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Dr. Patricia Brown

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Books

Art History

100 Ideas that Changed Art
From the earliest cave paintings through to the internet and street art, this inspiring book chronicles the 100 most influential ideas that have shaped the world of art.
100 Ideas that Changed Photography
This compelling book chronicles the most influential ideas that have shaped photography from the invention of the daguerreotype in the early 19th century up to the digital revolution and beyond.
The Encyclopaedia of the Renaissance
Details in entries the broad range of events, people, ideas and movements that together have come to represent this era. The encyclopaedia also covers a complete range of general topics, including entries devoted to literature, music, philosophy, religion, science, technology, exploration, art, and architecture.
If the Paintings Could Talk
Reveals the hidden histories of paintings in the National Gallery, London. With a treasury of fascinating facts, discoveries, and tales, this book describes the flight a work took down a mountainside and the portrait that appeared in a James Bond film, among many other entertaining events and stories.
Masterworks
The Masterworks Collection is a rich collection of art history videos. Each short documentary showcases an artist and a key piece, illuminating the context and history of the work. Comprehensively illustrated and compellingly presented (detailed narration accompanies each film), these films provide a deeper insight into master works of painting.
Pocket Guides: Myths & Legends
Myths and legends, with their fantastical settings and parade of exotic creatures and beautiful immortals, have inspired some of the most popular works in the National Gallery Collection. The latest addition to the best-selling Pocket Guides series leads the modern viewer through this important aspect of Western art.
Thames & Hudson Dictionary of the Italian Renaissance
Contains entries covering music (eg Palestrina), architecture (eg palazzo), war, diplomacy (Machiavelli), religion, literature and social history, as well as the visual arts (eg Leonardo da Vinci). Includes entries written by major scholars such as Dennis Arnold, Brian Pullan and Marie Boas Hall.
The Thames & Hudson Encyclopaedia of Impressionism
Entries cover not only the lives and careers of the main participants - painters (eg Monet), critics (eg Zola), patrons, dealers and collectors, as well as writers and musicians - but also techniques, prices and localities, while a wealth of information on the cultural, social and political background helps to set Impressionism in context.

Architecture

Architectural Excellence: 500 Iconic Buildings
Architectural Excellence is organized chronologically and serves as a visual lesson in architecture through the ages. The buildings featured come from all over the world and include centers of worship, public buildings, places of business and homes. Each building includes a photograph, with a double-page spread for the top 50 selections. Captions provide specifications and brief histories.
Dictionary of Architecture and Construction
Comprehensive in scope, this title's range spans terms encountered in the practice of architecture from Classical to green, from traditional materials to the latest products, from precise definitions of architectural styles to the particulars of specifications writing.
The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of 20th Century Architecture
Contains wide ranging and authoritative coverage of the whole spectrum of architecture and urban planning in the 20th century, and of leading architects and engineers the world over.
Time Saver Standards for Architectural Design: Technical Data for Professional Practice by Michael J. Crosbie
One of the most widely recognized and respected resources for architects, engineers, and designers, bringing together the knowledge, techniques, and skills of some of the most well-known experts in the field.

Design and Fashion

100 Ideas that Changed Fashion
100 Ideas that Changed Fashion chronicles the most influential fashion ideas through which womenswear has evolved, offering a unique and engaging perspective on the subject.
Fashion Design
This book offers a thorough grounding in the principles of fashion design, describing the qualities and skills needed to become a fashion designer, examining the varied career opportunities available and giving a balanced inside view of the fashion business today.
Footwear Design
Aki Choklat explores the footwear design process, explaining the differences between the anatomy of the foot and the anatomy of a shoe, showing how one constrains the other, before moving onto the research and design development processes and the art of creating a complete collection.
Textile Design
This book offers students and those wishing to enter a career in textile design a basic grounding in its three main disciplines - printed, woven and mixed media.
The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Design Since 1900
A comprehensive guide to international developments in graphic design.
The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Fashion and Fashion Designers
Documents the universe of fashion from the mid-18th century through the late 1990s in short entries with many illustrations.
The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Graphic Design and Designers
A comprehensive guide to international developments in graphic design. From pre-industrial printing presses and medieval typography to computer graphics and avant-garde stylistic advances, a wealth of entries elucidate technical terms and detail movements, media, advertising, corporate identity, posters, packaging, and magazine and book design, placing graphic design in the wider context of the history of fine art and illustration.
Visual Merchandising
A great introduction for retail students, this book offers a user-friendly reference guide to all aspects of visual merchandising and covers both window dressing and in-store areas. Using examples from a range of shops, from fashion emporia to small outlets, the book offers practical advice on the subject, supported by hints and tips from established visual merchandisers.

Artists and Collections

A Biographical Dictionary of Artists, Andromeda
Covering over 1300 artists, this dictionary is made up of alphabetically arranged entries for painters (such as Monet), architects (such as Aalto), and sculptors (such as Brancusi) from pre-Christian times to the present (see, for example, Berlin painter, Hockney). The coverage of the book is truly global, with many Asian and African artists included. Each artist's entry includes dates, training, career, influences on his or her work, and, for approximately one-third of the artists, a bibliography of further reading.
The Bridgeman Art Library Archive
An outstanding archive of images drawn from collections throughout the world.
The Encyclopedia of American Folk Art
Illustrated with both black and white and full-color photos, this A-Z encyclopedia covers every aspect of American folk art, encompassing not only painting, but also sculpture, basketry, ceramics, quilts, furniture, toys, beadwork, and more, including both famous and lesser-known genres.
Miller's Antiques Encyclopedia
Packed with information on materials and techniques, feature boxes containing information and marks, practical advice on how to identify a fake, and tips on caring for and displaying your collection.
National Gallery Collection
High definition images with metadata from the National Gallery, London
The National Gallery Companion Guide
Introduces art lovers to one of the richest and most representative collections of Western European paintings in the world
National Portrait Gallery Image Collection
Founded in 1856, the aim of the National Portrait Gallery, London is "to promote through the medium of portraits the appreciation and understanding of the men and women who have made and are making British history and culture, and ... to promote the appreciation and understanding of portraiture in all media". The Gallery holds the most extensive collection of portraits in the world.
Pocket Guides: Myths & Legends
Myths and legends, with their fantastical settings and parade of exotic creatures and beautiful immortals, have inspired some of the most popular works in the National Gallery Collection. The latest addition to the best-selling Pocket Guides series leads the modern viewer through this important aspect of Western art.
The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Art and Artists
International and up-to-date, this copiously cross-referenced dictionary provides information on artists, paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, schools and movements, including essential information on contemporary art and artists, not available elsewhere, and on techniques, materials, terms, and writers who have influenced artists.
The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of British Art
Covers British Art through every period from the Anglo-Saxons to the present day, and every significant medium, from painting, sculpture and printmaking to medieval goldsmiths' work and stained glass. Includes up to date information on hundreds of artists, from Blake to Bacon and Constable to Kauffmann, and in-depth coverage of general topics such as schools, concepts, techniques, institutions, patronage and art criticism.

Terms and Techniques

Aesthetics A-Z
Covers the key concepts, arguments, problems and figures in aesthetics and the philosophy of art.
The Bloomsbury Guide to Art
Provides a fascinating insight into the origins and significance of the work of Western artists and architects. It includes tightly-focused entries on: individual artists (eg Salvador Dali); art, architecture and design terminology (eg Gothic); countries and their cultural significance (eg Art in France); theoretical concepts (eg formalism); and mythological and religious subjects and symbols (eg Christ).
Critical Terms for Art History
Offers a spirited reassessment of art history's methods and terminology.
Dictionary of Visual Discourse: A Dialectical Lexicon of Terms
This substantial and ambitious dictionary explores the languages and cultures of visual studies. It provides the basis for understanding the foundations and motivations of current theoretical and academic discourse, as well as the different forms of visual culture that have come to organize everyday life.
Handbooks in International Art Business: The Art Collector's Handbook: A Guide to Collection Management and Care
This book, probing a number of resources and incorporating advice from top experts in the field, offers guidance on collection management and care, and serves as an important reference guide for collectors and those charged with managing collections.
The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Art Terms by Edward Lucie-Smith
An essential reference work embracing the vast vocabulary of art in all its forms. Contains over 2000 authoritative entries. Covers painting, sculpture, architecture, photography, the decorative, applied and graphic arts from all periods throughout the world up to the present day: there is even a table of the dynasties of Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, China, India and Japan.

