Styles of Art
impressionism
A style of painting associated mainly with French artists of the late nineteenth century, such as Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. it seeks to re-create the artist's or viewer's general impression of a scene.
abstract
A trend in painting and sculpture in the twentieth century. it art seeks to break away from traditional representation of physical objects. It explores the relationships of forms and colors, whereas more traditional art represents the world in recognizable images.
constructivism
This was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. People wanted 'to construct' art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes.
kinetic art
a form of art that depends on movement for its effect.
Romanticism
a movement in the arts and literature which originated in the late 18th century, emphasizing inspiration, subjectivity, and the primacy of the individual.
cubism
a style of painting and sculpture developed in the early 20th century, characterized chiefly by an emphasis on formal structure, the reduction of natural forms to their geometrical equivalents, and the organization of the planes of a represented object independently of representational requirements.
academic
a style of painting and sculpture produced under the influence of European academies of art.
minimalism
a style that uses pared-down design elements.
surrealism
aimed at expressing imaginative dreams and visions free from conscious rational control. Salvador Dali was an influential surrealist painter
superrealism
an art movement that began in the late 1960s and early 1970s, in which the paintings, or sculptures, resemble a high resolution photograph.
feminist art
an art movement that refers to the efforts and accomplishments of feminists internationally to produce art that reflects women's lives and experiences, as well as to change the foundation for the production and reception of contemporary art.
naïve
any form of visual art that is created by a person who lacks the formal education and training that a professional artist undergoes
pop art
art based on modern popular culture and the mass media, especially as a critical or ironic comment on traditional fine art values.
conceptual art
art in which the idea or concept presented by the artist is considered more important than the finished product, if any such exists.
japanese
covers a wide range of art styles and media, including ancient pottery, sculpture, ink painting and calligraphy on silk and paper, ukiyo-e paintings and woodblock prints, kirigami, origami, dorodango, and more recently manga
figurative painting
describes artwork—particularly paintings and sculptures—that is clearly derived from real object sources, and is therefore by definition representational.
neo-expressionism
developed as a reaction against conceptual art and minimal art of the 1970s. they returned to portraying recognizable objects, such as the human body, (although sometimes in an abstract manner), in a rough and violently emotional way, often using vivid colors.
land art
earthworks; an art movement in which landscape and the work of art are inextricably linked.
neo- and post-impressionism
extensions of impressionism and a rejection of its limitations. neoimpressionism is characterized by the paintings of Seurat and his use of dots of pure colour. postimpressionism was characterized by the paintings of van Gogh, Gauguin and Cezanne
fauvism
the style of les Fauves (French for "the wild beasts"), a loose group of early twentieth-century modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong color over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism.
abstract expressionism
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.
avant garde
works that are experimental, radical, or unorthodox, with respect to art, culture, and society. It pushes the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the status quo, primarily in the cultural realm.
graffiti art
writing or drawings that have been scribbled, scratched, or painted illicitly on a wall or other surface, often within public view.
realism
An attempt to make art and literature resemble life.
victorian
refers to the distinctive styles of painting in the United Kingdom during the reign of Queen Victoria