- Industry: Art history
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Neo-Impressionism is the specific name given to the Post-Impressionist work of Seurat and Signac and their followers. Both Camille and Lucien Pissarro had a Neo-Impressionist phase and their work continued to bear strong traces of the style. Neo-Impressionism is characterised by the use of the Divisionist technique (often popularly but incorrectly called pointillism, a term Signac repudiated). Divisionism attempted to put Impressionist painting of light and colour on a scientific basis by using optical mixture of colours. Instead of mixing colours on the palette, which reduces intensity, the primary-colour components of each colour were placed separately on the canvas in tiny dabs so they would mix in the spectator's eye. Optically mixed colours move towards white so this method gave greater luminosity. This technique was based on the colour theories of M-E Chevreul, whose De la loi du contraste simultanée des couleurs (On the law of the simultaneous contrast of colours) was published in Paris in 1839 and had an increasing impact on French painters from then on, particularly the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists generally, as well as the Neo-Impressionists.
Industry:Art history
Term adopted by the Dutch pioneer of abstract art, Mondrian, for his own type of abstract painting. From Dutch de nieuwe beelding. Basically means new art (painting and sculpture are plastic arts). Also applied to the work of De Stijl circle of artists, at least up to Mondrian's secession from the group in 1923. In first eleven issues of the journal De Stijl Mondrian published his long essay 'Neo-Plasticism in Pictorial Art' in which among much else he wrote: 'As a pure representation of the human mind, art will express itself in an aesthetically purified, that is to say, abstract form 'The new plastic idea cannot therefore, take the form of a natural or concrete representation—this new plastic idea will ignore the particulars of appearance, that is to say, natural form and colour. On the contrary it should find its expression in the abstraction of form and colour, that is to say, in the straight line and the clearly defined primary colour'. Neo-Plasticism was in fact an ideal art in which the basic elements of painting—colour, line form—were used only in their purest, most fundamental state: only primary colours and non-colours, only squares and rectangles, only straight and horizontal or vertical lines. Mondrian had a profound influence on subsequent art and is now seen as one of the greatest of all modern artists.
Industry:Art history
Term applied to the imaginative and often quite abstract landscape based painting of Paul Nash, Graham Sutherland and others in the late 1930s and 1940s. Their work often included figures, was generally sombre, reflecting the Second World War and its approach and aftermath, but rich, poetic and capable of a visionary intensity. It was partly inspired by the visionary landscapes of Samuel Palmer and the Ancients, partly by a more general emotional response to the British landscape and its history. Other major Neo-Romantics were Michael Ayrton, John Craxton, Ivon Hitchens, John Minton, John Piper, Keith Vaughan. The term sometimes embraces Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde, and the early work of Lucian Freud. Also the graphic work of Henry Moore of the period, especially his drawings of war-time air-raid shelters. In the early 1920s in Paris a group of figurative painters emerged whose brooding often nostalgic work quickly became labelled Neo-Romantic. Chief among them were the Russian-born trio of Eugène Berman and his brother Leonid, and Pavel Tchelitchew.
Industry:Art history
Art made on and for the internet is called Net art. This is a term used to describe a process of making art using a computer in some form or other, whether to download imagery that is then exhibited online or build programs that create the artwork. Net art emerged in the 1990s when artists found that the Internet was a useful tool to promote their art uninhibited by political, social or cultural constraints. For this reason it has been heralded as subversive, deftly transcending geographical and cultural boundaries and defiantly targeting nepotism, materialism and aesthetic conformity. Sites like MySpace and YouTube have become forums for art, enabling artists to exhibit their work without the endorsement of an institution. Pioneers of Net art include Tilman Baumgarten, Jodi and Vuc Cosik.
