See below for terms used in describing types of painting, sculture and architecture in the history of art.

A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H-J - K - L - M - N - O - P-Q - R - S - T - U-V - W-Z

A

Abstract Expressionism
originally a diverse style of ABSTRACT art developed in the USA during the 1940s and 1950s, and particularly associated with Arshile Gorky and Jackson Pollock; sometimes known as the NEW YORK SCHOOL. After 1952, sometimes known alternatively as ACTION PAINTING.
Abstraction-Creation
1) group of Abstract artists in Paris in 1931 who promoted nonrepresentational art through their exhibitions. 2) the annual magazine published by the group from 1932 to 1936; its full title was Abstraction-Creation: Art non-figurative.
Action Painting
Term coined in 1952 by US critic Harold Rosenberg to describe the type of ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM, practiced by Jackson Pollock and others, in which the emphasis was on the action of applying paint, sometimes splashing or pouring it over a canvas on the floor.
Actionism
English name for Performance art, specifically applied to the Vienna based group Wiener Aktionismus established in 1962. The main members of the group included Gunter Brus, Hermann Nitsch and Rudolph Schwarzkogler. The 'actions' of these artists were designed to highlight the endemic violence of humanity and involved emplying the blood and entrails of animals.
Aesthetic Movement
Active in Britain during the 1870s and 1880s in both the fine and applied arts. Amounting to a reverence of pure beauty in art and design, its motto was 'art for art's sake'. In painting, its aesthetic philosophy was exemplified by Whistler, Albert Moore and in part by Leighton. In applied arts and crafts, the movement was spearheaded by William Morris.
Analytical Cubism
early phase of CUBISM, c.1907-12, in which natural forms were analyzed and reduced to their essential geometric parts.
Art Deco
interior and graphic design of the 1920s and 1930s. It was characterized by the combination of decorative ART NOUVEAU with new geometric forms.
Arte Nucleare
refers to the work of the Movimento d'Arte Nucleare, founded by the Italian artist Enrico Baj together with Sergio Dangelo and Gianni Bertini, in Milan in 1951.
Arte Povera
term coined by Italian critic Germano Celani in 1967 to describe the work of artists such as Carl Andre, Richard Long etc. It stresses the use of ordinary materials such as sand, stones, twigs, etc., and the temporary, non-collectable nature of the work.
Art Informel
term coined by French critic Michel Tapic, and used from the 1950s to describe the European equivalent to ACTION PAINTING.
Art Nouveau
decorative style popular in Europe in the late 19th and early 20th century; it often employed stylized, curvilinear plant forms. It was known in Germany as JUGENDSTIL.
Ashcan School
term used during the 1930s to describe the realist group of artists which evolved from the eight in New York c1908 and whose subject was usually the urban environment.
Auto-Destructive art
Term coined by the artist Gustav Metzger in the early 1960s in his article 'Machine, Auto-creative and Auto-destructive Art' in the journal Ark, to express his activist-style art, protesting against nuclear weapons.

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B

Barbizon School
group of French landscape painters of the mid 19th century, who painted landscape for its own sake, often in plein-air, directly from nature.
Baroque
style of architecture, painting, and sculpture originating principally in Italy, of the late 16th to the early 18th century; it exhibited an increased interest in dynamic movement and dramatic effects. Also: "baroque" is sometimes used in a pejorative sense to mean over-elaborate, florid. Also: The Baroque period refers to the 17th century, when the style was at its height.
Bauhaus
Named after a combination of the German terms for building (bau) and house (haus), it was a school of architecture and modern art, founded in Weimar, Germany, in 1919 by Walter Gropius, which became the focus of modern design. It moved to Dessau in 1925-6, to Berlin in 1932, and was closed in 1933. Its teaching method replaced the traditional pupil-teacher relationship with the idea of a community of artists working together.
Berlin Secession (Ger. Berliner Sezession)
association led by the German Impressionist painter Max Liebermann which exhibited the work of the "Die Brucke" artists in 1908.
Blaue Reiter
group of artists formed in Munich in 1911 by Wassily Kandinskv and Franz Marc. The group was of very varied outlook; other artists who joined it included Paul Klee, Georges Braque, and Picasso.
Britart: Young British Artists, YBAs (1980s)
This UK group, consisting of numerous painters, sculptors, conceptual and installation artists, many of whom attended Goldsmiths College in London, gained huge media coverage for its shocking artworks. Led by Damien Hirst, the group went mainstream in 1997 when the London Royal Academy, in conjunction with Charles Saatchi (their patron), hosted "Sensation", a definitive exhibition of YBA art, amid no little controversy.
Brucke (Ger. Die Brucke, "The Bridge")
group of German Expressionist painters founded in Dresden in 1905, and including the artists Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff.
Brutalism
Architectural style of the 1950s associated with Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, in which no attempt is made to disguise the building materials used.

