- Branche: Art history
- Number of terms: 11718
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What we call art in all its forms—painting, sculpture, drawing and engraving—appeared in human groups all over the world in the period known as the Upper Paleolithic, which is roughly from 40,000 to 10,000 years ago. In Europe, sophisticated and powerful paintings from this period have been discovered in caves such as Lascaux in France. In 1994 possibly even more astonishing works were found in the Chauvet cave in the Ardèche Valley, also in France. Cave paintings consist of pigments such as coloured earths rubbed onto the rock. In some cases they appear to have been mixed into a paste first. The paintings mostly represent animals but there are some human images. Since then painting has changed in essence very little. Supports evolved from rock faces, through the walls of buildings, to portable ones of paper, wood, and finally cloth, particularly canvas. The range of pigments expanded through a wide range of earths and minerals, to plant extracts and modern synthetic colours. Pigments have been mixed with water and gum to make a paint, but in the fifteenth century in Europe the innovation of using oil (linseed) produced a newly flexible and durable medium that played a major part in the explosion of creativity in Western painting at the Renaissance and after. At the same time subject matter expanded to embrace almost every aspect of life (Genres).
Industry:Art history
A smooth, flat surface on which artists set out and mix their colours before painting, which is often designed to be held in the hand. The term also refers to the range of colours habitually used by and characteristic of an artist. A palette in computer graphics is a chosen set of colours that are each assigned a number, and it is this number that determines the colour of the pixel.
Industry:Art history
Rigid support for painting on, traditionally made of joined planks of wood, but more recently boards and composites.
Industry:Art history
Matted plant fibres made into sheet form either by hand (traditional) or machine (modern). Handmade paper was produced by drying pulp, produced from beating cotton or linen rags in water, on wire trays. The lines of thinner paper produced by these wires are visible in 'laid' paper. 'Wove' paper, developed in the mid eighteenth century, is made from trays with a tightly-woven wire mesh which leave a smoother surface and no visible lines. Artists use both handmade and machine made paper, although handmade is often used for printmaking. Paper is traditionally said to have been invented in China in the second century AD, but was not made in Europe until the twelfth century.
Industry:Art history
Papier collé (pasted paper) is a specific form of collage that is closer to drawing than painting. The Cubist painter Georges Braque first used it when he drew on imitation wood-grain paper that had been pasted onto white paper. Both Braque and Pablo Picasso made a number of papiers collés in the last three months of 1912 and in early 1913, with Picasso substituting the wood-grain paper favoured by Braque with pages from the newspaper Le Journal in an attempt to introduce the reality of everyday life into the pictures. Picasso also developed the idea of the papier collé into a three-dimensional assemblage when he made Guitar in 1912.
Industry:Art history
Powdered pigments mixed with a small amount of binding medium to produce dry coloured sticks. Chalk can be added to soften intense pigments and to obtain a range of hues.
Industry:Art history
Usually refers to a distinct green or brown surface layer on bronze sculpture. Patina can be created naturally by the oxidising effect of the atmosphere or weather, or artificially by the application of chemicals. Almost all bronze sculpture has been patinated one way or the other but Constantin Brancusi polished his bronzes to reveal the beautiful natural gold colour of the metal.
Industry:Art history
Historically, drawings have been made by applying ink with a quill pen made by cutting the hollow stem of a large feather, from a bird such as a goose or a swan, to create a nib. Hollow reeds were also cut in the same way and used for writing and drawing. Metal pens succeeded the quill during the nineteenth century. Pen and ink is often used in conjunction with other techniques such as washes. (See also Ink. )
Industry:Art history
A pendant picture is one of two pictures designed to hang together as a matching pair. Pendant means hanging, and the term seems to originate in the idea of one hanging from the other—i.e. Attached to the other. In practice pendant pairs of pictures were usually displayed on either side of a fireplace, or even a door. They are usually the same size and of subjects that are basically similar but differ in detail. Pendant pairs are often husband and wife portraits. Pendant pairs were not always conceived as such—buyers of a one-off picture would sometimes ask the artist to paint a pendant.
Industry:Art history
Artists society formed in 1948 at St Ives, Cornwall, Britain. It is part of the history of the development of modern and abstract art within the artists' colony of St Ives. The Penwith Society was formed by abstract artists breaking away from the St Ives Society of Artists, which was too conservative for them. They had already formed the splinter Crypt Group within the St Ives Society, but by 1988 felt the need for complete separation. The founders of the Penwith Society were Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson together with the rest of the Crypt Group, including Peter Lanyon, who played a prominent role. They invited the eminent critic and supporter of modern art, Herbert Read, to be their president.
Industry:Art history