General

General Terms

Architecture: Topic Page
Art of designing structures. The term covers the design of the visual appearance of structures; their internal arrangements of space; selection of external and internal building materials; design or selection of natural and artificial lighting systems.
Art: Topic Page
In the broadest sense, all the processes and products of human skill, imagination, and invention. In contemporary usage, definitions of art usually reflect art theory, and the term may encompass literature, music, drama, painting, and sculpture.
Composition: Topic Page
In art, the arrangement of elements within an artwork to give a desired effect, often described as pleasing (unified and appealing to the eye) or expressive (intended to evoke a particular mood, feeling, or idea).
Proportion: Topic Page
Relation of a part to the whole (usually expressed as a fraction or percentage).
Perspective: Topic Page
Realistic representation of a three-dimensional object in two dimensions.
Spectrum: Topic Page
Arrangement or display of light or other form of radiation separated according to wavelength, frequency, energy, or some other property.
Symmetry: Topic Page
Generally speaking, a balance or correspondence between various parts of an object; the term symmetry is used both in the arts and in the sciences.

Tools and Media

Camera: Topic Page
Lightproof box or container, usually fitted with a lens, which gathers incoming light and concentrates it so that it can be directed toward the film (in an optical camera) or the imaging device (in a digital camera) contained within.
Glass: Topic Page
Hard substance, usually brittle and transparent, composed chiefly of silicates and an alkali fused at high temperature.
Ink
From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Pigmented fluid used for writing and drawing, or a viscous compound used for printing, both of various colors but most frequently black.
Ivory: Topic Page
Type of dentin present only in the tusks of the elephant.
Marble: Topic Page
Metamorphic rock composed wholly or in large part of calcite or dolomite crystals, the crystalline texture being the result of metamorphism of limestone by heat and pressure.
Oil paint: Topic Page
Painting medium in which ground pigment (colour) is bound with oil, usually linseed. It has the advantage of being slow to dry and therefore reworkable.
Paint: Topic Page
Any of various materials used to give a protective and decorative finish to surfaces or for making pictures.
Paper
From The Macmillan Encyclopedia
A substance in sheet form made from the pulped cellulose fibres of wood, grass, cotton, etc., and used for writing and printing on, wrapping, cleaning, etc.
Pigment: Topic Page
In paint, the pigment is a powdered substance which, when mixed in the liquid vehicle, imparts color to a painted surface.
Stoneware: Topic Page
Hard pottery made from siliceous paste, fired at high temperature to vitrify (make glassy) the body.
Tempera: Topic Page
Painting medium in which powdered pigments are mixed with a water-soluble binding agent such as egg yolk removed from its sac.
Watercolor: Topic Page
Refers to all pigments mixed with water rather than with oil and also to the paintings produced by this process; it includes fresco and tempera as well as aquarelle.
Wood carving: Topic Page
Includes any kind of sculpture in wood, from the decorative bas-relief on small objects to life-size figures in the round, furniture, and architectural decorations.

Fine Arts

Drawing: Topic Page
The art of representation by use of lines or other marks. Traditional drawing media includes pencil, charcoal, pen and ink, chalk, and pastels, while more modern materials include coloured pencils, Conté crayons, wax crayons, and felt-tip pens, or markers.
Etching: Topic Page
The art of engraving with acid on metal; also the print taken from the metal plate so engraved.
Fresco: Topic Page
Mural painting technique using water-based paint on wet plaster that has been freshly applied to the wall.
Landscape painting: Topic Page
Representation of inland scenery, such as a countryside view or city skyline; also a format of painting that is wider than its height.
Marine painting: Topic Page
Paintings of the sea, coastline, or ships. Depictions of the sea go back at least as far as the ancient Greeks, who had close commercial and mythological links with the sea.
Panorama: Topic Page
A long painting stretched round the inside walls of circular buildings, intended to create the illusion of real scenery seen from a central vantage point (sometimes called a cyclorama).
Photography: Topic Page
Process for reproducing permanent images on light-sensitive materials by various forms of radiant energy, including visible light, ultraviolet, infrared, X-rays, atomic radiations, and electron beams.
Portraiture: Topic Page
The art of representing the physical or psychological likeness of a real or imaginary individual.
Sculpture: Topic Page
Art of producing in three dimensions representations of natural or imagined forms.
Still life: Topic Page
A pictorial representation of inanimate objects. The term derives from the 17th-century Dutch still-leven, meaning a motionless natural object or objects.

Graphic Arts and Design

Calligraphy: Topic Page
Skilled penmanship practiced as a fine art. In Europe two sorts of handwriting came into being very early. Cursive script was used for letters and records, while far more polished writing styles, called uncials, were used for literary works.
Caricature
From The Columbia Encyclopedia
A satirical drawing, plastic representation, or description which, through exaggeration of natural features, makes its subject appear ridiculous.
Cartoon: Topic Page
Either of two types of drawings: in the fine arts, a preliminary sketch for a more complete work; in journalism, a humorous or satirical drawing.
Illustration: Topic Page
Any type of picture or decoration used in conjunction with a text to embellish its appearance or to clarify its meaning.
Lithography: Topic Page
Type of planographic or surface printing. It is distinguished from letterpress (relief) printing and from intaglio printing.
Manuscript: Topic Page
A handwritten work as distinguished from printing. The oldest manuscripts, those found in Egyptian tombs, were written on papyrus; the earliest dates from c.3500 B.C.
Mezzotint: Topic Page
Print produced by a method of etching in density of tone rather than line, popular in the 18th and 19th centuries when it was largely used for the reproduction of paintings, especially portraits.
Typography: Topic Page
The design of letterforms for use as typefaces, and the selection of typefaces for typeset documents.

Decorative Arts

Arts and crafts: Topic Page
Term for that general field of applied design in which hand fabrication is dominant. The term was coined in England in the late 19th cent.
Casting: Topic Page
Process of producing solid objects by pouring molten material into a shaped mould and allowing it to cool.
Ceramic: Topic Page
Object made from clay, hardened into a permanent form by baking (firing) at very high temperatures in a kiln.
Craft: Topic Page
The creation or decoration of handmade artifacts with a practical purpose, using technical skill and manual dexterity.
Enamel: Topic Page
Vitrified (glasslike) coating of various colours used for decorative purposes on a metallic or porcelain surface.
Firing: Topic Page
In ceramics, the process that ‘bakes’ the pottery clay hard, and fixes colours and glazes to pottery surfaces.
Gilding: Topic Page
Application of gilt (gold or a substance that looks like it) to a surface. From the 19th century, gilt was often applied to ceramics and to the relief surfaces of woodwork or plasterwork to highlight a design.
Graffito: Topic Page
Method of ornamenting architectural plaster surfaces. The designs are produced by scratching a topcoat of plaster to reveal an undercoat of contrasting and deeper color.
Interior decoration: Topic Page
Adornment of the interior of a building, public or domestic, comprising interior architecture, finishing, and furnishings.
Jewellery: Topic Page
Objects worn for ornament, such as rings, brooches, necklaces, pendants, earrings, and bracelets.
Mosaic: Topic Page
Art of arranging colored pieces of marble, glass, tile, wood, or other material to produce a surface ornament.
Porcelain: Topic Page
White, hard, permanent, nonporous pottery having translucence which is resonant when struck.
Pottery: Topic Page
It usually falls into three main classes—porous-bodied pottery, stoneware, and porcelain. Raw clay is transformed into a porous pottery when it is heated.
Stained glass: Topic Page
In general, windows made of colored glass. To a large extent, the name is a misnomer, for staining is only one of the methods of coloring employed, and the best medieval glass made little use of it.
Stencil: Topic Page
Cutout device of oiled or shellacked tough and resistant paper, thin metal, or other material used in applying paint, dye, or ink to reproduce its design or lettering upon a surface.
Wallpaper: Topic Page
Was used in Europe in the 16th and 17th cent. as an inexpensive substitute for costly hangings.