C

Camden Town Group
group of English POST-IMPRESSIONIST painters formed in 1911 around Walter Sickert, including Spencer Gore, Lucien Pissarro, and Augustus John, who applied some of the principles of Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh to contemporary London subject matter.
Cercle et Carre Group
group and periodical of International Constructivists formed in Paris in 1929 by Joaquin Torres-Garcia and others to promote ABSTRACT art.
Chicago School
group of architects working in Chicago between 1871 and 1893 including Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan.
CoBrA
an association of Dutch, Danish and Belgium Expressionist artists 1948-51. An acronym of the words Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam.
Colour field painting
School of painting, usually on a large scale, in which solid areas of colour are taken right up to the edge of the canvas, suggesting that they extend to infinity.
Constructivism
international Abstract art movement founded in post-revolutionary Russia by Antoine Pevsner and Naum Gabo, whose aims were expressed in the REALISTIC MANIFESTO.
Cubism
artistic movement c.1907-1915 initiated by Picasso and Braque as a reaction against IMPRESSIONISM. It aimed to analyze forms in geometric terms (ANALYTICAL CUBISM) or reorganize them in various contexts (SYNTHETIC CUBISM); colour remained secondary to form.
Cuba-Futurism
specifically Russian art movement associated with Kasimir Malevich, c.1913, which combined elements of CUBISM and FUTURISM.

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D

Dada
international "anti-art" movement originating in Zurich c.1916, involving Marcel Duchamp, Jean Arp, Francis Picabia, among others; a forerunner of SURREALISM; hence Dadaism, Dadaist.
Danube School
the name loosely refers to several early 16th-century German painters, such as Albrecht Altdorfer and Lucas Cranach, famous for lush landscapes and rich colouristic effects.
Decadent Movement
fin-de-siecle movement associated with Aubrey Beardsley (1872-98).
Delft School
17th-century Dutch genre painting associated with Jan Vermeer and Pierer de Hooch.
De Stijl
Dutch art magazine founded in 1917 by Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian. Also: artists and architects associated with the journal who were influential in promoting functional BAUHAUS design during the 1920s.
Divisionism
analytical painting technique developed systematically by Georges Seurat (1859-91); instead of mixing colours on the palette, each colour is applied "pure" in individual brush-strokes, so that from a certain distance, the viewer's eye and brain perform the mixing "optically"; see Pointillism.

E

Edwardian
A style of architecture, painting and decorative art linked with Edward VII of Britain, the son of Queen Victoria, which is associated with the last decade or so before the First World War. In France it was referred to as Belle Epoque. The great exemplar of the Edwardian style was John Singer Sargent.
Elementarism
modified form of Neo-Plasticism propounded by Theo van Doesburg in the 1920s, which caused a rift with Piet Mondrian by introducing diagonals instead of a rigid horizontal and vertical format.
Elizabethan
A style of art associated with the era of Queen Elizabeth I (reigned 1558-1603). Portraiture was an important Elizabethan painting genre, eminent portait artists being Nicholas Hilliard, Marcus Gheeraerts.
Euston Road Group
group of artists working in a broadly naturalistic style in Euston Rd, London, for a brief period from 1937 to 1939, including William Coldstream, Victor Pasmore, and Lawrence Gowing.
Existential Art (1940s and 1950s)
John Paul Sartre's existentialist philosophy, with its themes of alienation and angst in the face of the human condition, can be seen in paintings by the American Abstract Expressionists, the Informel and "CoBrA" movements, the French Homme-Temoin (Man as a Witness) group, the British Kitchen Sink art group, and the American Beats - all of whom from time to time are designated Existential, as are many individual painters and sculptors: like the Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti, and the surrealist/expressionist Francis Bacon.
Expressionism
artistic movement of the 20th century in which the expression of emotion and feeling is emphasized rather than the representation of nature; hence Expressionist, Expressionistic. See also BLAUE REITER and Brucke.

