dutch Golden Age was a time of both great prosperity for the newly independent Dutch Republic, but also a time of great creativity. Although the Dutch Golden Age occurred during the Baroque period and shares many of its characteristics, there are subtle differences, such as the realism and simplicity that marks Dutch paintings. For an example of these features, see The Milkmaid by Johannes Vermeer.

Sfumato was a High Renaissance lighting technique used by artists like Leonardo da Vinci to produce distance between the viewer and the subject of a painting. Chiaroscuro refers to the transition between light to dark in a Renaissance painting. Tenebrism is the Baroque-era contrast between shadows and light that was used by artists like Caravaggio. Ignudi is the Italian term for nude figures in Renaissance art.

"Chiaroscuro" refers to a technique that makes two-dimensional shapes seem three-dimensional. Artists do this by simulating light and shadow. It is a technique commonly employed by Renaissance and Baroque artists, but less commonly seen in the Pop Art that Warhol specialized in.

Lapis Lazuli is the stone used to produce Ultramarine; it is found in Afghanistan. Though Azurite yields a similar blue, it is not found in Afghanistan and it lacks certain chemical and physical properties of Ultramarine when ground.

A donor portrait is a portrait within a larger painting of the person who commissioned it. Donor portraits are especially common in the art of the Renaissance, particularly in religious painting. The purposes of the donor portrait was to memorialize the person who commissioned the work of art, particularly to solicit prayers for them after their death.

Commedia dell’arte was a genre of theater in which actors playing well-known stock characters improvised dialogue within simple narratives. It gained popularity throughout Europe after originating in fifteenth-century Italy.

Mannerism was essentially the second wave of Renaissance painting, being most prevalent in the second half of the sixteenth century. Mannerism took many of the Renaissance values of clarity and formal achievement and pushed them even further. In the works of artists such as Tintoretto, El Greco, and Giambologna created highly stylized, formal works that were paragons of mannerism.

Tempera is the only medium listed that uses the combination of egg and pigment. Though oil paintings became characteristic of the later Italian Renaissance, tempera was used initially due to its low cost.