Fiber Arts

Bleaching
From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Process of whitening by chemicals or by exposure to sun and air, commonly applied to textiles.
Cotton: Topic Page
Most important of the vegetable fibers, and the plant from which the fiber is harvested.
Dye
From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Any substance, natural or synthetic, used to color various materials, especially textiles, leather, and food.
Embroidery: Topic Page
Ornamental needlework applied to all varieties of fabrics and worked with many sorts of thread—linen, cotton, wool, silk, gold, and even hair.
Fashion: Topic Page
Modes of behaviour or dress in which the key feature is rapid and continual changing of styles.
Knitting: Topic Page
Construction of a fabric made of interlocking loops of yarn by means of needles.
Lace: Topic Page
Patterned openwork fabric made by plaiting, knotting, looping, or twisting. The finest lace is made from linen thread. Handmade laces include needlepoint and bobbin lace, tatting, crochet work, and some fabrics made by netting and darning.
Loom: Topic Page
Frame or machine used for weaving; there is evidence that the loom has been in use since 4400 B.C. Modern looms are of two types, those with a shuttle (the part that carries the weft through the shed) and those without; the latter draw the weft from a stationary supply.
Quilting: Topic Page
Form of needlework, almost always created by women, most of them anonymous, in which two layers of fabric on either side of an interlining (batting) are sewn together.
Sewing machine: Topic Page
Device that stitches cloth and other materials. An attempt at mechanical sewing was made in England (1790) with a machine having a forked, automatic needle that made a single-thread chain.
Silk: Topic Page
Fine, horny, translucent, yellowish fiber produced by the silkworm in making its cocoon and covered with sericin, a protein.
Spinning: Topic Page
The drawing out, twisting, and winding of fibers into a continuous thread or yarn. From antiquity until the Industrial Revolution, spinning was a household industry.
Tapestry: Topic Page
Hand-woven fabric of plain weave made without shuttle or drawboy, the design of weft threads being threaded into the warp with fingers or a bobbin.
Textile: Topic Page
These are made from natural fibres and include cotton, linen, silk, and wool (including angora, llama, and many others).
Velvet: Topic Page
Fabric having a soft, thick, short pile, usually of silk, and a plain twill or satin weave ground.
Weaving: Topic Page
The art of forming a fabric by interlacing at right angles two or more sets of yarn or other material.
Wool: Topic Page
Fiber made from the fleece of the domestic sheep. Wool consists of the cortex, overlapping scales (sharper and more protruding than those of hair) that may expand at their free edges causing fibers to intermesh; elasticum, the inner layer; and a core.

Museums & Galleries

European Museums

Ashmolean Museum
From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Museum of art and antiquities in Oxford, England, founded in 1683 to house the collections given to Oxford University by the historian and antiquary Elias Ashmole.
British Museum: Topic Page
The national repository in London for treasures in science and art. Located in the Bloomsbury section of the city, it has departments of antiquities, prints and drawings, coins and medals, and ethnography.
The Hermitage
From The Bloomsbury Guide to Art
State collection of art housed in the former Russian Winter Palace and other major buildings in St. Petersburg.
Louvre: Topic Page
Foremost French museum of art, located in Paris. The building was a royal fortress and palace built by Philip II in the late 12th cent. In 1546 Pierre Lescot was commissioned by Francis I to erect a new building on the site of the Louvre.
Musee D'Orsay
From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Museum of 19th- and early 20th-century painting, sculpture, decorative arts, and photography, opened at the former Gare du Quai d'Orsay (Orsay quayside railway station), Paris, France, in 1986.
National Gallery
From The Columbia Encyclopedia
London, one of the permanent national art collections of Great Britain. Its building, in Greek style, stands in Trafalgar Square. It was designed and erected (1832–38) by William Wilkins and was shared for 30 years with the Royal Academy of Arts.
Prado Museum
From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Spanish art gallery containing the national collection of pictures. The building was designed as a natural history museum and begun in 1785; it became an art gallery in 1818 under Ferdinand VII.
Tate: Topic Page
National art gallery group in the UK, with museums in London, Liverpool, and St Ives.
Uffizi
From Bloomsbury Guide to Art
The most important collection of art and artefacts in Italy, housed in the Palazzo degli Uffizi, Florence. The building itself, a huge edifice which stretches from the Piazza della Signoria to the Arno, is a technical feat, using iron to reinforce the building, which rests on sandy ground.
Vatican Museums
From Encyclopedia of Archaeology: History and Discoveries
Although the papal museums and galleries were based on the earlier work of Popes Clement IX and Pius VI, it was Pope Gregory XVI who founded the Etruscan Museum in 1837 and the Egytian Museum in 1839.

US Museums

Art Institute of Chicago
From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Museum and art school, in Grant Park, facing Michigan Ave.
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Boston, chartered and incorporated (1870) after a decision by the Boston Athenaeum, Harvard, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to pool their collections of art objects and house them in adequate public galleries.
Getty Center
FromThe Columbia Encyclopedia
Art museum complex in Brentwood, Calif., operated by the J. Paul Getty Trust.
Guggenheim Museum
From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Major museum of modern art in New York City. Founded in 1939 as the Museum of Non-objective Art, the Guggenheim is known for its remarkable circular building (1959) designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Holocaust Memorial Museum
From The Columbia Encyclopedia
In Washington, D.C., memorial to the victims of the Holocaust ... Using a stark, harsh architectural vocabulary of industrial forms and unadorned materials, the building itself serves as an oppressive structural reminder of the period of the Holocaust.
Metropolitan Museum of Art: Topic Page
The principal museum in New York City: founded in 1870 and housed in its present premises in Central Park since 1880.
Museum of Modern Art: Topic Page
(MoMA), New York City, established and incorporated in 1929. It is privately supported. Alfred H. Barr, Jr., was its first director. Operating at first in rented galleries, the museum specialized in loan shows of contemporary European and American art.
National Gallery of Art
From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Washington, D.C., an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, established by act of Congress, Mar. 24, 1937. Andrew W. Mellon donated funds for construction of the building as well as his own collection of 130 American portraits.
Smithsonian Institution
From Encyclopedia of American Studies
The Smithsonian Institution was established by the U.S. Congress in 1846, carrying out a bequest by James Smithson (1765-1829), an enigmatic English scientist who left his fortune to the United States to found an institution “for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.”

Early & Medieval

Ancient Art

Bronze age: Topic Page
Stage of prehistory and early history when copper and bronze (an alloy of tin and copper) became the first metals worked extensively and used for tools and weapons.
Cycladic art
From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Bronze Age art of the Cyclades, an island group of the central Aegean.
Etruscan art
From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
(c. 8th-4th centuries BC) Art of the people of Etruria. Characteristic achievements are the wall frescoes-painted in two-dimensional style-and realistic terra-cotta portraits found in tombs. Bronze reliefs and sculptures are also common.
Greek art: Topic Page
Works of art produced in the Aegean basin, a center of artistic activity from very early times.
Mesopotamian art
From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Art of the ancient civilizations that grew up in the area around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, now in Iraq. Mesopotamian art was largely used to glorify powerful dynasties, and often reflected the belief that kingship and the divine were closely interlocked.
Roman art: Topic Page
The origins of Roman art are a complex mix of native and imported styles and concepts that ultimately coalesced into what we now view as the art created by the Romans.
Terracotta Army
From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
One of the great archaeological discoveries of the twentieth century was made by accident in the spring of 1974. Peasants from the village of Xiyang in Lintong, Shaanxi Province, in the People’s Republic of china, were engaged in digging a well and discovered pottery figures and tiles.

