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Art Styles Short definitions of most of the great styles in painting from renaissance times onward Acknowledgements to the original sources for many definitions can be established by checking the number at the end of each definition (1,2,3etc) against the list at the bottom of this section.Absidiole This is a form of abstract art where patterns are meant to be read as independent relationships. It may represent nothing at all, or it may represent something. However, it does it without reference to the original source. (5) Abstract art Art that is non-representational or non-objective. Art that departs significantly from natural appearances. Forms are modified or changed to varying degrees in order to emphasize certain qualities or content such as place, content or feeling using composition or organisation of colour, line, light, and shade. Recognizable references to original appearances may be slight. (2&4 ) Abstract Expressionism An art movement, primarily in painting, that originated in the United States in the 1940s and remained strong through the 1950s. Artists working in many different styles emphasized spontaneous personal expression in large paintings that are abstract or non-representational, or non-objective. (4) Abstract Surrealism See Surrealism. (4) Academic art Art that was considered acceptable by the academies of painting and sculpture in the 17th through 19th centuries. It covered standards for composition, drawing, and colour usage. The term has come to mean conservative and lacking in originality. (4) Action Painting A style of non-representational painting that relies on the physical movement of the artist to create art through vigorous brushwork, dripping, and pouring. Dynamism is often created through the interlaced directions of the paint. (4) American Impressionism A style that evolved from French Impressionism but placed more emphasis on form or recognizable subjects. Chief exponents were William Merritt Chase and his student, Charles Hawthorne. They espoused painting 'en plein air' (finishing the work on location) and depicting the changing effects of light with masses of colour whilst modelling and defining the forms with distinct colour variations. (13) Anamorphic Art Art where the observer is first deceived by a barely recognizable image, and is then directed to a viewpoint dictated by the formal construction of the painting. The spectator must re-form the picture him/herself. Best illustrated by the way stage design is created to give effect of exaggerated perspective. (2) Applied Art Art in which aesthetic values are used in the design or decoration of utilitarian objects. (4) Art Brut Art produced by “Outsiders” (naïve artists, the mentally ill as well as the art of children.). Often celebrated in the work of Dubuffet who appreciated its being done for its own sake and not for concern of profit. Coined in 1945 by French artist Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985), the word is French for “raw art”. (14) Art Deco An art style of the 1920s and 1930s based on the application of modern materials (steel, chrome, glass). The name came from the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs Industriels et Modernes, held in Paris, which celebrated living in the modern world. It was popularly considered to be an elegant style of cool sophistication in architecture and applied arts ranging from luxurious objects made from exotic material to mass produced, streamlined items available to a growing middle class. The style is characterized by repetitive, geometric patterns of curves and lines. (1&2) Art Nouveau A decorative art style, especially associated with the sinuous curves of plant forms. It was prevalent from 1895 to 1905. Art Nouveau began in France, and they leaned on earlier styles including Rococo, Gothic, and Oriental. Artificialism An art movement founded in Czechoslovakia in 1927 to oppose naturalism in art; the movement was short-lived as its members went on to become involved in poetism and eventually surrealism. (10) Avant-Garde Individuals considered as the leaders (and often regarded as radicals) in the invention and application of new concepts in a given field. French for advance guard" or "vanguard." Barbizon School A group of French naturalist painters who lived in the village of Barbizon on the outskirts of the Forest of Fontainebleau from the 1830s. Most were landscape painters. There was no agreed-upon style but they were revolutionary because of their commitment to portraying nature as a worthwhile subject in its own right rather than romanticized and sublime. They also depicted working peasants, a subject that was also startling because it prompted a turn from gentile subjects towards social realism. The Barbizon artists are considered the first "plein-air" painters, those who painted directly in nature rather than completing their scenes in studios from sketches. (14) Baroque A theatrical style of painting and sculpture that developed among painters and sculptors in Italy at the end of the 16th century. It was intended to evoke compelling effects of drama and grandeur. The subject was usually religious. The movement spread throughout Europe and employed strong sense of movement and contrast between light and dark. (6) Bauhaus A design school founded by Walter Gropius in 1919, in Germany. The Bauhaus attempted to achieve reconciliation between the aesthetics of design and the more commercial demands of industrial mass production. (2) Bay Area Figurative A style of painting that was a reaction to the Abstract Expressionism that was prevalent in New York, adapting it by going back to nature and including a more figurative imagery. The images were very abstract and painted with much