- Industry: Art history
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Name of a style of abstract art developed by a group of British artists in 1933. An exhibition titled Objective Abstraction was held in 1934 at the Zwemmer Gallery in London. The artists involved included Graham Bell, William Coldstream, Rodrigo Moynihan, and Geoffrey Tibble, and the exhibition was organised by Moynihan. Not included in this show but an important practitioner, was Edgar Hubert. On the other hand, works by non Objective Abstraction artists Ivon Hitchens, Victor Pasmore, and Ceri Richards, were added to the show by the gallery's director. Objective Abstraction was a non-geometric form of abstract art in which the painting evolved in an improvisatory way from freely applied brushstrokes. Moynihan was inspired by the brushwork in the late paintings of Turner and Monet. Objective Abstraction was part of the general ferment of exploration of abstraction in Britain in the early 1930s and was short-lived. A few years later many of these artists became members of the realist Euston Road School.
Industry:Art history
A dispersion of pigments in a drying oil that forms a tough, coloured film on exposure to air. The drying oil is a vegetable oil, often made by crushing nuts or seeds. For paints, linseed oil is most commonly used, but poppy, sunflower, safflower, soya bean and walnut oils have also been used. Drying oils initially cure through oxidation leading to cross linking of the molecular chains; this is a slow process affected by film thickness and paint components. Artists have used turpentine or mineral spirits to dilute oil paint. A heavily diluted layer dries relatively quickly, being tack-free in a few days. Thicker layers, containing more oil, take longer. Oil paint continues to dry, getting harder with age over many decades. Pigments and extenders will also affect the rate of drying, so different colours may dry at different speeds.
Industry:Art history
Term often used to describe certain Victorian artists, notably Alma-Tadema, Leighton, Poynter and Watts, whose work emphasised the classical in both style and subject matter. In ancient Greek mythology Mount Olympus in Greece was the home of the ancient gods, and the name refers both to the classicism of these artists and their huge success and dominance of the art of their time. Leighton in particular achieved almost god-like status. He was hugely handsome and an athlete, but also an intellectual; he became president of the Royal Academy in 1879, was created a baronet in 1886, and was elevated to the peerage, becoming Lord Leighton, just before his death in 1896. Alma-Tadema and Poynter were knighted and Watts was awarded the Order of Merit. A crucial source of inspiration for the Olympians was the so-called Elgin Marbles—the ancient Greek sculptures from the Parthenon in Athens brought to London by the Earl of Elgin in 1807 and housed in the British Museum from 1816.
Industry:Art history
Founded in 1913 by the painter and art critic Roger Fry, Omega Workshops was an English applied arts company based in London, which lasted until 1919. The company produced ceramics, furniture, carpets and textiles designed by Fry, Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell, who belonged to the circle of writers and artists known as Bloomsbury, and Henri Doucet, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Winifred Gill and Nina Hamnett. The name Omega Workshops is thought to have been intended to suggest the last word in design, omega (the Workshops' trademark) being the last letter of the Greek alphabet.
Industry:Art history
A major development in the 1960s of painting that created optical effects for the spectator. These effects ranged from the subtle, to the disturbing and disorienting. Op painting used a framework of purely geometric forms as the basis for its effects and also drew on colour theory and the physiology and psychology of perception. Leading figures were Bridget Riley, Jesus Raphael Soto, and Victor Vasarely. Vasarely was one of the originators of Op art. Soto's work often involves mobile elements and points up the close connection between Kinetic and Op art.
Industry:Art history
The accession of Queen Victoria in 1837 coincided with the beginning of the great age of rail and steamship travel. Artists from Britain were soon spreading across the world in search of new and exotic subjects. Those who went to the Middle East became known as Orientalists. Lead figure was John Frederick Lewis who spent thirteen years there from 1838, followed by David Roberts, William Muller and David Wilkie. Later contributors include the Pre-Raphaelites, Holman Hunt and Thomas Seddon, who travelled together to Palestine 1854-6, Hunt returning 1869-72, 1875-8, 1892.
Industry:Art history
Sometimes called Orphic Cubism. The term was coined about 1912-13 by the French poet and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire. He used it to describe the Cubist influenced work of Robert Delaunay and his wife Sonia, and to distinguish their very abstract and colourful work from Cubism generally. The name comes from the legendary ancient Greek poet and musician Orpheus. Its use by Apollinaire relates to the idea that painting should be like music, which was an important element in the development of abstract art. In the Delaunays' work patches of subtle and beautiful colour are brought together to create harmonious compositions. Delaunay himself used the term Simultanism to describe his work.
Industry:Art history
A smooth, flat surface on which artists set out and mix their colours before painting, which is often designed to be held in the hand. The term also refers to the range of colours habitually used by and characteristic of an artist. A palette in computer graphics is a chosen set of colours that are each assigned a number, and it is this number that determines the colour of the pixel.
Industry:Art history
Matted plant fibres made into sheet form either by hand (traditional) or machine (modern). Handmade paper was produced by drying pulp, produced from beating cotton or linen rags in water, on wire trays. The lines of thinner paper produced by these wires are visible in 'laid' paper. 'Wove' paper, developed in the mid eighteenth century, is made from trays with a tightly-woven wire mesh which leave a smoother surface and no visible lines. Artists use both handmade and machine made paper, although handmade is often used for printmaking. Paper is traditionally said to have been invented in China in the second century AD, but was not made in Europe until the twelfth century.
Industry:Art history
Papier collé (pasted paper) is a specific form of collage that is closer to drawing than painting. The Cubist painter Georges Braque first used it when he drew on imitation wood-grain paper that had been pasted onto white paper. Both Braque and Pablo Picasso made a number of papiers collés in the last three months of 1912 and in early 1913, with Picasso substituting the wood-grain paper favoured by Braque with pages from the newspaper Le Journal in an attempt to introduce the reality of everyday life into the pictures. Picasso also developed the idea of the papier collé into a three-dimensional assemblage when he made Guitar in 1912.
Industry:Art history