Ancient Artists

Apelles (BCE 4th Century)
From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Greek painter, the most celebrated in antiquity but now known only through descriptions of his works. He is thought to have studied under Ephorus of Ephesus and under Pamphilus of Amphipolis at Sicyon.
Phidias (BCE 5th Century)
From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Greek sculptor, one of the greatest sculptors of ancient Greece.
Praxiteles (BCE 4th Century): Topic Page
A Greek late Classical sculptor from Athens, Praxiteles was the foremost representative of the Attic School in the middle years of the 4th century BC.
Protogenes (BCE 4th Century)
From The Columbia Encyclopedia
one of the most celebrated Greek painters of Rhodes and Athens. Apelles is said to have been the first to recognize the talents of Protogenes, then 50 years old and known only as a painter of decorations for ships.

Byzantine Art

Byzantine art: Topic Page
Style in the visual arts and architecture that originated in the 4th–5th centuries in Byzantium (capital of the Eastern Roman Empire; renamed Constantinople in 330; now Istanbul).
Byzantine Architecture
The architecture of the Byzantine Empire at its outset was essentially that of the Late Roman Empire from which it emerged in the early fourth century CE.
Christianity: Topic Page
One of the world's major religions, it predominates in Europe and the Americas, where it has been a powerful historical force and cultural influence, but it also claims adherents in virtually every country of the world.
Hagia Sophia: Topic Page
[Gr.,=Holy Wisdom] or Santa Sophia, Turkish Aya Sofia, originally a Christian church at Constantinople (now Istanbul), later a mosque, and now converted into a museum.
Iconoclasm: Topic Page
Opposition to the religious use of images. Veneration of pictures and statues symbolizing sacred figures, Christian doctrine, and biblical events was an early feature of Christian worship.

Medieval Art

Altarpiece: Topic Page
A painting (more rarely a sculpture) placed on, behind, or above an altar in a Christian church.
Bayeux Tapestry
From The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of British Art
A hanging that presents a continuous narrative of the events leading up to and including the Battle of Hastings in 1066. It is a unique historical document, for while similar hangings are known to have existed, no comparable examples have survived.
Gothic Art: Topic Page
Style that succeeded Romanesque as the most popular force in European art and prevailed in most countries, particularly in northern Europe, from the middle of the 12th century to the 16th century, when it gave way to Renaissance influence.
Iconography: Topic Page
The study and interpretation of figural representations, either individual or symbolic, religious or secular.
Illumination
From The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Art and Artists
The decoration of manuscripts, one of the most common forms of medieval visual art; because of its monastic origins, usually of religious texts.
Mozarabic Art
From The Bloomsbury Guide to Art
Term applied to the Spanish Christians under Moorish rule, and the distinctive art and architecture they produced.
Romanesque Art
From The Bloomsbury Guide to Art
Art historical term for the art and architecture of Western Europe between the end of the Carolingian Renaissance in the 10th century and the rise of Gothic in the 12th.

Medieval and Pre-Renaissance Artists

Fra Angelico (1400 - 1455): Topic Page
Painter, born in Vicchio, Tuscany, NW Italy. His most important frescoes are in the Florentine convent of S Marco (St Mark), which is now a museum.
Michael Astrapas & Eutychios (1295 - 1325)
From A Biographical Dictionary of Artists
Michael Astrapas and Eutychios were Byzantine painters active in Macedonia and Serbia. Their autographed work is in the Peribleptos church at Ohrid (1295), Bogorodica Ieviěka at Prizren (1306), St George at Staro Nagoričino (1313 - 18), and Sveti Nikita at Čučer.
Alberti Leon Battista (1404 - 1472): Topic Page
Italian art theorist, architect, author, and diplomat. Alberti is often regarded as the embodiment of the Uomo Universale, but the range and quality of his activities are not typical of his own or any other age.
Hieronymus Bosch (1450 - 1516): Topic Page
Both his subject matter and his free and painterly brushwork, which contrasts sharply with the jewel-like brilliance of the Eyckian tradition, set him apart from the mainstream of Flemish art.
Filippo Brunelleschi (1377 - 1446): Topic Page
The Florentine artist Filippo Brunelleschi was architect, engineer, and sculptor. More than any other individual, he established the forms and demonstrated the preoccupations of Italian Renaissance architecture.
Pietro Cavallini (1250 - 1330): Topic Page
Pietro Cavallini was a Roman painter; his name is associated with those of Cimabue and Giotto in the movement towards greatly increased naturalism in painting which took place in the latter part of the 13th and the first part of the 14th centuries.
Giovanni Cimabue (13th Century)
From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Florentine painter, whose real name was Cenni di Pepo or Peppi. The works with which his name is associated constitute a transition in painting from the strictly formalized Byzantine style, hitherto prevalent in Italy, to the freer expression of the 14th cent.
Fra Filippo Lippi (1406 - 1469): Topic Page
Florentine painter. His most important works include frescoes depicting the lives of St Stephen and St John the Baptist (1452-66; Prato Cathedral), which in their use of perspective and grouping of figures show the influence of Masaccio.
Masaccio (1401 - 1428): Topic Page
Italian painter. He is the foremost Italian painter of the Florentine Renaissance in the early 15th cent. Masaccio's original name was Tommaso Guidi.
Nicholas of Verdun (1181 - 1205)
From A Biographical Dictionary of Artists
Nicholas of Verdun is not the earliest medieval artist who can be established historically, either by signed surviving work or documents; but he is the first whose development as an artistic personality can be traced through early, mature, and late work.
Martin Schongauer (1430 - 1491): Topic Page
Descended from a patrician family of Augsburg, the German artist Martin Schongauer was best known in his lifetime as a painter, but his influence and his posthumous fame stem from his copper engravings.
Theophanes the Greek (1340 - 1410)
From A Biographical Dictionary of Artists
Theophanes the Greek was a Byzantine painter active in Russia. Probably born in Constantinople, he decorated about 40 churches there and in Russia, whither he emigrated in the 1370s.
Jan van Eyck (1390 - 1441): Topic Page

Flemish painter, who gained in his lifetime a Europe-wide reputation. One of the first painters to use oil paint effectively, he is noted for his meticulous detail and his brilliance of colour and finish.
Israhel van Mackenem, the Younger (1450 - 1503)
From A Biographical Dictionary of Artists
A pupil of Master ES, Israhel van Meckenem the Younger was a goldsmith and prolific engraver active in Bocholt and Cleve in Westphalia. More than 600 plates bear his initials or signature, and as the first of the large-scale producers of prints he appears to have used factory methods.
Michael Wolgemut (1434 - 1519): Topic Page
The German painter Michael Wolgemut was born in Nuremberg where he was the master of Albrecht Dürer from 1486 to 1490.