expressionist style, but with a rejection of total abstraction. Begun with teachers at the California School of Fine Art in the 1940s in the San Francisco Bay Area, it lasted until the mid 1960s. (2) Beaux-Arts A French term for the “high arts”, which were officially promoted in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, the official state school founded in the late 19th century. (2) Biedermeier Subsequent to the French Empire style, it was a simple adaptation of it. Was prominent in Germany and Austria from 1815 to 1848 and was popular especially among the middle classes. (1) Boston School A distinct local style in Boston tied to the Museum of Fine Arts School and focused on beauty, elegance, refinement, and avoidance of that which was considered common and vulgar. Paintings of the Boston School are distinctive for their focus on beauty and excellent craftsmanship. Favoured subjects were portraits, especially of elegant women, tastefully presented interiors, sun-filled landscapes, and impeccably arranged still lifes. Narrative genre scenes and labouring people were avoided as subjects. (15). Byzantine art Styles of painting, design, and architecture developed from the fifth century A.D. in the Byzantine Empire of eastern Europe. Characterized in painting by formal design, frontal and stylised figures, and a rich use of colour, especially gold, in generally religious subject matter. (4) California Style A movement in watercolour painting that flourished in California between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s and "gave the traditional watercolour medium a bold new look". They and their followers painted boldly and directly in realist style onto large sheets of paper with minimal sketching and often allowed the white of the paper to show through. Their subject matter was the landscape and genre of Southern California. (16) Clarafactionism An art movement that began in the 1950s, influenced by Surrealism and Futurism, characterised by a photo realistic style of painting (if not of subject-matter). (10) Classical art The art of ancient Greece and Rome. More specifically, Classical refers to the style of Greek art that flourished during the fifth century B.C. The term is also used to describe any art based on a clear, rational, and regular structure, emphasizing horizontal and vertical directions, and organizing its parts with special emphasis on balance and proportion. Designed to project Greek and roman values of reason, objectivity, discipline, restraint, order, harmony (2&4) Classical Abstraction The exercise of rigorous intellectual discipline and technical control in abstract painting and sculpture. (2) Colour Field Painting Art style of flat, impersonal works, often on a large scale to suppress the artist's feelings with a transcendent beauty. Painted with solid areas of colour covering the entire canvas, artists were interested in the lyrical or atmospheric effects of vast expanses of colour, filling the canvas, and by suggestion, beyond it to infinity. It was the natural successor to Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s and 1960s. Most colour-field paintings are large and are meant to be seen up close so that the viewer is immersed in a colour environment. (1&2) Conceptual art An art form in which the originating idea and the process by which it is presented take precedence over a tangible product. Conceptual works are sometimes produced in visible form, but they often exist only as descriptions of mental concepts or ideas. This trend developed in the late 1960s, in part as a way to avoid the commercialisation of art. (4) Constructivism A modern aesthetic movement that turns to shapes in nature and machines for models of formal and functional autonomy. The underlying theory is that a work of art should be an autonomous object with a life of its own and that it should reflect economy and precision. The style is non-objective, and the materials are often iron, tin, wood, glass, plaster, and plastic--an attempt to bridge the gap between everyday life and art. (2) Contemporary Art Generally defined as art that has been produced since the second half of the twentieth century. (2) Corealism A term coined in 1993 by painter and cartoonist Nik Swider to describe his style of painting. (10) Cubism The movement that searched for basic geometric forms in nature, then took them apart followed by an imaginative reorganization of those elements in various contexts. Since Cubism was chiefly concerned with the liberation of form, colour played a subordinate role in Cubist art. Major Cubist achievements took place between 1907 and 1914. (2) Dada A movement in art and literature, founded in Switzerland in the early twentieth century, which ridiculed contemporary culture and conventional art. The Dadaists shared an antimilitaristic and antiaesthetic attitude, generated in part by the horrors of World War I and in part by a rejection of accepted canons of morality and taste. (4) De Stijl A purist art movement with the style pared down to primary colours, plus black and white, and rectangular shapes. The movement began in the Netherlands during World War I by Mondrian and others, involving painters, sculptors, designers, and architects. The name was associated with their work as their works and ideas were expressed through the De Stijl (Dutch for “the style”) magazine. Their work exerted tremendous influence on the Bauhaus and the International Style. (4) Divisionism A system of painting using small dots of usually different colours. thus producing a composite effect in the eye of the beholder. (1) Earth Art Works of art that use natural materials such as earth. The phrase, came to mean any art that used terrain for materials. (5) Eclecticism The practice of selecting or borrowing