FAQs

Art Terms - By Medium

Canvas

Canvas is a strong, woven cloth traditionally used by artists as a support (surface on which to paint). Commonly made of either linen or cotton thread, but also manufactured from man-made materials such as polyester.

Framed Art

Art frames are used merely to “frame” beautiful pieces of art, photography, archival documents and treasured mementos. However, when they were first developed, frames were included in the art and even considered a piece of art themselves. In fact, according to “A Survey of Frame History” in Picture Framing Magazine, historically “more attention was paid to making frames fit into an architectural setting” rather than the frames being created to “complement the paintings they surrounded.”

Lithography

Lithography is a printing process that uses a flat stone or metal plate on which the image areas are worked using a greasy substance so that the ink will adhere to them by, while the non-image areas are made ink-repellent.

Mixed Media

Mixed media is a term used to describe artworks composed from a combination of different media or materials.

Oil Paint

Oil paint is form of a slow-drying paint that consists of particles of pigment suspended in a drying oil that forms a tough, coloured film on exposure to air.

Art Terms - By Style

Abstract

Abstract art is art that does not attempt to represent an accurate depiction of a visual reality but instead use shapes, colours, forms and gestural marks to achieve its effect.

Art Deco

Art deco is a design style from the 1920s and 1930s in furniture, decorative arts and architecture characterised by its geometric character.

Named after the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts held in Paris in 1925, art deco can be seen as successor to and a reaction against art nouveau. Seen in furniture, pottery, textiles, jewellery, glass etc. it was also a notable style of cinema and hotel architecture.

Its chief difference from art nouveau is the influence of cubism which gives art deco design generally a more fragmented, geometric character.

Cartography

Cartography are artistic manifestations that use maps and cartographic elements in a poetic way, mostly for political purposes, employing several techniques like painting, sculpture, engraving, photography, collage, drawing, performance and installation.

Comic Strip

Comic strip art is art that imitates the style, commercial printing techniques and subject matter of comic strips.

Conceptual

Conceptual art is art for which the idea (or concept) behind the work is more important than the finished art object. It emerged as an art movement in the 1960s and the term usually refers to art made from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s.

Cubism

Cubism was a revolutionary new approach to representing reality invented in around 1907–08 by artists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. They brought different views of subjects (usually objects or figures) together in the same picture, resulting in paintings that appear fragmented and abstracted.

Expressionistic | Expressionism

Expressionism refers to art in which the image of reality is distorted in order to make it expressive of the artist’s inner feelings or ideas.

Impressionistic | Impressionism

Impressionism developed in France in the nineteenth century and is based on the practice of painting out of doors and spontaneously ‘on the spot’ rather than in a studio from sketches. Main impressionist subjects were landscapes and scenes of everyday life.

Minimalistic | Minimalism

Minimalism is an extreme form of abstract art developed in the USA in the 1960s and typified by artworks composed of simple geometric shapes based on the square and the rectangle.

Mosaic

A mosaic is a picture made up of small parts which are traditionally tiny tiles made out of terracotta, pieces of glass, ceramics or marble and usually inlayed into floors and walls.

Photorealism

Photorealism is a painting style that emerged in Europe and the USA in the late 1960s, characterised by its painstaking detail and precision.

Pop Art

Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the 1950s and flourished in the 1960s in America and Britain, drawing inspiration from sources in popular and commercial culture. Different cultures and countries contributed to the movement during the 1960s and 70s.

Print

A print is an impression made by any method involving transfer from one surface to another.

Realistic | Realism

In its specific sense realism refers to a mid nineteenth century artistic movement characterised by subjects painted from everyday life in a naturalistic manner; however the term is also generally used to describe artworks painted in a realistic almost photographic way.

Surrealist | Surrealism

A twentieth-century literary, philosophical and artistic movement that explored the workings of the mind, championing the irrational, the poetic and the revolutionary.