F

Fabritius Carel. Name used by Carel Pietersz (1622–54), Dutch painter, killed in the explosion of the powder-magazine at Delft, which probably also destroyed many of his paintings. The few surviving pictures show him to have been technically very accomplished. He was the pupil of Rembrandt and the master of Vermeer. One of his most interesting paintings is the small View of Delft in which the unique planned perspective shows F.’s interest in creating optical illusions. Other works are: Man in a Fur Cap, the strong Self-portrait and the popular Goldfinch.

Fabritius Self-portrait (detail)

Fabro Luciano (1936–2007). Italian artist of the Arte Povera circle who was influenced in certain respects by Manzoni, Klein and, closer at hand, L. Fontana. His objects and installations operate as metaphors. As with other European artists with post-Minimalist tendencies after the late 1960s, F.’s work is suggestive of theoretical concerns, ideological disillusionment and memories of the collective imagination, as in the ‘Italia’ series (1968–75), e.g. Golden Italy (1971), Cristo-Buddha-Zaratustra (1981) and La Dialettica (1985).

Fairweather Ian (1890–1974). Scottish-born Australian abstract painter.

Falconet Étienne-Maurice (1716–91). French sculptor. He was a pupil of Lemoyne and director of sculpture at Sèvres (1757–66). For Sèvres biscuitware he produced many graceful Rococo models. His masterpiece was a monumental equestrian statue of Peter the Great in the Baroque tradition.

Falk Robert (1886–1958). Russian painter and a founder of the Muscovite Knave of Diamonds group. Cézanne was the most important influence on F., although during the 1920s he gradually evolved a more personal vision and technique. Still-life, portrait and landscape subjects predominate. As a teacher in Moscow he was important to less academic young artists.

Fang. A populous complex of African tribal peoples living in the region of the Northern Gabon; their carvers and sculptors are considered among the finest in Africa. They are especially noted for mortuary heads and figures, possibly representing primeval ancestors, given a dark finish and carved in a powerfully geometric style.

Fantastic Realism. The work of a group of Austrian artists, among them Erich Bramer, Ernst Fuchs and Rudolph Hausner, who came together in the 1940s. It combines Surrealism with elements borrowed from late medieval fantastic art and 19th-c. academicism.

Fantin-Latour Ignace-Henri-Jean-Théodore (1836–1904). French painter, especially of flowers and a few large group portraits. F.-L. studied under his father and under Courbet. In his Homage to Manet (1899) and Homage to Delacroix (1864) he included many of the leading artists of his day and he repeated this formula for group portraits of writers and musicians. F.-L. was friendly with a number of the most advanced contemporary artists. Of his many studies of flowers Bouquet of Dahlias is typical.

Farington Joseph (1747–1821). British landscape and topographical draughtsman. He became an influential member of the R.A. (elected 1785) and his Diary (publ. 1922–8) provides one of the chief sources for our knowledge of English painting and the R.A. in the late 18th-early 19th cs.

Fauvism. A style of painting in which colours are the all-important theme of the work. The art critic Louis Vauxcelles described a room at the 1905 Salon d’Automne in which a sculpture in a classical style by Albert Marque was surrounded by paintings of Matisse, Derain and others as ‘Donatello parmi les fauves’ (i.e. ‘Donatello among the beasts’). A Divisionist style gave way to flat patterns and free, bold handling of colour (influenced by the work of Van Gogh). The most important members of the group were Matisse (the leader), Derain, Van Dongen, Dufy, Friesz, Marquet, Vlaminck and for a short time Braque; Rouault, friendly with the group, worked in a markedly different style. F. gave way to Cubism after a few years.

Fayum, Faiyum, portraits. Fayum, a region of Upper Egypt. Portrait paintings found on the faces of mummies in Roman cemeteries in Ancient Egypt, dating from the 1st c. BC to the 3rd c. AD. The medium can be either tempera or encaustic. Bold but remarkably naturalistic in style, the paintings seem most usually to have been made during the subjects’ lifetimes.

Federal Art Project. W.P.A.

