Art Encyclopedia: 2012
Painting, Sculpture and Modern Visual Arts (2 million BCE - Present)

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• What is Art?
• World's Greatest Painters
• Best Modern Painters
• Art History
• News
• Painting
• Sculpture
• Irish Arts
• World Art
• Best Museums
• Art Education/Appreciation

POPULAR PAGES
• Types of Art
• How to Appreciate Art
• Famous Paintings Analyzed
• Best Artists of All Time
• Best Portrait Artists
• Best Landscape Artists
• Impressionism
• Pop Art
• History of Art Timeline
• Prehistoric Art Timeline
• Top 20 Most Expensive Paintings

FINE ARTS NEWS
Art News Headlines.

THE WORLD'S
COSTLIEST ART?
Most Expensive
Paintings: Top 20.

What is Art?
How is art defined and classified? What's the difference between fine, decorative and applied arts? What's the difference between arts and crafts? What's the difference between representational and abstract art? What exactly is non-objective art? What are ready-mades? What are aesthetics? What is junk art? For answers to these and other questions see: Definition and Meaning of Art, or search our Sitemap. For Christian artworks, diptych, triptych and polyptych altarpieces, Eastern Orthodox icons, and illuminated gospel manuscripts, see Religious art. For more information about print techniques such as woodcuts, relief or intaglio processes, aquatint, mezzotint, etching, dry-point, engraving or lithography, serigraphy and silkscreen, see Printmaking.

Other forms covered include: animation, architecture, assemblage, calligraphy, caricature, ceramics, collage, computer graphics, crayons, drawing, digital artworks, graffiti, graphic design, film, ink-and-wash, illustration, installations, murals, outsider artworks, painting, performance or happenings, metalsmithing, mosaics, pastels, photography, poster art, pottery, sculpture, stencils, tapestry, textile design, stained glass or video, and many more.

• For information about any of the above, see Types of Art.
• For a list of artistic terms, see: Art Glossary.
• For answers to FAQs, see: Art Questions.

WHO ARE
THE WORLD'S
TOP ARTISTS?
Please see:
Best Artists
Of All Time.

The World's Greatest Painters (c.1300-1800)
Read biographies of ALL the great European Masters, including: Medieval artists (c.1100-1400); Gothic illuminators like Jean Pucelle and the Limbourg Brothers; leading icon panel painters like Andrei Rublev, proto-Renaissance artists such as Duccio di Buoninsegna and Giotto; the Flemish artists Jan Van Eyck, Hans Memling, Hugo Van Der Goes; Dutch painters like Hieronymus Bosch, as well as artists of the German Renaissance like Durer, Lucas Cranach the Elder and Hans Holbein. We analyze the Greatest Renaissance Paintings by Botticelli, Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and Titian, and take a look at architects like Bramante. We profile Mannerists including Vasari, El Greco, Pontormo and Parmigianino, followed by the great masters of Baroque painting such as Rubens, Caravaggio, Ribera, Velazquez and others. We profile Dutch Realists like Frans Hals, Rembrandt and Jan Vermeer; as well as 18th century view-painters like Canaletto, Rococo painters like Boucher and Fragonard; and the more serious Neoclassicists such as Jacques-Louis David and J.A.D.Ingres.

• For a chronological list of painters by movement, see: Old Masters.
• For a selection of their finest works, see also: Greatest Paintings Ever (1300-present).
• For a combined list of painters and sculptors, see: Visual Artists: Greatest.

CUPULES ARE
THE OLDEST
CULTURAL
PHENOMENA
OF ALL TIME.
BUT WHAT
ARE THEY?
Please see:
Cupules.

WHAT ARE
AESTHETICS?
Please see:
Aethetics:
Definition
and Meaning.

TENEBRISM
VERSUS
CHIAROSCURO:
What's the
difference?
Please see:
Tenebrism
and
Chiaroscuro.

The Best Modern Painters (c.1700-present)
We profile the great 18th century masters of English figurative painting as well as members of the school of English landscape painting including the Romantics JMW Turner and Constable. We also cover the 18th century American School, exemplified by portraitists Benjamin West, John Singleton Copley, and Gilbert Stuart.

