- Industry: Art history
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An assembly of images that relate to each other in some way to create a single work or part of a work of art. A montage is more formal than a collage and is usually based on a theme. It is also used to describe experimentation in photography and film, in particular the works of Man Ray and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy who made a series of short movies and photographic montages in the 1930s. (See also Photomontage)
Industry:Art history
A recurring fragment, theme or pattern that appears in a work of art. In the past this was commonly associated with Islamic designs, but it also alludes to a theme or symbol that returns time and again, like the noose and the cigarette in the paintings of American figurative painter Philip Guston, or a pattern, like the abstract drawings of the mid-twentieth-century abstract painter Victor Pasmore. The video artist Bill Viola often uses the motif of water to represent birth and death, as exemplified in his multi-video installation Five Angels for the Millennium. Motif can also refer to the subject of the artwork. The phrase 'to paint from the motif' arose in the context of Impressionism, meaning to paint on the spot.
Industry:Art history
First used in the 1960s in relation to mixed media works that had an electronic element. Andy Warhol's events staged with the rock group the Velvet Underground, under the title of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, which combined music, performance, film and lighting, were described as multi-media. Since the late 1970s multi-media has come to define an artwork that uses a combination of electronic media, which could include video, film, audio and computers.
Industry:Art history
Casting sculpture in bronze, and the various techniques of printmaking, have for many centuries made it possible to make multiple examples of a work of art. Each example of an edition of a print or a bronze is an authentic work of the artist, although there may be technical variations which might affect the value. The number produced is usually strictly limited, mainly for commercial reasons but, in the case of etchings in particular, also for technical reasons—etching plates wear very rapidly, so later impressions are inferior. About 1955, the artists Jean Tinguely and Agam, wanting to make their work more widely available, put forward the idea of very large, effectively unlimited, editions of works which could be sold very cheaply. It is they who seem to have invented the term multiple for such works, which would be made by industrial processes. The first multiples were eventually produced by the Denise René Gallery in Paris in 1962, and since then large numbers of artists have created multiples.
Industry:Art history
A painting applied directly to a wall in a public space is described as a mural. The popularity of the mural in the Western world began in the nineteenth century, with a new, community-orientated sense of national identity. The advantage of a mural is its accessibility to a large audience, which has endeared it to many political ideologies. In the 1930s there was a worldwide trend towards making art more public in reaction to the introspective development of modern art. In Latin America, USA and Britain, mural painting became popular thanks to governmental sponsorship in the form of organisations like the Artists International Association. In 1933 Mario Sironi published his Manifesto of Mural Painting and commissioned murals by Giorgio De Chirico and Carlo Carrà. In Germany, Italy and the USSR murals reflected the totalitarian propaganda of the State. By the 1970s murals in the Western world were engineered to local politics, often revealing a sense of national, racial or civic pride in the area. (See also Mexican Muralism)
Industry:Art history
Les Nabis (from the Hebrew word for prophet) was a group of Post-Impressionist French painters active from 1888-1900. Some of its key members met at the Académie Julian in Paris, which offered a liberal alternative to the official École des beaux-arts. Founded in secret by Paul Sérusier, the group included Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard and Maurice Denis. Inspired by Paul Gauguin's Synthetism, these artists adopted a style characterised by flat patches of colour, bold contours and simplified drawing. Their unconventional outlook led them to experiment with painting on different supports including cardboard and velvet, and to create set designs for Symbolist theatre (See Symbolism).
Industry:Art history
The word naïve means simple, unaffected, unsophisticated. As an art term it specifically refers to artists who also have had no formal training in an art school or academy. Naïve art is characterised by childlike simplicity of execution and vision. As such it has been valued by modernists seeking to get away from what they see as the insincere sophistication of art created within the traditional system. The most famous naïve artist of modern times is Henri Rousseau, known as Le Douanier (customs man) from the full-time job he held. Others are Bauchant, and in Britain the St Ives seaman Alfred Wallis, whose work famously influenced Ben Nicholson. Naïve artists are sometimes referred to as modern primitives (see Primitivism). The category also overlaps with what is called outsider art, or in France, Art Brut. This includes artists who are on the margins of society, such as criminals and mentally ill people.
Industry:Art history
A narrative is simply a story. Narrative art is art that tells a story. Much of Western art has been narrative, depicting stories from religion, myth and legend, history and literature (see History painting). Audiences were assumed to be familiar with the stories in question. From about the seventeenth century genre painting showed scenes and narratives of everyday life. In the Victorian age, narrative painting of everyday life subjects became hugely popular and is often considered as a category in itself (i. E. Victorian narrative painting). In modern art, formalist ideas have resulted in narrative being frowned upon. However, coded references to political or social issues, or to events in the artist's life are commonplace. Such works are effectively modern allegories, and generally require information from the artist to be fully understood. The most famous example of this is Picasso's Guernica.
Industry:Art history
Until the early nineteenth century both landscape and the human figure in art tended to be idealised or stylised according to conventions derived from the classical tradition. Naturalism was the broad movement to represent things closer to the way we see them. In Britain pioneered by Constable who famously said 'there is room enough for a natural painture' (type of painting). Naturalism became one of the major trends of the century and combined with realism of subject led to Impressionism and modern art. Naturalism often associated with Plein air practice.
Industry:Art history
Group of German artists founded 1809 by Overbeck and Pforr, later joined by Cornelius. Originally called Brotherhood of St Luke (patron saint of artists) but came to be known as Nazarenes (ie inhabitants of Nazareth, Christ's home town) because of their religious devotion. Aim was to regenerate German painting by returning to purity of early Renaissance, meaning effectively art before Raphael. Known in England to Dyce and Ford Madox Brown who both reflected their ideas, the Nazarenes were part of the inspiration for the English Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood formed in 1848.
Industry:Art history