Fedorovich Sophie (1893–1953). Russian artist who in 1920 came to Britain where she created décor for many ballets.

Fedotov Pavel Andreyevich (1815–53). Russian satirical genre painter who depicted the manners of the urban bourgeoisie and the army. His satire now appears harmless and so discreet as to be hardly noticeable, but it nevertheless received official censure. His choice of commonplace subjects broke with contemporary idealist theories.

Feininger Lyonel (1871–1956). Painter, born in N.Y. of German-American parents. All the early influences upon him were subsequently reflected in the subjects of his paintings: music, toy making, Manhattan skyscrapers, trains, bridges and ships. F. studied music in Berlin, then became a cartoonist, first for German, later for French and U.S. journals. In Paris he came into contact with the work of Delaunay and the Cubists. From 1913 he made Germany his home, associating himself with the Blaue Reiter group under F. Marc, and later teaching at the Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau. In 1924, F. joined W. Kandinsky, P. Klee and A. von Jawlensky in Die Blaue Vier (‘The Blue Four’). Named among the ‘degenerate’ artists by Hitler’s government, F. returned to the U.S.A., where his teaching, writings and last watercolours were influential on the birth of Abstract Expressionist painting.

Feke Robert (fl. 1741–50). Colonial American portrait painter who worked mainly in Philadelphia and Boston and was possibly taught by the British painter Smibert. Strong characterization and an emphasis on elaborate dress give distinction to his rather stereotyped poses.

Ferguson William Gouw (1632/3–90?). Scottish still-life painter who ‘worked in the Netherlands and England; his paintings have sometimes been confused with those of Jan Weenix and other Dutch artists.

Fernández (Hernández) Gregorio (1576–1636). Leading Spanish Baroque sculptor of religious subjects in painted wood; he worked in Valladolid. Many of his most expressive sculptures, e.g. Pietà (1617) and St Veronica, are life-size figures (pasos) designed to be carried in Holy Week processions. He also carved the high altar of Plasencia cathedral (1624–34).

Ferrara, school of. School of Italian painting which flourished in the 2nd half of the 15th c. and is represented by Tura, Cossa, Ercole de’ Roberti and Costa. Its marked austerity of style derived from the influence of Piero della Francesca and Mantegna.

Ferrari Gaudenzio (d. 1546). Italian painter of the Lombard school. His major works, dramatic and overcrowded with figures, are frescoes in several chapels on the Sacro Monte, Varallo; a screen depicting scenes from the life of Christ, an altarpiece and frescoes in S. Cristoforo, Vercelli; and the Choir of Angels in the dome of S. Maria dei Miracoli, Saronno.

Ferri Ciro (1634–89). Roman Baroque painter. He was the principal follower of Pietro da Cortona and on the death of the latter completed his frescoes in the Pitti Palace, Florence. F.’s own work includes an altarpiece for S. Ambrogio, Rome, biblical frescoes in S. Maria Maggiore, Bergamo, and frescoes of the seasons in the Villa Falconieri, Frascati.

fête champêtre. French term used to describe a type of painting in which a group of townspeople is depicted relaxing in rural surroundings. Giorgione’s Concert Champêtre is an example.

fête galante. French term used to describe a French 18th-c. genre of painting in which members of the court amuse themselves in love making, dancing and music in a park, garden or rural setting. It is a particular form of the fête champêtre and was practised most notably by Watteau but also by J.-B.-J. Pater, Lancret and others. The term was first used in 1717 when Watteau was admitted to the French Academy and described as a painter of f.s g.s.

Fet(t)i Domenico (1589–1623). Italian painter, trained in Rome. He was court painter at Mantua (1613–21) but settled in Venice in 1622. Characteristic works such as The Good Samaritan are richly coloured, broadly executed cabinet pictures of biblical subjects as genre. In these he was influenced by A. Elsheimer, Rubens and the Venetian school.

