A
Abstraction:
International, 20th century, see works by Kandinsky, Kupka, Pollock, and De Kooning.
Art style, begun in 1910 with Kandinsky. Renunciation of naturalistic representation, art without reference to any figurative reality. The term is also used for different movements that are part of Abstraction such as Geometric Abstraction, Abstract Expressionism and Lyrical Abstraction.
Academism (or art pompier):
International, mid-19th century, see works by Bouguereau or Cabanel.
Official style influenced by the standards of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts (in particular pretentious history paintings).
Acrylic painting:
International, 20th century.
Fast-drying synthetic paint made with a resin derived from acrylic resin. Can be diluted in water but becomes resistant to water when dry.
Action painting:
USA, Post-World War II movement, see works by Pollock
Generally associated with Abstract Expressionism. Manner in which paint is spontaneously splashed onto a surface. Generally, the term is given to the process of creation rather than to the achieved work.
Art Brut (literally translates as raw art):
France, c. 1950, term coined by Jean Dubuffet.
Outsider art, refers to art forms created outside the mainstream of conventional art culture, developed from solitude and from pure and authentic creative impulses.
Art Déco:
International, early-1920s, style in painting, sculpture, architecture, and design.
Paintings influenced by contemporary sculpture, synthetic cubism and futurism. Epitomized in the stream lived works of Tamara de Lempicka.
Art Informel:
Europe, 1950s, see works by Tàpies.
Refers to anti-compositional, formal preoccupations related to Abstract Expressionism.
Art Nouveau:
International, late-19th century to early-20th century. A style in painting, sculpture, architecture, and design.
Style typified in Klimt’s paintings, characterized by the use of decorative motifs, vegetal derived patterns, sinuous curves, simple compositions, and denial of volume.
Arte Povera:
Italy, late 1960s, see works by Burri, .
Politically involved art, rejecting consumer society. Use of minimal, ephemeral or “worthless” materials, both organic and industrial.
Ashcan School:
USA, early-20th century, see works by Bellows, Hopper.
Characterized by the depiction of urban subject matter, focus on the daily life in neighbourhoods.
Atticism:
France, mid-17th century, see works by Le Sueur, La Hyre and Bourdon.
Movement calling for the return to original, classical simplicity, in reaction to the works of Vouet and the seducing aesthetic of works by Vignon.
B
Baroque:
Europe, 17th to mid-18th centuries, see works by Caravaggio, Carracci, Tiepolo, Rubens, Murillo and Vouet.
In contrast with the intellectual qualities of Mannerism, the Baroque displays a more immediate iconography, Characterized by dramatic effects of light, dynamics, contrasts or forms, and illusionist pictorial space.
Byzantine:
Europe, 5th to 15th centuries.
Style derived from Paleo-Christian iconography, characterized by frontal representation, hieratic expression, stylization, and standardized flat figures. Typical of the Byzantine art is the Icon.
C
Camden Town group:
England, 1911-1913, see works by Lewis.
Post-Impressionist group of sixteen artists, inspired by Sickert, and active in Camden Town, a working-class area of London. The group mainly depicted realist urban scenes and some landscapes.
Camera obscura:
Dark box or chamber with a small hole or a lens on one side, through which light comes in. On the opposite side, an invented image reflected on a mirror appears on a glass panel that can be reproduced. It was used for instance by Vermeer and Canaletto to help.
Casein painting:
Painting with pigments bound with a milk precipitate. Generally applied on rigid surfaces such as walls, cardboard, wood or plaster.
Chiaroscuro (from Italian: bright-dark):
Europe, 16th to 18th centuries, see works by Caravaggio, de La Tour, Rembrandt.
Technique existing before Caravaggio but made definitive by the artist. Based on high contrasts of light and shade, suggesting three-dimensional volumes and bringing high-drama to the subjects.
Classicism:
Europe, 17th century, see works by Carracci, Poussin, and Lorrain.
Style referring to an ideal beauty inspired by the antique Greco-roman model. Developed in Italy with Carracci, brought to France by Poussin and Lorrain. Praises the perfection of drawing and the superiority of historical painting.
COBRA (derived from Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam):
France, 1948, see works by Jorn.
Avant-garde movement of expressionists painters focused on semi-abstract paintings and on the return to natural, primitive and instinctive values.
Constructivism:
Russia, c.1920, founded by Tatlin.
Movement praising an industrial art based on a dynamic rhythm, and proposing the conjunction of painting, sculpture and architecture. Works mainly geometric and non-representational, using materials such as plastic and glass.
