- Industry: Art history
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Strong, woven cloth traditionally used for artists' supports. Commonly made of either linen or cotton thread, but also manufactured from man-made materials such as polyester.
Industry:Art history
British Post-Impressionist group founded by Sickert in London in 1911. Other members were Bevan, Gore, Gilman, Ginner. Painted realist scenes of city life and some landscape in a range of Post-Impressionist styles. Named after the seedy district of north London where Sickert had lived in the 1890s and again from 1907. His series of Camden Town nudes and his paintings of alienated couples in interiors, such as Ennui, are his outstanding contribution to Camden Town art.
Industry:Art history
Term coined by the British architectural critic Reyner Banham to describe the approach to building particularly associated with the architects Peter and Alison Smithson in the 1950s and 1960s. The term originates from the use by the pioneer modern architect and painter Le Corbusier of 'beton brut'—raw concrete in French. Banham gave the French word a punning twist to express the general horror with which this concrete architecture was greeted in Britain. Typical examples of Brutalism are the Hayward Gallery and National Theatre on London's South Bank. The term brutalism has sometimes been used to describe the work of artists influenced by Art Brut.
Industry:Art history
A word used in relation to painting to describe the characteristics of the paint surface resulting from its application with a brush. Brushwork can range from extremely smooth—as, for example, in the work of the German Neue Sachlichkeit painters—to extremely thick, as in the various forms of Expressionism, and what is called gestural (see also impasto). Brushwork, like handwriting, can be highly individual and can be an important factor in identifying an artist's work. It can also be highly expressive—that is, the application of the paint itself plays a role in conveying the emotion or meaning of the work. In modern art theory, emphasis is placed on the idea that a painting should have its own reality rather than attempting to imitate the three-dimensional world. Value is therefore placed on distinctive brushwork because it asserts the two-dimensional surface of the work and the reality of the paint itself. Distinctive brushwork is also seen as valuable because it foregrounds the role of the medium itself. The painter Robert Ryman has devoted his entire career to an exploration of brushwork.
Industry:Art history
Browser art is a sub-genre of Net art and relates specifically to a renegade artwork made as part of an URL, that uses the computer as raw material, transforming the codes, the structure of the websites and the links between servers into visual material. Some Browser artworks automatically connect to the Internet and then proceed to mangle the web pages by reading the computer's 'code' the wrong way. The duo Joan Hermskerk and Dirk Paesmans, known as Jodi, have devised a program which the Net art writer Tilman Baumgärtel has described as transforming a PC 'into an unpredictable, terrifying machine that seems to have a life of its own'. Other artists, like the British based duo Tom Corby and Gavin Baily, reduce image-rich web pages to stark white text and the American artist Maciej Wisniewski has developed a browser that transforms the interactive experience of surfing the net into a passive activity, staring at floating images and texts. (see also Software art)
Industry:Art history
The British Surrealist group was founded in 1936. Its chief organising figures were the poet and critic Herbert Read, the poet and artist David Gascoyne, the artist Paul Nash, and the artist and collector Roland Penrose. In the same year they organised the First International Surrealist Exhibition in London which attracted huge public attention. At the opening Salvador Dalí gave a lecture from inside a deep-sea diving suit. Nash probably made the most significant artistic contribution to British Surrealism, and there are powerful Surrealist elements in the work of Henry Moore at that time. Other artists, in addition to Penrose, include Agar, Armstrong, Banting, Ithell Colquhoun, Conroy Maddox, Mesens, Trevelyan. In 1947 the British group merged with the French one.
Industry:Art history
Modernist ideas associated with what was to become known as French Impressionism were introduced to Britain by Whistler from 1863 when he settled in London. Forms of Impressionism were then developed by his pupils Sickert and Steer and promoted by the New English Art Club founded in 1886. In 1889 Sickert and Steer organised the exhibition London Impressionists with the more advanced members of NEAC. Meanwhile in 1885 Sargent arrived from France, where he knew the great French Impressionist, Monet, and settled in London. In the next few years he made a major contribution to Impressionism in Britain with paintings such as Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose which was painted entirely out of doors.
Industry:Art history
Artists associated with Bristol in early 1800s inspired by local scenery especially River Avon and Avon Gorge. Principal figures were Francis Danby during the roughly ten years he spent there before moving to London 1824, and JB Pyne. Both had pupils and followers notably Samuel Colman who made highly personal contribution to genre of biblical and landscape fantasy Danby later became known for (in rivalry with John Martin), and the prolific landscapist WJ Müller known for his Orientalist scenes as well as Avon studies.
Industry:Art history
Term used to describe art in which the body, often that of the artist is the principal medium and focus. It covers a wide range of art from about 1960 on, encompassing a variety of different approaches. It includes much Performance art, where the artist is directly concerned with the body in the form of improvised or choreographed actions, happenings and staged events. However, the term body art is also used for explorations of the body in a variety of other media including painting, sculpture, photography, film and video. Body art has frequently been concerned with issues of gender and personal identity. A major theme has been the relationship of body and mind, explored in work consisting of feats of physical endurance designed to test the limits of the body and the ability of the mind to suffer pain. Body art has often highlighted the visceral or abject aspects of the body, focusing on bodily substances or the theme of nourishment. It has also highlighted contrasts such as those between clothed and nude, internal and external, parts of the body and the whole. In some work, the body is seen as the vehicle for language. In 1998 the art historian Amelia Jones published a survey titled Body Art. (See also Conceptual art, Feminist art. )
Industry:Art history
A district of quiet squares near central London. Its name is commonly used to identify a circle of intellectuals and artists who lived there in the period 1904-40. The intellectuals included the biographer Lytton Strachey, the economist Maynard Keynes, the novelist Virginia Woolf and the art critic Clive Bell. The principal artists were Vanessa Bell, Roger Fry, who was also a highly influential critic, and Duncan Grant. Bloomsbury was in revolt against everything Victorian and played a key role in introducing many modern ideas into Britain. In 1910 Fry organised in London the exhibition Manet and the Post-Impressionists which brought modern French art to the attention of the British public. Visitors to the show were duly scandalised by the many works by Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Matisse and Picasso. The Bloomsbury painters created their own distinctive brand of Post-Impressionism and around 1914 experimented with abstract art. Fry also founded the design firm Omega Workshops for which the Bloomsbury artists designed pottery, furniture, fabrics and interiors. Note that Bloomsbury resisted being categorised as a group.
Industry:Art history