F

Fauves
originally a derogatory term (Les Fauves) meaning "wild beasts", used of a group of painters who exhibited at the Salon d' Automne in Paris in 1905, including Matisse; hence Fauvism, Fauvist.
fin de Siecle
late 19th-century style of ART NOUVEAU, also associated with the SYMBOLIST and DECADENT movements.
Futurism
Italian artistic movement founded in 1909 by Philippo Marinetti, which exalted the modern world of machinery, speed, and violence.

G

Geometric Abstraction
loose and somewhat inaccurate term for abstract art in which the image is composed of non-representational geometric shapes. It has been used of various artists and movements, including the Suprematists, Piet Mondrian, and Ben Nicholson.
Georgian
General term describing the styles of art associated with the reigns of King George I, II, II and IV in Britain (1714-1830), notably in architecture, silver, furniture, and silver. Its unifying atrribute is a certain classical restraint and harmony.
Gothic
the last period of medieval art and architecture. Early Gothic usually refers to the period 1140-1200; High Gothic c.1200-50; late Gothic from 1250. "Gothic" was used in the RENAISSANCE as a pejorative adjective for medieval architecture.
Graffiti Art (1970s onwards)
Also referred to as "Writing", "Spraycan Art" and "Aerosol Art", Graffiti is a movement or style of art associated with hip-hop, a cultural movement which sprang up in various American cities, especially on New York subway trains, during the 1970s and 1980s. Later it spread to Europe and Japan and eventually crossed over from the street into the gallery. Its most famous exemplar was Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Gruppo Origine
Italian group founded in Rome by Alberto Burri, Ettore Colla, Giuseppe Capogrossi and Mario Ballocco, in response to the disagreeably decorative quality of abstract art at the time. In their initial manifesto they proclaimed a return to fundamentals, notably by renouncing three-dimensional forms, restricting colour to its simplest, and by evoking elemental images. Began and ended during 1951.
Gutai (concrete) (1954-72)
The Gutai Bijutsu Kyokai (Gutai Art Association), a Japanese avant-garde group, was founded in 1954 in Osaka by Yoshihara Jiro, Kanayma Akira, Murakami Saburo, Shiraga Kazuo, and Shimamoto Shozo. Held a number of public exhibitions in 1955 and 1956, with works prefiguring later Happenings and Performance and Conceptual art. According to art historian Yve-Alain Bois, the group's activities constituted one of the most important moments of post-war Japanese culture.

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H-J

Hard edge painting
term coined in 1959 to describe ABSTRACT (but not geometric) painting, using large, flat areas of colour with precise edges.
Harlem Renaissance
An African-American artistic movement centered in the Harlem borough of New York City, and originally known as the New Negro Movement, it had a profound influence throughout the United States. Influential members were William H. Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones and the sculptor and printmaker Sargent Claude Johnson, as well as Jacob Lawrence, Archibald Motley and Romare Bearden.
Hudson River school
group of American landscape painters, working from 1825 to 1875. Includes Thomas Doughty, Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, J. F. Kensett, Henry Inman, Jasper Cropsey, and Frederick E. Church.
Humanism
A cultural and philosophical movement of the Italian Renaissance, focusing on the capabilities of human beings as opposed to the abstract concepts and problems of science or theology.
Hyper-Realism
Also known as Super-Realism or Photo-realism, it describes a form of 1970s hyper-realistic sculpture and painting as exemplified by Chuck Close, Richard Estes, Audrey Flack, and Ralph Goings.
Impressionism
19th-century French art movement, from 1874. Various artists such as Pissarro, Monet, Renoir, and Sisley, were linked by their common interest in capturing immediate visual impressions, and an emphasis on light and colour; hence Impressionist; Impressionistic.
Independent Group
The name of a radical association of young avant-garde painters and sculptors within the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London, who was responsible for the dissemination of the basic tenets of British Pop art during the late 1950s. Leading participants included Richard Hamilton, Nigel Henderson, Eduardo Paolozzi and William Turnbull, as well as critics Lawrence Alloway and Rayner Banham, and the architects Colin St John Wilson, and Alison and Peter Smithson.
Intimism
French genre painting of domestic, intimate interiors, such as the work of Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard; hence intimiste.
Jacobean Art
General artistic idiom associated with the culture of the reign of James I (reigned 1603-25) notably in theatre as well as painting. Leading exemplars include the eminent Elizabethan miniaturist Nicholas Hilliard and the Dutch born artists Paul Van Somer and Daniel Mytens the Elder.
Jugendstil
German term for ART NOUVEAU.

