Art Terms

Question 1

Abbaye De Créteil

Answer 1

Established in 1906, the Abbaye de Créteil was a group of French writers, artists and composers who were inspired by the work of Renaissance writer François Rabelais

Question 2

Abject Art

Answer 2

Abject art is used to describe artworks which explore themes that transgress and threaten our sense of cleanliness and propriety particularly referencing the body and bodily functions

Question 3

Abstract Art

Answer 3

Abstract art is art that does not attempt to represent an accurate depiction of a visual reality but instead use shapes, colors, forms and gestural marks to achieve its effect

Question 4

Abstract Expressionism

Answer 4

Abstract expressionism is the term applied to new forms of abstract art developed by American painters such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning in the 1940s and 1950s. It is often characterized by gestural brush-strokes or mark-making, and the impression of spontaneity

Question 5

Abstraction-Création

Answer 5

Abstraction-Création was an association of abstract artists set up in Paris in 1931 with the aim of promoting abstract art through group exhibitions

Question 6

Académie Colarossi

Answer 6

The Académie Colarossi was an art school in Paris, France, established in the nineteenth century as an alternative to the official Ecole des Beaux Arts

Question 7

Académie Julian

Answer 7

The Académie Julian was a major alternative school to the official Ecole des Beaux Arts, especially for women who were not admitted to the Beaux Arts until 1897

Question 8

Academy

Answer 8

Established during the Renaissance and widespread by the seventeenth century, academies were artist-run organisations whose aim was to improve the professional standing of artists as well as to provide teaching

Question 9

Acrylic Paint

Answer 9

Acrylic paint is water-based fast-drying paint widely used by artists since the 1960s. It can be used thickly or thinly depending how much water is added to it

Question 10

Action Painting

Answer 10

The term action painters is applied to artists working from the 1940s until the early 1960s whose approach to painting emphasized the physical act of painting as an essential part of the finished work

Question 11

Actionism

Answer 11

Actionism is the English version of the general German term for performance art, specifically used for Vienna-based group Wiener Aktionismus founded in 1962 whose actions were deliberately shocking, often including self-torture

Question 12

Activist Art

Answer 12

Activist art is a term used to describe art that is grounded in the act of ‘doing’ and addresses political or social issues

Question 13

Aesthetic Movement

Answer 13

The aesthetic movement was a late nineteenth century movement that championed pure beauty and ‘art for art’s sake’ emphasizing the visual and sensual qualities of art and design over practical, moral or narrative considerations

Question 14

Aesthetics

Answer 14

Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy that is concerned with the nature of beauty and taste

Question 15

Afrapix

Answer 15

Afrapix was a photographers’ collective and agency founded in South Africa in 1982 which encouraged its members to use photography as activism

Question 16

AfriCOBRA

Answer 16

AfriCOBRA was a Chicago-based group of black artists whose shared aim was to develop their own aesthetic in the visual arts in order to empower black communities

Question 17

Afrofuturism

Answer 17

Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic that combines science-fiction, history and fantasy to explore the African-American experience and aims to connect those from the black diaspora with their forgotten African ancestry

Question 18

Agit-prop

Answer 18

Agit-prop is an enterprise set up by the Soviet Communist Party in 1920 intended to control and promote the ideological conditioning of the masses. The term is now used to refer to any cultural manifestation with an overtly political purpose

Question 19

Airbrushing

Answer 19

Airbrushing is a painting technique which uses an airbrush to give an even and consistent surface, often used to create a high level of realism

Question 20

Alabaster

Answer 20

Alabaster is a soft white or translucent stone, it is a fine-grained marble-like variety of gypsum. A popular material for carved sculpture. It is also often used for ornamental stonework.

Question 21

Albumen Print

Answer 21

Invented in 1850, and commonly used in the late nineteenth century, the albumen print is a type of photographic print made from paper coated with albumen (egg white)

Question 22

Allegory

Answer 22

Allegory in art is when the subject of the artwork, or the various elements that form the composition, is used to symbolize a deeper moral or spiritual meaning such as life, death, love, virtue, justice etc.

