Virtuous English AcademyVisual & Performing Arts — B2 English Vocabulary
This B2 vocabulary list gathers 50 upper-intermediate English words about visual & performing arts — creativity, performance and aesthetics. Every word comes with a simple definition, its British-English pronunciation and a natural example sentence, so you learn each one in real context. When you are ready, open the flashcards to practise and remember them for good.
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Using visual & performing arts words in English
Arts vocabulary contains one genuinely odd plural — still lifes, not still lives — and a set of three near-homophones that even native speakers confuse: palette, palate and pallet. This page also covers applause, which is uncountable however long it lasts, and premiere, which works as both noun and verb.
What to watch out for
The plural of still life is still lifes
Although life normally becomes lives, the compound art term keeps the regular -s: a gallery of still lifes. English does this when a compound has become a fixed term of art rather than a description of living things. The same override explains why brand names and sports teams keep regular plurals that the ordinary noun would not.
Palette, palate, pallet
A palette is the board a painter mixes colours on, and by extension the range of colours in a work: a muted palette. A palate is the roof of your mouth, and by extension your sense of taste: a refined palate. A pallet is the wooden platform goods are stacked on. All three sound alike, and only the first belongs in writing about art.
Applause is uncountable; premiere is also a verb
Say the applause lasted five minutes — no article, no plural, never applauses. Premiere is the first public performance and works as a verb too: The opera premiered in Vienna. Note the word families here: choreography, choreograph and choreographer; improvisation, improvise and the informal improv.
Words learners mix up
Writing about the arts asks three questions the vocabulary answers precisely: who is performing, what a work does to its subject, and what kind of event you attended. Reviewers rely on these distinctions, so a reader notices when they slip.
Who is performing, and how many of them
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| ensemble | A group performing together, and the quality of their playing as a unit. From the French for "together", and it praises coordination rather than individuals. | A chamber ensemble of eleven players. |
| soloist | The one performer the piece is built around, usually against an orchestra. | The soloist entered in the second movement. |
| cast | Everyone performing in a play or film, treated as one body. Takes a singular or plural verb in British English. | The cast took three curtain calls. |
| conductor | The person directing the players. Directs but does not sound — which is why some reviews describe the reading rather than the playing. | The conductor took the finale unusually slowly. |
| virtuoso | A performer of exceptional technical mastery. Noun and adjective, and it is praise for technique specifically. | A virtuoso performance of the Liszt. |
Note what each word is actually complimenting. Calling a performance virtuoso praises technique and quietly says nothing about feeling; praising the ensemble praises the group at the possible expense of any individual. Reviewers use both facts deliberately, and so can you.
Four verbs for showing something
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| depict | To show something in a picture or a description. Neutral, and the most straightforward of the four. | The fresco depicts a harvest. |
| portray | To represent with an interpretation attached — of a person especially, and of a character by an actor. | She portrays the queen as isolated. |
| figurative | Representing recognisable things, as opposed to abstract. A category of art, not a judgement of it. | He returned to figurative painting in the 1970s. |
| evocative | Bringing a feeling or memory to mind. Says nothing about what is shown, only about the effect. | An evocative use of half-light. |
Depict and portray are the pair that trips people. Depicting is showing; portraying is showing as something, which is why a portrayal can be criticised as unfair and a depiction usually cannot. And figurative in art criticism means the opposite of abstract — a different sense from the figurative language of a literature class.
What kind of event, and how long it lasts
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| premiere | The first public performance of a work. One night, and it happens once. | The world premiere was in Oslo. |
| recital | A concert by one performer or a small group, usually of shorter pieces. | A song recital at the Wigmore Hall. |
| encore | An extra piece after the programme has finished, given in response to applause. | They played two encores. |
| retrospective | An exhibition surveying an artist’s whole career. Months, not one evening. | A retrospective of forty years’ work. |
| installation | A work built for and inside a particular space, so it exists only while it stands there. | A sound installation in the old pump house. |
The scale runs from a single unrepeatable evening to a survey of a lifetime, and the words are not interchangeable at any point on it. One trap: encore is the English noun for the extra piece, but the thing an English-speaking audience shouts is more — the French word became a noun in English rather than a cry.
