- Industry: Art history
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Blanket term for art that represents some aspect of reality, in a more or less straightforward way. The term seems to have come into use after the rise of modern art and particularly abstract art as a means of referring to art not substantially touched by modern developments. Not quite the same as figurative art which seems to apply to modern art in which the elements of reality, while recognisable, are nevertheless treated in modern ways, as in Expressionism for example. The term figurative also implies a particular focus on the human figure. The term non-representational is frequently used as a synonym for abstract.
Industry:Art history
An organic solid, usually transparent. 'Natural' resins derive from either plants or insects, whereas 'synthetic' resins (e. G. Alkyd and acrylic) are manufactured industrially. They can usually be dissolved in organic solvents to produce a clear solution, although many synthetic resins are produced as dispersions.
Industry:Art history
Following the ten years of the Commonwealth the monarchy in Britain was restored with the accession in 1660 of Charles II, who immediately appointed Lely as his court painter. Lely had served Charles I in his final years, adapted with great success to the austerity of the Commonwealth period, and then smoothly moved back into royal favour at the restoration. Lely's portraits of fashionably popeyed beauties exemplify the licentiousness for which Charles II and his court remain notorious. Wright also significant figure and new subject matter appears in compelling animal paintings of Barlow.
Industry:Art history
From the French retour à l'ordre. A phenomenon of European art in the years following the First World War. The term is said to derive from the book of essays by the artist and poet Jean Cocteau, Le rappel a l'ordre, published in 1926. The First World War administered a huge shock to European society. One of the artistic responses to it was to reject the extreme avant-garde forms of art that had proliferated before the war. Instead, more reassuring and traditional approaches were adopted. The term 'return to order' is used to describe this phenomenon. Cubism with its fragmentation of reality was rejected even by its inventors Braque and Picasso. Futurism, with its worship of the machine and its enthusiasm for war, was particularly discredited. Classicism was an important thread in the return to order, and in the early 1920s Picasso entered a Neo-Classical phase. Braque painted calm still life and figure pictures which, while still having some Cubist characteristics, were simple and readable. The former Fauve painter André Derain and many other artists turned to various forms of realism. In Germany Neue Sachlichkeit can be seen as part of the return to order.
Industry:Art history
Light, sensuous, intensely decorative French style developed early eighteenth century following death of Louis XIV and in reaction to the Baroque grandeur of Versailles. Name comes from French rocaille, rock-work, based on forms of sea shells and corals. In practice style of short curves, scrolls and counter curves, often elaborated with fantasy. In painting, Rococo prettiness, gaiety, curvaceousness and sensuality exemplified in work of Boucher, Fragonard, Watteau and sculpture of Clodion. (Superb examples Rococo art and decoration in Wallace Collection, London; also Victoria and Albert Museum for Clodion). Brought to Britain by Mercier and robust British version in Hogarth, but influence in Britain reached height in the dazzling female portraits of Gainsborough.
Industry:Art history
Term in use by 1812 (e. G. By poet Coleridge) to distinguish new forms of art and literature from classical tradition. Romantic art placed new emphasis on human psychology and expression of personal feeling and on interest in and response to natural world. This complex shift in artistic attitudes at height from about 1780 to 1830 but influence continuing long after. Overall characteristic a new emotionalism in contrast to prevailing ideas of classical restraint. In British art embraced new responses to nature in art of Constable and Turner as well as new approaches to human history, man's place in the cosmos and relationship to God, examined in work of Blake. Other significant painters of history subjects were Fuseli, Barry and Mortimer. Later phases of Romantic movement in Britain embrace Pre-Raphaelites and Symbolism.
Industry:Art history
Paintings of rural life in naturalist manner, but subjects tend to be sentimentalised, distinguishing such art from more gritty Realist work. In Britain exemplified by Newlyn School painting and work of artists such as Clausen, La Thangue and Stott.
Industry:Art history
Originally the name of the official art exhibitions organised by the French Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture (Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture) and its successor the Académie des Beaux Arts (Academy of Fine Arts—see Academy). From 1725 the exhibitions were held in the room called the Salon carré in the Louvre and became known simply as the Salon. This later gave rise to the generic French term of 'salon' for any large mixed art exhibition. By the mid nineteenth century the academies had become highly conservative, and by their monopoly of major exhibitions resisted the rising tide of innovation in Naturalism, Realism, Impressionism and their successors. By about 1860 the number of artists being excluded from the official Salon became so great and such a scandal that in 1863 the government was forced to set up an alternative, to accommodate the refused artists. This became known as the Salon des refusés. Three further Salons des refusés were held in 1874, 1875 and 1886. In 1884 the Salon des Indépendents was established by the Neo-Impressionists, Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, together with Odilon Redon, as an alternative exhibition for innovatory or anti-academic art. It held annual exhibitions until the start of the First World War. In 1903 the Salon d'automne was founded, also as an alternative exhibition for innovatory artists. It was there that Fauvism came to public attention in 1905. The Salon d'automne continues to be held in Paris every year. From then salon became a generic French term for a large mixed exhibition.
Industry:Art history
In its most basic form sampling simply re-processes existing culture, usually technologically, in much the same way a collage does. In the early 1980s artists began cannibalising fragments of sound, image, music, dance and performance to create new works of art. These hybrid projects used sampling to generate live or time-based events that subverted our notions of time, space, artist and audience, virtual and actual. In the past two decades this DIY punk aesthetic has come to represent a radical challenge to the notions of authorship, originality and intellectual property, while creating new narratives and refreshing the cultural archive. Artists like Christian Marclay and Candice Breitz manipulate film and music, remixing familiar footage into epic narratives.
Industry:Art history
Avant-garde art school (Academia Altamira) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, founded in 1946 by the Argentinian born Italian artist Lucio Fontana and others. Its aim was to promote the idea that a new art was necessary to reflect the modern world as revealed by science. In practice this art was abstract. Also in 1946 Fontana and a group of his students published the Manifiesto Blanco (white manifesto) setting out their ideas. Strongly influenced by Futurism, it called for an art that was a synthesis of colour, sound, movement, time and space. Among Fontana's pupils at the Altamira Academy was the Brazilian artist Sergio de Camargo. In 1947 Fontana returned to Italy.
Industry:Art history