Feuerbach Anselm (1829–80). German painter of classical subjects and portraits whose painting marked the end of German academic classicism. He was influenced by Couture in Paris and spent many years in Italy. His best work, e.g. the portrait Nanna (1861) and Orpheus and Eurydice (1869) is majestic and controlled, his inferior work sombre and artificial.

Field Erastus Salisbury (1805–1900). U.S. primitive artist, noted for his remarkable architectural fantasy, Historical Monument of the American Republic (c. 1876).

Fielding (Anthony Vandyke) Copley (1787–1855). British landscapist and marine painter in watercolours and oils. He studied with J. Varley and received the 1824 Paris Salon gold medal. His paintings, now sought by collectors, were praised by Ruskin for their vigour and freshness.

Figuration libre. Neo-Expressionism

Filarete Antonio (1400–69). Italian architect, sculptor and writer living in Milan. F. drew up vast schemes for palaces and ideal cities to be laid out according to elaborate astrological rules. His Trattato d’architettura (1460–4) was called by Vasari ‘perhaps the most stupid book that was ever written’. He did, however, design the Ospedale Maggiore, Milan (1457) – intended as a mere fragment of an enormous edifice, never built – which shows a mixture of Gothic and Renaissance motifs, and his writings had an influence on the centrally planned church.

Fildes Sir Luke (1843–1927). British painter and book ill., e.g. of Dickens’ Edwin Drood. He made his name with Applicants for Admission to a Casualty Ward (1874); similar compassionately realistic documentaries followed but F.’s social success rested on his portraits.

Filonov Pavel (1883–1941). Russian painter and graphic artist with a very individual style and vision in some ways reminiscent of Klee and the Surrealists. He was associated with the Russian Futurist movement from the outset and designed the scenery for Mayakovsky’s 1st play; F. also ill. a number of booklets of Futurist poetry. In 1925 he founded a school of analytical painting in Leningrad, dissolved in 1928, like all such private institutions in the U.S.S.R.

fin de siècle (Fr. end of century). Used adjectivally of works, styles, etc. (particularly those of the late 19th-c. decadence) having some or all of the supposed characteristics of ‘the end of an era’ – elaborateness, artificiality, weariness, perversity.

fine manner. One of 2 classifications used by scholars of Florentine engravings of the 2nd half of the 15th c.; the engravings are classified according to whether the line is generally fine (fine manner) or bold (broad manner).

Finlay Ian Hamilton (1925–2006). Scottish artist, poet and writer who from 1963 made concrete poetry consisting of words often made in three-dimensional materials and placed in landscapes and seascapes. After 1967 F. also began creating Little Sparta, a landscape installation in Scotland.

Finson or Finsonius, Ludovicus (Louis) (d. 1617). Netherlands painter of portraits and religious subjects. He visited Italy, where he worked under Caravaggio, and later painted a number of altarpieces in Provence. His style combined elements from Caravaggio with Mannerism, and influenced Provençal artists.

Fischl Eric (1948– ). U.S. Neo-figurative painter, who rose to great international prominence in the late 1970s. Depicted U.S. suburbia in large-scale narratives of leisure, voyeurism and sexuality, often charged with hidden violence, e.g. Bad Boy (1981) and Digging Children (1982).

Flanagan Barry (1941–2009). British sculptor who emerged in the 1960s as one of the most interesting, original and distinguished contemporary sculptors. He studied at St Martin’s School of Art 1964–6, at the time when Caro and King were teaching there. Initially F. made abstract work with a variety of materials – cloth, rope, sand, polystyrene, light and glass – some of which were Environmental art installations. F. also made films, drawings, etchings and furniture. From the 1970s he started working in metals, stone, clay and marble: his ‘anarchic wit’ became even more pronounced in this work; he also began making discreet references to traditional carving and modelling in mysterious, fossil-like sculptures, or references to prehistoric and Celtic iconography. In the late 1970s and early 1980s F. finally turned to explicit but idiosyncratic figurative sculpture often cast in bronze, of hares, helmets and horses.

Flannagan John Bernard (1895–1942). U.S. sculptor and painter. His figures have a rough unfinished texture and are usually of animal subjects. Later works included bronze castings, drawings and watercolours.

