- Industry: Art history
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Until the early nineteenth century both landscape and the human figure in art tended to be idealised or stylised according to conventions derived from the classical tradition. Naturalism was the broad movement to represent things closer to the way we see them. In Britain pioneered by Constable who famously said 'there is room enough for a natural painture' (type of painting). Naturalism became one of the major trends of the century and combined with realism of subject led to Impressionism and modern art. Naturalism often associated with Plein air practice.
Industry:Art history
Group of German artists founded 1809 by Overbeck and Pforr, later joined by Cornelius. Originally called Brotherhood of St Luke (patron saint of artists) but came to be known as Nazarenes (ie inhabitants of Nazareth, Christ's home town) because of their religious devotion. Aim was to regenerate German painting by returning to purity of early Renaissance, meaning effectively art before Raphael. Known in England to Dyce and Ford Madox Brown who both reflected their ideas, the Nazarenes were part of the inspiration for the English Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood formed in 1848.
Industry:Art history
Term applied to particularly pure form of classicism that emerged from about 1750 following discovery of Roman ruins of Pompeii and publication 1764 of highly influential history of ancient art by German scholar Winckelmann. In Britain found in paintings by Reynolds, West and Barry and in sculpture and especially illustrations to Homer's Odyssey, of Flaxman. Important in architecture, particularly in Scotland (Alexander 'Greek' Thomson) but also for example St George's Hall, Liverpool; Euston Arch (demolished), British Museum, in London.
Industry:Art history
The Neo-Concrete movement was a splinter group of the Concrete art movement, formed in Brazil in the 1950s. With the construction of the country's new utopian capital, Brasilia and the formation of the São Paulo Biennial, young Brazilian artists were inspired to create art that drew on contemporary theories of cybernetics, gestalt psychology and the optical experiments of international artists like Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely. Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape, Am'lcar de Castro, Franz Weissmann, Reynaldo Jardim, Sergio de Camargo, Theon Spanudis and Ferreira Gullar were unhappy with the dogmatic approach of the Concrete group, so published the Neo-Concrete manifesto in 1959, which called for a greater sensuality, colour and poetic feeling in Concrete art. In 1960 Hélio Oiticica joined the group and his groundbreaking series of red and yellow painted hanging wood constructions effectively liberated colour into three-dimensional space.
Industry:Art history
Term sometimes applied to the work of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns in New York in the late 1950s because of their use of collage, assemblage and found materials, and their apparently anti-aesthetic agenda (see Dada). At the time there were also strong echoes of Dada in Environments and Happenings. The term has some justification due to the presence in New York of the great French Dada artist Marcel Duchamp whose ideas were becoming increasingly influential.
Industry:Art history
In the nineteenth century Realism had a special meaning as an art term. Since the rise of modern art, realism, or realist, or realistic, has come to be primarily a stylistic description, referring to painting or sculpture that continues to represent things in a way that more or less pre-dates Post-Impressionism and the succession of modern styles that followed. It is also true however, that much of the best modern realist art has the edginess of subject matter that was the essential characteristic of nineteenth-century Realism. In the twentieth century, realism saw an upsurge in the 1920s when the shock of the First World War brought a reaction, known as the return to order, to the avant-garde experimentation of the pre-war period. In Germany this led to the Neue Sachlichkeit movement (Otto Dix, Christian Schad) and Magic Realism. In France, Derain, previously a Fauve painter, became a central figure in what was called traditionisme. In the USA there was the phenomenon of Regionalism, and the great realist Edward Hopper. In Britain there was the Euston Road School and the painter Meredith Frampton. The British Kitchen Sink artists could be included, but they used essentially modern styles to paint Realist subjects. Among other major modern realist painters are Balthus, Freud, Hockney (in his portraits), Gwen John, Morandi, Spencer.
Industry:Art history
In the field of art the broad movement in Western art, architecture and design which self-consciously rejected the past as a model for the art of the present. Hence the term modernist or modern art. Modernism gathered pace from about 1850. Modernism proposes new forms of art on the grounds that these are more appropriate to the present time. It is thus characterised by constant innovation. But modern art has often been driven too by various social and political agendas. These were often utopian, and modernism was in general associated with ideal visions of human life and society and a belief in progress. The terms modernism and modern art are generally used to describe the succession of art movements that critics and historians have identified since the Realism of Courbet, culminating in abstract art and its developments up to the 1960s. By that time modernism had become a dominant idea of art, and a particularly narrow theory of modernist painting had been formulated by the highly influential American critic Clement Greenberg. A reaction then took place which was quickly identified as Postmodernism.
Industry:Art history
Monochrome means one colour. For centuries artists used different shades (tones) of brown or black ink to create monochrome pictures on paper. The ink would simply be more or less diluted to achieve the required shades. Shades of grey oil paint were used to create monochrome paintings, a technique known as grisaille, from the French word gris meaning grey. In such work the play of light and dark (chiaroscuro) enabled the artist to define form and create a picture. In the twentieth century, with the rise of abstract art many artists experimented with making monochrome painting. Among the first was Kasimir Malevich who about 1917-18 created a series of white on white paintings (see Suprematism). In Britain, Ben Nicholson created a notable series of white reliefs in the mid 1930s. Monochrome painting became particularly widespread in the second half of the century with the appearance of Colour Field painting and Minimal art. The French artist Yves Klein became so famous for his all-blue paintings that he became known as Yves the monochrome.
Industry:Art history
A unique image printed from a polished plate, such as glass, metal, painted with ink but not a permanent printing matrix. A monotype impression is generally unique, though a second, lighter impression from the painted printing element can sometimes be made.
Industry:Art history
An assembly of images that relate to each other in some way to create a single work or part of a work of art. A montage is more formal than a collage and is usually based on a theme. It is also used to describe experimentation in photography and film, in particular the works of Man Ray and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy who made a series of short movies and photographic montages in the 1930s. (See also Photomontage)
Industry:Art history