Collocations that sound natural
Arts reviewing has its own set phrases, and they are worth learning whole. Several are slightly odd — you do not make applause, and a show does not simply begin its run.
applause
a round of applauseburst into applausethunderous applauseto rapturous applause
Uncountable, so the counter is a round of. The audience bursts into it, and the fixed adverbial to rapturous applause ends a great many reviews.
premiere
the world premierepremiere at a festivala premiere runpremiered to acclaim
Both noun and verb, and the verb is intransitive: the work premieres, the company does not premiere it. World and UK are the standard qualifiers.
cast
an all-star castcast someone asthe supporting casta change of cast
As a verb it takes as plus the role, and its past tense is also cast. Note that the supporting cast has escaped the theatre entirely and now describes anyone in a secondary role.
curate
curate an exhibitiona carefully curated selectionguest curator
Once only museum work, now used of anything selected with judgement — playlists, menus, feeds. That spread has made it slightly fashionable, so use it in an essay where actual selection is the point.
improvisation
a piece of improvisationcollective improvisationimprovise around a theme
The noun is uncountable in the general sense and countable for one instance. The verb takes on or around plus the material being worked from.
composition
the composition of the paintinga balanced compositionan original composition
Two senses that both appear in arts writing: the arrangement of elements within a work, and a piece of music as a made thing. The visual sense is the one that takes adjectives like balanced or crowded.
Formal, neutral or informal?
Arts vocabulary is thick with words that praise or condemn while pretending to describe. In a review that is the point; in a factual answer, it commits you to an opinion you may not have meant to give.
- avant-gardeFormal · French borrowingRadically experimental, ahead of established taste. Keeps its hyphen and its French pronunciation, works as noun and adjective, and it is period-flavoured — most often used of early twentieth-century movements.
- spectacleAmbivalentA visually impressive display — and, in criticism, a suggestion that the display is all there is. Mere spectacle is a standard dismissal, so the word rarely arrives without some judgement attached.
- ornateDescriptive · often disapprovingHeavily decorated. Neutral of a building or a frame, but applied to prose or music it usually means overdone. The approving word for the same quality is elaborate.
- museLiterary · and now scrutinisedThe person or force inspiring an artist. Elevated and slightly archaic, and modern criticism often puts it in quotation marks, because the role it names historically gave the woman inspiring the work no credit for it.
- patronFormal · historicalSomeone who funds an artist. Note the two other senses that cause confusion: a patron of a restaurant is a customer, and a patron saint is a protector. Modern arts writing often prefers funder or sponsor.
- artisanNeutral · then marketingA skilled maker working by hand. Perfectly serious in a craft context, but so heavily used on packaging that in general prose it now sounds like an advertisement for bread.
- minimalistTechnical or casualStrictly, belonging to the twentieth-century movement that stripped work to essentials. Loosely, it means merely plain or sparse, which is why a design magazine and a music historian mean different things by it.
- vibrantPositive · overworkedBright and full of energy. Genuinely useful about colour, but it has become the default adjective for cities and communities in tourist copy, so in critical writing something more specific almost always earns more.
Sentences to try
Four frames from arts writing. Watch the plurals and the uncountable nouns.
- The exhibition includes six still lifes from her later period.
- The applause continued long after the premiere had ended.
- The choreography was built almost entirely on improvisation.
- She works with a restricted palette and a rough texture.
Questions about visual & performing arts vocabulary
What is the plural of "still life"?
Still lifes, with a regular -s and no change to v. This is an exception to the usual rule that turns life into lives, and it happens because still life is a fixed technical term for a genre of painting rather than a phrase about living things. English behaves this way with several compounds and proper names that have hardened into labels. Note that the term is normally written as two words with no hyphen when used as a noun.
What is the difference between palette, palate and pallet?
A palette is the flat board on which a painter mixes colours, and by extension the range of colours used in a work: a warm palette. A palate is the roof of the mouth, and figuratively the sense of taste: a discerning palate. A pallet is the wooden or plastic platform used to move goods, and also an old word for a straw mattress. They are pronounced identically, so only context and spelling separate them — and only palette belongs in writing about visual art.
Can I say "applauses"?
No. Applause is uncountable, so it takes a singular verb and never a plural: The applause was deafening, a round of applause. To count, use a round of applause or an ovation, both of which are countable. Several other reaction and sound words behave the same way, including laughter, praise, criticism and feedback. The verb applaud is entirely regular and takes a direct object: The audience applauded the soloist.