Renaissance

Early Renaissance Artists

Albrecht Altdorfer (1480 - 1538): Topic Page
Altdorfer's major contribution to the history of European painting is his powerful imaginative vision of landscape.
Hans Baldung (1484 - 1585): Topic Page
Hans Baldung (Grien) was a German painter and engraver. He was born at Swäbisch-Gmünd but settled in Strasbourg where he became a member of the city council in his later years.
Fra Bartolommeo (1472 - 1517): Topic Page
Fra Bartolommeo was born Baccio della Porta in Florence where he trained in the workshop of Cosimo Roselli.
Sandro Botticelli (1445 - 1510): Topic Page
Florentine painter. He depicted religious and mythological subjects. He was patronized by the ruling Medici family and was deeply influenced by their neo-Platonic circle.
Pieter Brueghel (1525 - 1569)
From The encyclopedia of the Renaissance Brueghel was possibly born near Breda and apparently trained in Brussels under Pieter Coecke, whose daughter he married. He subsequently worked for Pieter Balten at Malines and for Hieronymus Cock in Antwerp. After Pieter Coecke's death, he visited Rome (1552–53), where he became acquainted with the miniaturist Giulio Clovio.
Donatello (1386 - 1466): Topic Page
Real name Donato di Betto Bardi. Florentine sculptor, regarded as the greatest sculptor of the quattrocento, who was greatly influenced by classical sculpture and contemporary humanist theories.
Albrecht Dürer (1471 - 1528): Topic Page
The German painter, printmaker, and theorist Albrecht Dürer is generally acknowledged to be the most significant figure in the history of European art outside Italy in the period of the Renaissance.
Jan Mabuse Gossaert (1478 - 1533): Topic Page
The Flemish painter Jan or Jennyn Gossaert is also known as Mabuse, this name deriving from Mauberge in Hainault, where he was born.
Matthias Grünewald (1475 - 1528): Topic Page
German painter, architect, and engineer. His altarpiece at Isenheim, southern Alsace, (1515, Unterlinden Museum, Colmar, France), with its grotesquely tortured figure of Jesus and its radiant Resurrection, is his most important work.
Hans Holbein (1497 - 1543): Topic Page
German painter and woodcut artist who spent much of his career as a portrait artist at the court of Henry VIII of England.

High & Late Renaissance Artists

Agnolo Bronzino (1503-1572): Topic Page
The pupil of Pontormo and his lifelong friend, was the principal practitioner of Florentine Mannerism. He is best known for his portraits of Cosimo de' Medici's family and his courtiers, which reveal beneath their glacial exteriors the sitters' anxieties.
Artemisia Gentileschi,1593-1652 or 1653: Topic Page
Tuscan painter, daughter and pupil of Orazio Gentileschi, b. Rome.
Baldassare Peruzzi (1481 - 1536): Topic Page
Italian architect and painter in the High Renaissance style; designed the Villa Farnesina and the Palazzo Massimo in Rome.
Bartolomeo Ammanati (1511 - 1592): Topic Page
Born near Florence, the sculptor Bartolomeo Ammanati trained in the workshop of Pisa Cathedral, where his first independent work is found (1536).
Benvenuto Cellini (1500 - 1571): Topic Page
1500–1571, Italian sculptor, metalsmith, and author. His remarkable autobiography (written 1558–62), which reads like a picaresque novel, is one of the most important documents of the 16th cent.
El Greco (1541 - 1614): Topic Page
Spanish painter. He painted elegant portraits and intensely emotional religious scenes with increasingly distorted figures and unearthly light.
Giorgio Vasari (1511 - 1574): Topic Page
Italian architect, painter, and art historian, noted for his Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Architects, Painters, and Sculptors (1550; 1568), a principal source for the history of Italian Renaissance art.
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452 - 1519): Topic Page
Italian painter, sculptor, architect, musician, engineer, and scientist, b. near Vinci, a hill village in Tuscany. The versatility and creative power of Leonardo mark him as a supreme example of Renaissance genius.
Michelangelo (1475 - 1564): Topic Page
Universally recognized as one of the greatest artists in history, perhaps the greatest. He excelled as a sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the Italian High Renaissance.
Michelangelo Caravaggio (1571 - 1610): Topic Page
1571–1610, Italian painter. His strong chiaroscuro technique of partially illuminating figures against a dark background was immediately adopted by his contemporaries.
Raphael Sanzio (1483 - 1520): Topic Page
Raphael was the common name of the Italian painter Raffaello Sanzio or Santi.
Tintoretto (1518 - 1594): Topic Page
Jacopo Robusti, whose name derived from the profession of his father, a dyer (tintore), was, with Veronese, the chief Venetian painter of the later 16c.
Titian (1490 - 1576): Topic Page
Venetian painter. Of the very first rank among the artists of the Renaissance, Titian had an immense influence on succeeding generations of painters, especially in his use of color.
Veronese (1528-1588): Topic Page
Paolo Caliari, with Tintoretto, succeeded Titian as the chief artist of 16c. Venice. Born in Verona, as his popular name, Veronese, indicates, he was trained there by a local painter, Antonio Badile, before moving to Venice about the age of 23.
Guercino (1591-1666): Topic Page
Italian baroque painter. He was active chiefly in Rome. In his ceiling painting of Aurora (1621–23; Villa Ludovisi, Rome), the chariot-borne figure of Dawn rides across the heavens; the architectural framework is imitated in the painting, giving the illusion that the ceiling opens into the sky.
Annibale Carracci (1560-1609): Topic Page
One of a Bolognese family of painters, the oldest of whom, Lodovico (1555–1619), founded a school in Bologna. His cousins Agostino (1557–1602) and Annibale worked in their early years with Lodovico, but left Bologna, working first in north Italy and later in Rome.

General History

Counter-Reformation: Topic Page
16th-century reformation that arose largely in answer to the Protestant Reformation; sometimes called the Catholic Reformation. Although the Roman Catholic reformers shared the Protestants' revulsion at the corrupt conditions in the church, there was present none of the tradition breaking that characterized Protestantism.
Lorenzo de Medici (1449 - 1492): Topic Page
1449–92, Italian merchant prince, called Lorenzo il Magnifico [the magnificent]. He was a patron of Sandro Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Filippino Lippi, Andrea del Verrocchio, Michelangelo, and other famed artists.
Papacy: Topic Page
Office of the pope, head of the Roman Catholic Church. He is pope by reason of being bishop of Rome and thus, according to Roman Catholic belief, successor in the see of Rome (the Holy See) to its first bishop, St. Peter.
Patronage
From The Bloomsbury Guide to Art
The encouragement and support, often financial, of artists and craftspeople. In the Middle Ages there were two main sources of patronage - the church and the State.
Reformation: Topic Page
Religious and political movement in 16th-century Europe to reform the Roman Catholic Church, which led to the establishment of the Protestant churches.
Renaissance: Topic Page
Period in European cultural history that began in Italy around 1400 and lasted there until the end of the 1500s.
Art & Architecture, Renaissance: Topic Page
European art of the 15th–17th centuries, associated with the Renaissance, a revival in learning that began in Florence, Italy, with the rise of a spirit of humanism and a new appreciation of the classical Greek and Roman past.

Famous Works

Mona Lisa
From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Oil painting by Leonardo da Vinci (1503-05; Louvre, Paris), a portrait of the wife of a Florentine official, Francesco del Giocondo.
Sistine Chapel: Topic Page
Private chapel of the popes in Rome, one of the principal glories of the Vatican.
The Ghent Altarpiece
From The Bloomsbury Guide to Art
A polyptych painted primarily by Jan van Eyck, possibly with the assistance of his brother Hubert van Eyck. It is also known as the Altarpiece of the Holy Lamb.
Portinari Altarpiece
From Encyclopaedia of the Renaissance
A large-scale triptych commissioned from Hugo van der Goes by Tommaso Portinari, the Italian agent of the Medici in Bruges, for the church of the hospital of Sta Maria Nuova, Florence (now in the Uffizi).

