- Industry: Art history
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French term meaning school of fine arts. The original Ecole des Beaux Arts emerged from the teaching function of the French Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, established in Paris in 1648 (see Academy). In 1816 the Académie Royale school moved to a separate building and in 1863 was renamed the Ecole des Beaux Arts. The basis of the teaching was the art of ancient Greece and Rome, that is, classical art. But anatomy, geometry, perspective and study from the nude were also part of the curriculum. In 1663 the Académie founded the Prix de Rome, a hugely prestigious prize that gave winners a prolonged visit to Rome to study classical art on the spot. In 1666 the Académie also founded a branch in Rome to provide teaching and a base for these students. Subsequently most major French cities established their own Ecole des Beaux Arts. The Prix de Rome was abolished in 1968 as a result of the student revolt of that year. By the end of the nineteenth century the Ecole des Beaux Arts had become deeply conservative and independent, rival schools sprang up in Paris, such as the Académie Julian and the Académie Colarossi. The Ecole remained the basic model for an art school until the foundation of the Bauhaus in 1919. (See also Black Mountain College. ) Most of the illustrious names in French art passed through the Ecole up to and including some of the young Impressionists.
Industry:Art history
A group of students at the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf in the mid 1970s who studied under the influential photographers Bernd and Hiller Becher, known for their rigorous devotion to the 1920s German tradition of Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity). The Bechers' photographs were clear, black and white pictures of industrial archetypes (pitheads, water towers, coal bunkers). Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Axel Hütte, Thomas Ruff and Thomas Struth modified the approach of their teachers by applying new technical possibilities and a personal and contemporary vision, while retaining the documentary method their tutors propounded.
Industry:Art history
An intaglio process in which incised lines are drawn on a plate with a sharp, pointed needle-like instrument (not the engraving burin). Drypoint is usually done on copper plates as the softer metal lends itself to this technique. The process of incising creates a slightly raised ragged rough edge to the lines, known as the burr. Both the incised line and specifically the burr receive ink when the plate is wiped, giving the printed line a distinctive velvety look. Owing to the delicate nature of the burr, drypoint is usually made in small editions, stopping before the burr is crushed by the pressure of the intaglio press. Drypoint is often combined with other etching techniques.
Industry:Art history
Essentially, drawing is a technique in which images are depicted on a flat surface by making lines, though drawings can also contain tonal areas, washes and other non-linear marks. Ink, pencil, crayon, charcoal and chalk are the most commonly used materials, but drawings can be made with or in combination with paint and any other wet or dry media.
Industry:Art history
This term is associated with the artists who documented the harsh realities of British life during the Depression in the 1930s. In a decade dominated by mass unemployment and social deprivation, a new radicalism took hold of European politics and artists responded to these events by adopting a realist style that was easily understood. They believed that both the dominating art movements of the time, Abstraction and Surrealism, were too obscure to communicate effectively. In Britain those who shared these beliefs congregated at the Artists International Association (AIA) and the Euston Road School. Some of these artists worked with Mass-Observation, an organisation set up to record the daily lives of ordinary working people.
Industry:Art history
An exhibition of international contemporary art held in Kassel in Germany, originally every four years, and from 1972 every five years. It is perceived as one of the world's most important art exhibitions. Founded by the artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955, the first Documenta featured, among others, Pablo Picasso, Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Max Beckmann. It was created in order to herald a new era after the reactionary aesthetic values of the Nazi period. Sometimes called the Hundred Day Museum, it appoints a new director for every exhibition and the format is often re-invented.
Industry:Art history
A new approach to making carved sculpture introduced by Brancusi from about 1906. Before that carved sculpture had always been based on a carefully worked out preliminary model. Often it was then actually carved by craftsmen employed by the artist. The marble sculptures of Rodin were made in this way. In direct carving there is no model and the final form evolves through the process of carving. An important aspect of direct carving was the doctrine of truth to materials (see also Impasto). This meant that the artist consciously respected the nature of the material, working it to bring out its particular properties and beauty of colour and surface. Direct carvers used a wide variety of types of marble, stone and wood. They kept to simple forms which respected the original block or tree trunk. Surfaces were kept uncluttered by detail in order to expose the material itself, and were often carefully polished to enhance the colour and markings. The results were often highly abstract. In introducing direct carving Brancusi brought about a revolution in the tradition of carved sculpture. After Brancusi, notable direct carvers were Epstein, Gaudier-Brzeska, Hepworth and Moore.
Industry:Art history
The first use of the term Digital art was in the early 1980s when computer engineers devised a paint program which was used by the pioneering digital artist Harold Cohen. This became known as AARON, a robotic machine designed to make large drawings on sheets of paper placed on the floor. Since this early foray into artificial intelligence, Cohen has continued to fine-tune the AARON program as technology becomes more sophisticated. Digital art can be computer generated, scanned or drawn using a tablet and a mouse. In the 1990s, thanks to improvements in digital technology, it was possible to download video onto computers, allowing artists to manipulate the images they had filmed with a video camera. This gave artists a creative freedom never experienced before with film, allowing them to cut and paste within moving images to create visual collages. In recent times some Digital art has become interactive, allowing the audience a certain amount of control over the final image.
Industry:Art history
German Expressionist group. In English, The Blue Rider. Originated in 1909 in the city of Munich, where the Neue Kunstler Vereiningung, or New Artist Association (N. K. V. ) was founded by a number of avant-garde artists. The most important of these were the Russian born Wassily Kandinsky and the German, Franz Marc. In 1911 Kandinsky and Marc broke with the rest of the N. K. V. And in December that year held in Munich the first exhibition of Der Blaue Reiter. This was an informal association rather than a coherent group like Brücke. Other artists closely involved were Paul Klee and August Macke. In 1912 Marc and Kandinsky published a collection of essays on art with a woodcut cover by Kandinsky. This was the Almanach Der Blaue Reiter. Why the name was chosen is not entirely clear. Franz Marc adored horses and his many paintings of them and other animals is symptomatic of the turning back to nature (an aspect of Primitivism) of many early modern artists. Kandinsky apparently had always been fascinated by riders on horseback (horses are symbols of power, freedom and pleasure). A Kandinsky painting in 1903 is actually called The Blue Rider. Blue is a colour which has often seemed of special importance to artists and for Kandinsky and Marc, whose favourite colour it was, it seems to have had a mystical significance. Der Blaue Reiter was brought to an end by the First World War in which both Macke and Marc were killed.
Industry:Art history