Question 23

Altermodern

Answer 23

Altermodern is a term coined by curator Nicolas Bourriaud in 2009, to describe art made as a reaction against standardisation and commercialism, in the context of globalisation

Question 24

American Social Realist Photography

Answer 24

American social realist photography refers to photographs that documented rural poverty during America’s Great Depression of the 1930s and 1940s

Question 25

Analytical Cubism

Answer 25

The term analytical cubism describes the early phase of cubism, generally considered to run from 1908–12, characterized by a fragmentary appearance of multiple viewpoints and overlapping planes

Question 26

Animation

Answer 26

Animation is the rapid display of sequences of static imagery in such a way as to create the illusion of movement. Heir to surrealism according to Dalí.

Question 27

Anthropophagia

Answer 27

Meaning cannibalism, anthropophagia as an art term is associated with the 1960s Brazilian art movement Tropicália whose work, although being culturally and politically rooted in Brazil, took influences from Europe and America. Cultural and musical cannibalism of other cultures.

Question 28

Anti-Art

Answer 28

Anti-art is a term used to describe art that challenges the existing accepted definitions of art (related to Dada)

Question 29

Anti-Form

Answer 29

Anti-form is a term associated with a group of artists working in the United States in the late 1960s who embraced chance and other organic processes in the creation of their minimal sculptures

Question 30

Appropriation

Answer 30

Appropriation in art and art history refers to the practice of artists using pre-existing objects or images in their art with little transformation of the original

Question 31

Aquatint

Answer 31

Aquatint is a printmaking technique that produces tonal effects by using acid to eat into the printing plate creating sunken areas which hold the ink (intaglio)

Question 32

Archive

Answer 32

Traditionally an archive is a store of documents or artifacts of a purely documentary nature

Question 33

Art Autre (Art Informel)

Answer 33

Also known as art informel, art autre translates as ‘art of another kind’ and was used to describe the dominant trend of abstract art in the 1940s and 1950s characterised by an improvisatory approach and highly gestural technique

Question 34

Art Brut

Answer 34

Art brut is a French term that translates as ‘raw art’, invented by the French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art such as graffiti or naïve art which is made outside the academic tradition of fine art

Question 35

Art Deco

Answer 35

Art deco is a design style from the 1920s and 1930s in furniture, decorative arts and architecture characterised by its geometric character

Question 36

Art Intervention

Answer 36

The term art intervention applies to art designed specifically to interact with an existing structure or situation, be it another artwork, the audience, an institution or in the public domain

Question 37

Art Noveau

Answer 37

Art nouveau is an international style in architecture and design that emerged in the 1890s and is characterised by sinuous lines and flowing organic shapes based on plant forms

Question 38

Arts and Crafts

Answer 38

Arts and Crafts was a design movement initiated by William Morris in 1861 which aimed to improve the quality of design and make it available to the widest possible audience

Question 39

Assemblage

Answer 39

Assemblage is art that is made by assembling disparate elements – often everyday objects – scavenged by the artist or bought specially

Question 40

Atelier

Answer 40

Atelier is a French word that translates literally as studio or workshop and is often used to denote a group of artists, designers or architects working collectively

Question 41

Attribute

Answer 41

Attribute has different meanings as a noun and a verb: An attribute (noun) in art is an object or animal associated with a particular personage; to attribute (verb) a work of art is to suggest it may be by a particular artist

Question 42

Aura

Answer 42

Aura is a quality integral to an artwork that cannot be communicated through mechanical reproduction techniques – such as photography

Question 43

Authenticity

Answer 43

Authenticity is a term used by philosopher and critic Walter Benjamin to describe the qualities of an original work of art as opposed to a reproduction

Question 44

Auto-Destructive Art

Answer 44

Auto-destructive art is a term invented by the artist Gustav Metzger in the early 1960s to describe radical artworks made by himself and others, in which destruction was part of the process of creating the work

Question 45

Automatism

Answer 45

In art, automatism refers to creating art without conscious thought, accessing material from the unconscious mind as part of the creative process

Question 46

Avant-Garde

Answer 46

As applied to art, avant-garde means art that is innovatory, introducing or exploring new forms or subject matter