17th - 19th Century

Movements

Art nouveau: Topic Page
Decorative style in the visual arts, interior design, and architecture that flourished from 1890 to 1910.
Arts and crafts: Topic Page
Term for that general field of applied design in which hand fabrication is dominant. The term was coined in England in the late 19th cent.
Baroque: Topic Page
A style characterized by expressive, flamboyant, and dynamic design. It flourished in Europe between 1600 and 1750.
Biedermeier: Topic Page
Name applied, at first in a joking spirit, to a period of European culture and a style of furniture, decoration, and art originating in Germany early in the 19th cent.
Classicism: Topic Page
A term that, when applied generally, means clearness, elegance, symmetry, and repose produced by attention to traditional forms.
Hudson River School: Topic Page
Group of American landscape painters, working from 1825 to 1875. The 19th-century romantic movements of England, Germany, and France were introduced to the United States by such writers as Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper.
Iconoclasm: Topic Page
Opposition to the religious use of images. Veneration of pictures and statues symbolizing sacred figures, Christian doctrine.
Mannerism: Topic Page
Used with reference to Italian painting in the 16th century and represents a distinct phase between the art of the High Renaissance and the rise of baroque.
Realism in art: Topic Page
In the arts and literature generally, a ‘true-to-life’ approach to subject matter; also described as naturalism. Taken to its extreme, trompe l'oeil paintings trick the eye into believing objects are real
Neoclassicism: Topic Page
Movement in art, architecture, and design in Europe and North America about 1750-1850, characterized by a revival of classical Greek and Roman styles.
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood: Topic Page
Group of British painters (1848-53); Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, and Holman Hunt - at this time young students at the Royal Academy - were the leading figures among the seven founders.
Reformation: Topic Page
Religious and political movement in 16th-century Europe to reform the Roman Catholic Church, which led to the establishment of the Protestant churches.
Rococo
From Bloomsbury Guide to Art
An 18th-century style, principally associated with the decorative arts, deriving its name from the French, rocaille, meaning 'rock-work'.
Romanticism: Topic Page
Term loosely applied to literary and artistic movements of the late 18th and 19th cent.
Still life: Topic Page
A pictorial representation of inanimate objects. The term derives from the 17th-century Dutch still-leven, meaning a motionless natural object or objects.

17th Century Artists

Giovanni Bernini (1598 - 1680): Topic Page
Italian sculptor and architect, b. Naples. He was the dominant figure of the Italian baroque.
Franz Hals (1581 - 1666): Topic Page
Flemish-born painter. The pioneer in the Dutch school of free, broad brushwork, he painted directly on to the canvas to create portraits that are spontaneous and full of life.
Claude Lorrain (1600 - 1682)
From A Biographical Dictionary of Artists
Born Claude Gellée in the village of Chamagne in Lorraine, the French painter known as Claude Lorrain can be considered as the greatest landscapist of the 17th century.
Rijn van Rembrandt (1606 - 1689): Topic Page
Dutch painter, etcher, and teacher. Rembrandt was one of the most prolific and significant artists in Europe of the 17th century.
Salvator Rosa (1615 - 1673): Topic Page
Neapolitan artist with a predilection for a dark palette and for fiery battle scenes and violent subject matter.
Peter Paul Rubens (1577 - 1640): Topic Page
Flemish painter, regarded as the greatest exponent of the Baroque: appointed (1609) painter to Archduke Albert of Austria, who gave him many commissions, artistic and diplomatic.
Diego Velázquez (1599 - 1660): Topic Page
Spanish painter. One of the outstanding artists of the 17th century, he was court painter to Philip IV in Madrid, where he produced many portraits of the royal family.
Johannes Vermeer (1632 - 1675): Topic Page
Dutch painter who came from Delft. His response to the transient beauty of light and colored surfaces, and his impeccable sense of design, place him among the greatest of all European artists.

18th Century Artists

William Blake (1757 - 1827): Topic Page
William Blake, born in London where he spent all but three years of his life, was both poet and visionary artist.
François Boucher (1703 - 1770): Topic Page
French rococo painter. He was court painter to Louis XV from 1765, and was popular for his light-hearted, decorative scenes which often convey a playful eroticism.
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (1699 - 1779): Topic Page
French painter. He took as his subjects naturalistic still lifes and quiet domestic scenes that recall the Dutch tradition. His work is a complete contrast to that of his contemporaries, the rococo painters.
Jean Fragonard (1732 - 1806): Topic Page
Jean-Honoré Fragonard was the last of the French Rococo painters. He outlived the movement, and died poor and unnoticed during the heyday of Neoclassicism.
Giovanni Tiepolo (1696 - 1770): Topic Page
Italian painter. He was one of the first exponents of Italian rococo and created monumental decorative schemes in palaces and churches in northeastern Italy, southwestern Germany, and Madrid.
Antoine Watteau (1684 - 1721): Topic Page
The outstanding painter of the French Rococo, and artist beside whom the talents of his contemporaries and successors are measured.

Early 19th Century Artists

John James Audubon (1785 - 1851): Topic Page
Painter and naturalist, born in Les Cayes, Haiti. In 1803 he moved to his father’s estate near Philadelphia, where he spent his time hunting.
Richard Bonington (1801 - 1828): Topic Page
Richard Parkes Bonington was born in Arnold near Nottingham, where his father was a drawing master. In 1817 the family moved to Calais, France, where Richard's father set up a lace factory.
John Constable (1776 - 1837): Topic Page
Constable is considered one of the two greatest masters of landscape painting in Britain, the other being J.M.W. Turner (1775 - 1851).
Jacques-Louis David (1748 - 1825): Topic Page
French painter. Born in Paris, he trained initially in the studio of a successful painter, finishing his education at the French Academy in Rome. On his return to France, he emerged as a leading exponent of Neoclassicism.
Eugène Delacroix (1798 - 1863): Topic Page
The greatest French painter of the first half of the 19th century, Eugène Delacroix is generally considered to have been the leader of the Romantic school—opposed to the Neoclassicism of Ingres.
Caspar David Friedrich (1774 - 1840): Topic Page
Caspar David Friedrich was the leading landscape painter in Germany during the Romantic era. His views of the desolate coastlands of his native Pomerania and of the mountainous regions of central Europe combine a careful observation of natural features with a deep sense of the spiritual.
Jean Géricault (1791 - 1824): Topic Page
French painter and graphic artist. One of the main figures of the Romantic movement, he brought a new energy and emotional intensity to painting.
Goya (1746 - 1828): Topic Page
1746–1828, Spanish painter and graphic artist. Goya is generally conceded to be the greatest painter of his era.
Jean Ingres (1780 - 1867): Topic Page
French painter and leader of the French classical school who is remembered for his historical and mythological works.
Jean Millet (1814 - 1875): Topic Page
French artist. A leading member of the Barbizon School, he painted scenes of peasant life and landscapes.
Johann Overbeck (1789 - 1869): Topic Page
Johann Friedrich Overbeck was a German painter and draftsman born in Lübeck. He studied at the Vienna Academy (1806 - 9), but preferred to frequent the circle around Eberhard Wächter.
Franz Pforr (1788 - 1812)
From Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850
Franz Pforr was one of the two founding members of the German artistic community of the Romantic period that called itself the Brotherhood of Saint Luke (Lucas Brotherhood) and was later termed the Nazarenes.

