- Industry: Art history
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In 1976, at the height of Minimal art and Conceptual art, the American painter R. B. Kitaj, then based in London, Britain, organised at the Hayward Gallery in London an exhibition titled The Human Clay. It exclusively consisted of figurative drawing and painting and proved highly controversial. In his catalogue text, Kitaj used the term School of London loosely to describe the artists he had brought together. The name has stuck to refer to painters at that time who were doggedly pursuing forms of figurative painting in the face of the prevailing avant-garde forms. The chief artists associated with the idea of the School of London, in addition to Kitaj himself, were Michael Andrews, Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, David Hockney (although living in the USA), Howard Hodgkin, and Leon Kossoff. The work of these artists was brought into fresh focus and given renewed impetus by the revival of interest in figurative painting by a younger generation that took place in the late 1970s and the 1980s (see Neo-Expressionism and New Spirit painting).
Industry:Art history
During the nineteenth century Paris, France, became the centre of a powerful national school of painting and sculpture, culminating in the dazzling innovations of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. As a result, in the early years of the twentieth century Paris became a magnet for artists from all over the world and the focus of the principal innovations of modern art, notably Fauvism, Cubism, abstract art and Surrealism. The term School of Paris grew up to describe this phenomenon. The twin chiefs (chefs d'école) were Pablo Picasso who settled in Paris from his native Spain in 1904, and the Frenchman Henri Matisse. Also in 1904, the pioneer modern sculptor Constantin Brancusi arrived in Paris from Romania, and in 1906 the painter and sculptor Amedeo Modigliani from Italy. Chaïm Soutine arrived from Russia in 1911. The Russian painter Marc Chagall lived in Paris from 1910-14 and then again from 1923-39 and 1947-9, after which he moved to the South of France. The Dutch pioneer of pure abstract painting, Piet Mondrian, settled in Paris in 1920 and Wassily Kandinsky in 1933. The heyday of the School of Paris was ended by the Second World War, although the term continued to be used to describe the artists of Paris. However, from about 1950 its dominance ceded to the rise of the New York School.
Industry:Art history
Group of four Scottish artists, Cadell, Fergusson, Hunter, Peploe who were among the first to introduce the intense colour of the French Fauve movement into Britain. Leading figure was Fergusson who visited Paris regularly from 1890s on and then lived there from 1907-14. The experience of that close contact with the avant-garde art scene in Paris stayed with him all his life.
Industry:Art history
Sculpture is three-dimensional art made by one of four basic processes. These are carving (in stone, wood, ivory or bone); modelling in clay; modelling (in clay or wax) and then casting the model in bronze; constructing (a twentieth-century development). The earliest known human artefacts recognisable as what we would call sculpture date from the period known as the Upper Paleolithic, which is roughly from 40,000 to 10,000 years ago. These objects are small female figures with bulbous breasts and buttocks carved from stone or ivory, and are assumed to be fertility figures. The most famous of them is known as the Venus of Willendorf (the place in Austria where it was found in 1908). Sculpture flourished in ancient Egypt from about 5,000 years ago and in ancient Greece from some 2,000 years later. In Greece it reached what is considered to be a peak of perfection in the period from about 500-400 BC. At that time, as well as making carved sculpture, the Greeks brought the technique of casting sculpture in bronze to a high degree of sophistication. Following the fall of the Roman Empire the technique of bronze casting was almost lost but, together with carved sculpture, underwent a major revival at the Renaissance. In the twentieth century a new way of making sculpture emerged with the Cubist constructions of Picasso. These were still life subjects made from scrap (found) materials glued together. Constructed sculpture in various forms became a major stream in modern art. (Constructivism; Assemblage; Environment; Installation; Minimal art; New Generation Sculpture. ) Techniques used included welding metal, introduced by Julio González, who also taught it to Picasso. (See also for example David Smith; Reg Butler. )
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
One of the principal genres (subject types) of Western art. Essentially, the subject matter of a still life painting or sculpture is anything that does not move or is dead. So still life includes all kinds of man-made or natural objects, cut flowers, fruit, vegetables, fish, game, wine and so on. Still life can be a celebration of material pleasures such as food and wine, or often a warning of the ephemerality of these pleasures and of the brevity of human life (see Memento mori). In modern art simple still life arrangements have often been used as a relatively neutral basis for formal experiment, for example by Paul Cézanne and the Cubist painters. Note the plural of still life is still lifes, and the term is not hyphenated.
Industry:Art history
Street art is genre related to graffiti writing, but separate and with different rules and traditions. Where modern-day graffiti revolves around 'tagging' and text-based subject matter, Street art is far more open and is often related to graphic design. There are no rules in Street art, so anything goes, however, some common materials and techniques include fly-posting (also known as wheat-pasting), stencilling, stickers, freehand drawing and projecting videos. Street artists will often work in studios, hold gallery exhibitions or work in other creative areas: they are not anti-art, they simply enjoy the freedom of working in public without having to worry about what other people think. Many well-known artists started their careers working in a way that we would now consider to be Street art, for example, Gordon Matta-Clark, Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger.
Industry:Art history
Dynasty founded by Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. Usually refers to reigns of Charles I (reigned 1625-49) and Charles II, although James I was first Stuart king (Jacobean). Charles I was greatest collector and patron of arts in history of British monarchy. He brought Rubens (Baroque) to London and then his great pupil and rival Van Dyck, who was court painter from 1632 to his death in 1641, year of outbreak of the Civil War. During war Van Dyck was succeeded as court painter to Charles by Dobson whose Endymion Porter is perhaps greatest English Baroque portrait. The court of Charles II (reigned 1660-85) was notorious for its pleasure-loving sensuality which was perfectly served by court painter Lely in for example his Windsor Beauties—ten of the most voluptuous ladies of Charles's court grouped around a portrait of the King himself—now at Hampton Court.
Industry:Art history
