Romanticism

Movement in the arts and in artistic theory, developed principally in Germany and England. In English literature, it is mainly associated with the poets William Blake (1757-1827), WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850), SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (1772-1834), LORD BYRON (1788-1824), PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792-1822) and JOHN KEATS (1795-1821). Romantic artists include William Blake (again), Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) and Caspar David

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Rubenism

The view that color is of equal importance to drawing and design; exemplified in the work of the Flemish artist PETER-PAUL RUBENS (1577-1640) and championed by those opposed to poussinism in French academic circles. A success for the Rubenists was achieved when Roger de Piles was elected a member (as an amateur) of the French Academy

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Scapigliatura

Movement in Italian art and literature, centred around Milan and typified by the novels of G ROVANI. A reaction against the UTILITARIANISM of bourgeois culture, its adherents attempted to revive the spirit of romanticism. They rebelled against academic mannerisms, and artists such as L CONCONI, L BAZARRO, C TALONE and L PREVIATI painted in a

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Section d’or

A French term meaning ‘golden section’, this refers to an irrational proportion known since the time of EUCLID (c.3rd century BC) and once thought to possess a hidden harmonic proportion in tune with the universe. It may be defined as a line divided in such a way that the smaller part is to the

Simultaneisme

Term adopted by the French painter Robert Delaunay (1885-1941) from an 1839 publication by color theorist MICHEL EUGENE CHEVREUL (1786-1889). Delaunay sought to create an abstract art that was dependent on color alone to suggest form and movement. Simultaneity became crucial in the arts just before World War I. Multiple awareness, knowledge of things happening concurrently, and the concept

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Situationism

This term is applied to works (particularly, large monochromatic paintings) where the spectator’s aesthetic response is determined by the intensity and saturation of color. In Great Britain, the Situation group exhibited together in 1960, its adherents including B COHEN, R DENNY, J HOYLAND and W TURNBULL. Their work was strongly related to Color Field

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Socialist realism

The official Marxist artistic and literary movement established in the USSR in 1934. Used as a propaganda device and painted in a naturalistic and idealized style, its art was faithfully and unflinchingly to depict history and phenomena relative to Marxism, and to promote the concept of the classless society. Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic

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Sotto in su

An Italian term meaning ‘from below upwards’, used from the 15th to the 18th century to describe ceiling painting in which the extreme foreshortening of figures and architecture promotes the impression of objects suspended in space. Sotto in su, også skrevet sotto in sù, italiensk for «nedenfra og oppover», er en kunstfaglig betegnelse på forkortninga og den sugende dybdevirkningen

Spatialism

Movement founded by the Italian artist LUCIO FONTANA (1899-1968) as the movimento spaziale, its tenets were repeated in manifestos between 1947 and 1954. Combining elements of concrete art, dada and tachism, the movement’s adherents rejected easel painting and embraced new technological developments, seeking to incorporate time and movement in their works. FONTANA’s slashed and pierced paintings exemplify his theses.

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Structurism

Theory developed by the American artist CHARLES BIEDER, and so named to distinguish it from an earlier concept of ‘constructionism’. With the use of abstract reliefs he attempted to synthesize qualities of painting, sculpture and architecture which he viewed as structural processes of nature. Some confusion has arisen about the application of this term

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Sublimity

In aesthetics, the sublime (from the Latin sublīmis) is the quality of greatness, whether physical, moral, intellectual, metaphysical, aesthetic, spiritual, or artistic. The term especially refers to a greatness beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement, or imitation. Since its first application in the field of rhetoric and drama in ancient Greece it became an important concept not just in philosophical aesthetics

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Suprematism

A movement in abstract art launched by Russian Kasimir Malevich (1878-1935). In painting, Suprematism aims for pure art using pristine geometrical shapes (particularly the square) devoid of personal feeling, but expressing ‘non-objective sensation’. Art should be non-utilitarian. In the (former) Soviet Union, such ideas greatly influenced LIUBOV POPOVA (1889-1924), Alexander Rodchenko (1891-1956), El Lissitzky (1890-1941) and Naum Gabo (1890-1977), although some moved towards industrial

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Surrealism

A term coined by the French poet GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE (1880-1918) in 1917, and adopted as a name in the first Surrealist manifesto (1924), written by poet and critic ANDRE BRETON (1896-1966) in Paris. It included the following declaration: ‘Surrealism rests in the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of association neglected heretofore;

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Symbolism

In art, the movement’s aims were set out by the French critic ALBERT AURIER in an article in the Mercure de France (March, 1891). He asserted that a work of art must be ‘ideaed’; that is, the expression of the idea. Symbolist, since it expresses idea through form; synthetic as its method of representation

Synchromism

Color theory proposed by the American artists STANTON MacDONALD-WRIGHT (1890-1973) and MORGAN RUSSELL (1886-1953) at joint exhibitions held in Munich and Paris. Related to the color theories of neo-impressionism and orphism, synchromism asserts that color alone provides the form and subject of a painting. Synchromism was an art movement founded in 1912 by American artists Stanton Macdonald-Wright (1890–1973) and Morgan Russell (1886–1953). Their abstract “synchromies,” based

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Synthetism

Term used by the Pont Aven artists (in particular, EMILE BERNARD (1868-1941)) for their exhibition at the Exposition Universelle of 1889; and by the Groupe Synthe’tiste, formed in 1891, which included French painter Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) among its members. The term refers to an emphasis on the simplification of drawing and pattern, and the expressive purity

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Tachism

Derived from the French word tache meaning ‘patch’, this term was coined by the French critic MICHEL TAPIE in relation to post-war European abstract art, and related to art informel and abstract expressionism. The patches and blots of color on a canvas assume their own significance, as if applied at random, spontaneously, and act as projections of the

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trompe i’oeil

A French term meaning ‘deception of the eye’, used to describe a highly illusionistic painting in which objects are depicted with photographic realism or have extremely realistic perspective. Trompe-l’œil (/trɒmp ˈlɔɪ/ tromp LOY, French: [tʁɔ̃p lœj]; French for ‘deceive the eye’) is an art technique that uses realistic imagery to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects exist in three dimensions. Forced perspective is a

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ut pictura poesis

A Latin phrase meaning ‘explaining painting and poetry’, this argument’s origins lie in the comparisons made between the two disciplines in Aristotle’s Poetics and Horace’s Ars Poetica. These formed the bases during the Renaissance and Baroque periods for several treatises on similar theories. The fundamental assumption is that painting, like poetry, is the ideal imitation

Verismo

A movement in late 19th-century Italian art and literature, based in Naples. It emphasized the importance of popular culture and a realistic portrayal of contemporary life, breaking both with academicism and romanticism. Typical were the paintings of A MANCINI (1852-1930) and the sculptures of V GEMITO (1852-1929). The term is also used to refer to

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