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Industry: Art history
Number of terms: 11718
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Derived from the Greek word (Haptesthai) meaning 'touch' or 'contact', haptic relates to the way in which humans interact by touch with the world around them. Artists use haptic technology to give the sensation of a physical presence to a virtual object. This can be manifested in several ways: via vibrations in sound installations or using computer software that has input devices that offer touch feedback. An example of this is a computer program that enables the user to paint a picture using virtual 3D brushes.
Industry:Art history
Can be seen as a subdivision of Post-Painterly Abstraction, which in turn emerged from Colour Field painting. The term was coined by the Californian critic Jules Langster in 1959 to describe those abstract painters, particularly on the West Coast, who in their reaction to the more painterly or gestural forms of Abstract Expressionism adopted a particularly impersonal paint application and delineated areas of colour with particular sharpness and clarity. This kind of approach to abstract painting became extremely widespread in the 1960s.
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
Term History introduced by French Royal Academy in seventeenth century to describe the most important of the types, or genres, of painting. The others in descending order were portrait; genre (scenes of everyday life), landscape, and still life. Term History in fact covered subject matter drawn from ancient Greek and Roman (classical) history; classical mythology, and the Bible. Towards end eighteenth century modern historical subjects were introduced, for example in Britain by West and Copley. Style of History painting should be Grand Style and the result was known overall as High Art.
Industry:Art history
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
Italian group formed in 1922 by Funi, Sironi, Carra and others. Officially launched in 1923 at a meeting in Milan, with Mussolini as one of the speakers. Mussolini was the founder of the Italian Fascist Party and in 1922 seized power to become dictator of Italy. After being represented at the Venice Biennale of 1924 the group split and was reformed. The new Novecento Italiano staged its first group exhibition in Milan in 1926. The group's aim was to revive the tradition of large format history painting in the classical manner. The group supported fascism and its work became associated with the state propaganda department.
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
An area of thick paint, or texture, in a painting. First noticeable in Venetian Renaissance painters Titian and Tintoretto, then in Baroque painting, for example Rubens. Increasingly notable in nineteenth-century landscape, Naturalist and Romantic painting. Use of impasto became more or less compulsory in modern art as the view took hold that the surface of a painting should have its own reality rather than just being a smooth window into an illusionistic world beyond. With this went the idea that the texture of paint and the shape of the brushmark could themselves help to convey feeling, that they are a kind of handwriting, that they can directly express the artist's emotions or response to the subject. (See also gestural. ) A painting in which impasto is a prominent feature can also said to be painterly. This term carries the implication that the artist is revelling in the manipulation of the oil paint itself and making the fullest use of its sensuous properties. The idea that the artist should foreground the innate qualities of the materials of the work as part of its content is a central one in modern art, and is summarised in the phrase truth to materials (see also Direct carving).
Industry:Art history