Flatman Thomas (1637–88). British poet and gifted painter of miniatures, the best being that of Charles II and 2 self-portraits. F.’s poetry was esteemed by his contemporaries; his A Thought of Death influencing Pope’s The Dying Christian to his Soul.

Flavin Dan (1933–96). U.S. Minimal light (neon) artist. He used white and coloured fluorescent light fittings arranged sometimes vertically on walls, in free-standing ‘barrier structures’, and across corners to dissolve and re-modulate space, while always enveloping the spectator and forcing him to redefine his relationship to the enclosing space.

Flaxman John (1755–1826). British Neoclassical sculptor and draughtsman who began his career as a designer of cameos and classical friezes for Josiah Wedgwood. Working in Rome (1787–94) he won a European reputation with his famous line drawings illustrating Homer, Dante and the tragedies of Aeschylus. F.’s largest sculptural commission was the memorial to Lord Mansfield, but he did many other portrait busts, bas-reliefs and monumental groups of great technical accomplishment. F. was a friend of Blake.

Flaxman Memorial to Lord Mansfield, 1801

Flegel Georg (1563–1638). German painter, 1st of landscapes, later of prosaic still-life subjects in subdued tones. He was influenced by Flemish painting.

Fleischmann Adolf Richard (1902–90). German abstract painter. He was 1st interested in Expressionism and Cubism but in the late 1930s turned to pure abstraction.

Flinck Govert (1615–60). German portrait and subject painter who settled in Amsterdam. He was a pupil of Rembrandt and until the early 1640s a close imitator of his master; later he followed the more fashionable style of B. van der Heist. F. painted a portrait of Rembrandt in 1639.

Flint Sir William Russell (1880–1969). British society watercolourist, known for his Spanish gypsy subjects.

Florence, school of. The history of modern European painting is dated from the work of the Florentine artist Giotto (d. 1337) but the great period of Florence as a centre of the arts was the 15th and 16th cs. In the work of such painters as Fra Angélico, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael the school reached its apogee. The Florentine preoccupation with form and line may be contrasted with the later Venetian emphasis on colour.

Floris Cornells (Cornells de Vriendt) (1514–75). Flemish architect and sculptor who exercised an important influence on the development of Renaissance architecture in the Netherlands. After travelling in Italy he publ. an influential book of engravings of florid adaptations of Roman grotesque ornamentation. His masterpiece, Antwerp town hall (begun 1561), combined Flemish gable and Italian Renaissance palace facade, and set a new style of public building.

Floris Frans (Frans de Vriendt) (1516–70). Flemish painter, the brother of C.F.; he worked in Antwerp. He visited Italy (c. 1542–6) and was an influential exponent of Italian Mannerism in the Netherlands.

Fluxus. Name taken by an international art movement founded in 1962 to unite members of the extreme avant-garde in Europe and later in the U.S.A. The group had no stylistic identity, but its activities were in many respects a revival of the spirit of Dada.

Fontainebleau France. A royal palace of Francis I begun in 1528 and added to for the next 200 years. The Cour du Cheval Blanc and Cour d’Honneur (including the Porte Dorée) are by G. Lebreton. The Galerie François I (1533–40) introduces the so-called ‘F. style’ of interior decoration, a combination of sculpture, metalwork, painting, stucco and woodwork. It was evolved by the Italian artists Niccolò dell’ Abbate, Primaticcio and Rosso Fiorentino, who worked for Francis I from c. 1530 to c. 1560. This 1st School of Fontainebleau introduced Mannerism to France. A decorative revival under Henry IV, known as the ‘2nd school of F.’, was less important.

Fontana Lavinia (1522–1614). Bolognese painter of portraits and, less successfully, of religious subjects; daughter of the Mannerist painter Prospero F. (1512–97), a pupil of Vasari. She settled in Rome, where her portraiture became fashionable among the leading families.