Industry:Art history
Usually translated as New Objectivity. German modern realist movement of the 1920s, taking its name from the exhibition Neue Sachlichkeit held in Mannheim in 1923. Part of the phenomenon of the return to order following the First World War. Described by the organiser of the exhibition, GF Hartlaub, as 'new realism bearing a socialist flavour'. The two key artists associated with Neue Sachlichkeit are Otto Dix and George Grosz, two of the greatest realist painters of the twentieth century. In their paintings and drawings they vividly depicted and excoriated the corruption, frantic pleasure seeking and general demoralisation of Germany following its defeat in the war and the ineffectual Weimar Republic which governed until the arrival in power of the Nazi Party in 1933. But their work also constitutes a more universal, savage satire on the human condition. Other artists include Christian Schad and Georg Schrimpf.
Industry:Art history
Founded in London in 1886 as an exhibiting society by artists influenced by Impressionism and whose work was rejected by the conservative Royal Academy. Key early members were Whistler (although he soon resigned) Sickert and Steer. Others in the first show included Clausen, Stanhope Forbes and Sargent. Initially avant-garde the NEAC quickly became increasingly conservative and Sickert and Steer formed an 'Impressionist nucleus' within it, staging their own show London Impressionists in 1889. NEAC remained important as showcase for advanced art until 1911 when challenged by the Camden Town Group and London Group, and continued to be influential into the 1920s with artists such as Augustus John and Stanley Spencer exhibiting. It still exists, now preserving the Impressionist tradition.
Industry:Art history
New Generation was the title used for a series of exhibitions of painting and sculpture by young British artists held at the Whitechapel Gallery in London in the early 1960s. The 1965 show was devoted to sculpture and brought to wide public attention the work of Phillip King, together with David Annesley, Michael Bolus, Tim Scott, William Tucker and Isaac Witkin. All these artists had been taught by Anthony Caro at St Martins School of Art in London and are sometimes referred to as School of Caro as well as the New Generation sculptors. In 1960 Caro had developed a completely new form of abstract sculpture using steel beams, sheets and tubes, welded and bolted together and painted in bright industrial colours. King and the others soon developed their own work, exploring a basic vocabulary of sculptural form and using in addition materials such as plastic sheeting and fibreglass. New Generation Sculpture became a major phenomenon of British art in the 1960s.
Industry:Art history
A term used to describe the sophisticated technologies that have become available to artists since the late 1980s. New media defines the mass influx of media, from the CD-Rom to the mobile phone and the world wide web, that can enable the production and distribution of art digitally. Websites like MySpace and YouTube are key aspects of new media, being places that can distribute art to millions of people at the click of a button. (See also Browser Art; medium; Net Art; Software Art)
Industry:Art history
Name given to work of group of sculptors identified by critic Edmund Gosse in 1876 article in Art Journal titled 'The New Sculpture'. Distinguishing qualities were a new dynamism and energy as well as physical realism, mythological or exotic subject matter and use of symbolism, as opposed to prevailing style of frozen Neo-Classicism. Can be considered part of Symbolism. Keynote work was seen by Gosse as Leighton's Athlete Wrestling with a Python, but key artist was Alfred Gilbert followed by George Frampton. Important precursor was Michelangelesque work of Alfred Stevens.
Industry:Art history
This term is virtually synonymous with Neo-Expressionism and its sub groups of Neue Wilden and Transavanguardia. A New Spirit in Painting was the title of a major exhibition at the Royal Academy in London in 1981. It attempted to sum up the state of painting at that point. It was an early response to the new currents that appeared in both painting and sculpture around 1980, and acted as a launchpad that brought these developments to public attention. The term New Spirit Painting became used particularly in Britain, and is useful in that it also embraces aspects of new painting at that time that do not fit quite comfortably into the category of Neo-Expressionism, such as the American painters David Salle and Eric Fischl and in Britain Paula Rego, Stephen McKenna, Stephen Campbell or the abstract painter Sean Scully. In Britain particularly, the renewal of interest in painting in the early 1980s, especially figurative painting, brought into fresh focus the work of older artists such as Howard Hodgkin as well as those often called the School of London.
Industry:Art history