from earlier styles and combining the borrowed elements. (4) Expressionism Art in which the emotions of an artist are paramount and take precedence over a rational and faithful-to-life rendering of subject matter. Expressionist compositions and forms therefore tend toward distortion and exaggeration. (2) Fauvism A style of painting characterized by areas of bright, contrasting colour, simplified shapes, violent distortions and broad, bold brushwork.. Introduced in Paris in the early twentieth century, the name les fauves is French for "the wild beasts." Figurative Describes artwork representing the form of a human, an animal or a thing. Abstract artwork is the opposite of figurative art in certain ways. (1) Florida Highwaymen A group of African-American landscape painters in Florida in the 1950s and 1960s who painted fanciful land/skyscapes usually billowing cumulous clouds over bodies of water. Artists painted on upson board, (a product used by roofers), and then framed with crown moulding. (18) Folk Art Art of people who have had no formal, academic training, but whose works are part of an established tradition of style and craftsmanship. (4) Formalist Having an emphasis on highly structured visual relationships rather than on subject matter or non-visual content. (4) Funism An art movement relating to art works that are intended to express fun, humour and joviality. The intention is to react to the perceived over-intellectualisation of other art movements. (10) Funk Art Artwork referring to subject matter that is offensive or intended to offend. Often refers to a movement born in the San Francisco area during the 1960s. The word funk derives from funky, a musical term. Peter Selz, then director of the University Art Museum in Berkeley, gave the name to the movement. (2) Futurism A group movement that originated in Italy in 1909. One of several movements to grow out of Cubism. Futurists added implied motion to the shifting planes and multiple observation points of the Cubists; they celebrated natural as well as mechanical motion and speed. Their glorification of danger, war, and the machine age was in keeping with the martial spirit developing in Italy at the time. (4) Hard-Edge A term first used in the 1950s to distinguish styles of painting in which shapes are precisely defined by sharp edges, in contrast to the usually blurred or soft edges in Abstract Expressionist paintings. (4) Humanism A cultural and intellectual movement during the Renaissance, following the rediscovery of the art and literature of ancient Greece and Rome. A philosophy or attitude concerned with the interests, achievements, and capabilities of human beings rather than with the abstract concepts and problems of theology or science. (4) Iconoclast art A type of art without religious figures created during the reigns of Leo III and a string of his successors (AD 730-843). These rulers banned religious figures. (5) Impressionism Characterised by paintings of everyday subjects, executed outdoors, using divided brush strokes to capture the mood of a particular moment as defined by the transitory effects of light and colour. The style of painting originated in France about 1870 and was first exhibited in 1874. (4) Intimism Depiction of intimate domestic interior scenes by Pierre Bonnard (French, 1867-1947) and Edouard Vuillard (French, 1868-1940) from the 1890s onwards. The styles owed much to the colouring and the move away from naturalism. (1) Kinetic art Art that incorporates actual movement as part of the design. (4) Los Cinco Pintores Artists belonging to a group of painters in Santa Fe, New Mexico and regarded as the "wild bunch" in the post World War I era. Commonalities were; awe for the New Mexico environment, fear of encroaching civilization, and their desperate need to record this era before it passed. Non-European trained, they painted in modernist, somewhat abstract styles. (2) Magic Realism German art critic Franz Roh coined this phrase in 1924 to describe the less expressive (and more conservative) element of the neue sachlichkeit. (5) Mannerism A style characterized by the dramatic use of space and light, exaggerated colour, elongation of figures, and distortions of perspective, scale, and proportion that developed in the sixteenth century as a reaction to the classical rationality and balanced harmony of the High Renaissance. (4) Minimalism A twentieth century art movement and style stressing the idea of reducing a work of art to the minimum number of colours, values, shapes, lines and textures. No attempt is made to represent or symbolize any other object or experience. (1) Modernism An art style that aims to use new materials used such as paints and other materials, new ways of self-expression involving feelings and fantasies, innovative use of colour, bold brushstrokes and the requirement for the audience to interpret the art instead of merely viewing it. This approach contrasted with the more traditional forms of artistic expression of the late 19th and 20th century. (2) Naive art Art made by people with no formal art training or in the style of those who would not have training. Thus, works display a simple approach to subject matter, non-scientific perspective. (4) Naturalism Representational art in which the artist interprets visual reality whilst retaining something of the natural appearance or look of the objects depicted. Naturalism varies greatly from artist to artist, depending on the degree and kind of subjective interpretation. (4) Neoclassicism New classicism. A revival of classical Greek and Roman forms in art, music, and literature, usually executed with sharp outlines, reserved emotions, deliberate (often mathematical) composition, and cool colours. Popular particularly during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe and America, it was part of a reaction to the excesses of Baroque and Rococo art. (1&2&4) Neo-Expressionism “New” expressionism, neo - expressionist works depict intense emotions and symbolism, sometimes using unconventional media and intense colours with turbulent compositions and subject matter. (2) Neo-impressionism A movement in painting that was an outgrowth of and reaction to Impressionism. It was originated by Georges-Pierre Seurat (French, 1859-1891), who employed a technique called pointillism (also called divisionism, or confettiism), based on the scientific juxtaposition of touches or dots of pure colour. (1) Neo-Plasticism Also called De Stijl. An art movement advocating pure abstraction and simplicity with form reduced to the rectangle and colour to the primary colours plus black and white. Piet Mondrian (Dutch, 1872-1944) was the group's leading figure, publishing a manifesto titled Neo-Plasticism in 1920. (1) Non-representational Art without reference to anything outside itself-without representation. Also called non-objective i.e. -without recognizable objects. (4) Op Art Short for Optical Art, a style popular in the 1960s that was based on optical principles and optical illusion in which artists sought to create an impression of movement on the picture surface. (1) Orphism A style of painting related to Cubism, that employed overlapping planes of bright, contrasting colours. It was generally both more abstract and more colourful than other forms of Cubism. The name, chosen by the poet Guillaume Apollinaire (French, 1880-1918) in 1913, harkened back to Orpheus, the singer and poet of Greek mythology. (1) Outer Art A movement dating from 1990 with a focus on making artwork that is as ugly as possible, wrong as possible, and generally as impossible as possible. Used as a protest against random modern art, where anything could mean art. (2) Outsider Art Works that include ethnic and folk art, completed by those outside mainstream society such as the mentally ill, convicts or other culturally isolated individuals. (17) Photo Realism A painting and drawing style of the mid-20th century in which people, objects, and scenes are depicted with such naturalism that the paintings resemble photographs – an almost exact visual duplication of the subject. (2) Pointillism A method of painting developed in France in the 1880s in which tiny dots of colour are applied to the canvas. When viewed from a distance, the points of colour appear to blend to make other colours and to form shapes and outlines. (1) Pop Art A style focused on depicting commonplace images and objects often related to mass production and commercial products such as Coca Cola bottles or Campbell's Soup Cans and iconic personalities including Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy. (2) Post-Impressionism A general term applied to various personal styles of painting by French artists (or artists living in France) concerned with the significance of form, symbols, expressiveness and psychological intensity. It developed from about 1885 to 1900 in reaction to what these artists saw as the somewhat formless and aloof quality of Impressionist painting. (4) Post-Minimalism Although minimalist art of the 1960s had a stripped-down, prefabricated look, striving to be free of symbolic undertones, art with minimalist tendencies from the 1970s onward typically became more content-laden. The term Post-Minimalism was coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in Artforum, November, 1971, (19) Post-Modern An attitude or trend of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, in which artists and architects accept all that modernism rejects. In most visual arts, Post-Modern is characterized by an acceptance of all periods and styles, including modernism, and a willingness to combine elements of all styles and periods. Although modernism makes distinctions between high art and popular taste, Post-Modernism makes no such value judgments. (4) Precisionism A style of early twentieth century painting in which are depicted scenes of mechanical and industrial subject matter, such as smokestacks, steel foundries, or grain elevators. These subjects were usually reduced or simplified to geometric forms and rendered in bright and clear light, by a combination of abstraction and realism. (1) Prehistoric art Art created before written history. Often the only record of early cultures. (4) Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood A group of English artists that formed an association in 1848 to recapture the beauty and simplicity of the medieval world. Their painting style customarily using bright colours, and attention to detail, reacted to the sterility of English art, along with the materialism resulting from England's industrialization. They identified Raphael (Italian, 1483-1520) with the scientific interests of Renaissance art, which they felt had led to modern technological development. They aimed to study nature, to sympathize with what was direct, serious and heartfelt, and to infuse their works with literary symbolism,. (1) Rayonism A type of abstract or semi-abstract painting characterized by the fragmentation of forms into masses of slanting lines. In addition, the Rayonists expounded a theory that "The rays which emanate from the objects and cross over one another give rise to rayonist forms. The artist transforms these by bending them to his desire for aesthetic expression." (1) Realism A type of representational art in which the artist depicts as closely as possible what the eye sees. Also, a mid-nineteenth-century style, based on the idea that ordinary people and everyday activities are worthy subjects for art. (4) Renaissance Literally, “rebirth”. The period in Europe from the 14th