Fontana Lucio (1899–1968). Argentine-born Italian artist. Associated (1930s) with Abstraction-Création he launched spazialismo with his ‘White manifesto’ (1946). It combined Dada with Concrete art principles and deeply influenced younger Italian artists. F. worked in sculpture – e.g. neon light structure (1952) – pottery and painting, slashing canvases and crevassing clay and metal in later works.

Foppa Vincenzo (c. 1427–1515/16). Italian painter, the leading artist of the Milanese school before Leonardo da Vinci visited Milan. He was probably trained by the Paduans and was influenced both by Mantegna and the Bellini. Among his works are The Adoration of the Kings, St Francis Receiving the Stigmata and a Madonna and Child.

Forain Jean-Louis (1852–1931). French painter, caricaturist and graphic artist. F. contributed ills of Parisian life to journals for many years. He chose similar subjects to Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec, but his wit is more sardonic and often at the expense of his models. Later he concentrated on oil painting, e.g. The Court of Justice.

foreshortening. In painting and drawing perspective applied to single objects or figures to create the illusion of projection and depth. F. is 1st found in Greek vase painting (c. 500 BC) but was not developed until the Renaissance, e.g. Dead Christ by Mantegna; it was fully exploited during the Baroque period, e.g. sotto in sù illusionism.

form. Term used in the arts for (1) an accepted framework of expression, e.g. the sonnet f. in literature and sonata f. in music; and (2) the structural qualities of a work, e.g. the harmonious proportioning of the various parts and their arrangement in order to create tension and bring about climaxes.

Fortuny y Carbo Mariano (1838–74). Spanish painter of history and genre. F. first attracted notice with his paintings of the Moroccan campaigns of General Prim, e.g. Battle of Wad-ras. Later he worked in Rome on large canvases, rich in incident and detail, which sold for record prices, e.g. The Spanish Marriage.

Foster Myles Birket (1825–99). British painter and book ill., e.g. of Longfellow. He produced a very large number of extremely popular drawings and watercolours (and, for a period, oil paintings), almost always of rustic life.

found object (Fr. objet trouvé). The Surrealists held that any object could become a work of art if chosen by an artist. Duchamp exhibited a bottle-rack as a sculptural object, but f.o.s are more commonly natural forms such as shells, tree roots and pebbles, altered or added to by the artist (‘objets trouvés assistés’). readymade.

Fouquet Jean (c. 1425–c. 1480). French painter. F. was born in Tours and probably trained in Paris. He travelled in Italy and brought many of the achievements of Italian painting back to France on his return to Tours in 1448. F. was painter to the French kings and probably the major French artist of the 15th c. Only the miniatures in a copy of the Antiquités judaïques are documented, but other attributed works include: the Melun Diptych, the portraits Charles VII and Jouvenel des Ursins and the monumental Pietà.

Fragonard Jean-Honoré (1732–1806). French Rococo painter who studied under Chardin, Boucher and Van Loo, then in Italy. There he was influenced by the painting of Tiepolo and Murillo. A large historical painting won him immediate fame, but he abandoned the grand manner to paint the familiar lovers in gardens, e.g. The Swing, and the incidents of clandestine love-affairs, e.g. The Stolen Kiss. Some of his finest works are the rapid drawings he made with pencil, sepia and bistre wash, or red chalk, 2 examples of these are The Bed and Villa d’Este.

Fragonard The Swing 1767

Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1439–1501/2). Sienese painter, sculptor, architect and engineer. There are a few paintings by F. but after 1477 he devoted himself to other work. This included a great chain of fortifications for the duke of Urbino, the church of S. Maria delle Grazie al Calcinaio at Cortona, a series of bronze reliefs, most famous of which is the Deposition in S. Maria del Carmine, Venice, and four bronze Angels for Siena cathedral. He also wrote a technical treatise on architecture, Trattato d’architettura (publ. 1841).

Francia Francesco (Francesco Raibolini) (c. 1450–1517/18). Bolognese goldsmith and from 1486 painter in an eclectic style derived mainly from Perugino and L. Costa; until 1507 he worked in partnership with the latter. An altarpiece The Virgin with St Anne with a Pietà in the lunette is probably his best-known painting.

