- Industry: Art history
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The collective name given for a number of North American landscape painters active between the 1820s and 1870s who depicted scenes of natural beauty in areas that included the Hudson River Valley and the Catskill Mountains. Prominent artists associated with the school include Thomas Cole and Frederic Edwin Church. (See also Luminism)
Industry:Art history
Term that appeared in the early 1970s to describe a resurgence of particularly high fidelity realism in sculpture and painting at that time. Also called Super-Realism, and in painting is synonymous with Photo-Realism. In sculpture the outstanding practitioner was Duane Hanson, together with John de Andrea. More recently the work of Ron Mueck and some of that of Robert Gober could be seen as Hyper-Realist. Leading painters were Chuck Close, Robert Bechtle, Richard Estes, Audrey Flack, Ralph Goings.
Industry:Art history
The iconography of a painting is the imagery in it. The term comes from the Greek word ikon meaning image. An icon was originally a picture of Christ on a panel used as an object of devotion in the orthodox Greek Church from at least the seventh century on. Hence the term icon has come to be attached to any object or image that is outstanding or has a special meaning attached to it. An iconography is a particular range or system of types of image used by an artist or artists to convey particular meanings. For example in Christian religious painting there is an iconography of images such as the lamb which represents Christ, or the dove which represents the Holy Spirit. In the iconography of classical myth however, the presence of a dove would suggest that any woman also present would be the goddess Aphrodite or Venus, so the meanings of particular images can depend on context. In the eighteenth century William Blake invented a complex personal iconography to illustrate his vision of man and God, and much scholarship has been devoted to interpreting it. In the twentieth century the iconography of Picasso's work is mostly autobiographical, while Joseph Beuys developed an iconography of substances such as felt, fat and honey, to express his ideas about life and society. Iconography (or iconology) is also the academic discipline of the study of images in art and their meanings.
Industry:Art history
In Baroque art refers particularly to decorative schemes in buildings, especially ceiling paintings, in which the artist uses perspective and foreshortening to create, for example, the illusion that the ceiling is open sky populated by groups of figures such as saints, angels or whatever. Such effects are also sometimes referred to as trompe l'oeil, a French phrase meaning deceives the eye. More generally illusionism can refer to any painting which strives to achieve a high degree of mimesis, meaning imitation of reality. High levels of illusionism are typically found in seventeenth-century still life paintings. If the artist chooses subject matter that particularly lends itself to reproduction in paint on canvas (i. E. Is basically flat) the results can be exceptionally effective. An example is Edward Collier's A Trompe l'Oeil of Newspapers, Letters and Writing Implements on a Wooden Board. In modern art theory illusionism has been frowned upon on the grounds that it denies the basic truth of the flatness of the canvas. However, Surrealist artists such as Salvador Dalí and René Magritte have used it to great effect to evoke the alternative world of the unconscious mind.
Industry:Art history
New way of painting landscape and scenes of everyday life developed in France by Monet and others from early 1860s. Based on practice of painting finished pictures out of doors, as opposed to simply making sketches (actually pioneered in Britain by Constable around 1813-17). Result was greater awareness of light and colour and the shifting pattern of the natural scene. Brushwork became rapid and broken into separate dabs to render these effects. First group exhibition Paris 1874 greeted with derision, Monet's Impression, Sunrise being particularly singled out and giving its name to the movement. Seven further exhibitions held at intervals to 1886. Other core artists, Camille Pissarro, Renoir, plus Degas and Manet in slightly tangential relationship. Second generation of Post-Impressionism.
Industry:Art history
A radical group of young artists within the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London. The Independent Group, or IG, was first convened in the winter of 1952-3 and then again in 1953-4. It was responsible for the formulation, discussion and dissemination of many of the basic ideas of British Pop art and of much other new British art in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Leading artists involved were Richard Hamilton, Nigel Henderson, John McHale, Eduardo Paolozzi and William Turnbull. The IG also included the critics Lawrence Alloway and Rayner Banham, and the architects Colin St John Wilson, and Alison and Peter Smithson (see Brutalism). In 1953 the IG staged the exhibition Parallel of Art and Life and in 1956 the ground-breaking This is Tomorrow. This exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in London was an expression of the IG's pioneering interest in popular and commercial culture. As Alloway put it: 'movies, science fiction, advertising, Pop music. We felt none of the dislike of commercial culture standard among most intellectuals, but accepted it as fact, discussed it in detail, and consumed it enthusiastically'. This is Tomorrow consisted of a series of environments, and a juke box played continuously.
Industry:Art history
Sometimes known as the New Negro Movement, the Harlem Renaissance was the flowering of black art, literature and music in the United States and in particular, Harlem, New York, in the 1920s. Its predominant idea was that through the production of art, literature and music, the 'New Negro' could challenge the pervading racism and stereotyping of the white community and therefore promote racial integration. Artists associated with the movement include Aaron Douglas and Lois Mailon Jones.
Industry:Art history
A printing process based on the antipathy of grease and water. The image is applied to a grained surface (traditionally stone but now usually aluminium) using a greasy medium: greasy ink (tusche), crayon, pencils, lacquer, or synthetic materials. Photochemical or transfer processes can be used. A solution of gum arabic and nitric acid is then applied over the surface, producing water-receptive non-printing areas and grease-receptive image areas. The printing surface is kept wet, so that a roller charged with oil-based ink can be rolled over the surface, and ink will only stick to the grease-receptive image area. Paper is then placed against the surface and the plate is run through a press. Lithography was invented in the late eighteenth century, initially using Bavarian limestone as the printing surface. Its invention made it possible to print a much wider range of marks and areas of tone than possible with earlier printmaking techniques. It also made colour printing easier: areas of different colours can be applied to separate stones and overprinted onto the same sheet. Offset lithography involves printing the image onto an intermediate surface before the final sheet. The image is reversed twice, and appears on the final sheet the same way round as on the stone or plate.
Industry:Art history
Mainly refers to Performance art and Action art and their immediate precursor Happenings, together with the developments of Performance since the 1960s. In 1999 the publicly funded Live Art Development Agency was founded in London, UK, to promote and co-ordinate activity in this field. Live art may also refer to art using living animals or plants. A major practitioner of this has been the Arte Povera artist Jannis Kounellis.
Industry:Art history
In 1913 took over from the Camden Town group the function of organising modern art exhibitions in Britain. Its stated aim was 'to advance public awareness of contemporary visual art by holding exhibitions annually'. Its first president was Harold Gilman, one of the leading Camden Town painters. As an exhibiting society the London Group was specifically in opposition to the conservatism of the Royal Academy. It was also in opposition to the New English Art Club which, once avant-garde, had become conservative. Its strength was that it embraced the whole spectrum of modern art in Britain at the time, spanning Camden Town, Bloomsbury and Vorticism. The first exhibition was held in 1914 at the Goupil Gallery in London. This and the next few exhibitions included some of the icons of modern British art of the time. Among these was Bomberg's In the Hold, Epstein's Rock Drill and Gertler's anti-war painting The Merry-Go-Round. The London Group flourished in the 1920s, when the Bloomsbury painter and critic Roger Fry played a prominent role, maintaining its support for the principles of modern French art. From about 1930 it gradually lost its pre-eminence as the showcase for modern art in Britain, but the Group still exists and holds exhibitions.
Industry:Art history
