- Industry: Art history
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Art in which the medium is the artist's own body and the artwork takes the form of actions performed by the artist. Performance art has origins in Futurism and Dada, but became a major phenomenon in the 1960s and 1970s and can be seen as a branch of Conceptual art. In Germany and Austria it was known as Actionism. An important influence on the emergence of Performance was the photographs of the Abstract Expressionist painter Jackson Pollock making his so-called action paintings, taken in 1950 by the photographer Hans Namuth. Performance art had its immediate origins in the more overtly theatrical Happenings organised by Allan Kaprow and others in New York in the late 1950s. By the mid 1960s this theatrical element was being stripped out by early Performance artists such as Vito Acconci and Bruce Nauman. In Europe the German artist Joseph Beuys was a hugely influential pioneer of Performance art, making a wide impact with his 'actions' from 1963 on. These were powerful expressions of the pain of human existence, and complex allegories of social and political issues and man's relationship to nature. In Britain the artist duo Gilbert & George made highly original Performance works from 1969. A major problem for early Performance artists was the ephemeral nature of the medium. Right from the start performance pieces were recorded in photography, film and video, and these eventually became the primary means by which Performance reached a wide public.
Industry:Art history
A system for representing objects in three-dimensional space (i.e. For representing the visible world) on the two-dimensional surface of a picture. Basic, or linear perspective, was invented in Italy in the early fifteenth century and first developed by the painter Paolo Uccello. Perspective rests on the fact that although parallel lines never meet, they appear to do so as they get further away from the viewer towards the horizon, where they disappear. The sides of a road, or later, railway lines, are obvious examples. In painting all parallel lines, such as the roof line and base line of a building, are drawn so as to meet at the horizon if they were extended. This creates the illusion of distance, and the point at which the lines meet is called the vanishing point. Things look smaller the further away they are, and perspective enabled painters accurately and consistently to calculate the size things should be in relation to their supposed distance from the viewpoint. Early perspective systems used a single fixed viewpoint with a single vanishing point. Later, multiple vanishing points were introduced which enabled a much more naturalistic representation of a scene to be made, because it was closer to the way we actually see, that is, from two eyes which are in constant motion. Atmospheric, or aerial perspective, creates the sense of distance in a painting by utilising the fact that the atmosphere appears more blue in the distance.
Industry:Art history
A photograph is an image created by the action of light on a light-sensitive material at some stage during its making. It can be either a positive or negative image and made using one of many processes.
Industry:Art history
A collage constructed from photographs that has often been used as a means of expressing political dissent. First used by the Dadaists in 1915 in their protests against the First World War, it was later adopted by the Surrealists who exploited the possibilities photomontage offered by using free association to bring together widely disparate images, to reflect the workings of the unconscious mind. In 1923 the Russian Constructivist Aleksander Rodchenko began experimenting with photomontage as a way of creating striking socially engaged imagery concerned with the placement and movement of objects in space. Other key exponents of the medium are John Heartfield, the German artist who reconstructed images from the media to protest against Germany's Fascist regime and Peter Kennard, whose photomontages explored issues such as economic inequality, police brutality and the nuclear arms race between the 1970s and the 1990s.
Industry:Art history
A style of painting that emerged in Europe and the USA in the late 1960s, Photorealism was characterised by its painstaking detail and precision. It rejected the painterly qualities by which individual artists could be recognised, and instead strove to create pictures that looked photographic. Visual complexity, heightened clarity and a desire to be emotionally neutral led to banal subject matter that likened the movement to Pop art. Artists associated with Photorealism include the painter Chuck Close and Richard Estes. The early 1990s saw a renewed interest in Photorealism, thanks to new technology in the form of cameras and digital equipment which offered more precision. Younger artists practising this technique today include Raphaella Spence, Clive Head and Bertrand Meniel. (See also Hyper-Realism)
Industry:Art history
In traditional illusionistic painting using perspective, the picture plane can be thought of as the glass of the notional window through which the viewer looks into the representation of reality that lies beyond. In practice the picture plane is the same as the actual physical surface of the painting. In modern art the picture plane became a major issue. Formalist theory asserts that a painting is a flat object and that in the interests of truth it should not pretend to be other than flat. In other words, there should be no illusion of three dimensions and so all the elements of the painting should be located on the picture plane.
Industry:Art history
Interest in landscape painting and in looking at the landscape itself grew rapidly through the second half of the eighteenth century. Definitions of types of landscape or view, seen from an aesthetic or artistic point of view, followed. At one extreme was the Sublime (awesome sights such as great mountains) at the other the Beautiful, the most peaceful, even pretty sights. In between came the Picturesque, views seen as being artistic but containing elements of wildness or irregularity. Theory of the picturesque developed by writers William Gilpin (Observations on the River Wye 1770) and Uvedale Price, who in 1794 published An Essay on the Picturesque as Compared with the Sublime and Beautiful.
Industry:Art history
A plane surface is a flat surface, and any discrete flat surface within a painting or sculpture can be referred to as a plane. The flat patches seen in Cubist paintings are often referred to as planes, and geometric abstract artists refer frequently to planes in discussing their work.
Industry:Art history
A fine white powder (calcium sulphate hemihydrate) which, when mixed with water, forms fully hydrated calcium sulphate, a white solid. Widely used by sculptors for moulds and preliminary casts.
Industry:Art history
French term meaning out of doors. Refers to practice of painting entire finished picture out of doors as opposed to simply making preparatory studies or sketches. Pioneered by Constable in Britain c. 1813-17, then from c. 1860 became fundamental to Impressionism. Important technical approach in development of Naturalism. Subsequently became extremely widespread and part of practice of Rural Naturalists for example. Sometimes taken to extremes e.g. By Stanhope Forbes of whom there exists a photograph of him painting on a beach in high wind with canvas and easel secured by guy ropes.
Industry:Art history