We provide biographies of ALL major 19th century painters including: masters from the French Barbizon Landscape School such as Camille Corot. We also profile American landscape painters of the Hudson River School (Thomas Cole, Frederic Church), as well as exponents of Luminism (George Caleb Bingham). Pre-Raphaelites, Symbolists and Continental Realist artists are also covered. We profile Impressionist painters like Pissarro, Monet, Renoir, Degas and Whistler; and Post-Impressionist painters such as Georges Seurat, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and Edvard Munch. We also include details on Russian artists up to 1917, including the Romanov goldsmith Peter Carl Faberge, creator of the exquisite Faberge Easter Eggs.

• For a review of the greatest artists, see: Best Artists of All Time.
• For narrative, historical or mythological works, see: Best History Painters.
• For individual, group or self portraits, see: Best Portrait Artists.
• For everyday scenes, see: Best Genre Painters.
• For views and vistas, see: Best Landscape Artists.
• Flower, banquet or Vanitas pictures, see: Best Still Life Painters.

We profile ALL major 20th century painters. Including the poster artist Jules Cheret, inventor of 3-stone chromolithography; Fauvists like Matisse, Derain and Kees van Dongen; Expressionists like Kirchner, Kandinsky and Franz Marc; Modigliani and Chagall of the Ecole de Paris; Cubists like Picasso, Braque and Gris; Surrealists like Dali and Miro, and the abstract painters Piet Mondrian and Kasimir Malevich. We cover ALL important exponents of 20th century American art including: Georgia O'Keeffe, Edward Hopper, Norman Rockwell, Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Robert Motherwell, Jasper Johns, Robert Smithson, Helen Frankenthaler, Frank Stella, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and the Neo-Pop sculptor Jeff Koons. At the same time we analyze 20th century European masters like Tamara de Lempicka, Lucian Freud, Balthus, Wols, Antoni Tapies, Yves Klein, Georg Baselitz, and others. We also profile Turner Prize winners like Damien Hirst, and HUNDREDS MORE!!

• For details, see: Famous Painters.
• For a combined list of painters and sculptors, see: Modern Artists.

WHAT IS
THE WORLD'S
OLDEST ART?
Please see:
Earliest Artworks.

EARLY vs HIGH
RENAISSANCE
What's the
difference?
Please see:
Early and High.

WHAT IS DADA?
Please see:
Dadaists.

WHAT IS
POSTMODERNISM?
Please see:
Postmodernist Art

History of Art
Our coverage of Prehistoric art features the oldest art from across the globe. Dating to the lower Paleolithic era of the Stone Age between 290,000 and 700,000 BCE, it includes cupule art, the Bhimbetka petroglyphs, the Venuses of Berekhat Ram and Tan-Tan, and the Blombos Cave engravings. In addition, it features Venus figurines (eg. Venus of Hohle Fels, Venus of Willendorf), and cave painting at the caves of Chauvet, Lascaux and Altamira, as well as Aurignacian carvings like the amazing Lion Man of Hohlenstein Stadel. See also: Prehistoric Art Timeline.

We explore a diverse range of Ancient art from a variety of civilizations. It includes the sculpture and frescos of Classical Antiquity, notably those of Greek art and Roman art. From 450 CE, we cover the mosaics and religious icons of the Byzantine era, followed by the courtly revivals of the Carolingian and Ottonian dynasties. From 1,000 CE, we trace the development of Medieval architecture and sculpture through the Romanesque, and Gothic periods, while painting is explored through the Sienese School and International Gothic styles. We explain the difference between trecento, quattrocento and cinquecento paintings. At the same time, Italian Renaissance art receives in-depth coverage, after which we look at 16th Century Mannerism, 17th century Baroque art, 18th Century Rococo and Neoclassical art.

Our guide to Modern Art lists all the trends and schools of the modern period. Important styles explored include: Impressionism (1874-84), Post-Impressionism (1880-1900), Fauvism (1905-7), Constructivism, Expressionism (1905-14), Cubism (1908-14), Surrealism (1923-present), Pop art and Arte Povera. We explain the meaning of styles like primitivism, realism and naturalism in painting. In addition, we profile artist-groups like Der Blaue Reiter, and examine the contribution of modern art movements like Art Informel, Colour-Field Painting, Op Art and Fluxus, as well as contemporary art forms like conceptualism.