Franciabigio Francesco di Cristofano called (c. 1482–1525). Florentine painter influenced by Andrea del Sarto, with whom he collaborated on frescoes in the church of the Annunziata, Florence, and elsewhere, and by Raphael, to whom his Madonna del Pozzo was once attributed. F.’s portraits, e.g. Knight of Rhodes, are his most distinctive works.

Francis Sam (1923–94). U.S. Tachiste painter who settled in Paris in 1950. His interest in painting began when he was in hospital, wounded in World War II; he produced his 1st abstract work in 1947, influenced by late work of Monet and oriental, especially Japanese art. His work is lyrical and has delicate sense of colour and feeling for paint. He has also done murals for the K.-halle, Basel (1956–8) and the Sofu School of Flower Arrangement, Tokyo (1957).

Francken (Franck) a family of Flemish painters extending from Nicholas F. (c. 1525–96) to Constantinus F. (1661–1717). Probably the most talented was Frans F. the Younger (1581–1642) who painted altarpieces and small, somewhat crowded scenes with a Mannerist emphasis on lighting and eccentric detail, e.g. The Jews Having Crossed the Red Sea.

Frankenthaler Helen (1928–2011). U.S. Abstract Expressionist painter. Pollock was a major early influence. In the early 1950s F. evolved an individual style of lyrical abstraction, using washes and stains of thin pigments on unprepared canvas to produce diaphanous textures merging with it. Mountains and Sea (1952) influenced the ‘stain’ paintings of Louis and Noland. Later works in stronger colours and forms include Flood (1967), synthetic polymer paint on canvas.

Freilicher Jane (1924– ). U.S. representational, realist painter prominent for her landscapes, cityscapes, interiors and still-lifes – often combined. In her work she has developed her own highly personal idiom through absorbing Post-Impressionist and Abstract Expressionist influences. Eschewing art fashions, F.’s quiet and assured paintings, e.g. Parts of the World (1988) give ‘unalloyed aesthetic pleasure’.

Fréminet Martin (1567–1619). French painter of the 2nd school of Fontainebleau who spent about 15 years in Italy and was strongly affected by the Mannerism of the Chevalier d’Arpino. In 1603 Henry IV recalled him to France, where his works included decorations for the Trinité chapel, Fontainebleau (begun 1608).

French Daniel Chester (1850–1931). U.S. sculptor; self-taught, he became with A. Saint Gaudens the principal academic sculptor of his age. F.’s most famous piece is the statue of Lincoln (1915) in the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.

fresco. Properly, the technique of wall painting on unset plaster. In true or buon f. layers of lime-plaster are applied; while the final layer (intonaco) is still wet the painter applies his colours so that they become integrated with the wall. This technique, perfected in Renaissance Italy, produces very durable works in suitable climatic conditions; the most famous example is the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo. In f. secco, painted on lime-plaster which has set, flaking tends to occur and the range of colours is restricted; but it produces light colours and delicate tones which made it a popular technique in the Rococo period.

Freud Lucian (1922–2011). Berlin-born British painter, grandson of Sigmund Freud. His earlier work until the late 1950s was painted with a hard, linear realism, consisting mostly of portraits, but also paintings showing a mysterious relationship between plants and human beings, which are Surrealist in character. His work from about 1952 to his death was primarily portraits and nudes painted with extraordinary expressive subtlety. He is considered one of the few modern innovators in the representational tradition.

Freundlich Otto (1878–1943). German painter, sculptor and graphic artist living in Paris from 1909; he took part in abstractionist experiments. He exhibited with the Cubists and the Novembergruppe in Berlin and was a member of the Cercle et Carré at Abstraction-Création groups.

Friedrich Caspar David (1774–1840). Leading German Romantic landscape painter and engraver who studied in Copenhagen (1794–8) and settled in Dresden. His characteristic subjects, depicted in a sharply delineated style, were Gothic ruins, stark contorted trees, bleak seascapes and mountain crags often seen under mysterious lighting effects and peopled with lonely figures, insignificant before nature. Well-known examples are Abbey Graveyard under Snow, Capuchin Friar by the Sea and Wreck of the ‘Hope’.