K

Kitchen Sink art
term originally used as the title of an article by David Sylvester in the journal Encounter refering to the work of the realist artists known as the Beaux Arts Quartet, John Bratby, Derrick Greaves, Edward Middleditch and Jack Smith.

L

London Group
group of English artists who were influenced by Post-Impressionism, and who exhibited together from 1913.
Luminism
term applied to American landscape painters of the Hudson River School from about 1830-70, as many of their paintings were dominated by intense, dramatic light effects. A form of Luminism underlies Whistler's 'Nocturnes'.
Lyrical abstraction
term coined by the French painter George's Mathieu in 1947 to describe the more decorative style of L'Art Informel and abstract expressionism.

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M

Magic Realism
term invented by German photographer, art historian and art critic Franz Roh to describe late 19th early 20th realist paintings with fantasy or dream-like subjects.
Mannerism
artistic style originating in Italy c.1520-90 that tends to employ distortion of figures, and emphasize an emotional content: hence Mannerist.
Metaphysical painting (It. Pittura Metafisica)
movement of c.1915-18 associated with the painter Giorgio de Chirico; partly a reaction against Futurism.
Mexican Muralism
Term applied to the resurgence of large-size public mural painting in Mexico during the 1920s and 1930s, as practised by the left-wing artists Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros.
Minimalism
A non-representational style of painting, sculpture and architecture in the late 1960s, which was severely restricted in its use of visual elements and limited itself to simple geometric shapes or masses.
Modern Realism
An umbrella term covering a style of painting and sculpture that emerged under Courbet and Millet during mid-19th century France, and which continues to this day. Encompasses early 20th century styles like Post-Impressionist art, the Neue Sachlichkeit movement and Magic Realism. In America it was exemplified by the Ashcan School, American Regionalism, and the works of Edward Hopper. In Britain, modern realist schools included the Euston Road and the British Kitchen Sink artists. Also includes individuals like Balthus, Freud, the portraiture of Hockney, Gwen John, Morandi, and Spencer.
Munich Secession
withdrawal in 1892 of German artists in Munich from the traditional institutions; it remained relatively conservative, and was followed by the VIENNA SECESSION (1897) and the BERLIN SECESSION (1908).

