Art-speak glossary

Art movements
An art movement is an artistic style or a tendency seen in the intentions of works that is followed by a group of artists during a specific period of time. Art movements were especially important in modern art, where each consecutive movement was considered as a new avant-garde. Movements have almost entirely disappeared in contemporary art, where individualism and diversity prevail.

Abstraction and abstract art
Abstract art was largely a result of artists’ increasing interest in the formal aspects of art (such as colour theory) and the creative process, placing emphasis on personal expression. Representational forms, such as figures or landscapes, are often exaggerated or simplified until they become virtually unrecognisable. Examples: Barbara Hepworth, Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson.

Abstract expressionism
This movement originated in America in the 1940s, becoming popular in the 1950s. The key interests of the Abstract Expressionists were freedom of expression and exploring the subconscious. Many artists associated with this movement worked quickly and applied paint in unconventional ways such as pouring or splattering paint directly onto the surface, allowing chance and accident to play a significant role in the creation. Some also began experimenting with modern materials and industrial and domestic paints. Examples: Willem De Kooning, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Ad Reinhardt, Mark Rothko.

Conceptual art
Conceptual art, as its name implies, is primarily concerned with conveying an idea or concept behind a work, rather than the creation of a traditional art object (such as a painting, print or sculpture). The term first came into use in the 1960s, but is usually associated with artists of the 1970s, and recently enjoyed an resurgence by being linked to the origins of the Young British Artists (YBAs) in the 1990’s. Still, artists have been making work which is now regarded as conceptual since the beginning of the 20th century, perhaps the first being Marcel Duchamp’s infamous urinal piece made in 1917. In many examples of conceptual art, the art object can be replaced by a description of it or by a set of instructions for its construction, and the actual physical involvement of the artist can often be quite minimal. It therefore often overlaps with other movements of the last century. Examples: Marcel Broodthaers, Jenny Holtzer, Sarah Lucas, Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst.

Contemporary art
This somewhat ambiguous term usually refers to work created after 1945. Some
define contemporary art as work made within the last 30 years (Christie’s auction
house made this distinction with their contemporary auctions, while Sotheby’s and Phillips maintain the more conventional 1945 date).

Figurative/figuration/representational
The term figurative is now used as the opposite of abstract or conceptual, and extends to anything that depicts a subject taken from life, be it a landscape, objects (a still life) or the human figure. Figuration is often used to describe naturalistic or lifelike elements in otherwise abstract or non-figurative work. Representation is used when the emphasis is on what the subject is rather than with an accurate lifelike depiction.

Installation art
Installation art is often made for a particular event or space, being referred to as site-specific. Although some installations are able to be re-installed elsewhere or re-made at different venues, they are rarely permanent and may only exist as a documentation of its finished state. Much installation art is considered conceptual and is a popular art-form for alternative spaces rather than galleries. Examples: Christo, Tracey Emin, David Mach, Anthony Gormley.

Modernism and modern art
Modernism and the period referred to as the ‘modernist’ age relates to art and literature of the late 19th century through the mid-20th century. It includes artists such as Giacometti, Matisse, Monet, Picasso, Brancusi, Klee, van Gogh and Cezanne, often called the ‘Father of Modernism,’ as well as all those who forged artistic movements such as Fauvism, Cubism and Surrealism. Art at this time made a radical break with the past, deliberately departing from traditional materials and techniques. Whilst modernist ideas are still used widely in contemporary art and design, its dogmatism fell out of fashion in the post war period. It should not therefore be confused with contemporary art.

Pop art
Pop Art largely explores popular mass culture and the products of consumerism
and capitalism. Its message is not always certain, and could be condemning or
celebrating its subject. Largely associated with American culture, it actually began in England in the late 1950s, helped substantially by the focus brought on Britain by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. By appropriating the materials and styles of advertising, billboards, screen-printing, commercial packaging and design, pop artists encouraged their audience to reassess the products of the everyday world, at the same time challenging the elitism of previous art movements. Examples: Peter Blake, David Hockney, Richard Hamilton, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein.

Post-modernism
Post-modernism is the recognition that we have gone as far as we can from traditional values in the name of innovation. Therefore nothing can be considered wholly original because everything refers to what has gone before it. This is now part of our everyday ‘Cultural Liberalism’ in which no creative output can categorically be said to be better or worse than any other. Value is given to something according to what it refers to, hence the current fashion for retro culture and for revivals of previous styles. Examples: David Salle, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Gavin Turk.

Art media and techniques

Painting
Oil
Oil paint is a slow drying paint that is created by mixing pigments with oil, linseed oil being the most traditional. Oil paints are usually opaque and never dry fully, but rather develop a hard film. Since the sixteenth century oil painting on canvas has been a standard medium for artists as it can be easily manipulated and has great flexibility, making it possible for an artist to achieve a layered or smooth, rich coloured canvas.