Cubism:
France, 1907-14, born with Picasso and Braque.
Refers to broken up and reassembled works. Depiction of the object from multiple angles represented simultaneously, as an reduce nature to its geometric elements.
D
Dadaism:
International, 1915-22, see works by Duchamp and Picabia.
Movement created in reaction against bourgeois values and World War I, putting emphasis on the absurd and ignoring aesthetics. Found its expression in the ready-made.
Divisionism:
See Neo-Impressionism.
E
Expressionism:
Germanic countries, early-20th century, see works by Kirchner, Dix and Kokoschka.
Works of expressive emotion with bold contours, crude colours, and anatomical and spatial distortions. Associated with Der Blaue Reiter and Die Brücke groups.
F
Fauvism:
France, 1905-1907, see works by Matisse, Derain, Vlaminck, van Dongen.
The first definite revolt against Impressionism and academic rules of art. Movement emerging from Pointillism and influenced by Gauguin’s paintings. Use of vibrant patches of colour of extreme intensity to build a picture. The movement initiated the eruption of Modernity.
Fresco:
Technique of painting on wet lime plaster with pigments laid on the fresh wet plaster. The complete design for the fresco was pounced from a cartoon on the dry plaster. Over this was laid each day a thin coat of wet plaster and the paint made out of mineral pigments mixed in water laid on this wet surface.
Futurism:
Italy, early-20th century, see works by Balla or Boccioni.
Movement celebrating the machine age, glorifying war, and often associated with Fascism. Characterized by the expression of dynamism and the repetition of forms to suggest movement.
G
Gothic:
Europe, 13th to early-16th centuries, see works by Monaco or Francke.
Style characterized by well organised space and more dynamic representations. An International Gothic style developed in Burgundy, Bohemia and Italy (fourteenth to fifteenth century) with rich, stylistic features and decorative colouring.
H
Hudson River School:
USA, 1825-1875, see works by Cole.
Group of American landscape painters, inspired y the beauty of America’s wilderness with particular effects of light.
I
Impressionism:
France, late-nineteenth century, see works by Monet, Renoir, Manet, and Degas (the core of the group).
A manner in painting that attempts to capture the subjective impression of the effects of light and colour in a scene. Most commonly landscapes painted “en plein-air”.
M
Magna paint:
A line of acrylic paints containing pigments in an acrylic resin that dries rapidly to a matt finish. It was often used by Lichtenstein.
Mannerism:
Europe, 1525-1600, see works by Parmigianino, Pontormo, Tintoretto.
Elegant and refined style dominated by profane subjects, complex compositions, muscular and elongated figures in complex poses, with qualities of grace, sophistication and precious details.
Minimal art:
USA, late 1960s, see works by Newman and Stella.
Based on the reduction of the historical and expressive content of an object to an absolute minimum. Large, simplified, and often geometric, forms.
N
Nabism:
France, late 19th – early 20th century, see works by Bonnard and Vuillard.
Post-Impressionist avant-garde movement whose driving force was Sérusier. Characterized by flat colouring of the surface, colours taken straight from the tube and often esoteric in spirit.
Naive Art:
France, late-19th century, see works by H. Rousseau.
Style developed out of the institutional teaching by artists lacking conventional expertise. Characterized by primitive aspect of the paintings, unusual perspective, use of pattern and cheerful colours.
Naturalism:
Europe, 1880-1900.
Extension of Realism, Naturalism aims at an even more realistic depiction of nature.
Nazarene:
Germanic countries, early-19th century, see works by Overbeck.
Artistic movement that was established in Vienna aiming to revive honesty and spirituality in Christian art.
Neoclassicism:
Europe, 1750-1830, see works by David, Mengs and Ingres.
Movement based on J. Winckelmann’s theories on Ancient Greek art and showing a new interest for simplicity and moral values. Art of balance and elegant precision, far from the former expressions of passion.
Neo-Expressionism:
International, 1970s, see works by Baselitz.
Large and rapidly executed figurative painting with aggressive colours.
Neo-Impressionism:
France, late-19th century, works by Seurat and Signac.
Movement part of Post-Impressionism based on a style of painting, Pointillism, in which non-primary colours are generated by the visual mixing of points of juxtaposed primary colours.
New Realism:
Europe, 1960s, co-founded by Klein and the critic Pierre Restany
Artistic movement criticizing mass-produced commercial objects.
Non-Figuration:
France, 1930 to late-20th century, see works by Bazaine, Manessier, da Silva and Estève.
Art taking its inspiration in nature without imitating it.