Late 19th Century Artists

Paul Cézanne (1839 - 1906): Topic Page
Paul Cézanne persevered throughout a career of failure and neglect to become recognized as one of the most profoundly original painters of the modern period.
Maurice Denis (1870 - 1943): Topic Page
The French artist and art theoriest Maurice Denis was a founder member of the group of painters known as the Nabis.
Paul Gauguin (1848 - 1903): Topic Page
French painter and woodcut artist, b. Paris. Today Gauguin is recognized as a highly influential founding father of modern art.
Claude Monet (1840 - 1926): Topic Page
French landscape painter; the leading exponent of impressionism. His interest in the effect of light on colour led him to paint series of pictures of the same subject at different times of day.
Gustave Moreau (1826 - 1898): Topic Page
French painter. An influential figure in the move away from Realist attitudes that occurred in the 1880s, and showed himself sympathetic to originality, as a teacher at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
William Morris (1834 - 1896): Topic Page
Poet, designer of textiles and wallpaper, successful businessman, father (often so-called) of the Arts and Crafts movement.
Edvard Munch (1863 - 1944): Topic Page
Norwegian painter and graphic artist. Visually examined such primal themes as birth, death, thwarted love, sex, fear, and anxiety.
Georges Seurat (1859 - 1891): Topic Page
French artist. One of the major post-Impressionists, he originated, with Paul Signac, the technique of pointillism (painting with small dabs rather than long brushstrokes).
Henri de Toulouse Lautrec (1864 - 1901): Topic Page
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a French painter, printmaker, and poster artist.
Vincent Van Gogh (1853 - 1890): Topic Page
One of the pioneers of Expressionism, he used colour primarily for its emotive appeal, and profoundly influenced the Fauves and other experimenters of 20th Century art.
James Whistler (1834 - 1903): Topic Page
American painter whose subtle coloring and tonal harmony were influenced by musical aesthetics and Japanese art. His works include a portrait of his mother, entitled Arrangement in Grey and Black.
Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894): Topic Page
French painter and art collector. Born in Paris, a naval architect by profession, he began to paint from 1872.
Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939): Topic Page
Poster artist, illustrator and designer. Born in Moravia, Czechoslovakia. From 1879 he worked as a theatrical scene painter in Vienna where a benefactor recognized his talent and financed his studies in Munich (1884–87) and in Paris (1888).

Modern & Contemporary

Movements

Abstract expressionism: Topic Page
Movement of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the mid-1940s and attained singular prominence in American art in the following decade.
Ashcan school
From The Reader's Companion to American History
The Ashcan school of art evolved during the early years of the twentieth century in New York City. The core of the movement was formed by “the Eight”—Robert Henri, Arthur B. Davies, Maurice Prendergast, Ernest Lawson, William Glackens, Everett Shinn, John Sloan, and George Luks.
CoBrA: Topic Page
An international Expressionist movement founded in Paris in 1948. The name is an acronym of Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam, the native cities of the artists involved, which included the Dane Asgar Jorn, the Dutchmen Karel Appel, Corneille and George Constant, and the Belgian Pierre Alecinsky.
Constructivism: Topic Page
Abstract art movement that originated in Russia in about 1914 and subsequently had great influence on Western art.
Cubism: Topic Page
Revolutionary style of painting created by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso in Paris between 1907 and 1914.
Dada: Topic Page
International nihilistic movement among European artists and writers that lasted from 1916 to 1922.
Expressionism: Topic Page
Term used to describe works of art and literature in which the representation of reality is distorted to communicate an inner vision.
Fauvism: Topic Page
Movement in modern French painting characterized by the use of very bold, vivid, pure colours.
Futurism: Topic Page
Avant-garde art movement founded in 1909 that celebrated the dynamism of the modern world.
Impressionism: Topic Page
Movement in painting that originated in France in the 1860s and had enormous influence in European and North American painting in the late 19th century.
Minimalism: Topic Page
Movement in abstract art and music towards extremely simplified composition.
Modernism: Topic Page
In the arts, a general term used to describe the 20th century's conscious attempt to break with the artistic traditions of the 19th century.
Pop art: Topic Page
Movement in modern art that took its imagery from the glossy world of advertising and from popular culture such as comic strips, films, and television.
Post-impressionism: Topic Page
Broad term covering various developments in French painting that developed out of Impressionism in the period from about 1880 to about 1905.
Postmodernism: Topic Page
Term used to designate a multitude of trends that come after and deviate from the many 20th-cent. movements that constituted modernism.
Surrealism: Topic Page
Movement in art, literature, and film that developed out of Dada around 1922. Led by André Breton, who produced the Surrealist Manifesto (1924), the surrealists were inspired by the thoughts and visions of the subconscious mind.

Styles & Genres

Abstract art: Topic Page
Nonrepresentational art. Ornamental art without figurative representation occurs in most cultures. The modern abstract movement in sculpture and painting emerged in Europe and North America between 1910 and 1920.
Art Brut: Topic Page
Term coined by the French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe various types of art produced outside the conventional art world.
Art deco: Topic Page
Style in the decorative arts that influenced design and architecture, and is particularly associated with mass-produced domestic goods.
Arte povera
From Bloomsbury Guide to Art
A term first used by the Italian critic Germano Celant in 1967 to characterize the work of certain artists exhibiting at the Galleria La Bertesca, Genoa, who rejected the traditional iconography and materials of fine art.
Conceptual art: Topic Page
Type of modern art in which the idea or ideas that a work expresses are considered its essential point, with its visual appearance being of secondary (often negligible) importance.
Kinetic art: Topic Page
A work of art that has movement or parts that are set in motion.
Land art
From Bloomsbury Guide to Art
Sometimes known as earthwork, after a 1969 exhibition at Cornell University. A development in the late 1960s based on the concept that geography and land should be the materials of art, not merely the location.
Luminism
From The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Art and Artists
Term used to describe certain U.S. 19th-century landscape painters, e.g. Lane, Heade and Kensett in certain of his works, as Lake George, 1869.
Lyrical abstraction
From Bloomsbury Guide to Art
The term favoured and propagated by Mathieu to describe the expressive abstraction associated with the School of Paris after the Second World War, and to distinguish it from geometric abstraction.
Modern art: Topic Page
Art created from the 19th cent. to the mid-20th cent. by artists who veered away from the traditional concepts and techniques of painting, sculpture, and other fine arts that had been practiced since the Renaissance.
Op art: Topic Page
Type of abstract art, mainly painting, in which patterns are used to create the impression that the image is flickering or vibrating.
Orphism: Topic Page
Type of abstract or semi-abstract painting practised by a group of artists in Paris between 1911 and 1914. Orphism owed much to the fragmented forms of cubism (indeed it is sometimes called Orphic cubism).
Performance art: Topic Page
Type of modern art activity presented before a live audience, and combining elements of the visual arts and the theatrical arts.
Photorealism
From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Style of painting and sculpture popular in the late 1960s and 1970s, especially in the USA, characterized by intense, photographic realism and attention to minute detail.
Spatialism
From Bloomsbury Guide to Art
A movement founded by, and virtually inseparable from, the works and figures of Luciano Fontana in Milan in 1947.
Video art: Topic Page
Type of modern art created by visual artists using video and television equipment; it is a medium rather than a style.