N

Nabis (Fr. Les Nabis)
group of French artists working from c.1892 to 1899, influenced by Gauguin in their use of colour and lightly exotic decorative effects. They included Pierre Bonnard, Jean-Edouard Vuillard, Felix Vallotton and Paul Serusier.
Nazarenes
group of German painters working in Rome in the early 19th century; inspired by Northern art of the 15th and early 16th centuries.
Neoclassicism
the late 18th-century European style, lasting from c.1770 to 1830, which reacted against the worst excesses of the BAROQUE and ROCOCO, reviving the Antique. It implies a return to classical sources which imposed restraint and simplicity on painting and architecture.
Neo-Dada
term often used to describe works by Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns in New York in the late 1950s because of their use of collage, assemblage and found materials, and their apparent anti-art agenda.
Neo-Gothic
revival of the Gothic style in 18th-century England, especially in architecture.
Neo-Impressionism
the development of IMPRESSIONISM through Georges Seurat's scientific analysis and treatment of colour; see DIVISIONISM; POINTILLISM.
Neo-Plasticism
a rigid Dutch style of Abstraction, based on rectangles, horizontal and vertical lines founded by Piet Mondrian in the early 1920s.
Neo-Romanticism
broad term for several 20th-century European art movements that draw on mystical, dreamlike subjects; expressive, emotional forms; and Surrealism.
Neue Kunstlervereinigung (Ger. "New Artists' Association")
founded in Munich in 1909 with Wassily Kandinsky as president, and influenced by the Munich JUGENDSTIL and Fauvism. Kandinsky and Franz Marc later formed the BLAUE REITER group.
Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity)
German modern realist movement of the 1920s founded by Otto Dix and George Grosz, who vividly depicted the corruption and hedonism in Germany during the 1920s.
New Bauhaus
the Bauhaus founded in Chicago by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, which later became the Institute of Design.
New English Art Club
antiacademic, pro-Impressionist art club founded in 1886. Its founder members included Walter Sickert and Wilson Steer.
Newlyn School
Led by Stanhope Alexander Forbes and Frank Bramley, the artists who settled in the West Cornish town of Newlyn from the early 1880s pursued the Impressionist derived pleinairism doctrine of working directly from nature.
New Realism (or Nouveau Realisme)
term coined in 1960 by the French critic Pierre Restany for art derived partly from DADA and SURREALISM, which reacted against more abstract work, especially by using industrial and everyday objects to make junk art or sculpture.
New Spirit Painting
Synonymous with Neo-Expressionism and its sub-cultures of Neue Wilden and Transavanguardia, its name being derived from the 1981 Royal Academy Exhibition "A New Spirit in Painting", the movement promoted certain styles of contemporary British expressionism. Participants included the American painters David Salle and Eric Fischl, as well as British painters Paula Rego, Stephen McKenna, Stephen Campbell and the abstract Irish-American painter Sean Scully.
New York School
the core of Abstract EXPRESSIONISM in New York in the 1940s and early 1950s including Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko.
Northern Renaissance
Western art from Northern Europe (eg. Flanders, Holland, Germany, Britain) of the period c 1420-1600.
Norwich School
Important English school of landscape painting, dating from 1803, led by John Crome and John Sell Cotman.
New Subjectivity (Nouvelle Subjectivité)
Name applied by the French curator and art historian Jean Clair, to a 1976 international art show at the Musée National d'Art Moderne at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. The exhibition showcased works by American, British and European artists who rejected the dominant and highly fashionable styles of abstraction and conceptualism, preferring a return to depicting the reality of things. Leading practitioners included David Hockney, R B Kitaj, Samuel Buri, Christian Zeimert, Michel Parre and Sam Szafran.
Il Novecento Italiano
Italian artist group founded in 1922 by Funi, Sironi, Carra and others, with the aim of promoting large format history painting in the classical manner. Launched in 1923 in Milan, the group quickly split and reformed, staging its first group show in Milan in 1926.
Objective Abstraction
A style of non-geometric form of abstract art practised by a group of British artists in the early 1930s, notably in the 1934 show entitled Objective Abstraction staged at the Zwemmer Gallery in London, whose participants included Graham Bell, William Coldstream, Rodrigo Moynihan, and Geoffrey Tibble.

O

Op art
abbreviation of Optical art; 1960s movement in painting in which the illusion of movement was created by the juxtaposition of contrasting geometrical shapes, tones, lines, and colours. Bridget Riley was a leading member.
Orientalism
A style of painting involving exotic subject matter - Levantine townscapes, genre scenes and the like - which coincided with the beginning of the great age of steamship travel, and exemplified by John Frederick Lewis, David Roberts, William Muller and David Wilkie. Later practitioners included the Pre-Raphaelites, Holman Hunt and Thomas Seddon.
Orphic Cubism
term coined c.1912 by Guillaume Apollinaire for the branch of Cubism associated with Robert Delaunay, emphasizing colour and the analysis of light and its connexion with nature; also known as Orphism.

