Art Encyclopedia
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WHAT IS
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What is Art? Other forms of art covered include various types of painting and drawing, as well as animation, architecture, assemblage, calligraphy, caricature, ceramics, collage, conceptualism, digital computer art, graffiti, graphic art, illustration, installations, performance, metalwork, mosaics, photography, pottery, sculpture, sketching, stained glass, tapestry, textile design, video, numerous types of artistic design, and more. For more information, see Types
of Art. |
WHAT ARE THE |
World's Greatest
Painters (c.1300-1800) For a chronological list of painters
by movement, see: OLD MASTERS. |
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WHO ARE THE WHO WON THE |
Best Modern Painters
(c.1700-present) We provide biographies of ALL major 19th century painters including: masters from the French Barbizon Landscape School, like Corot, Theodore Rousseau, Millet and Daubigny, as well as American painters of the Hudson River School (Thomas Cole, Frederic Church), and exponents of Luminism. Realists like Daumier and Courbet, and Symbolists like Gustave Moreau, are also covered. We profile ALL the great Impressionist painters and ALL Post-Impressionist painters like Georges Seurat, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and Munch. We profile Jules Cheret, inventor of 3-stone chromolithography, as well as ALL the great Russian artists up to 1917, including the goldsmith Peter Carl Faberge, creator of the exquisite Faberge Easter Eggs.
We profile ALL major 20th century painters, including Fauvists like Matisse and Andre Derain; Expressionists like Modersohn-Becker, Kandinsky, Emil Nolde, August Macke and Klee; Chagall and Modigliani of the Paris School; Cubists like Picasso and Braque; Dadaists like Marcel Duchamp; Surrealists like Dali and Magritte, and abstract painters like Mondrian, Malevich and Moholy-Nagy. We cover ALL important American artists such as Hopper, Rothko, De Kooning, Pollock, Warhol, Jasper Johns, and the Neo-Pop sculptor Jeff Koons, as well as Mexican Muralists like Diego Rivera, and South Americans like Fernando Botero, and 20th century European masters like Lucian Freud, Antoni Tapies, Yves Klein and Damien Hirst. |
DO YOU KNOW |
History of Art WANT
TO KNOW ABOUT STONE AGE ART? We explore a range of Ancient art from a variety of civilizations. Beginning with Mesopotamian art (c.4500 BCE onwards), it includes the sculpture and frescos of Classical Antiquity, notably those of Greek art and Roman art. For the history of Asian art and culture, see Chinese Art Timeline (c.18,000 BCE - present). From 450 CE, we cover the mosaics and religious icons of the Byzantine era, followed by the courtly revivals of the Carolingian and Ottonian dynasties. We also take a close look at Pre-Columbian Art (c.1200 BCE - 1535 CE). From 1,000 CE, we trace the development of Medieval architecture and sculpture through the Romanesque, and Gothic periods, while painting is explored through the Sienese School and International Gothic styles. We explain the difference between trecento, quattrocento and cinquecento paintings. At the same time, Italian Renaissance art receives in-depth coverage, as does 17th century Baroque art, and 18th century Neoclassical art. In addition, we also look at the history of crafts, like jewellery and fine furniture. Our guide to Modern Art lists all the trends and schools of the modern period. Important styles explored include: Impressionism (1874-84), Post-Impressionism (1880-1900), Fauvism (1905-7), Expressionism (1905-14), Cubism (1908-14), Surrealism (1923-present) and Pop art (1960s). We explain the meaning of styles like 'realism' and 'naturalism' in painting. In addition, we profile important 20th-century groups like Die Brucke and Der Blaue Reiter, and examine the contribution of styles like Japonism and Biomorphic Abstraction, as well as modern movements like Art Informel, Colour-Field Painting, Op Art and Fluxus, and the latest contemporary art forms like Angel and Fantasy art. For more details, see: History of Art. or Art Movements. WANT
TO KNOW THE DATE OF A PARTICULAR MOVEMENT? |
ANSWERS TO |
News, Articles on Artists and Movements EARLY CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE The 4th-century Church of Santa Costanza in Rome, for instance, was built originally not as a church, but as a mausoleum for one of the daughters of Constantine. The most important architectural source was the civil basilica, a rectangular pillared hall with three aisles, capable of enclosing a large, unobstructed space. As a church the entrance was placed in the short, west wall. The central aisle, or nave, was usually broader and higher than the flanking aisles, allowing clerestory windows above the colonnades, and there was a raised apse at the east end. The 5th-century basilica of Santa Sabina in Rome admirably demonstrates these essential features, and contains fine examples of Classical columns and capitals, salvaged from an earlier building. It was from this simple pattern that ecclesiastical architecture in the West developed over a period of a thousand years, leading in due course to the glorious Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals of Western Europe, as exemplified by Notre Dame de Paris as well as those at Chartres and Cologne. Christianity also expressed itself in architectural sculpture - notably reliefs and column statues. In this connection, it is important to remember that Christianity was dependent upon the same craftsmen, the same tools and the same techniques for its works of art, as all other (pagan) religions. It is hardly surprising therefore that so many Greek and Roman motifs survived into the early Christian period. Like pagans, Christians often placed their dead in marble coffins or sarcophagi. Traditionally, the Roman sarcophagus was decorated with tritons, nereids and other appropriate symbols of eternity, many of which could be adapted for use on Christian sarcophagi. On the 4th-century Sarcophagus of Adelphia from Syracuse, the deceased are shown