In a condition of adamant doubt you are asked for explanations when all you want is for someone to explain anything. And you are asked for purposes when you are learning to accept that a purpose is not going to emerge ever.

Mark Boyle, Journey to the Surface of the Earth, c. 1969

 

Here we offer you a short glossary of mostly used art terms.

 

Abstraction and abstract art – imagery which departs from representational accuracy, to a variable range of possible degrees, for some reason other than verisimilitude. Abstract artists select and then exaggerate or simplify the forms suggested by the world around them. The paintings of Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973) and Georges Braque (French, 1882-1963) as well as the sculptures of Henry Moore (English, 1898-1987), Barbara Hepworth (English, 1903-1975), and Jacques Lipchitz (Russian-American, 1891-1973) are examples of abstract art. Wassily Kandinsky, (Russian, 1866-1944), was one of the first creators of pure abstraction in modern painting. After successful avant-garde exhibitions, he founded the influential Munich group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider; 1911-1914), when his paintings became completely abstract. His forms evolved from fluid and organic to geometric and, finally, to pictographic.

Achromatic – color having no chroma – black, white and grays made by mixing black and white. All other colors employ chromatic pigments.

Art Deco – an art movement involving a mix of modern decorative art styles, largely of the 1920s and 1930s, whose main characteristics were derived from various avant-garde painting styles of the early twentieth century. Art deco works exhibit aspects of Cubism, Russian Constructivism and Italian Futurism — with abstraction, distortion, and simplification, particularly geometric shapes and highly intense colors — celebrating the rise of commerce, technology, and speed. The growing impact of the machine can be seen in repeating and overlapping images from 1925; and in the 1930s, in streamlined forms derived from the principles of aerodynamics. The name came from the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs Industriels et Modernes, held in Paris, which celebrated living in the modern world. It was popularly considered to be an elegant style of cool sophistication in architecture and applied arts which range from luxurious objects made from exotic material to mass produced, streamlined items available to a growing middle class.

Conceptual – pertaining to the process involved in the initial stages of art-making (i.e., the initial conception, or idea). Also, the name of a contemporary art movement which is mainly concerned with this process of conceiving of and developing the initial idea, as opposed to the carrying-out of the idea into concrete form. I think that conceptual artists also often think of the idea as the real work of art, rather than its concrete manifestation. It is possible for a conceptual art “piece” to not even be a tangible object – it may be an event or a process, which can’t be seen itself, but the results of the event or process may be displayed, in text or photographs, for instance. Conceptual art tends to be created across artistic categories – for instance, mixing the mediums of photography, text, sound, sculpture, etc. My feeling about a lot of the conceptual work I have seen is that it tends to be an experiential art, rather than the traditional ‘passive’ experience of viewing art on a wall or a pedestal. Perhaps because our age and time demand a more interactive experience; or because art had by the late 20th century become a ‘commodity,’ to be bought and sold like any other commodity, and artists felt a need to avoid this com-modification.

Content – as opposed to subject matter, content is the “meaning” of the artwork, e.g., in Moby Dick, the subject matter is a man versus a whale; the content is a complex system of symbols, metaphors, etc. describing man’s existence and nature.

Contemporary art – the term contemporary describes the most recent art, in this case as distinguished from modern art, which is generally considered to have lost its dominance in the mid-1950’s.

Contrapposto – (pronounced con-tra-pos-to) – Italian term, meaning to represent freedom of movement within a figure, as in ancient Greek sculpture, the parts being in asymmetrical relationship to one another, usually where the hips and legs twist in one direction, and the chest and shoulders in another.

Directional movement – a principle of visual movement in artworks, which can be carried by line, dots, marks, shapes, patterns, color, and other compositional elements. Directional movement in paintings or sculptures directs the viewer’s eye around or through the artwork, in a way which the artist consciously or unconsciously determines. One important function is to keep the viewer’s eye from “leaving” the work, and instead cause the viewer to follow an inventive (interesting) path within the work, or exit in one area, only to be brought back in another area.

Figurative – a term used to describe art which is based on the figure, usually in realistic or semi-realistic terms; also loosely used to describe an artist who paints or sculpts representationally, as opposed to painting or sculpting in an abstract or non-objective manner.

Giclee (zhee-clay) – an elegant, state-of-the-art reproduction that gives a vibrant color rendition of an original painting. Giclee, a French printmakers term for sprayed, was adopted to distinguish the technique from ordinary offset printing. It also signifies to the art buyer that the process and materials used to create the print were intended for the fine art market. A giclee is created by a digital printers tiny ink jets that spray millions of droplets of archival, water-based inks onto fine archival art paper or canvas known as the substrate. The combination of specific inks and substrate are carefully selected to assure maximum print longevity. Giclees are produced one at a time. Depending upon their size, this intricate printing process can take up to an hour or more for each print. Afterward, the giclees are coated with a protective finish. Whether printed on fine art paper or canvas, the end result is always the same: a beautifully reproduced work of art with the look and feel of the original painting.

Graphic/graphic arts – the graphic arts (drawing and engraving) are said to depend for their effect on drawing, as opposed to color. The term graphic describes drawings or prints which lean more toward drawing (line) than color (mass). I think that this division is less pertinent in modern and contemporary art than in traditional art or art of the past.

Ideal art – art which aims to be the true, eternal reality. In the 18th and 19th centuries, this included some Neoclassical art, which emulated the forms and ideas found in classical art (Greece and Rome). In modern times, this could include artists such as Mondrian and Malevich, who considered pure abstraction to be the manifestation of this pure reality. Perhaps the theoretical opposite of ideal art is realism, which tries to depict things not as some ideal, but as they ‘really’ are.

Landscape – a painting, photograph or other work of art which depicts scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers and forests. There is invariably some sky in the scene.

Proportion – the relation of one part to the whole, or to other parts (for example, of the human body). For example, the human body is approximately 7 to 7-1/2 times the height of the head; the vertical halfway point of the body is the groin; the legs are halved at the knees, etc. Proportion also refers to the relative sizes of the visual elements in a composition, and their optimum relationships for good design.

Realism – representational painting which, unlike ideal art, desires to depict forms and images as they really are, without idealizing them. Courbet was one of the first realists, in opposition to the previous reigning Neoclassical art in France; 19th century realist artists wanted to depict life “as it is,” warts and all.

Subject matter – as opposed to content, the subject matter is the subject of the artwork, e.g., still life. The theme of Vanitas (popular a few centuries ago) of vanity, death, universal fate, etc., used in the still life, can be considered the content. The still life objects used in the image are the subject matter. (See also “Content“)

Surrealism – a movement in art and literature in the 1920s, which developed esp from dada, characterized by the evocative juxtaposition of incongruous images in order to include unconscious and dream elements

Textile – a cloth, usually made by weaving or knitting fiber or yarn; a fabric. Materials might include fibers of raffia, wool, cotton, linen, silk, or synthetics, among others.