- Industry: Art history
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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
Readymade is the term used by the French artist Marcel Duchamp to describe works of art he made from manufactured objects. His earliest readymades included Bicycle Wheel of 1913, a wheel mounted on a wooden stool, and In Advance of the Broken Arm of 1915, a snow shovel inscribed with that title. In 1917 in New York, Duchamp made his most notorious readymade, Fountain, a men's urinal signed by the artist with a false name and exhibited placed on its back. Later readymades could be more elaborate and were referred to by Duchamp as assisted readymades. The theory behind the readymade was explained in an article, anonymous but almost certainly by Duchamp himself, in the May 1917 issue of the avant-garde magazine The Blind Man run by Duchamp and two friends: 'Whether Mr Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article of life, and placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view—created a new thought for that object. ' There are three important points here: first, that the choice of object is itself a creative act. Secondly, that by cancelling the 'useful' function of an object it becomes art. Thirdly, that the presentation and addition of a title to the object have given it 'a new thought', a new meaning. Duchamp's readymades also asserted the principle that what is art is defined by the artist. Duchamp was an influential figure in Dada and Surrealism, an important influence on Pop art, environments, assemblage, installation art, Conceptual art and much art of the 1990s such as YBA. (See also Postmodernism. )
Industry:Art history
Until the nineteenth century Western art was dominated by the academic theory of History painting and High art (see also Grand manner). Then, the development of Naturalism began to go hand in hand with increasing emphasis on realism of subject, meaning subjects outside the high art tradition. The term Realism was coined by the French novelist Champfleury in the 1840s and in art was exemplified in the work of his friend the painter Courbet. In practice Realist subject matter meant scenes of peasant and working class life, the life of the city streets, cafes and popular entertainments, and an increasing frankness in the treatment of the body and sexual subjects. The term generally implies a certain grittiness of choice of subject. Such subject matter combined with the new naturalism of treatment caused shock among the predominantly upper and middle class audiences for art. Realism is also applied as a stylistic term to forms of sharply focused almost photographic painting irrespective of subject matter, e. G. Early Pre-Raphaelite work such as Millais' Ophelia. (See also Modern Realism).
Industry:Art history
A relief is a wall-mounted sculpture in which the three-dimensional elements are raised from a flat base. Any three-dimensional element attached to a basically flat wall mounted work of art is said to be in relief or a relief element.
Industry:Art history
An impression made by any method involving transfer from one surface to another.
Industry:Art history
A printing term applied to all individual impressions made before work on a printing plate or block is completed, in order to check progress of the image. Also referred to as 'trial proof' or 'colour trial proof'. This should not be confused with the terms Artist's Proof (AP) and Printer's Proof (PP) which are impressions of the finished print made in addition to the published edition for the artist or printer.
Industry:Art history