• For more details, see Art Movements.
• Or browse our guide to History of Art.
• For dates and chronological events, see: History of Art Timeline.

ANSWERS TO
YOUR QUESTIONS
In this section
we offer news and
facts or answers to
popular questions
about painting,
sculpture, or
architecture.

Art in Brief... News, Facts, Questions & Answers

LESSER KNOWN ARTISTS: John Hoyland, British Abstract Artist (1934-2011)
British abstract artist John Hoyland died last year at the age of 76. Once told by the American artist Robert Motherwell (1915-91) that he could become "the next Turner", Hoyland is credited with being the painter who expanded the scale and palette of English painters. Like American artist Jackson Pollock, he used the floor as a base and worked on large scale stretched canvases onto which he poured, squirted and threw paint. Hoyland was born in the north of England in 1934, the son of a tailor. His desire to paint was encouraged from a young age by his mother, who at the age of 101 outlives her son. He attended Sheffield School of Arts and Crafts - where the emphasis of the school was on crafts, while modern art was strongly disliked. There he met fellow abstract artist, Brian Fielding, who shared Hoyland's admiration for Van Gogh, and both were later inspired by the work of the Russian-French artist Nicolas de Stael (1914-1955), as well as a number of US artists whose abstract expressionist work they saw at the Tate's 1959 exhibition The New American Painting. Hoyland later travelled to America where he met a number of important abstract painters including Mark Rothko (1903-70), Barnett Newman (1905-70), Helen Frankenthaler (b.1928), Kenneth Noland (b.1924) and, of course, Robert Motherwell who became a friend. He also met the legendary art critic Clement Greenberg (1909-94) Following his first solo exhibition at the Marlborough New London Gallery in 1964, Hoyland went on to exhibit widely in the UK as well as in Europe and the US. He received many awards and won many prizes throughout his life and was appointed Professor of Fine Art at the Colgate university, New York in 1978 and at Melbourne University in 1979. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1991 and in 1999 was appointed Professor of Painting at the Royal Academy Schools. For news headlines and events, see: Art News Headlines 2011.

ARTS QUESTIONS
Painting FAQs?
Sculpture FAQs?
Artist FAQs?
Art Questions.

Painting
Our coverage of fine art painting through the ages centres on the medium of oil painting, but we also answer questions about the earlier encaustic and tempera methods. 19th Century watercolours / gouache, and 20th Century acrylic paints are also covered. Our section on colour in painting traces exactly how colour pigments evolved, and outlines the theory of colour, as well as the main colour palettes from Antiquity onwards.

We look at the history and development of oil paint as it expanded from damper areas of Northern Europe to Italy and Spain, and examine techniques such as fresco, sfumato, and linear perspective. Painterly methods like chiaroscuro, tenebrism, and impasto are also examined, as are automatic painting techniques like frottage and decalcomania.

We profile the five painting genres which make up the Hierarchy of the Genres as were taught in the main Fine Arts Academies of Europe. They include (in order of importance): (1) History Painting; (2) Portraiture; (3) Genre Painting; (4) Landscapes; (5) Still Life.

• For details of the world's finest oils, watercolour or acrylic pictures, see: Greatest Paintings Ever.
• For records at Sotheby's/Christie's/Phillips de Pury auctions, see: 10 Most Expensive Paintings.

WHY SCULPTORS
USE MARBLE?
Please see:
Marble Sculpture.

STATUES vs
RELIEFS
What's the
difference?
Please see:
Statues and
Reliefs.

BRONZE
CASTING
For a mini-guide
please see:
Bronze Sculpture.

Sculpture
We cover the origins, history and development of sculpture in bronze, stone, marble, bronze, clay, and wood. We explore Egyptian sculpture, the evolution of Greek sculpture during the Archaic (600-500), Classical (500-323) and Hellenistic (c.323-27 BCE) eras, and the great Roman narrative reliefs like Trajan's Column. We also profile the finest known Greek sculptors, including Phidias, Polykleitos, Myron, Callimachus, Lysippos, Skopas, Praxiteles and Leochares, while we also analyze outstanding antique sculptures including the Venus de Milo (130-100 BCE) and Lacoon and His Sons (42-20 BCE). For a chronological outline of the plastic arts, see: Sculpture History.