O
Oil painting:
The colours used in painting are ground to a powder which requires some binding vehicle in order to bring them to a sufficient consistency. The brothers van Eyck are generally known to have been the first to mix their colours with oil.
Op Art:
International, 1960s, see works by Riley and Vasarely.
Geometric abstract art dealing with geometrical illusion.
Orphism:
France, 1912, see works by Robert Delaunay.
Visionary and lyrical paintings.
P
Perspective/Linear perspective:
Paolo Uccello discovered perspective of which he made a kind of mathematical poetry, a system to create the illusion of space and distance on a flat surface. The first scientific study of perspective can be read in Alberti’s treaties De Pictura (1435).
Pop Art:
England, USA, 1950s, see works by Warhol, Hamilton or Johns.
Movement characterized by the incorporation of popular mass culture, as opposed to elitist culture, into artistic technique, style and imagery.
Post-Impressionism:
France, late-19th century, see works by Seurat, Cézanne, van Gogh, Gauguin, Utrillo, Valadon, and Toulouse-Lautrec.
Young artists and movement reacting in different ways against Impressionism, which had become the official style of the end of the century.
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood:
English, mid-19th century, see works by Millais, Rossetti, and Hunt.
A group of artists that believed the classical compositions of Raphael had corrupted the academic teaching of art. They developed a naturalistic style in pictures of religious and medieval subjects.
Primitivism:
Europe, late-19th century, see works by Gauguin, Picasso and Nolde.
Refers to a style focusing on the tribal arts of Africa, Oceania and North America, believed at the time to be less-developed.
Purism:
France, 1920s, see works by Ozenfant.
The principles of Purism were the purification of the plastic language and the selection of forms and colours. Purism departed from Cubism and sought to determine the ideas and sentiments naturally associated with forms and colours.
R
Rayonnism:
Russia, early-20th century, founded by Larionov.
One of the first expressions of abstract painting. Depicts spatial forms with intersections of rays of colour.
Realism:
France, mid-19th century, see works by Coubet.
The rendering of everyday characters, subjects and events in a manner close to reality, in contrast to classical, idealized forms. It inspired Corot, Millet and the Barbizon School painters.
Regionalism:
USA, 1930s, see works by Curry, Benton and Wood.
A humble, anti-modernist style of painting depicting mid-western rural scenes.
Renaissance:
Europe, c. 1400-c. 1520, see works by Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Dürer.
Period of great creative and intellectual activity, breaking away from the restrictions of Byzantine Art. Study of anatomy and perspective through the understanding of the natural world.
Rococo:
Europe, 1700-1770, see works by Watteau, Boucher or Fragonard.
An exuberant style that began in France, characterized by great displays of ornamentation, tumultuous compositions and light, delicate colours, and curving forms.
Romanticism:
Europe, 1750-1850, see works by Friedrich, Delacroix.
Anti-classical aesthetics bearing emotional content, often depicting melancholic and poetic landscapes, or exotic contents.
S
School of Barbizon:
France, 1830-1870, see works by T.Rousseau, Corot, Courbet, and Millet.
Landscape painters, or painters of peasant scenes, gathered near forest of Fontainebleau. Contributed to realism and inspired by Romanticism.
Semi-Abstraction:
International, 20th century, see works by Hartley or Sutherland. Art directed toward abstraction.
Social Realism:
America, 1930s, see works by Diego Rivera.
Naturalistic realism depicting working class activities or contemporary social or political issues.
Silk screening:
Printmaking technique based on stencilling on a porous fabric. Adopted by American graphic artists in the 1930s, it was popularized by Pop Artists in the 1960s.
Surrealism:
Europe, 1923 to mid-19th century, see works by Ernst, Dalí or Magritte. Artistic exploration of dreams, the intimate, and the imagery of the subconscious mind. Use of the technique of psychic automatism.
Symbolism:
Europe, late-19th century, see works by Moreau or Redon.
Movement taking inspiration in poetry, mythology, legends or in the Bible, characterized by flattened forms, undulating lines, and search of aesthetical harmony.
T
Tachism:
Europe, 1950s, see works by Tobey.
Part of the “Art Informel” movement.
Tempera:
Tempera is the name given to the painting processes in which the medium employed is an albuminous gelatinous or colloidal material. Practically, this is the equivalent to saying that any painting process in which a vehicle or binding material, other than oil is employed is tempera. In constant use during the Renaissance, it was overtaken by oil painting in the fifteenth century.
Trompe-l’œil:
Painting technique that the viewer cannot distinguish from reality (often architectural or scenic detail). Frequent in roof paintings such as Mantegna’s works.