- Industry: Art history
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A copy of a work of art that is virtually indistinguishable from the original. Unlike a fake, a replica is not trying to pass for the original and is often made by the artist and used for historical and educational purposes. The vogue for collecting replicas reached the height of popularity in the mid to late nineteenth century when few people could afford to travel on the Continent, so museums acquired reproductions of important monuments and works of art to complement their collections. Replicas in modern art are made as a result of original works of art decaying or being lost. Marcel Duchamp's Fountain, the most famous of the artist's readymade sculptures, was replicated in collaboration with Duchamp from a photograph of the lost original. Tate holds the largest collection of plastic sculptures by Naum Gabo, but despite controlled storage conditions, many of these works are cracking and warping. Computer software will be used to help virtually restore the sculpture models, so that replicas can be made of the originals.
Industry:Art history
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
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
Group of British artists founded in 1975 around Pop artist Peter Blake, after his move from London to the countryside near Bath. The full name was The Brotherhood of Ruralists and this, combined with the original number of seven members, gives a conscious echo of the nineteenth-century Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which the Ruralists deeply admired. The members of the group were, in addition to Blake, Ann Arnold, Graham Arnold, Jann Haworth (Blake's then wife), David Inshaw, Annie Ovenden and Graham Ovenden. The ruralists aimed to revive and update the vein of imaginative painting of romantic figure subjects in idyllic rural settings, in a style of high precision realism, found in the early work of the Pre-Raphaelites. The painting Ophelia by John Everett Millais was a talismanic example. They also looked to the earlier visionary landscapes of Samuel Palmer and the Ancients. The children's book Alice In Wonderland and its illustrations by John Tenniel and Arthur Rackham were another source of inspiration. Blake, Hayworth and Inshaw left the group in the early 1980s but it continues with the Arnolds and Ovendens.
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
A variety of stencil printing, using a screen made from fabric (silk or synthetic) stretched tightly over a frame. The non-printing areas on the fabric are blocked out by a stencil which can be created by painting on glue or lacquer, by applying adhesive film or paper, or painting a light-sensitive resist onto the screen which is then developed as a photograph (photo-screenprint). Ink or paint is forced through the open fabric with a rubber blade, known as a squeegee, onto the paper. Screenprinting has been used commercially since the 1920s and by artists since the 1950s. When it was taken up by artists in 1930s America the term 'serigraph' was used to denote an artist's print, as opposed to commercial work. The term 'silkscreen' (silk was originally used for the mesh) was and still is used, particularly in America.
Industry:Art history