in a shell-patterned roundel common to pagan monuments, but surrounded by a complex pattern of Biblical scenes. In the 5th century the realistic modelling of the Classical tradition was to give way to a flatter and more linear treatment of form. The 6th-century Throne of Maximian at Ravenna demonstrates these two tendencies in Christian art. St John the Baptist and the Four Apostles are, in contrast with the remaining panels of carved ivory, deeply cut to achieve three-dimensional form. The 6th-century figure of the Archangel Michael from the eastern Mediterranean, with its freedom of pose and flowing draperies, shows that in provincial centres the old Classicism lingered in spite of the more abstract style which was spreading outwards from Rome. For more about early Christian architectural designs, as well as a wide range of in-depth articles on Romanesque churches, Gothic cathedrals, and Renaissance bell-towers and baptisteries,see our easy MAIN A-Z INDEX. |
MASTERPIECES |
Painting
We profile the five painting genres which make up the Hierarchy of the Genres as were taught in the main Fine Arts Academies of Europe. They are (in order of importance): (1) History Painting; (2) Portraiture; (3) Genre Painting; (4) Landscapes; (5) Still Life. |
BRONZE |
Sculpture In addition, we cover column statues and other architectural stonework by the great stone-masons and bronze-workers associated with Italian Renaissance sculpture, as well as Medieval, Romanesque and Gothic sculpture. We look at equestrian statues, bas-relief and haut-relief sculptures by artists like Lorenzo Ghiberti, Donatello, and Andrea del Verrocchio, along with marbles and bronzes by carvers like Michelangelo, Bernini, Antonio Canova and Rodin. We also profile great 20th century masters such as Brancusi, Ossip Zadkine, Alexander Calder and Louise Bourgeois; the Cubists Archipenko and Lipchitz; exponents of biomorphic abstraction like Jean Arp and Henry Moore; expressionists like Jacob Epstein; abstract sculptors like Naum Gabo and David Smith; minimalists like Donald Judd; junk artists like Arman and Cesar Baldaccini; kinetic artists like Jean Tinguely; the surrealist Giacometti; the Pop artist Claes Oldenburg; and the contemporary sculptors Joseph Beuys, Antony Gormley, Richard Serra and Anish Kapoor. For an article on the theory, materials
and types of 3-D objects, see: Sculpture Art. |
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Architecture
and Design Coming soon is our brand new series of biographies on the greatest architects from around the world, including: Filippo Brunelleschi, Donato Bramante, Bernini, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Latrobe, James Renwick, Eugene Violet-le-Duc, William Le Baron Jenney, Daniel Hudson Burnham, Dankmar Adler, Louis Sullivan, Antoni Gaudi, Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Robert Venturi, I.M.Pei, Sir Norman Foster, Eero Saarinen, Frank Gehry, Fazlur Rahman Khan and others. |
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Art Photography |
ALL YOU NEED TO |
Irish Art - History
and Development We also examine the current state of visual arts in Ireland, look at the architectural heritage and cultural legacy of Leinster, Connacht, Munster and Ulster, and profile organizations involved in Irish art, like the Arts Council, Culture Ireland, auctioneers including Adams, Whytes, and deVeres, plus schools like Dublin's NCAD and Cork's Crawford College of Art & Design. Greatest Irish Painters & Sculptors |
WORLD ARTS |
Art From Around
the World For example: see African art, for a guide to rock paintings, classical African sculpture, religious and tribal artworks. See Celtic art, for metalwork of the Hallstatt and La Tene culture, plus abstract geometric designwork. See Chinese Pottery, for porcelain, terracotta works including black-glazed pottery and various types of Celadon; for a general guide, see: Chinese art (c.1700 BCE to 2000 CE). See Egyptian art, for tomb artworks - including, panel paintings, murals, sculpture, and monumental pyramid design. See Greek Pottery, for ceramic designs including the Geometric style, Oriental Style, Black-Figure Style and Red-Figure Style. See Japanese art for a guide to Buddhist Temple art, Zen ink-painting, Yamato-e, and Ukiyo-e painting. See Russian art, for prehistoric sculpture, medieval icon-painting, and wonderful 19th century works from the Society for Itinerant Art Exhibitions. In addition, we cover colonial art from Australia and America as well as mainstream American art (c.1750-present). We also cover the primitive native art of tribal societies in Alaska, the Americas, Africa, India, as well as Oceanic artifacts from Melanesia, Polynesia, Micronesia and Australasia. |
THE WORLD'S |
Best Art Museums We profile the best art museums in America, including the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, Detroit Institute of Arts, Frick Collection, the Metropolitan Museum / MoMA / Samuel R Guggenheim / Whitney Museum (all in New York), the Getty Center LA, Philadelphia Museum of Art, National Gallery Washington DC, the Phillips Collection and many more. We also profile the best art museums in Europe, such as the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, and the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the Vatican Museums in Rome, the Prado Museum in Madrid, the Tate Collection / National Gallery / Victoria and Albert Museum / Saatchi Gallery (all in London), the Hermitage in St Petersburg, the Pushkin Museum and Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, and many more. For a general guide, see: Best Art Museums. |
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Art Education
& Appreciation Famous Paintings Analyzed Look out for our new articles on painting techniques like, foreshortening, trompe l'oeil, linear perspective, quadratura, sfumato, and grisaille. Also look out for our forthcoming series on fine art photography, as well as 20th century design, featuring decorative styles like Art Nouveau, Art Deco and Bauhaus, as well as 21st century fantasy graphics. LOOKING
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