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Showing 1–30 of 41 art terms

Art Term

Salon

Originally the name of the official art exhibitions organised by the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture (Académie Royale …

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Art Term

Sampling

In its most basic form sampling simply re-processes existing culture, usually technologically, in much the same way a collage does

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Art Term

School of Altamira

Avant-garde art school (Academia Altamira) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, founded in 1946 with the aim of promoting the idea that …

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Art Term

School of London

School of London was a term invented by artist R.B. Kitaj to describe a group of London-based artists who were …

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Art Term

School of Paris

In the early years of the twentieth century, Paris became a magnet for artists from all over the world and …

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Art Term

Scottish Colourists

Group of four Scottish artists, who were among the first to introduce the intense colour of the French fauve movement …

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Art Term

Screenprint

A variety of stencil printing, using a screen made from fabric (silk or synthetic) stretched tightly over a frame

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Art Term

Sculpture

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

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Art Term

Scuola romana

Scuola romana (School of Rome) is an umbrella term for the artists based in Rome, or having close links with …

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Art Term

Secession

The breaking away of younger and more radical artists from an existing academy or art group to form a new …

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Art Term

Serial art

Serial art is art that adheres to a strict set of rules to determine its composition or to determine a …

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Art Term

Significant form

Term coined by art critic Clive Bell in 1914 to describe the idea that the form of an artwork or …

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Art Term

Simulacrum

A term from Greek Platonic philosophy that meant a copy of a copy of an ideal form

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Art Term

Simultanism

Term invented by artist Robert Delaunay to describe the abstract painting developed by him and his wife Sonia Delaunay from …

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Art Term

Site-specific

The term site-specific refers to a work of art designed specifically for a particular location and that has an interrelationship …

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Art Term

Situationist International

Revolutionary alliance of European avant-garde artists, writers and poets formed at a conference in Italy in 1957 (as Internationale Situationiste …

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Art Term

Socialist realism

A form of modern realism imposed in Russia by Stalin following his rise to power after the death of Lenin …

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Art Term

Socially engaged practice

Socially engaged practice describes art that is collaborative, often participatory and involves people as the medium or material of the …

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Art Term

Social realism

Refers to any realist painting that also carries a clearly discernible social or political comment

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Art Term

Social sculpture

Social sculpture is a theory developed by the artist Joseph Beuys in the 1970s based on the concept that everything …

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Art Term

Social turn

Social turn was first used in 2006 to describe the recent return to socially engaged art that is collaborative, often …

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Art Term

Solarisation

Technique that involves exposing a partially developed photograph to light, before continuing processing, creating halo-like effects

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Art Term

Sound art

Art which uses sound both as its medium (what it is made out of) and as its subject (what it …

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Art Term

Spazialismo

Italian movement started by the Argentine-born Italian artist Lucio Fontana in 1947 who, in its manifesto, stated that art should …

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Art Term

Spiral

Spiral was a New York based African American collective formed in 1963 with the aim of addressing how African American …

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Art Term

Stars group

Stars group were a short-lived avant-garde group of self-taught artists operating in Beijing between 1979 and 1983, staging outdoor exhibitions, …

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Art Term

Still life

One of the principal genres (subject types) of Western art – essentially, the subject matter of a still life painting …

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Art Term

St Ives School

Although they did not see themselves as part of a group or school, the term St Ives School is often …

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Art Term

St John’s Wood clique

A loose association of painters who lived in the St John’s Wood area of London in the 1870s and 1880s, …

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Art Term

Street art

Street art is related to graffiti art in that it is created in public locations and is usually unsanctioned, but …

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