Abscissa and ordinate is the distance between the projection and the origin of the axis, and whose sign is given by the location on the projection relative to the origin (before: negative; after: positive). Usually these are the horizontal and vertical coordinates of a point in a two-dimensional rectangular Cartesian coordinate system. The terms can also refer to the horizontal and vertical axes respectively (typically "x"-axis and "y"–axis) of a two-dimensional graph. An ordered pair consists of two terms—the abscissa (horizontal, usually "x") and the ordinate (vertical, usually "y")—which define the location of a point in two-dimensional rectangular space. Though the word "abscissa"
What is a Masterpiece? confluence of memories and emotions forming a single idea", that it has "a power of recreating traditional forms so that they become expressive of an artist's own epoch and yet keep a relationship to the past". The highest masterpieces are said to be "illustrations of great themes." Clark also implicitly excluded the erotic from considerations of what constituted a masterpiece, based on his perspective that a necessary condition is the balance between sense and form (works that are too sensual are, therefore, unbalanced and not to be categorised at masterpiece level). What is a Masterpiece? What is a Masterpiece? is