Tag Archives: art/architecture/design

Naive Art (n)

“Primarily understood as works produced by artists who lack formal training, although trained artists may deliberately affect a naive style. The term most clearly describes such early-20th-century artists as the Douanier Rousseau, whose childlike, non-naturalistic paintings completed in bright colors influenced early modern artists. Their apparent affinity with non-Western art and their bold expressiveness made them appealing to the early Modernists searching for new forms of expression.

See ‘Outsider’ art.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

Raku (n)

“Coarse-grained, low-fired, and soft-glazed pottery ware developed by the Japanese for articles used in the tea ceremony. It is notable for its refined rusticity.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

Andrew Wyeth: Christina’s World

“One of the best known and most popular works of the US artist Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009). Painted in 1948, it depicts an eerily lit, sharply delineated but featureless farm landscape, with two farm buildings on the high horizon, while in the foreground is the mysterious figure of Christina, a thin-limbed girl propping herself up on the grass. Christina, whose view of the landscape we share, was a crippled neighbor of Wyeth’s in the Brandywine Valley, Pennsylvania.”

Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.

The Bloomsbury Group

A group of English writers and artists who gathered regularly in the Bloomsbury section of London before, during, and after World War I. Their unconventional lifestyle, socialist views, and aesthetic sensibility combined to give ‘Bloomsbury‘ a connotation outside the circle of somewhat precious snobbery. Central to the group were artists Vanessa and Clive Bell, Roger Fry and Duncan Grant; writers Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey, and E.M. Forster; and the economist John Maynard Keynes. Cambridge-educated and the artistic and intellectual pacesetters of their generation, they were devoted adherents of the philosopher G.E. Moore and were frequently joined at their ‘Thursday evenings’ by such Cambridge luminaries as Bertrand Russell and Rupert Brooke.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

Graphic Arts

“The class of visual arts in which lines, marks, or characters are impressed on a flat surface, usually paper. These include drawing, engraving, etching, lithography (which are grouped with fine art) and also processes such as typography and printing, when they are intended for more than utilitarian purposes.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

Pier

“Pier: Massive solid masonry that functions as vertical structural support. Also, often used to designate Romanesque and Gothic pillars of noncylindrical form.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

Mannerism

“Style of art and architecture that emerged in the period from ca. 1520 to ca. 1590, characterized by a reaction to the harmony of the High Renaissance, an ideal of virtuosity for its own sake, and a concomitant preoccupation with the ambiguous and discordant. Exemplified in the works of El Greco, Pontormo, Parmigianino, and (late) Michelangelo.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

Egyptian Revival Style

“In American architecture, this style occurred twice: ca. 1830-1850 and 1920-1930. Used mostly for public monuments and commercial buildings, the forms are heavy, often pylon-like. Reeded columns, palm capitals, and other ornaments are distinctively Egyptian.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

Hispano-Mooresque (adj)

“General term encompassing all artwork, architecture, and decorative art produced in Spain under Muslim and Christian reigns and the resulting hybrid styles. Dates from the 8th to the 16th centuries.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

Plinth (n)

“Square member on which a column or statue rests; a narrow rectangular platform of stone.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.