Watercolour
Watercolours are translucent water-based paints. The technique is based on the transparent or glaze system of pigmentation that utilises the colour of the paper for its highlights.

Gouache
Gouache is an opaque watercolour, but is different from transparent watercolour in that it has a definite, appreciable film thickness and creates an actual paint layer. It has a brilliant light-reflecting quality and is most popularly used in a high chromatic key or in strong contrasting values.

Acrylic
This painting medium was developed in the middle of the twentieth century. Acrylic is a type of synthetic resin based on polymer colours and the paint is made by dispersing pigment in an acrylic emulsion. The artist can thin these colours with water, but when they dry the resin particles coalesce to form a tough, flexible, rubbery film that is impervious to water. This paint is popular because it dries quickly enabling an artist to work over a previously painted area almost immediately. Although acrylics lack the manipulative qualities of oils and watercolours, artists can produce a matt, semi-matt or glossy finish by mixing them with the appropriate mediums.

Printmaking
Lithography
Lithography consists of drawing or painting with greasy crayons and inks on limestone that has been ground down to a flat, smooth block. After several subsequent manipulations, the stone is moistened with water wetting the sections not covered by the crayon and leaving the areas of the greasy drawing dry as grease repels water. Oil-based ink is then applied with a roller and is repelled by the wet parts of the stone. The print made by pressing paper against the inked drawing is an autographic replica, in reverse, of the original drawing on stone.

Monoprints and monotypes
These two terms are often incorrectly assumed to be the same, but there are important differences. A Monoprint has a single underlying image (such as an etched plate or screen) that is made unique through a process of hand colouring or surface alteration to the printed image. A series of monoprints may be similar but are not identical. Monotypes are unique images and do not have a repeatable matrix (etched plate or screen). Instead, a thin even film of ink is rolled on to a plate, which the artist then manipulates by drawing into it, or by rubbing sections off. The print image is taken directly from the plate.

Intaglio process prints
Intaglio prints can be created through a number of processes, the common element is that the printed area is recessed. These recessed areas are filled with a greasy printer’s ink and then the surface is carefully wiped clean so that the ink remains only in the incised design. Types of intaglio processes include; Etching, Drypoint, Aquatint, Mezzotint, and Collagraphs

Etching
The metal plate is coated with an acid-resisting wax or ‘ground’ that the artist draws into with a variety of tools, removing the ground from the areas that are to print black. The plate is immersed in an acid bath, which ‘bites out’ or etches the exposed areas. The etched plate is inked and the surface is wiped clean, leaving ink only in the etched depressions. Finally the plate is run through a press with dampened paper – the pressure forces the paper into the etched areas of the plate, transferring the ink onto the paper. Rembrandt van Rijn first popularised this technique.

Drypoint
Artists working in drypoint draw the image directly onto the plate using a steel tipped ‘pencil’ that produces an added richness due to the burr (or shaving of metal that is turned up at the furrow). As the burrs are delicate and crush easily under the weight of the press, usually less than 50 impressions can be made.

Aquatint
Aquatint is an etching technique, which allows large areas of varying tones to be printed, by means of a textured plate. The area to be etched is dusted with a powdered resin and then heated to melt it onto the surface. The plate is then placed in the acid bath to etch away the tiny areas not protected by the granulated resin.

Mezzotint
This is perhaps the most labour intensive intaglio process and involves a plate being ‘rocked’ with a curved, notched blade until the surface is entirely and evenly pitted, creating a rough surface that prints black. Scraping the burr off or polishing the plate smooth creates half-tones and light. Colour mezzotints require a separate plate for each colour which will be printed separately on top of the previous colour in different print runs.

Collagraphs
Derived from the word ‘collage,’ Collagraphs are created by building up an image on a surface (cardboard, metal, or plastic) with glue and other materials thereby creating recessed areas where the ink is retained.

Relief printing
This is the oldest printing technique and refers to the cutting away of part of the surface of a block of material so that the image area to be printed stands out in relief. Woodcuts or woodblock prints are made by cutting into the surface of a smooth piece of hardwood with a knife, and V and U gouges are used to create more delicate lines. When printed, the area that has been cut away remains white and the raised surface is visible. A separate block is required for each colour. Printmakers rarely use more than three or four colours for aesthetic purposes. The linocut, a twentieth century adaptation of woodcuts, uses linoleum in place of wood and while it is easier to work with, it will not take very delicate or subtle cutting.

Screenprinting/serigraphy/silkscreen printing
Serigraphy is a twentieth century multicolour printmaking technique developed in America. The stencil process involves placing designs on a silk or nylon mesh screen that is attached to a wooden or metal frame about two inches deep, with the screen fabric at the bottom. Various film-forming materials, as well as hand-cut film stencils and photo-sensitive emulsions, are used as resists. Colour is poured into the frame, which is placed in contact with the surface to be printed on. The colour is scraped over the stencil with a squeegee and deposited on the paper through the meshes of the uncoated areas of fabric.