- Branche: Art history
- Number of terms: 11718
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Refers to art that challenges the existing accepted definitions of art. It is generally agreed to have been coined by Marcel Duchamp around 1913 when he made his first readymades, which are still regarded in some quarters as Anti-art (for example by the Stuckist group). In 1917 Duchamp submitted a urinal, titled Fountain, for an exhibition in New York, which subsequently became notorious and eventually highly influential. Anti-art is associated with Dada, the artistic and literary movement founded in Zurich in 1916 and simultaneously in New York, in which Duchamp was a central figure. Since Dada there have been many art movements that have taken a position on Anti-art, from the lo-fi Mail art movement to the YBAs, some of whom have embraced the absurdities of Dada and Duchamp's love of irony, paradox and punning.
Industry:Art history
Meaning cannibalism, as an art term it is associated with the 1960s Brazilian art movement Tropicália. Artists Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Clark, Rogério Duarte and Antonio Dias used anthropophagia in the sense of a cultural and musical cannibalism of other societies. Embracing the writings of the poet Oswald de Andrade (1890-1954), who wrote the Manifesto Antropófago (Cannibal Manifesto) in 1928, they argued that Brazil's history of cannibalising other cultures was its greatest strength and had been the nation's way of asserting independence over European colonial culture. The term also alluded to cannibalism as a tribal rite that was once practised in Brazil. The artworks made as a result of this concept stole their influences from Europe and America but, ultimately, were rooted in the cultural and political world of 1960s and 1970s Brazil.
Industry:Art history
Animation is the rapid display of sequences of static imagery in such a way as to create the illusion of movement. The history of animation dates back to early Chinese shadow lanterns and the optical toys of the eighteenth century, but it was not until the beginning of the twentieth century that illustrators like Émile Cohl began drawing cartoon strips on to celluloid. The most famous animator was Walt Disney, best known for his cartoon feature films like Fantasia and The Jungle Book and whom Salvador Dalí believed to be the heir to Surrealism. Computer animation began in the 1960s and is animation's digital successor. Using software programs like Adobe Flash, animators build up sequences on a computer to be used as special effects in film, called Computer Generated Imagery (CGI), or as animated sequences in their own right. Computer animation has distinct advantages for artists: it is cheap to make, fast, and the artist is able to control every aspect of the process unlike the vagaries of shooting film which cannot be viewed until developed. Sites like YouTube and MySpace have become forums for computer animation, bypassing the traditional galleries and museums as the spaces for artistic enterprise.
Industry:Art history
An organisation founded in 1936 to promote the appreciation of abstract art in the United States. It held its first annual exhibition in April 1937. Early members included Josef Albers, Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock and David Smith.
Industry:Art history
Painting placed on or behind the altar of a Christian church as a focus for worship. Usually depicts scenes from the life of Christ, especially the Crucifixion, or from the life of the Virgin Mary. Altarpieces are often in two or three panels (diptychs and triptychs) with the panels showing separate but related scenes. Modern artists have sometimes adopted these formats for non-religious works, either for the increased narrative scope they offer or to add a sense of spiritual weight to subjects dealing with the major issues of human life, or both.
Industry:Art history
In art, a composition in which all the elements are designed to symbolise or illustrate some general idea such as life, death, love, virtue, faith, justice, prudence and so on.
Industry:Art history
A fine-grained marble-like variety of gypsum, alabaster is a soft stone often white or translucent.
Industry:Art history
The airbrush was invented in the late nineteenth century, but it was not until the mid twentieth century that it became a popular tool in painting. It is a small, hand-held instrument connected to a canister of compressed air that sprays paint in a controlled way. Pioneers of airbrushing were the graphic illustrators George Petty and Alberto Vargas (or Varga) in the 1930s and 1940s. Later, Pop artist James Rosenquist used it to evoke the qualities of advertising. In Britain, the artist Barrie Cook became one of the leading practioners to use airbrushing. Today, it is the sci-fi artist H. K. Giger who is most commonly associated with the medium. There is also an airbrushing computer program, invented in the early 1980s, which creates a similar effect in a digital format.
Industry:Art history
The term Agit-prop is a contraction of the Russian words 'agitatsiia' and 'propaganda' in the title of the Department of Agitation and Propaganda set up in 1920 by the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party. From then on it was an omnipresent activity in the Soviet Union. Intended to control and promote the ideological conditioning of the masses, it took many forms such as palaces of culture, Agit-prop trains and cars covered with slogans and posters, poster campaigns, and countless agitation centres, or 'agitpunkts'. Books and libraries also played an important role in the Agit-prop enterprise. In the early years avant-garde artists particularly those associated with the Constructivists contributed to Agit-prop manifestations, particularly poster designs. Today the term has come to refer to any cultural manifestation with an overtly political purpose.
Industry:Art history
Flourished in Britain 1870s, 1880s. Important equally in fine and applied arts. Critic Walter Hamilton published book The Aesthetic Movement in England 1882. Cult of pure beauty in art and design. Rallying cry 'art for art's sake', meaning art foregrounding the purely visual and sensual, free of practical, moral or narrative considerations. In painting exemplified by Whistler and Albert Moore and certain works by Leighton. Important influence of Japan especially on Whistler and Aesthetic design. In applied arts part of revolution in design initiated by William Morris with foundation of Morris &Co in 1862. From 1875 commercialised by Liberty store in London, which later also popularised Art Nouveau.
Industry:Art history