to the 16th century, characterized by a renewed interest in Classical art, architecture, literature and philosophy. The Renaissance began in Italy and gradually spread to the rest of Europe. (2) Representational art Art in which it is the artist's intention to represent a particular subject; especially pertaining to realistic portrayal of subject matter. (4) Rococo From the French rocaille meaning "rock work." This late Baroque (c. 1715-1775) style used in interior decoration and painting was characteristically playful, pretty, romantic, and visually loose or soft; it used small scale and ornate decoration, pastel colours, and asymmetrical arrangement of curves. It aimed to portray the carefree life of the aristocracy rather than on grand heroes or pious martyrs. Love and romance were considered better subjects for art than historical or religious subjects. Rococo was popular in France and southern Germany in the 18th century. (1&4) Romanticism A literary and artistic movement of late 18th and 19th century Europe, aimed at asserting the validity of subjective experience as a countermovement to the often-cold formulas of Neoclassicism. Pictures characterized intense emotional excitement and powerful forces in nature, exotic lifestyles, danger, suffering, and nostalgia. Has developed to represent art of any period based on spontaneity, intuition, and emotion rather than carefully organized rational approaches to form. (4) Rubénisme The doctrine that colour, rather than form, was the most important element in painting. A movement in seventeenth century France which highly valued the colouristic brilliance and painterly style of Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). (1) Social realism A type of realism, which is more overtly political in content, critical of society and marked by its realistic depiction of social problems. (1) Style A characteristic handling of media and elements of form that gives a work its identity as the product of a particular person, group, art movement, period, or culture. (4) Surrealism A movement in literature and the visual arts based upon revealing the unconscious mind in dream images, the irrational, and the fantastic. Developed in the mid1920s and remaining strong until the mid1940s, it grew out of Dada and automatism. Surrealism took two directions: representational with their uses of impossible combinations of objects depicted in realistic detail and abstract through the use of fantastic shapes and vaguely defined creatures. (4) Symbolism An art movement that used symbols to convey imprecise, mysterious or ambiguous meanings and ideas. Influenced by Romanticism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, it rejected the purely visual realism of the Impressionists, and the rationality of the Industrial Age. It thrived in France in the late nineteenth century and its influence spread throughout much of Europe. Various approaches were taken, from the literary approach, where some of the imagery of writers was employed, including icons as severed heads, monsters and glowing or smoky spirits, synthesized from elements of Bible stories and ancient myths. Another group, taking a more formal approach, developed linear stylisations and innovative uses of colour produced emotional effects. (1) Synchromism A style of painting employing pure colours in harmonious abstract arrangement, first exhibited in Paris in 1913. (1) Tachisme Art characterized by abstract painting where the artist applied the colour in blots or stains Coined by the French art critic Charles Estiennie, in the early 1950s. (5) Tonalism A term used as both a style of painting and an art "movement", often seen as an opposite of Impressionism. Tonalists believed the tone or value changes (light to dark) held primacy in creating both form and light. (20) Tromple L'Oeil A painting with extreme naturalistic details, aiming to persuade the viewer that they are looking at an actual object, not a representation. French for "deceive the eye". (3) Ukiyo-e Japanese pictures (17th to 19th centuries) celebrating the culture of the Yoshiwara (brothel) quarter of Edo (Tokyo). Geishas were favourite subjects, but so were landscapes and scenes from historical legends, epics, and folktales. (5) Vorticism A short-lived modernist English art movement centred on hard edges and angles, as seen in Cubism but often applied to powerful machinery and massive structures. Founded in 1914 by painter Wyndam Lewis (English, 1882-1957), along with poet Ezra Pound (American, 1885-1972), who devised the group's name, the vortex represented "the point of maximum energy," seen as the essential characteristic of modern life. (1) Yamato-e The Japanese naturalistic narrative style of painting (circa, 10th century) (5) Zenga Japanese paintings (in ink) characterized by their boldness and spontaneity. (5) Acknowledgements The following sources helped produce the definitions shown above (1) http://www.artlex.com (2) http://www.Askart.com (3) http://www.Rexart.com (4) http://www.Ackland.com (5) http://www.MindConnect.com (6) Ralph Mayer, "A Dictionary of Art Terms and Techniques" (7) American Artist magazine, 12/2002 (8) Britannica (9) Donald Martin Reynolds, "Masters of American Sculpture", p. 13 (10) Daniel C Boyer, Artist (11) Marika Hershkovic,(Ed), "American Abstract Expressionism" (234) (12) Lydia A Miniter, Oradell New Jersey (American Artist, 6/2002 (13) Cynthia McBride, McBride Gallery in Annapolis, MD (14) Kimberley Reynolds, "Illustrated Dictionary of Art Terms" (15) "A Studio of Her Own" by Erica Hirshler (16) Gordon McClelland and Jay Last, "The California Style" (17) Christies (18) Neal Auction Company (19) "Eva Hesse: Post-Minimalism into Sublime." (20) Cynthia McBride
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