Did you know?

Some of the earliest Roman fresco figure paintings (c. 30 B.C.) are found on the walls of the Villa of Mysteries, a house located in the ancient city of Pompeii, which was covered by volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D. The ash protected the site until it was discovered and excavated in the eighteenth century.

realism

The nineteenth-century art movement developed in reaction to the idealistic subject matter of the French art academy in favor of commonplace, everyday, even ugly subjects.

words in context: Realism, broadly, is the representative, unembellished rendering of natural Forms. Major realists include Courbet, J. F. Millet, and Daumier.

romanticism

A European movement (late eighteenth to mid nineteenth centuries) that rejected a return to the classical ideals of neoclassicism. Romanticism emphasized emotion and spontaneous expression over reason. The subject matter was dramatic and usually painted in energetic, brilliant colors.

words in context: Romantic artists were Delacroix, Gericault, Goya, Turner, and Blake.

Impressionism

A late nineteenth-century French school that emphasized transitory visual impressions often painted directly from nature. Impressionists focused on the changing effects of light and color on natural objects.

words in context: Monet, Renoir, and Pissarro were important impressionists.

Symbolism

A painting movement that emerged in Paris in the 1880s. Subject matter was suggested, rather than presented directly, in stylized, evocative images.

words in context: Symbolism grew out of literature in France in reaction to realism. Baudelaire was leader of the movement in poetry. Other symbolists included Mallarme, Rimbaud, and Verlaine; Maeterlinck in drama; and Debussy in music. (Debussy was also considered to be a musical impressionist. Such terms may have slightly different connotations when describing different forms of artistic expression.

After studying the definitions above, use these new words in the sentences below.

1. A decorative painting movement in France opposed to realism was called

.

2. The work of artists who often worked outdoors, painting natural forms and emphasizing light and color was called .

3. artists such as Goya and Turner valued emotion more than reason and worked spontaneously.

4. is a nineteenth-century French art movement that rejected idealized subject matter and took ordinary, everyday objects, people, and scenes as its subject.

Test Yourself: Place the letter next to the number to match word and meaning.

1. romanticism a. poets led the way to this evocative art

2. symbolism b. a French school of artists who loved light and color

3. impressionism c. art painted from ordinary, natural forms

4. realism d. spontaneous, emotional art, dramatic and bright

On a separate sheet of paper, write a sentence using each of these new words

Did you know?

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), the great Dutch artist who experimented with color and loaded his canvases with layers of pigment using a palette knife, sold only one of his paintings during his lifetime. His paintings that now sell for millions of dollars include The Potato Eaters, Starry Night, Sunflowers (several versions), The Small House of Vincent in Aries, Self Portrait, Man with Ear Cut Off, and others.

cubism

A revolutionary movement begun by Picasso and Braque in Paris (c. 1907). In revolt against sensual, emotional art, cubism fragments the subject and shows it from multiple points of view simultaneously. Early works of the movement, sometimes called conceptual realism, show subjects as the mind, not the eye, perceives them.

words in context: Cubism appeals to the intellect, creating a three-dimensional image as a puzzle. Other artists who worked in this style were Marcel Duchamp and Ferdinand Leger. Picasso's Damoiselles d'Avignon (1907) is a fine example of cubism.

surrealism

A movement originating in France in the 1920s that explored the unconscious by using dreamlike images, spontaneous techniques, and surprising juxtapositions of objects. Whether humorous, eerie, or disorienting, these paintings pushed the boundaries of art.

words in context: Influenced by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, surrealism expressed the imagination as revealed in dreams without the conscious control of reason. Joan Miro used images from the sub­conscious, while Rene Magritte and Max Ernst juxtaposed incongruous elements painted in a realistic manner. Salvador Dali used images inspired by dreams, notably in his famous painting of melting clocks.

abstract expressionism

Emphasizing spontaneous personal expression and the act of painting itself, this movement, begun in New York City in the 1940s, ignored accepted artistic values and called attention to the surface of the painting—brush strokes and texture. Abstract expressionism was the first important American school of painting to influence art abroad. Major artists: Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, Hans Hoffman, Franz Kline, and Robert Rothko.

Words in context: Abstract expressionism greatly influenced the art that followed it, especially in the way material and color were used. Pollock (1912-1956), who dripped house paint on huge canvases, achieved lyrical and dramatic artwork using this technique.

minimalism

Painting and sculpture reduced to pure forms and strict, systematic compositions. The movement originated in the United States in the early 1960s.

words in context: In reaction to the subjectivity of abstract expressionism, artists such as sculptors Donald Judd and Carl Andre created impersonal, precise, primary structures in their work. The minimalism of Ellsworth Kelly, Kenneth Noland, and Frank Stella employed monumental, geometric forms and pure colors that had no references beyond the works themselves.

After studying the definitions above, use these new words in the sentences below.

1. Freud influenced the movement in art called .

2. Works of appeal to the intellect and often present an image from several points of view.

3. Jackson Pollock's vigorous drip paintings are important in the movement.

4. The artistic technique of s trips art down to its basic shapes and forms.

Test Yourself: Write the letter next to the number to match word and meaning.

1. surrealism a. art stripped to the basics

2. minimalism b. art that presents the mind with a puzzle

3. cubism c. emphasizes texture and brush strokes

4. abstract expressionism d. dreamlike images from the subconscious

On a separate sheet of paper, write a sentence using each of these new words.