- Industry: Art history
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A large, glazed cabinet used for displaying art objects. Often used in museums, the vitrine was appropriated by artists like Joseph Cornell in the 1950s and Joseph Beuys in the mid 1960s to display unusual materials they invested with spiritual or personal significance. Other artists who have used vitrines in their work include the American artist Jeff Koons and the British sculptor Rebecca Warren.
Industry:Art history
Watercolour is a medium or work of art made with paint consisting of fine pigment particles suspended in an aqueous binder which usually consists of gum, glucose, glycerine and wetting agents, applied to paper. As watercolour is semi-transparent, the white of the paper give a natural luminosity to the washes of colour. White areas of the image often are merely left unpainted to expose the paper. Watercolours are sold as cakes of dry paint or as liquid in tubes, to which water is added. The paint can be applied in various techniques such as wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry to obtain different effects.
Industry:Art history
An image or mark in a sheet of paper visible when viewed by transmitted light. It is created using a pattern of wire sewn into the mould on which the sheet of pulp is dried; the paper which settles above the wires is thinner, and so more translucent. The image usually represents the papermaker's trademark design or logo, sometimes with a name, initials or date. Although more common in historical papers (handmade) modern specialist printmaking papers often contain a watermark.
Industry:Art history
The process of joining two pieces of metal by softening or melting both surfaces to be joined by the application of heat.
Industry:Art history
Refers to a certain gallery aesthetic that was introduced in the early twentieth century in response to the increasing abstraction of modern art. With an emphasis on colour and light, artists from groups like De Stijl and the Bauhaus preferred to exhibit their works against white walls in order to minimise distraction. The white walls were also thought to act as a frame, rather like the borders of a photograph. A parallel evolution in architecture and design provided the right environment for the art. The white cube was characterised by its square or oblong shape, white walls and a light source usually from the ceiling. In 1976 Brian O'Doherty wrote a series of essays for Art Forum magazine, later turned into a book called Inside the White Cube, in which he confronted the modernist obsession with the white cube arguing that every object became almost sacred inside it, making the reading of art problematic.
Industry:Art history
A printmaking method distinct from woodcut in that the line is incised into the woodblock, rather than the background being cut away to leave a line in relief. So it is an intaglio method. Wood engraving is usually done on the end grain of a block of boxwood, which is very hard, and so extremely fine detail is possible. Wood engraving became widely used in the nineteenth century as a method of reproducing pictures in books, newspapers and journals before the invention of photo-mechanical methods of reproduction, but was also occasionally used by artists, such as Edward Calvert, as an original printmaking medium.
Industry:Art history
A method of relief printing from a block of wood cut along the grain. The block is carved so that an image stands out in relief. The relief image is then inked and paper placed against its surface and run through a press. It is possible to make a woodcut without a press (Japanese Ukiyo-e prints for example) by placing the inked block against a sheet of paper and applying pressure by hand. Woodblock printing was used in Europe from the twelfth century, at first for printing textiles, though images were printed on paper by the late fourteenth century.
Industry:Art history
A Russian avant-garde artistic group promoted through the journal of the same name that ran from 1898 to 1905. Serge Diaghilev was instrumental in founding the group and organising its first exhibition in St Petersburg in January 1899. The group offered a focus for Post-Impressionist, Symbolist and Aesthetic developments in Russian art, with particular emphasis on the history and folklore of Russia. Artists included Leon Bakst and Ivan Bilibin; newcomers in the final exhibition of the original group in 1906 included Alexei Jawlenski and Mikhail Larionov. The group's series of exhibitions was revived in 1910 by Alexandre Benois and ran until 1924; new members included Chagall, Kandinsky, El Lissitzky and Tatlin.
Industry:Art history
An intaglio technique which uses chemical action to produce incised lines in a metal printing plate. The plate, traditionally copper but now usually zinc, is prepared with an acid-resistant ground. Lines are drawn through the ground, exposing the metal. The plate is then immersed in acid and the exposed metal is 'bitten', producing incised lines. Stronger acid and longer exposure produce more deeply bitten lines. The resist is removed and ink applied to the sunken lines, but wiped from the surface. The plate is then placed against paper and passed through an intaglio press with great pressure to transfer the ink from the recessed lines. Sometimes ink may be left on the plate surface to provide a background tone. Etching was used for decorating metal from the fourteenth century, but was probably not used for printmaking much before the early sixteenth century. Since then many etching techniques have been developed, which are often used in conjunction with each other: soft-ground etching uses a non-drying resist or ground, to produce softer lines; spit bite involves painting or splashing acid onto the plate; open bite in which areas of the plate are exposed to acid with no resist; photo-etching (also called photogravure or heliogravue) is produced by coating the printing plate with a light sensitive acid-resist ground and then exposing this to light to reproduce a photographic image. Foul biting results from accidental or unintentional erosion of the acid resist.
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
