AMICO Editorial Committee: Object Types
As agreed at the AMICO Members Meeting, June 2000
One of the following terms must be used in the Object Type (OTY) field of a an AMICO Catalog record. Other terms that classify the object may be recorded in Classification Term (CLT). Object types will be checked against this list when records are validated. This function has now been implemented for the 2001 AMICO LibraryYear. AMICO will update records from past years. See the discussion on the Editorial Committee list.
- Architecture
- Audio-Video
- Books
- Costume and Jewelry
- Decorative Arts and Utilitarian Objects
- Digital Arts
- Drawings and Watercolors
- Installations
- Mixed Media
- Paintings
- Performance Arts
- Photographs
- Prints
- Sculpture
- Textiles
- Other
Definitions
- Architecture
- Definition
- Structures or parts of structures that were made by human beings. Generally, it refers only to structures that are large enough for human beings to enter, are of practical use, and are relatively stable and permanent. (AAT)
- Includes
- Architectural fragments, models, architectural sculpture, mosaics, stained glass windows, period rooms
- Excludes
- For architectural drawings and plans, use Drawings and Watercolors. For architectural photographs, use Photographs. For furnishings, use Decorative Arts and Utilitarian Objects.
- Audio-Video
- Includes
- Film, videotapes, videodiscs, audio records and tapes, video Installations
- Excludes
- For multimedia and computer-based works, use Digital Arts
- Books
- Definition
- Collections of wood or ivory tablets, or sheets of paper, parchment, or similar material, that are blank, written on, or printed, and are strung or bound together; commonly many folded and bound sheets containing continuous printing or writing; especially, when printed, a bound volume, or a volume of some size. (AAT)
- Includes
- Manuscripts, illuminated manuscripts, books
- Costume and Jewelry
- Definition
- Artifacts worn or carried for warmth, protection, embellishment, or symbolic purposes. (AAT)
- Includes
- Clothing, ceremonial costume, masks, bags, hats, fans, jewelry
- Excludes
- For personal use equipment, such as hand mirrors, combs, brushes, umbrellas, pipes, cigarette holders, and eyeglasses, use Decorative Arts and Utilitarian Objects. For textile fragments that cannot be worn, use Textiles.
- Decorative Arts and Utilitarian Objects
- Definition
- Works that serve utilitarian as well as aesthetic purposes, or involving the decoration and embellishment of utilitarian objects. Includes archaeological and ethnographic objects used for utilitarian purposes, ritual practices, funerary practices.
- Includes
- Furniture, furnishings, musical instruments, figurines, plaques, vessels, ritual objects, funerary objects, tools and implements, coins and stamps, arms and armors.
- Digital Arts
- Definition
- Computer-based art works created and viewed on computer.
- Includes
- CD-ROM, Web art, multimedia.
- Excludes
- Prints or other works created using computerized tools but not requiring a computer for viewing.
- Drawings and Watercolors
- Definition
- Images produced by drawing, which is the application of lines on a surface, often paper, by using a pencil, pen, chalk, or some other tracing instrument. Also includes images produced by the application of watercolor on paper.
- Includes
- Ink drawings, chalk drawings, pastels, watercolors
- Installations
- Definition
- Works, beginning in the 20th century and especially the 1970s, that use their exhibition space as part of their design. (AAT)
- Mixed Media
- Definition
- 20th-century works that merge various art forms or techniques to create new art forms.
- Includes
- Assemblages, collages
- Paintings
- Definition
- Use for unique works in which images are formed primarily by the direct application of pigments suspended in oil, water, egg yolk, molten wax, or other liquid, arranged in masses of color, onto a generally two-dimensional surface. (AAT)
- Excludes
- For watercolors and gouaches, use Drawings and Watercolors.
- Performance Arts
- Definition
- Works of art that unfold over time and that fall, by intention, between theater and object-oriented art. (AAT)
- Includes
- Performances documented by means of videotape, photographs, etc.
- Photographs
- Definition
- Refers to still images produced from radiation-sensitive materials (sensitive to light, electron beams, or nuclear radiation), generally by means of the chemical action of light on a sensitive film, paper, glass, or metal. Photographs may be positive or negative, opaque or transparent. (AAT)
- Includes
- Albumen prints, gelatin silver prints, glass negatives, lantern slides
- Excludes
- For reproductive prints of documents and technical drawings use Prints.
- Prints
- Definition
- Pictorial works produced by transferring images by means of a matrix such as a plate, block, or screen, using any of various printing processes. (AAT)
- Includes
- Engravings, etchings, woodcuts, linocuts, lithographs, serigraphs; plates, blocks and screens used for making a print.
- Excludes
- For photographic prints, use Photographs.
- Sculpture
- Definition
- Works of art in which images and forms are carried out primarily in three dimensions, especially those that retain the quality of being tangible objects or groups of objects. (AAT)
- Includes
- Sculpture, statues, relief sculpture, environmental art
- Excludes
- For installations use Installations. For mixed media works and assemblages, use Mixed Media.
- Textiles
- Definition
- Use collectively for items made of textile materials (AAT)
- Includes
- Tapestries, quilts, lace, carpets, rugs, fabric samples and fragments, embroidery
- Excludes
- For textiles that are worn, use Costume and Jewelry.
- Other
- Definition
- Any object falling outside the previous types
(Mixed Media capitalization fixed). See the previous List of Object Types.
Return to the Editorial Committee Page
Last modified on February 7, 2002
