Art Terms (M)

Question 1

Magic Realism

Answer 1

The term magic realism was invented by German photographer, art historian and art critic Franz Roh in 1925 to describe modern realist paintings with fantasy or dream-like subjects

Question 2

Magnum Photos

Answer 2

Magnum Photos is a New York based photographic co-operative founded in 1947 by four photographers, including Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson, that aims to give photographers the freedom to record what they see without having to work to the agendas of magazines and newspapers

Question 3

Mail Art

Answer 3

Mail art began in the 1960s when artists sent postcards inscribed with poems or drawings through the post rather than exhibiting or selling them through conventional commercial channels.

Question 4

Mannerist

Answer 4

Mannerist is a sixteenth century style of art and design characterised by artificiality, elegance and sensuous distortion of the human figure

Question 5

Maquette

Answer 5

A maquette is model for a larger piece of sculpture, created in order to visualise how it might look and to work out approaches and materials for how it might be made

Question 6

Market Photo Workshop

Answer 6

Founded by the documentary photographer David Goldblatt in 1989, Market Photo Workshop was originally set up to support black photographers in apartheid South Africa, enabling them access to workshops and education and international photographers

Question 7

Matter Painting

Answer 7

Matter painting refers to the technique of using thick impasto paint into which other materials such as sand, mud, cement and shells have been added

Question 8

Medium

Answer 8

Medium can refer to both to the type of art (e.g. painting, sculpture, printmaking), as well as the materials an artwork is made from

Question 9

Memento Mori

Answer 9

A memento mori is an artwork designed to remind the viewer of their mortality and of the shortness and fragility of human life

Question 10

Merz

Answer 10

Merz is a nonsense word invented by the German dada artist Kurt Schwitters to describe his collage and assemblage works based on scavenged scrap materials

Question 11

Metaphysical Art

Answer 11

Metaphysical Art (the translation of the Italian Pittura Metafisica) was an early twentieth century Italian art movement typified by dream-like views of eerie arcaded squares with unexpected juxtapositions of objects

Question 12

Mezzotint

Answer 12

Mezzotint is an engraving technique developed in the seventeenth century which allows for the creation of prints with soft gradations of tone and rich and velvety blacks

Question 13

Minimalism

Answer 13

Minimalism is an extreme form of abstract art developed in the USA in the 1960s and typified by artworks composed of simple geometric shapes based on the square and the rectangle

Question 14

Mixed Media

Answer 14

Mixed media is a term used to describe artworks composed from a combination of different media or materials

Question 15

Mobile

Answer 15

A mobile is a type of sculpture that is formed of delicate components which are suspended in the air and move in response to air currents or motor power

Question 16

Modern Moral Subject

Answer 16

The modern moral subject is a type of painting that was invented by English artist William Hogarth (1697–1764), which satirizes the manners and morals of the period in which he lived

Question 17

Modern Realism

Answer 17

The term modern realism is applied to painting or sculpture created since the development of abstraction in modern art but which continues to represent things in a realistic manner

Question 18

Modernism

Answer 18

Modernism refers to a global movement in society and culture that from the early decades of the twentieth century sought a new alignment with the experience and values of modern industrial life. Building on late nineteenth-century precedents, artists around the world used new imagery, materials and techniques to create artworks that they felt better reflected the realities and hopes of modern societies.

Question 19

Modular

Answer 19

Modular is a term used particularly in relation to minimalism, referring to a work of art with constituent parts that can be moved, separated and recombined

Question 20

Mono-Ha

Answer 20

Mono-ha (School of Things) was a pioneering art movement that emerged in Tokyo in the mid-1960s whose artists, instead of making traditional representational artworks, explored materials and their properties in reaction to what they saw as ruthless development and industrialisation in Japan

Question 21

Monochrome

Answer 21

Monochrome means one colour, so in relation to art, a monochrome artwork is one that includes only one colour

Question 22

Monoprint

Answer 22

The monoprint is a form of printmaking where the image can only be made once, unlike most printmaking which allows for multiple originals

Question 23

Monotype

Answer 23

A unique image printed from a polished plate, such as glass or metal, which has been painted with a design in ink

Question 24

Montage

Answer 24

A montage is an assembly of images that relate to each other in some way to create a single work or part of a work of art

Question 25

Mosaic

Answer 25

A mosaic is a picture made up of small parts which are traditionally tiny tiles made out of terracotta, pieces of glass, ceramics or marble and usually inlayed into floors and walls

Question 26

Motif

Answer 26

A motif is a recurring fragment, theme or pattern that appears in a work of art

Question 27

Multi-Media

Answer 27

The term multi-media describes artworks made from a range of materials and include an electronic element such as audio or video

Question 28

Multiple

Answer 28

Multiple refers to a series of identical artworks, usually a signed limited edition made specifically for selling