Friedrich Cross in the Mountains (detail) 1808

Friesz Othon (1879–1949). French Post-Impressionist painter and designer, friend of R. Dufy and Matisse and for a time a member of the Fauves.

Frink Elizabeth (1930–93). British sculptor of monumental archaic figures, horses and other animals, associated in the 1960s with British sculptors, such as Chadwick and Butler. Her work was hugely popular, esp. in Britain, largely because of its conventionality.

Frith William Powell (1819–1909). British painter of anecdotal subjects, so popular when 1st exhibited at the R.A. that they required special railings for protection; best known is Derby Day (1858). Although possessed of formidable technical skill he sacrificed the overall effect of his pictures to various independent incidents and human ‘types’.

Fritsch Katharina (1956– ). German artist who came to prominence in the 1980s. Her artefacts, often in series, and installations look ready-made, as if industrially manufactured, although their original impulses are highly personal and have been described as ‘prototypes of mass-produced goods’ bringing into question the difference between original and copy. F.’s Installation Tischgesellschaft (1988) is a long table down the length of which, facing each other, black-and-white polyester casts of the same man are repeated at measured intervals.

Froben Johann (1460–1527). German painter and publ. who as the successor to J. Amerbach (d. 1513) at the Amerbach Press, Basel, played a major part in German humanism. His books were fine works of art and, in conjunction with Erasmus, editorial adviser to the firm, important contributions to the new scholarship. F.’s publs included an ed. of St Jerome and Erasmus’s ed. of the Greek New Testament (1516).

Froment Nicholas (15th c.). Provençal painter who worked in Italy and at the court of René of Anjou. There are 2 documented works, both triptychs but stylistically far apart – the awkwardly realistic Raising of Lazarus (1461) and the symbolical and more accomplished Burning Bush (1475/6).

Fromentin Eugène (1820–76). French ‘oriental’ painter who followed P. Marilhat and Delacroix. He is, however, remembered for his discerning criticism of Dutch and Flemish painting, Les Maîtres d’autrefois (1876; The Masters of Past Time, 1913). He also wrote a nostalgic autobiographical novel, Dominique (1862; 1932), and 2 books describing N. Africa.

Fronte nuovo delle arte. Movement in Italian art founded after World War II by painters and sculptors who recognized the need for Italian artists to free themselves from tradition and come to terms with modern movements elsewhere in Europe. The group (originally the Nuova Secessione Artistica) broke up after exhibiting in Milan (1947) and at the Venice Biennale (1948) because of the disparate opinions of its members, who included both Realists and Abstractionists.

Frost Terry (1915–2003). British painter who worked mainly in oils and watercolours. He studied in St Ives and London, where his work received lasting influences from his contact with Pasmore.

frottage. Transferring a relief design on to paper by placing the paper over the design and rubbing the paper with charcoal or crayon, etc. Brass rubbings are taken in this way, but the technique received its French name when it was introduced into painting by M. Ernst.

Frueauf the Elder, Rueland (1440/50–1507). German painter of altarpieces in a severe Gothic style. He worked in Salzburg and Passau. His son Rueland the Younger was also a painter, of the Danube school.

Fry Roger Eliot (1866–1934). British painter and critic, originally an expert on the masters of the Italian Renaissance but after seeing work by Cézanne in 1906 a powerful propagandist for art of the period and organizer (1910) of the 1st exhibition of Post-Impressionist paintings in Britain. In insisting that this revolutionary art be assessed on colour and form alone he followed in the tradition of late 19th-c. aestheticism. His articles and lectures were collected in Vision and Design (1920) and Transformations (1926). Omega Workshops.

Füger Friedrich Heinrich (1751–1818). German portrait painter, often in miniature. From 1776 to 1783 he lived in Italy, then settled in Vienna. His style was influenced by late Baroque and English portraiture given subtlety by the use of sfumato effects.