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P-Q

Palladian style
English architectural style, from c.1715, in imitation of the style of Andrea Palladio; a reaction against the Baroque in favor of the CLASSICAL; also called Neo-Palladian.
Pointillism
the Neo-Impression¬ist technique pioneered by Georges Seurat, using dots of pure colour instead of mixing paint on the palette; hence pointille, pointillist, see Divisionism.
Pont-Aven
Famous artist colony: the group of painters, generally Symbolists, who worked at Pont-Aven, France, during the late 19th century, including the Nabis and Gauguin. Irish artists who were members included Roderic O'Conor and Nathaniel Hill.
Pop art
art derived from the popular culture of the 1960s, including commercial illustration, comic strips, and advertising images. British and American equivalent of New Realism.
Post-Impressionism
term coined by the art theorist Roger Fry for the style of art of Cezanne, van Gogh and Gauguin.
Postmodernism
in art, this phase starts with late Pop art and includes Conceptual art, Neo-Expressionism, Feminist art, and the Young British Artists of the 1990s. Postmodernism rejects the distinction between high culture and mass or popular culture, tends to efface the boundary between art and everyday life; and that refuses to recognise any single style or definition of what art should be.
Post-Painterly Abstraction
term coined by the American critic Clement Greenberg for a group of Abstract artists working in the 1960s. It includes a number of specific styles and movements, such as Colour-Field Painting and Minimal Art.
Precisionism (1920s-1930s)
Precisionism (also called Cubist Realism), and somewhat similar to Art Deco, is a style of art whereby an object is depicted in a realistic manner, but with a focus on its geometric form. An important element in American Modernism, it was strongly influenced by the development of Cubism in Europe, as well as the rapid industrialization in North America. Leading exponents include Charles Demuth and Charles Sheeleras well as the urban paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe.
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
English association of artists, c.1848-54, including Rossetti, Holman Hunt, and Millais. The Pre-Raphaelites had no clear, unifying doctrine but shared an interest in art prior to 1495, start of the High RENAISSANCE.
Purism
movement founded in 1918 by Le Corbusier and Amedee Ozenfant that aimed to purify Cubism of anv decorative elements, emphaizing pure outline and impersonality. It had little influence on painting, more on architecture and design.

R

Rayonnism
development of Abstract art bv the Russian artists Michaeil Larionoff and Natalia Gontcharova, c.1913, which was an offshoot of Cubist and in some respects the forerunner of Futurism.
Realism
style of painting dating from the 19th century, typified by Courbet, that makes a deliberate choice of everyday subject matter (Realisme).
Regence
style French ROCOCO style of c.1705-30.
Regency
A style of furniture and decorative art associated with the era of Prince George, the future George IV, who became Prince Regent in 1811 and later reigned from 1820 to 1830. Its characteristics include classical themes, combined with Egyptian, Chinese and French Rococo elements. The style is exemplified by the architecture of Nash, the painting of Thomas Lawrence, and the aricatures of Gillray, and Rowlandson.
Regionalists
American painters of the 1930s and 1940s who depicted mid-western life.
The Renaissance
the period of Italian art from c.1400 to 1520 characterized by increased emphasis on realism and the rediscovery of classical art. The "Early Renaissance" is sometimes deemed also to include the art of the 14th century. High Renaissance refers to the period of the finest achievements of Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo, c.1495-1520. See also Northern Renaissance.
Rococo
elegant, decorative style of c.1730-80. During the 19th century the term acquired pejorative connotations, meaning trivial or over-ornate.
Romanesque
style of architecture that lasted from 1000 to 1150 in France and to the 13th century in the rest of Europe; characterized bv massive VAULTS and rounded arches. The term is also applied to the FINE and DECORATIVE ARTS of the period.
Romanticism
the late 18th- and early 19th-century antithesis to CLASSICISM; the imagination of the artist and the choice of literary themes predominated. Leading Romantic painters included William Blake, Eugene Delacroix and JMW Turner.

