- Industry: Art history
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A relief is a wall-mounted sculpture in which the three-dimensional elements are raised from a flat base. Any three-dimensional element attached to a basically flat wall mounted work of art is said to be in relief or a relief element.
Industry:Art history
French word meaning rebirth, now used in English to describe the great revival of art that took place in Italy from about 1400 under the influence of the rediscovery of classical art and culture. In Italian, Rinascimento. Renaissance reached its peak (High Renaissance) in short period from about 1500-1530 in the work of Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael. The work of Raphael may be seen as representing the purest form of the Renaissance style and he was held up as prime model in the art academies until mid nineteenth century when revolt began with e.g. Pre-Raphaelites, Realism, Naturalism, Impressionism. Up to then the Renaissance style underwent myriad successive transformations as in Mannerism, Baroque, Rococo, Neo-Classicism, Romantic movement.
Industry:Art history
A copy of a work of art that is virtually indistinguishable from the original. Unlike a fake, a replica is not trying to pass for the original and is often made by the artist and used for historical and educational purposes. The vogue for collecting replicas reached the height of popularity in the mid to late nineteenth century when few people could afford to travel on the Continent, so museums acquired reproductions of important monuments and works of art to complement their collections. Replicas in modern art are made as a result of original works of art decaying or being lost. Marcel Duchamp's Fountain, the most famous of the artist's readymade sculptures, was replicated in collaboration with Duchamp from a photograph of the lost original. Tate holds the largest collection of plastic sculptures by Naum Gabo, but despite controlled storage conditions, many of these works are cracking and warping. Computer software will be used to help virtually restore the sculpture models, so that replicas can be made of the originals.
Industry:Art history
Blanket term for art that represents some aspect of reality, in a more or less straightforward way. The term seems to have come into use after the rise of modern art and particularly abstract art as a means of referring to art not substantially touched by modern developments. Not quite the same as figurative art which seems to apply to modern art in which the elements of reality, while recognisable, are nevertheless treated in modern ways, as in Expressionism for example. The term figurative also implies a particular focus on the human figure. The term non-representational is frequently used as a synonym for abstract.
Industry:Art history
An organic solid, usually transparent. 'Natural' resins derive from either plants or insects, whereas 'synthetic' resins (e.g. Alkyd and acrylic) are manufactured industrially. They can usually be dissolved in organic solvents to produce a clear solution, although many synthetic resins are produced as dispersions.
Industry:Art history
Following the ten years of the Commonwealth the monarchy in Britain was restored with the accession in 1660 of Charles II, who immediately appointed Lely as his court painter. Lely had served Charles I in his final years, adapted with great success to the austerity of the Commonwealth period, and then smoothly moved back into royal favour at the restoration. Lely's portraits of fashionably popeyed beauties exemplify the licentiousness for which Charles II and his court remain notorious. Wright also significant figure and new subject matter appears in compelling animal paintings of Barlow.
Industry:Art history
From the French retour à l'ordre. A phenomenon of European art in the years following the First World War. The term is said to derive from the book of essays by the artist and poet Jean Cocteau, Le rappel a l'ordre, published in 1926. The First World War administered a huge shock to European society. One of the artistic responses to it was to reject the extreme avant-garde forms of art that had proliferated before the war. Instead, more reassuring and traditional approaches were adopted. The term 'return to order' is used to describe this phenomenon. Cubism with its fragmentation of reality was rejected even by its inventors Braque and Picasso. Futurism, with its worship of the machine and its enthusiasm for war, was particularly discredited. Classicism was an important thread in the return to order, and in the early 1920s Picasso entered a Neo-Classical phase. Braque painted calm still life and figure pictures which, while still having some Cubist characteristics, were simple and readable. The former Fauve painter André Derain and many other artists turned to various forms of realism. In Germany Neue Sachlichkeit can be seen as part of the return to order.
Industry:Art history
Light, sensuous, intensely decorative French style developed early eighteenth century following death of Louis XIV and in reaction to the Baroque grandeur of Versailles. Name comes from French rocaille, rock-work, based on forms of sea shells and corals. In practice style of short curves, scrolls and counter curves, often elaborated with fantasy. In painting, Rococo prettiness, gaiety, curvaceousness and sensuality exemplified in work of Boucher, Fragonard, Watteau and sculpture of Clodion. (Superb examples Rococo art and decoration in Wallace Collection, London; also Victoria and Albert Museum for Clodion). Brought to Britain by Mercier and robust British version in Hogarth, but influence in Britain reached height in the dazzling female portraits of Gainsborough.
Industry:Art history
Term in use by 1812 (e.g. By poet Coleridge) to distinguish new forms of art and literature from classical tradition. Romantic art placed new emphasis on human psychology and expression of personal feeling and on interest in and response to natural world. This complex shift in artistic attitudes at height from about 1780 to 1830 but influence continuing long after. Overall characteristic a new emotionalism in contrast to prevailing ideas of classical restraint. In British art embraced new responses to nature in art of Constable and Turner as well as new approaches to human history, man's place in the cosmos and relationship to God, examined in work of Blake. Other significant painters of history subjects were Fuseli, Barry and Mortimer. Later phases of Romantic movement in Britain embrace Pre-Raphaelites and Symbolism.
Industry:Art history
Paintings of rural life in naturalist manner, but subjects tend to be sentimentalised, distinguishing such art from more gritty Realist work. In Britain exemplified by Newlyn School painting and work of artists such as Clausen, La Thangue and Stott.
Industry:Art history
