Featured Art Terms

Mona Hatoum, ‘Performance Still’ 1985, 1995

Performance art

Artworks that are created through actions performed by the artist or other participants, which may be live or recorded, spontaneous ...

Sir John Everett Millais, Bt, ‘Ophelia’ 1851–2

Pre-Raphaelite

The Pre-Raphaelites were a secret society of young artists (and one writer), founded in London in 1848. They were opposed ...

Claude Monet, ‘Water-Lilies’ after 1916

Impressionism

Impressionism developed in France in the nineteenth century and is based on the practice of painting out of doors and ...

Richard Long, ‘Sahara Circle’ 1988

Land art

Land art or earth art is art that is made directly in the landscape, sculpting the land itself into earthworks ...

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James Rosenquist, ‘Marilyn’ 1974

A Airbrushing

Airbrushing is a painting technique which uses an airbrush to give an even and consistent surface, often used to create ...

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John Singer Sargent, ‘Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose’ 1885–6

B British impressionism

British impressionism describes the work of artists working in Britain in the late nineteenth-century who were influenced by the ideas ...

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Joseph Kosuth, ‘Clock (One and Five), English/Latin Version’ 1965

C Conceptual art

Conceptual art is art for which the idea (or concept) behind the work is more important than the finished art ...

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Joseph Kosuth, ‘Clock (One and Five), English/Latin Version’ 1965

D Deconstruction

Deconstruction is a form of criticism first used by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in the 1970s which asserts that there ...

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Bruce Nauman, ‘Violent Incident’ 1986

E Electronic media

The most common examples of electronic media are video recordings, audio recordings, slide presentations, CD-ROM and online content

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Guerrilla Girls, ‘Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get Into the Met. Museum?’ 1989

F Feminist art

Feminist art is art by artists made consciously in the light of developments in feminist art theory in the early ...

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire ...’ exhibited 1817

G Genres

Genres are types of painting. These were codified in the seventeenth century as (in descending order of importance) history, portrait ...

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Jo Spence, ‘The Highest Product of Capitalism (after John Heartfield)’ 1979

H Hackney Flashers

Hackney Flashers was a women’s arts collective active between 1974 and 1980. Most of the group were photographers and defined ...

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Cornelia Parker, ‘Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View’ 1991

I Installation art

The term installation art is used to describe large-scale, mixed-media constructions, often designed for a specific place or for a ...

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James Abbott McNeill Whistler, ‘Three Figures: Pink and Grey’ 1868–78

J Japonisme

Japonisme is a French term coined in the late nineteenth century to describe the craze for Japanese art and design ...

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Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson, ‘Study for ‘Returning to the Trenches’’ 1914–15

K Kinaesthetic art

Kinaesthetic art is art that deals with the body in movement

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John Constable, ‘Flatford Mill (‘Scene on a Navigable River’)’ 1816–7

L Landscape

Landscape is one of the principal types or genres of subject in Western art

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Július Koller, ‘NO ART!’ 1970

M Mail art

Mail art is a movement based on the principle of sending small scale works through the postal service

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John Constable, ‘Flatford Mill (‘Scene on a Navigable River’)’ 1816–7

N Naturalism

Naturalism was a broad movement in the nineteenth century which represented things closer to the way we see them

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Rodrigo Moynihan, ‘Objective Abstraction’ c.1935–6

O Objective abstraction

The term objective abstraction refers to a non-geometric style of abstract art developed by a group of British artists in ...

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Pablo Picasso, ‘Bottle of Vieux Marc, Glass, Guitar and Newspaper’ 1913

P Papier collé

French term which translates as pasted paper, papier collé is a specific form of collage that is closer to drawing ...

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Philippe Parreno, ‘6.00 PM’ 2000–6

R Relational aesthetics

Term created by curator Nicholas Bourriaud in the 1990s to describe the tendency to make art based on, or inspired ...

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Henry Moore OM, CH, ‘Recumbent Figure’ 1938

S Sculpture

Three-dimensional art made by one of four basic processes: carving, modelling, casting, constructing

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James Abbott McNeill Whistler, ‘Harmony in Grey and Green: Miss Cicely Alexander’ 1872–4

T Tone

The lightness or darkness of something – this could be a shade, or how dark or light a colour appears

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Tania Bruguera, ‘Tatlin’s Whisper #5’ 2008

U Useful Art Association

The Useful Art Association was started in New York by the Cuban artist Tania Bruguera and promotes the idea of ...

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Jeff Koons, ‘Three Ball Total Equilibrium Tank (Two Dr J Silver Series, Spalding NBA Tip-Off)’ 1985

V Vitrine

A large, glass cabinet used for displaying art objects

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Edward Calvert, ‘The Brook’ 1829

W Wood engraving

A printmaking method distinct from woodcut in that the line is incised into the woodblock, rather than the background being ...

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Damien Hirst, ‘Mother and Child (Divided)’ exhibition copy 2007 (original 1993)

Y Young British Artists (YBAs)

The label Young British Artists (YBAs) is applied to a loose group of British artists who began to exhibit together ...

Heinz Mack, ‘Light Dynamo’ 1963

Z Zero

Group of artists who practised a form of kinetic art using light and motion

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0–9 43 Group

43 Group was a modern art movement formed in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1943 by a group of ...