S

School of Fontainebleau
there were two Schools; the First, under Francis I c.1528-58 was fundamentally Mannerist, directly influenced by expatriate Italian masters. The Second, under Henry IV (1589-1610) was more mediocre. Occasionally confused with 19th century Barbizon school of landscape art, near Fontainebleau.
School of London
Term coined by R.B. Kitaj, during the high fashion of Minimalism and Conceptualism, in the catalog of "The Human Clay", an exhibition of figurative drawing and painting at the Hayward Gallery in London, in 1976. Participating artists also featured Michael Andrews, Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, David Hockney, Howard Hodgkin, and Leon Kossoff.
School of Paris (Ecole de Paris)
broad name for various modern art movements originating in Paris including Nabism, Fauvism, Cubism and Surrealism. Also: school of medieval manuscript illuminators in Paris from the mid 13th century to early 15th.
Simultanism
A term coined by Cubist Robert Delaunay to describe the abstract painting practised by him and his wife Sonia, from around 1910. Named Orphism by the poet and critic Apollinaire, the Delaunays' works featured arrangements of interlocking planes of contrasting (or complementary) colours.
Socialist Realism
a type of modern realism, glorifying Communist society and its works, imposed in Russia by Stalin from the late 1920s. Poster based, it was employed as mass propaganda.
Spazialismo
The Italian movement (Movimento Spaziale, or spacialism), founded in 1947 by the Argentine-born Italian artist Lucio Fontana, involved a pioneering style of Installation art. Other leading members included Giovanni Dova and Roberto Crippa.
St Ives school
term referring to the abstract group of artists based in Cornwall, led by Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, and for a short period Naum Gabo. Active, 1940s, 50s and 60s.
Suprematism
Russian Abstract art movement of 1913-15, led by Kasimir Malevich, that used geometric elements.
Surrealism
movement in art and literature between the two World Wars that tried to fuse actuality with dream and unconscious experience, using automatism among other techniques; hence Surreal, Surrealist.
Symbolist Movement (sometimes generally known as Symbolism)
art movement that appeared c.1885 in France, originating in poetry; a reaction against both Reaslism and Impressionism, it aimed at the fusion of the real and spiritual worlds, the visual expression of the mystical.
Synthetic Cubism
the second phase of Cubism, after 1912, using Collage.

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T

Tachisme
term coined in 1952 by the French critic Michel Tapie, for the technique of painting in irregular dabs (taches or spots) and in an apparently haphazard manner.
Tonalism (1880-1910)
An American style of landscape art in which views are portrayed in soft light and shadows, as if seen through a misty veil. It was brought to America by American painters influencedby Barbizon School landscapes, and thereafter inspired a number of followers of American Impressionism during the first decades of the 20th century. Leading members included George Inness, and James McNeill Whistler.
Transavanguardia
The name of an Italian Neo-Expressionist group, first coined by the critic Achille Oliva. Foremost members of the school included Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, Nicolo de Maria and Mimmo Paladino.

U-V

Unit One
group of avant-garde English artists formed in the 1930s, including Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, John Nash, and Ben Nicholson.
Utrecht School
group of painters in Utrecht including Terbrugghen and Honthorst, 1610-20, who had visited Rome and were influenced by the realism and lighting of Caravaggio.
Verism
extreme realism shown by Roman portrait sculpture and some surrealist art.
Vienna Secession
radical movement led by Gustav Klimt in an attempt to improve Austrian art, c.1897. It had strong links with Jugendstil and ART NOUVEAU.
Vorticism
short-lived English AVANT-GARDE movement, the most prominent member of which was Wyndham Lewis. Its name derives from a magazine published by the group in 1914: Blast! A Review of the Great English Vortex.

W-Z

Worpswede Group
An artist colony founded in 1889 by the painters Fritz Mackensen, Otto Modersohn and Hans am Ende in the countryside of Lower Saxony, Germany. Initially painting in the plein air tradition, the group later veered towards Expressionism. Other members included Paula Modersohn-Becker, Carl Vinnen, Fritz Overbeck, and Heinrich Vogeler.
Group Zero (1957-66)
A German group established in 1957, in Dusseldorf, whose members included Otto Piene, Heinz Mack and Gunther Uecker. Other Zero-associated artists were Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely, Pol Bury and Daniel Spoerri. Largely a reaction against the subjective character of the fashionable Tachisme or Art Informel, the group produced a form of Kinetic art using light and motion.

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