- Branche: Art history
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Has different meanings as a noun and a verb. In art an attribute (noun) is an object or animal associated with a particular personage. The most common attributes are those of the ancient Greek gods. For example doves, birds associated with love, are attributes of the goddess of love, Aphrodite or Venus. So a female nude with a dove or doves may be identified as Venus. The ancient musical instrument known as a lyre is an attribute of Apollo, god of music and the arts. A bow and arrows and/or a spear, together with hounds, are attributes of the goddess Diana, who was famous as a huntress. She was also goddess of the moon, so often has a crescent in her hair. To attribute (verb) a work of art is to suggest that it may be by a particular artist, although there is no hard evidence for that. A work in the Tate Collection which perfectly illustrates both meanings is the French School work, Apollo. This includes Apollo's main attribute of a lyre, but also some subsidiary attributes such as the sunburst behind his head (he is also known as the god of the sun), the laurel wreath he is wearing, and the objects in the left corner, which represent the arts—sculpture among them. This painting has at various times been attributed to the painters Antonio Verrio, Louis Chéron, and Nicholas de Largillière.
Industry:Art history
A literal translation of the French word 'atelier' is studio or workshop. The individual artist's studio was also a place where the teaching of young artists took place but this function was gradually supplanted by the rise of the Academy. At the beginning of the twentieth century, some ateliers developed into places of communal production, particularly in Germany, where there emerged a desire to unify art with industrial production. In 1919 Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus in an attempt to marry the arts with the technology of the mechanical age. Atelier often denotes a group of artists, designers or architects working collectively. Atelier 5 is a Swiss architectural firm founded in 1955 and inspired by the visions of Le Corbusier; the Rotterdam-based Atelier Van Lieshout, founded by Joep van Lieshout is a group of artists who devise alternative modes of living and working.
Industry:Art history
Art made by assembling disparate elements often scavenged by the artist, sometimes bought specially. The practice goes back to Picasso's Cubist constructions, the three dimensional works he began to make from 1912. An early example is his Still Life 1914 which is made from scraps of wood and a length of tablecloth fringing, glued together and painted. Picasso himself remained an intermittent practitioner of assemblage. It was the basis of Surrealist objects, became widespread in the 1950s and 1960s and continues to be extensively used e. G. By the YBAs.
Industry:Art history
Eine Montage von Bildern, die einander in gewisser Weise zu einem einzigen Werk oder ein Teil eines Kunstwerks zu erstellen beziehen. Eine Montage ist mehr formal als eine Collage und ist in der Regel auf ein Thema bezogen. Es wird auch verwendet, um Experimente in Fotografie und Film zu beschreiben, insbesondere die Arbeiten von Man Ray und László Moholy-Nagy, der eine Serie von Kurzfilmen und Fotomontagen in den 1930er Jahren gemacht. (Siehe auch Fotomontage)
Industry:Art history
An exhibiting society founded in London in 1933 and active until 1971. It was principally a left-of-centre political organisation and it embraced all styles of art both modernist and traditional. Its aim was the 'Unity of Artists for Peace, Democracy and Cultural Development'. It held a series of large group exhibitions on political and social themes beginning in 1935 with the exhibition Artists Against Fascism and War. The AIA supported the left-wing Republican side in the Spanish Civil War (1936-9) through exhibitions and other fund-raising activities. It tried to promote wider access to art through travelling exhibitions and public mural paintings. In 1940 it published a series of art lithographs titled Everyman Prints in large and therefore cheap editions.
Industry:Art history
Complex international style in architecture and design, parallel to Symbolism in fine art. Developed through 1890s and brought to wide audience by 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris. Characterised by sinuous linearity and flowing organic shapes based on plant forms. In Britain, Mackintosh contained these qualities within severe but eccentric geometry. Style exemplified by Paris Metro station entrances by Guimard, Tiffany glass, Mackintosh chairs and his Glasgow School of Art, and book designs of Beardsley, Charles Ricketts and followers such as Arthur Rackham. Flourished until killed off by First World War.
Industry:Art history
Design style of 1920s and 1930s in furniture, pottery, textiles, jewellery, glass etc. It was also a notable style of cinema and hotel architecture. Named after the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts held in Paris in 1925. Can be seen as successor to and a reaction against Art Nouveau. Chief difference from Art Nouveau is influence of Cubism giving Art Deco design generally a more fragmented, geometric character. However, imagery based on plant forms, and sinuous curves remained in some Art Deco design, for example that of Clarice Cliff in Britain. Art Deco was in fact highly varied, showing influences from ancient Egyptian art, Aztec and other ancient Central American art, and the design of modern ships, trains and motor cars. Art Deco also drew on the modern architecture and design of the Bauhaus, and of architects such as Le Corbusier and Mies van de Rohe.
Industry:Art history
A pioneering Conceptual art group founded in Coventry, England, in 1968. The four founder members were Michael Baldwin, David Bainbridge, Terry Atkinson and Harold Hurrell. The critic and art historian Charles Harrison and the artist Mel Ramsden both became associated in 1970. In A Provisional History of Art & Language, Charles Harrison and Fred Orton record that between 1968 and 1982, up to fifty people were associated in some way with the activities around the name Art & Language and they identified three main phases of the group—the early years, up to 1972, which chiefly found public expression in the publication Art Language; a middle period divided between New York and England and linked to the publication of the journal The Fox (discontinued in 1976); the period since 1977, during which paintings have been produced. In that period, Art & Language has mainly concerned three people, the artists Michael Baldwin and Mel Ramsden, and the critic Charles Harrison. From the beginning, Art & Language questioned the critical assumptions of mainstream modern art practice and criticism. Much of their early work consisted of detailed discussion of these issues presented in their journal or in an art gallery context. However they also made exemplary works of Conceptual art such as Map Not to Indicate of 1967. The paintings they have made since 1977 examine the critical issues that concern them through the actual practice of painting. For a more detailed account of Art & Language see the Full Catalogue text for the work Gustave Courbet's `Burial at Ornans'; Expressing a Sensuous Affection. . . /Expressing a Vibrant Erotic Vision. . . /Expressing States of Mind that are Vivid and Compelling.
Industry:Art history
Traditionally an archive is a store of documents or artefacts of a purely documentary nature. The rise of performance art in the twentieth century meant that artists became heavily reliant on documentation as a record of their work. A similar problem arose in relation to the Land art movement of the 1960s whose interventions in the landscape were often eradicated by the elements. Conceptual art often consisted of documentation. In practice the documentation—photograph, video, map, text—was rapidly adapted to have the status of artwork. Some artists have used the actual structure of the archive for their work. In 1999 Mark Dion sifted the silt beds of the Thames and displayed the contents in mahogany cabinets at Tate Britain, London. Over six years Jeremy Deller, together with Alan Kane, collated his epic Folk Archive, which documents popular culture around the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Industry:Art history
An intaglio printmaking technique, used to create tonal effects rather than lines. Fine particles of acid-resistant material, such as powdered rosin, are attached to a printing plate by heating. The plate is then immersed in an acid bath, just like etching. The acid eats into the metal around the particles to produce a granular pattern of tiny indented rings. These hold sufficient ink to give the effect of an area of wash when inked and printed. The extent of the printed areas can be controlled by varnishing those parts of the plate to appear white in the final design. Gradations of tone can be achieved by varying the length of time in the acid bath; longer periods produce more deeply-bitten rings, which print darker areas of tone. The technique was developed in France in the 1760s, and became popular in Britain in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It is often used in combination with other intaglio techniques.
Industry:Art history