- Industry: Art history
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As a general term used to describe the breaking away of younger and more radical artists from an existing academy or art group, to form a new grouping. The word is originally German and its earliest appearance seems to be in the name of the Munich Secession group formed in 1892. In the same year this was followed by the Berliner Secession, led by Max Liebermann and later Lovis Corinth, and in 1913 by the Freie Secession in which Max Beckmann and Ernst Barlach were involved. The most famous secession group is the Vereinigung bildener Künstler Oesterreichs (Secession) founded in 1897 and generally known simply as the Vienna Secession. It was led by one of the greatest of all Symbolist painters, Gustav Klimt. In 1898 the Secession commissioned the architect Joseph Olbrich to build an exhibition hall. The result is a masterpiece of Art Nouveau architecture that remains one of the gems of Vienna. It also contains Klimt's great mural the Beethoven Frieze. Over following years the Vienna Secession held a series of exhibitions (several a year) that brought together a roll call of the international avant-garde. There was a particular emphasis on architecture and design, and the Vienna Secession played a major part in the broader Art Nouveau movement and the beginnings of modern design. In 1903 a design company was founded called the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshops), inspired by the English Arts and Crafts movement. Its products are now museum pieces. Later major artists associated with the Vienna Secession include Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka two of the great pioneers of Expressionism.
Industry:Art history
The Seven and Five Society was formed in London in 1919 and held its first exhibition the following year. Initially it was a conservative group and can be seen as a British manifestation of the return to order that followed the First World War. The first exhibition catalogue explained that the society was not formed 'to advertise a new "ism"—(we) feel that there has of late been too much pioneering along too many lines in altogether too much of a hurry. ' This perfectly encapsulates the 'return to order' attitude. However, in 1924 Ben Nicholson, one of the pioneers of abstract art in Britain, joined the Seven and Five. He was followed by other modernists including Hepworth, Moore and later, Piper. They effectively hijacked the group, expelling the non-modernists. In 1935 they renamed it the Seven and Five Abstract Group and held the first all abstract exhibition in Britain at the Zwemmer Gallery in London.
Industry:Art history
A term from Greek Platonic philosophy that meant a copy of a copy of an ideal form. In postmodernist thought, particularly through the writings of Gilles Deleuze and Jean Baudrillard, the term has been revived in the context of arguments about the relationship between an original work of art and its replication. For Baudrillard the simulacrum takes precedence over the original, with the effect that the original is no longer relevant.
Industry:Art history
The term invented by Robert Delaunay to describe the abstract painting developed by him and his wife Sonia Delaunay from about 1910. Their work was also named Orphism by the poet and critic Apollinaire. The term is derived from the theories of M-E Chevreul whose book of colour theory De la loi du contraste simultanée des couleurs (On the law of the simultaneous contrast of colours) was published in Paris in 1839. It had an increasing impact on French painters from then on, particularly the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists generally, and especially the Neo-Impressionists. The Delaunays' paintings consisted of interlocking or overlapping patches, or planes, of contrasting (or complementary) colours. In Chevreul's theory, and in reality, contrasting colours brought together (i.e. Simultaneous) enhance each other, giving the painting greater intensity and vibrance of colour. The compositions were initially derived from architecture (e. G. R Delaunay's Windows series) but by 1912 he had begun to make paintings in totally abstract circular formats (Disques and Formes circulaires cosmiques series). These compositions were still ultimately based on nature however. In 1912 Delaunay wrote: 'Direct observation of the luminous essence of nature is for me indispensable'.
Industry:Art history
Refers to a work of art designed specifically for a particular location and that has an interrelationship with the location. If removed from the location it would lose all or a substantial part of its meaning. Site-specific is often used of installation works, as in site-specific installation, and Land art is site-specific almost by definition.
Industry:Art history
Revolutionary alliance of European avant-garde artists, writers and poets formed at a conference in Italy in 1957 (as Internationale Situationiste or IS). It combined two existing groupings, the Lettrist International and the International Union for a Pictorial Bauhaus. The leading figure was the writer and filmmaker Guy Debord and the group also prominently included the former Cobra painter Asger Jorn. The former Cobra artist Constant was also a member, and the British artist Ralph Rumney was a co-founder of the movement. The IS developed a critique of capitalism based on a mixture of Marxism and Surrealism, and Debord identified consumer society as the Society of the Spectacle in his influential 1967 book of that title. In the field of culture Situationists wanted to break down the division between artists and consumers and make cultural production a part of everyday life. Situationist ideas played an important role in the revolutionary Paris events of 1968. The IS was dissolved in 1972.
Industry:Art history
Refers to any Realist painting that also carries a clearly discernible social or political comment. In Britain can be found in eighteenth century in e.g. Hogarth, but became particularly widespread in nineteenth century. Important contributions by Pre-Raphaelites and by the more serious-minded genre painters such as Egg, Frith, Fildes and Holl. Not to be confused with Socialist Realism.
Industry:Art history
A form of modern realism imposed in Russia by Stalin following his rise to power after the death of Lenin in 1924. The doctrine was formally proclaimed by Maxim Gorky at the Soviet Writers Congress of 1934, although not precisely defined. In practice, in painting it meant using realist styles to create rigorously optimistic pictures of Soviet life. Any pessimistic or critical element was banned, and this is the crucial difference from social realism. It was quite simply propaganda art, and has an ironic resemblance to the Fascist realism imposed by Hitler in Germany (see Entartete Kunst). Outside the Soviet Union, socialist artists produced much freer interpretations of the genre.
Industry:Art history
In the 1960s, software programs were the digital tool with which artists could create art on computers. Since then, these programs have become so sophisticated that they can now be considered the work of art rather than just a facilitator. Software art is closely related to Net art because of its reliance of the World Wide Web as a tool for dissemination. Often Software art parodies or re-configures existing computer programs. Web Stalker, created by the art collective I/O/D was a radical re-interpretation of an internet browser and Adrian Shaw's Signwave parodied the computer program Adobe Photoshop. The rise of Software art has led to several international new media festivals, namely FILE (Electronic Language International Festival) held in São Paulo in Brazil and transmediale in Berlin. The rise of Software art has provoked questions about the de-materialisation of art and culture and how this has had an effect on the world of conceptual art. (See also Browser Art; Net Art)
Industry:Art history