In addition, we cover column statues and other architectural stonework by the great stone-masons and bronze-workers associated with Italian Renaissance sculpture, as well as Medieval, Romanesque and Gothic sculpture. We look at equestrian statues, bas-relief and haut-relief sculptures by artists like Lorenzo Ghiberti, Donatello, Andrea del Verrocchio and Jacopo Sansovino, along with marbles and bronzes by masters like Giambologna, Bernini and Rodin. We also profile great 20th century sculptors such as Brancusi, Umberto Boccioni, Alexander Calder and Louise Bourgeois; the Cubist Lipchitz; exponents of biomorphic abstraction like Jean Arp and Henry Moore; the expressionists Ernst Barlach and Jacob Epstein; abstract sculptors like Naum Gabo; advocates of minimalism like Donald Judd; junk artists like Marcel Duchamp, Louise Nevelson, Arman and Cesar Baldaccini; kinetic artists like Takis and Jean Tinguely; the surrealist Giacometti; the Pop sculptor Claes Oldenburg; and the contemporary sculptors Bruce Nauman, Richard Serra and Anish Kapoor.

• For an essay on the theory, materials and types of 3-D objects, see: Sculpture Art.
• For a list of the finest works, see: Greatest Sculptures Ever (33,000 BCE - present).
• For biographies of the best 3-D artists, see: Greatest Sculptors. (500 BCE - present).

ALL YOU NEED TO
KNOW ABOUT
IRISH ART
We look at aspects
of Celtic art, like
Swords, Jewellery,
Coins, Designs
(Interlace, Knots
Spirals, Crosses)
Celtic metalcraft
like cloisonne and
enamelling, seen
in works like
the Derrynaflan Chalice, Moylough
Belt Shrine and
Tully Lough Cross.
We look at Gospel
illuminations like
the Cathach of St.
Columba and Book
of Durrow.

We also profile
ALL the important
Irish painters and
sculptors of the
19th and 20th
centuries.

Irish Art - History and Development
We trace the 10 stages in the history of Irish art. These include the Stone Age engravings at Newgrange; Celtic metalwork like Ardagh Chalice, Broighter Gold Torc, Petrie Crown, and Tara Brooch, as well as Christian illuminated manuscripts like the Book of Kells. In addition, we profile the cultural institutions which fostered the growth of Irish painting and Irish sculpture, such as the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA).

We also examine the current state of visual arts in Ireland, look at the architectural heritage and cultural legacy of Leinster, Connacht, Munster and Ulster, and profile a number of organizations involved in Irish art, like the Arts Council, Culture Ireland, auctioneers including Adams, Whytes, and deVeres, plus schools like Dublin's NCAD and Cork's Crawford College of Art & Design.

• For megalithic tombs, Motte & Bailey forts, round towers, see: Architectural Monuments in Ireland.
• For details of the top arts venues and museums in Ireland, see: Irish Art Galleries.
• For 2011 art shows in Ireland, see: Irish Art Exhibitions.
• For an encyclopedic outline, see: Sitemap: Art in Ireland.

Greatest Irish Painters & Sculptors
Our list of over 300 biographical profiles of the greatest Irish artists starts with Garret Morphy and Susanna Drury of the 17th century, and continues up until the 21st century. We look at a range of Famous Irish artists including John Lavery, Roderic O'Conor, Jack B Yeats, William Orpen, Paul Henry, Francis Bacon, William Scott, Louis le Brocquy and others. We also review artist groups like Aosdana, as well as the most exciting contemporary Irish artists, and examine the top Irish sculptors including the Surrealist F.E.McWilliam, the figurative Rowan Gillespie, the semi-abstract Edward Delaney, and others. For details, see: Irish Sculpture.

• For an encyclopedic list of artists in Ireland, see: Sitemap: Irish Painters and Sculptors.

WORLD ARTS
We also examine
Persian art,
together with later
Viking Art (notably
Jellinge, Mammen,
Ringerike & Urnes
styles); as well as
Oceanic culture -
Melanesia/
Polynesia/
Micronesia -
Jewish and
Islamic art.

Art From Around the World
We explore a wide range of different artistic mediums, methods and styles, from a variety of cultures across the globe. They include historical as well as contemporary forms of creative expression, from almost all continents.