Fujiwara. Alternative name for the later Heian period of Japanese history (late 9th–late 12th c.). It was dominated politically by the F. clan and culturally by the exquisite courtly arts of the capital, Heian-kyo. Esoteric religious sects (Early Heian) lost ground to the more accessible Amida Buddhism. Painting portrayed the divinity surrounded by Bodhisattvas in brilliant colours and harmonized tones. From the exclusively Chinese style, kara-e, the court Painting Academy (founded 886) developed to a Japanese style, yamato-e. Its chief themes were popular life, e.g. the satirical 12th-c. Animal Scrolls and ills for courtly poems and novels, notably a 12th-c. series for Murasaki’s Tale of Genji. The heavy style of Early Heian wood sculpture yielded to a gentle dignity and sinuous line, e.g. the masterly Amida by Jocho (d. 1057). His school developed the yoseki-tsukuri technique, assembling a statue from separately carved blocks to form a thin outer shell and hollow space inside. Later 12th-c. sculptures, generally polychromed, developed more life-like realism.

Fuller Isaac (d. 1672). British painter of murals and portraits. He studied under F. Perrier in France and worked in Oxford and London, leading an increasingly dissolute life. His decorative works are now lost but his portraits, particularly the raffish Self-portrait (1670), have great dash and bravura.

Funk art. Term used to describe (usually) U.S. art which makes use of unlikely materials and combines painting and sculpture, sometimes in Environmental art pieces, e.g. Kienholz.

Furini Francesco (c. 1600–46). Florentine painter of biblical and mythological subjects heavy with female nudes, and of single half-length nudes in oppressive bluish tones with strong sfumato. In the 1630s he became a priest and devoted himself to religious works in the manner of G. Reni.

Furniss Harry (1845–1925). Anglo-Irish caricaturist, ill. and writer. He settled in London (1873) and drew for various illustrated magazines. He ill. the complete works of Dickens (1910) and Thackeray (1911).

Fuseli Henry (1741–1825). Swiss-born painter, engraver, draughtsman of great power and penetrating art critic, associated with the English school. After studying art in Berlin and Rome, where he copied Michelangelo, F. settled in London. The Nightmare, based on a painting by Reynolds won him early fame and his eccentric style, combining Italian Mannerism with German elements, had both a vogue and an influence in Britain; as professor of painting at the R.A. he taught many leading early 19th-c. British artists. He made the celebrated remark that his friend Blake was ‘good to steal from’.

Fuseli The Death of Oedipus 1784

Futurism. Italian artistic and literary movement. The 1st Futurist Manifesto was publ. in Le Figaro, in 1909 by the poet and dramatist Marinetti. In 1910 3 manifestoes were publ. including the painters’ ‘Technical Manifesto’. F. celebrated the machine (proclaiming the racing-car more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace), rejected the art of the past and advocated the destruction of museums. F. paintings represented figures and objects in motion; poetry employed ‘industrial’ imagery and a grammar and vocabulary deliberately distorted in the interests of onomatopoeia. Artists concerned included Boccioni, Carlo, Carrà, Russolo and Balla; writers, Soffici and Papini; architects, Sant’Elia. Cinema was acclaimed as an ideal means of expression but a Futurist cinema as such never developed, despite its influence on the early Soviet films of Dziga-Vertov, Eisenstein and Kozintsev. After World War I F. became associated with Fascism. It had several off-shoots, e.g. R. Delaunay’s simultanéisme, which was also related to Cubism. More specifically a marriage of these 2 movements was Russian Cubo-futurism, represented in, e.g. Malevich’s painting and the poems of Khlebnikov, Mayakovsky and Pasternak. It also influenced such painters as M. Duchamp and F. Léger.

Fyt Jan (1611–61). Flemish painter of still-life, especially trophies of the hunt, and a few outstanding flower paintings. Trained by F. Snyders, he probably painted some of the animals in paintings by Jordaens and Rubens. Typical of his rich colour and technical brilliance is Still-life with Pageboy and Parrot.