Art movement

An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a specific period of time, (usually a few months, years or decades) or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defined within a number of years. Art movements were especially important in modern art, when

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Abstract art

Synonymous with ‘abstraction’, this term has been employed since the first decades of the 20th century to describe non-representational painting; a style which persists today. Although elaborated upon and refined in its precise manifestations, abstract art essentially comprises non-figurative art, as first exemplified by the color abstracts of Russian painter WASSILY KANDINSKY (1866-1944) around 1911.

Abstract expressionism

An artistic movement whose title was first used by the American critic ROBERT MYRON COATES (1897-1973) in the New Yorker magazine to describe contemporary painting in New York. Its roots lie in surrealism and automatism, from which it adopted and developed theories of improvisation, spontaneity and the importance of the process of artistic creation. Stylistically, the painters included

Action painting

Term invented by the American art critic HAROLD ROSENBERG, with reference to abstract expressionism. It was used to describe the approach of American artists such as Willem de Kooning (1904-1997) and JACKSON POLLOCK (1912-1956), whose works emphasized the actions of artistic creation. Background The style was widespread from the 1940s until the early 1960s, and is closely associated

Actualism

Term first employed by French writer ALAIN JOUFFREY to account for the effect of revolutionary situtations on art, for instance during the Paris riots in May 1968. During such events the division between art and social reality ceases to exist, and its significance or irrelevance is made manifest. In analytic philosophy, actualism is the view that everything there is (i.e.,

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Aerial perspective

The illusion of recession through the depiction of atmospheric effects. In painting, distant landscapes or objects appear progressively fainter, cooler in hue and less distinct in outline. The technique is recognizable in the landscape backgrounds of LEONARDO DA VINCI (1452-1519), and in Chinese landscape painting. Aerial perspective, or atmospheric perspective, refers to the effect the atmosphere has on

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Aestheticism

An awareness of aesthetics in British artistic and literary society in the late 19th century. Although it had no manifesto, the Aesthetic Movement, led by figures such as American artist JAMES WHISTLER (1834-1903) and Irish writer OSCAR WILDE (1854-1900), was important for its cult of ‘art for art’s sake’ which pervaded all forms of art

All-over painting

Term used for a non-formal style of American painting in which no differentiation is made between areas of the painted surface of a canvas; as exemplified by the color field painters or the ‘drip paintings’ of American artist JACKSON POLLOCK (1912-1956). All-over painting refers to the non-differential treatment of the surface of a work of two-dimensional art, for

Arte mat

The name given by Italian artists Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978) and Carlo Carra (1881-1966) to the style of painting that resulted from their encounter at the military hospital in Ferrara in 1917. In English it is often referred to as ‘metaphysical painting’. Although short-lived and not strictly a school, according to de Chirico’s brother ALBERTO SAVINIO (1891-1952), its significance

Arte povera

An Italian art movement which began after a similarly named exhibition (Turin, Mus. Civ.) organized by critic Germano Celant. Relations with conceptual art and minimalism are evident, but its most typical expression is the happening. Practitioners refuse to recognize the ‘product’ or ‘work’, concentrating on the process rather than the result. This term also refers to the base materials used

Art informel

A French term meaning ‘art without form’, this was adopted by the critic MICHEL TAPIE to describe abstract painting (similar to American abstract expressionism) opposed to the rigor of cubism or the geometrical abstraction of de stijl and suprematism, where the artist’s emotions and subconscious fantasies are expressed. Pioneers of this movement were the German painter WOLS (1913-1951) and French artist

Art of the Third Reich

Following the rise to power of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), German art came under the tight control of Paul Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945). As propaganda minister, he brought artists under the control of the Reichskulturkammer, which body decreed that all forms of art should be racially conscious. The art which was subsequently produced until the

Arts and crafts movement

A name coined by the English printer and bookbinder Thomas Cobden-Sanderson (1840-1922), a member of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, for a philosophy which proved significant in the development of British design at the end of the 19th century. Espousing an idealistic approach to design and the arts, the movement, whose champions included the

Asymmetry

A term referring to the absence of symmetry in a painting or object. In order to achieve a realistic effect, a certain degree of asymmetry is necessary; for instance, in the representation of the human face, which exemplifies the lack of absolute symmetry in nature. This lack of symmetry was exploited in Baroque and Rococo

Automatism

This term describes both the aims and methods of surrealism in allowing unconscious images and chance effects to form a work; for example, the use of ink blots by French painter FRANCIS PICABIA (1879-1953). The principle was adopted by the New York Surrealists of the 1940s and provided the basis for action painting, art informel; and, particularly, a group

Bauhaus

A school of architecture and industrial arts, formed in Weimar by the German architect WALTER GROPIUS (1883-1969). Its first manifesto, which owed something to the British arts and crafts movement, emphasized the artist as craftsman; and insisted on the unity of the arts in a building, the elimination of the division between monumental and decorative elements

Blaue reiter

Meaning ‘The Blue Rider’ (after an almanac of that title), this was the name of an artistic group in Munich headed by Russian artist WASSILY KANDINSKY (1866-1944), and Germans AUGUST MACKE (1887-1914) and FRANZ MARC (1880-1916) who broke away from other Expressionists in the Neue Kunstlervereinung. The group had no precise artistic programme, although Kandinsky

Body art

Use of the human body as an artistic medium. This method was inspired by exponents of the happening during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and by French artist YVES KLEIN (1928-1962) who employed ‘imprints’ of the female body on canvases. During the 1970s BRUCE McLEAN and VITO ACCONCI pioneered the idea of ordinary facial or body

Camera lucida

An optical instrument invented by English physicist and inventor Robert Hooke (1635-1703) in about 1674. In 1807 the English chemist and natural philosopher William Hyde Wollaston (1766-1828) developed one of benefit to artists, comprising a four-sided prism of glass with one angle of 90° opposite another of 135° and the remaining two at 67.5°. Such

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Camera obscura

A mechanical aid for drawing from nature, consisting of lenses and mirrors arranged in a darkened tent. A mirror fixed at an angle of 45° reflects the view through a double convex lens onto a sheet of paper placed at the focus of the lens. Its invention is associated with the Italian architect and theorist