For example: see African art, for a guide to rock paintings, classical African sculpture, religious and tribal artworks. See Celtic art, for metalwork of the Hallstatt and La Tene culture, plus abstract geometric designwork. See Chinese Pottery, for celebrated ceramics, porcelain, terracotta works including black-glazed pottery and various types of Celadon. See Egyptian art, for tomb artworks - including, panel paintings, murals, sculpture, precious metalcraft and monumental pyramid architecture. See Greek Pottery, for ceramic designs including the Geometric style, Oriental Style, Black-Figure Style and Red-Figure Style. See Japanese art for a guide to Buddhist Temple art, Zen ink-painting, Yamato-e, and Ukiyo-e painting. See Russian art, for prehistoric sculpture and the history of painting 30,000 BCE to 1920.

See also Tribal Art, for a guide to the traditional art of tribal societies in Alaska, the Americas, Africa, the South Pacific, India, and Australasia. Also known as Primitive Native Art, the category is sometimes extended to include certain types of early European folk art.

THE WORLD'S
GREAT BUYERS
For the lives and
collections of the
great 19th century
and 20th century
patrons, see:
Greatest
Art Collectors.

Best Art Museums in 2011
We explore the collections, acquisitions and history of the world's great museums.

We profile the best art museums in America, including the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, Detroit Institute of Arts, Frick Collection, the Metropolitan Museum / MoMA / Samuel R Guggenheim / Whitney Museum (all in New York), the Getty Center LA, Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia Museum of Art, National Gallery Washington DC, the Phillips Collection and many more.

We also profile the best art museums in Europe, such as the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, and the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the Vatican Museums (including Sistine Chapel and Raphael Rooms), the Prado Museum in Madrid, the British Royal Art Collection, the Tate Collection / the National Gallery / Courtauld Gallery / Victoria and Albert / Saatchi Gallery (all in London), the Hermitage in St Petersburg, Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Pinakothek Munich and many more.

• For details, see: Best Art Museums.

Art Education & Appreciation
Following the popularity of our recent educational articles: Art Evaluation: How to Appreciate Art, and How to Appreciate Sculpture, we shall be launching a number of extra essays for teachers and students on the appreciation of modern and contemporary artworks. Famous Paintings Analyzed, for instance, lists reviews of numerous masterpieces from the Renaissance and Baroque periods, including: Ghent Altarpiece and Arnolfini Portrait (Jan Van Eyck); Deposition (Van der Weyden); Birth of Venus and La Primavera (Botticelli); The Last Supper and Mona Lisa (Leonardo); School of Athens and Sistine Madonna (Raphael); Garden of Earthly Delights (Hieronymus Bosch); Creation of Adam (Michelangelo); The Isenheim Altarpiece (Matthias Grunewald); Venus of Urbino (Titian); Hunters in the Snow (Pieter Bruegel); Night Watch and Syndics of the Cloth-Makers Guild (Rembrandt); Girl with a Pearl Earring and Milkmaid (Vermeer) and others. For more about art appreciation, see: How to Appreciate Paintings.

Check our A-Z Index for new material...
See our new articles on painting techniques like, foreshortening, trompe l'oeil, quadratura, graffito/sgraffito, and grisaille. Coming soon is a new series on 20th century design, featuring decorative styles like Art Nouveau, Art Deco and Bauhaus, as well as 21st century fantasy graphics.

Feedback... about articles you want
Want more essays or art education articles? Want more details of the best art schools, colleges or summer schools? Are you curious about the great patrons of the Italian Renaissance like the Gonzaga, Borghese and Medici families? Would you like more articles about world cultures like Islam, or more details of contemporary photographers, such as Man Ray or Robert Mapplethorpe, or video artists like Nam June Paik? Want to read more about 20th century installation artists, like Tracey Emin or Susan Philipsz, or newer forms of creativity such as "angel art"? Want a more detailed guide to drawing techniques like metalpoint? or are you looking for practical advice on paint brushes, oil paints and canvases? Or maybe your interests lie in the parietal rock art of prehistory. Whether you're an artist, a teacher, museum curator, collector, or someone who loves beautiful things, please give us your view.

Page Last Updated: February 2nd, 2012.

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