American Artists

US Artists

Andy Warhol: Topic Page
A founder of the Pop Art movement of the 1960s. Much of his work was collaborative and produced in a loft called ‘the Factory’.
Arshile Gorky (1904 - 1948): Topic Page
Gorky was an American painter who played a key role in the merging of abstraction and Surrealism to prepare for the new style of Abstract Expressionism.
Bruce Nauman (1941-): Topic Page
Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, he studied mathematics and art at Wisconsin University. In the 1960s he became a leading exponent of Conceptual Art, using neon lights and holograms in addition to producing minimalist sculptures from more conventional materials, as in From Hand to Mouth and Six Inches of My Knee Extended to Six Feet (both 1967).
Edward Hopper (1882 - 1967): Topic Page
US painter, printer, and illustrator. One of the foremost American realists, and the most famous exponent of New Realism in the 20th century, he is often associated with American Scene painting.
Ellsworth Kelly (1923-): Topic Page
American painter, b. Newburgh, N.Y. He moved to New York City in 1941, studying at Pratt Institute, and later attended the Boston Museum Arts School. In Paris during the late 1940s, he studied at the Académie des Beaux-Arts and met many giants of modern art.
Frank Stella (1936 - ): Topic Page
American painter whose abstract works are characterized by geometric forms, brilliant colors, and often irregularly shaped canvases.
Frederic Remington (1861 - 1909): Topic Page
US artist and illustrator. He is known for his lively paintings, sculptures, and sketches of the American West, which he recorded during several trips to the region. In his detailed, rugged bronzes, he focused on movement to depict the vigorous, energy of cowboys, American Indians, and horses.
Georgia O'Keefe (1887 - 1986): Topic Page
The first internationally acclaimed American woman artist, Georgia O'Keeffe emerged in the twentieth century as one of the cultural icons of her time.
Grandma Moses (1860 - 1961)
From The Penguin Biographical Dictionary of Women
Grandma Moses has been described as an “authentic primitive” – that is, a painter whose talent developed in complete isolation from contemporary artistic trends.
Jackson Pollock (1912 - 1956): Topic Page
The American painter Jackson Pollock was the leading figure of the New York School of the 1940s. Brought up in California, he moved to New York in 1929 and studied at the Art Students' League under Thomas Hart Benton, the American Regionalist.
Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1960-1988
American painter, b. Brooklyn, N.Y. Born into a middle-class Haitian and Puerto Rican family, he was a 1980s art star whose rise and fall were rapid, dramatic, and emblematic of the era.
Jeff Koons: Topic Page
American artist, b. York, Pa., studied Maryland Institute College of Art (B.F.A., 1976), Art Institute of Chicago. He moved to New York City in 1977 and has lived and worked there since. Koons has been damned and praised with equal fervor by critics, called shallow, cynical, and the bad boy of American art by some and post-ironic, awesome, and a post-pop superstar by others.
Kenneth Noland (1924 - ): Topic Page
Kenneth Noland is one of the best known contemporary American Minimalist painters. He works within a range of 1960s styles collectively named “post-painterly abstraction” by Clement Greenberg.
Mark Rothko (1903 - 1970): Topic Page
Russian-born American abstract expressionist painter whose works are characterized by horizontal bands of subtle color with blurred edges.
Mark Tobey (1890 - 1976): Topic Page
U.S. painter. Influenced by Chinese calligraphy, he devised a style of improvisatory abstract painting called “white writing”.
Max Beckmann: Topic Page
One of the most important painters of the twentieth century, who fled Nazi Germany and after World War II emigrated to the United States.
Norman Rockwell (1894 - 1978): Topic Page
American painter Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) was born and spent his childhood in New York City.
Richard Diebenkorn (1922-1993): Topic Page
US painter. A leading member of the second generation of abstract expressionists, he gained worldwide renown for his Ocean Park series of mainly abstract canvases 1967–88.
Robert Rauschenberg (1925 - ): Topic Page
1925–, American painter. Rauschenberg became a pivotal figure in the emerging pop art movement.
Willem de Kooning (1904 - 1997): Topic Page
The American Abstract Expressionist painter, Willem de Kooning was born in Rotterdam and apprenticed as a commercial painter and decorator. In 1926 he went to New York, initially with no idea of becoming an artist.

American Photographers

Berenice Abbot (1898 - 1991): Topic Page
Photographer, born in Springfield, Ohio, USA.
Ansel Adams (1902 - 1984): Topic Page
American photographer, b. San Francisco. He began taking photographs in the High Sierra and Yosemite Valley, with which his name is permanently associated, becoming professional in 1930.
Dianne Arbus (1923 - 1971): Topic Page
American photographer. Began, in the late 1950s, to make the intimate and powerful visual record of life on the freakish margins of society, for which she became renowned.
Richard Avedon (1923 - 2004): Topic Page
Richard Avedon's career spanned sixty years, beginning as a fashion photographer for Harper's Bazaar in the 1940s when he was barely twenty years old.
Imogen Cunningham (1883 - 1976)
From The Penguin Biographical Dictionary of Women
In a career that spanned 75 years Imogen Cunningham drew on a wide range of subjects for her photographs, including people, landscapes, cityscapes, and, especially, plants and flowers. Her work reflected the major advances in art photography that took place in the 20th century.
Walker Evans (1903 - 1975)
From France and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History
American photographer (active 1929-1975) whose lyrical black-and-white images owe much in style to the influence of French photography.
Dorothea Lange (1895 - 1965): Topic Page
American photographer, b. Hoboken, N.J. During the 1930s, the state of California commissioned a report on the way of life of migrant laborers.
Annie Liebowitz (1949 - )
From The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Women's Biography
American photographer, best known for her portraits of celebrities, from rock musicians to politicians. She has done fashion photography, magazine work and advertising and many of her images are famous.
Irving Penn (1917 - 2009)
From The Columbia Encyclopedia
American photographer, brother of Arthur Penn, b. Plainfield, N.J.; studied Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art (1934–38). Best known for his fashion work, he is also a master of portraiture and still life.
Jacob Riis (1849 - 1914)
From Encyclopedia of American Studies
The first major documentary photographer in America, Jacob Riis used the camera to expose the appalling living conditions of the immigrants of the Lower East Side in New York City toward the end of the nineteenth century.
Cindy Sherman (1954 - ): Topic Page
US photographer. A leading experimental photographer and pioneer in staged photography, Sherman specializes in taking pictures, using herself as the model, in various staged roles suggested by cinema, advertising, and art.
Alfred Stieglitz (1864 - 1946): Topic Page
American photographer, editor, and art exhibitor. The first art photographer in the United States, Stieglitz more than any other American compelled the recognition of photography as a fine art.
Weegee (1899 - 1968): Topic Page
(Arthur Fellig), American photojournalist. Drawn to the grotesque and illicit, he created contrasty black-and-white shots of grisly crime scenes, fires, and car crashes and of New Yorkers at pleasure spots and grim scenes.
Edward Weston (1886 - 1958): Topic Page
American photographer, b. Highland Park, Ill. Weston began to make photographs in Chicago parks in 1902, and his works were first exhibited in 1903 at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904): Topic Page
Born Edward James Muggeridge, also known as Muggridge, Maygridge, Muygridge, Eduardo Santiago Muybridge. He was a photographer, inventor, and lecturer. One of the most influential and colourful photographers of the nineteenth century, Muybridge's achievements span three distinct categories: landscape photography, motion photography, and early cinema.
Lewis Wickes Hine (1874-1940): Topic Page
American photographer, b. Oshkosh, Wis. Hine dedicated much of his photographic career, which began shortly after he bought his first camera in 1903, to exposing in sharp, painful images the social evils of the industrial revolution in the United States.

World Artists

Modern Artists

Joseph Beuys (1921 - 1986): Topic Page
German artist, a celebrated figure of the avant-garde, noted especially for his sculptures made of felt and animal fat.
Georges Braque (1882 - 1963): Topic Page
The French painter Georges Braque was one of the major artists of the 20th century, whose partnership with Picasso from 1908 to 1914 generated Cubism.
Marc Chagall (1887 - 1985): Topic Page
French painter and illustrator, born in Russia, noted for his richly coloured pictures of men, animals, and objects in fantastic combinations and often suspended in space.
Jean Dubuffet (1901 - 1985): Topic Page
French painter, inspired by graffiti and the untrained art of children and psychotics.
George Grosz (1893 - 1959):Topic Page
German-born US expressionist painter and graphic artist. He was a founder of the Berlin Dada group in 1918, and excelled in savage satirical drawings criticizing the government and the military establishment.
David Hockney (1937 - ): Topic Page
English painter, printmaker, and designer, resident in California. One of the best-known figures in 20th-century British pop art.
Frida Kahlo (1907 - 1954): Topic Page
Mexican painter. Using vivid colour and a naive style that was deliberately based on Mexican folk art, she created deeply personal, moving, and emotional paintings.
Wassily Kandinsky (1866 - 1944): Topic Page
Russian abstract painter and theorist. Usually regarded as the originator of abstract art, Kandinsky abandoned a legal career for painting at 30 when he moved to Munich.
Gustav Klimt (1862 - 1918): Topic Page
Austrian painter. He founded the Vienna Sezession (1897), a group of painters influenced by Art Nouveau.
Käthe Kollwitz (1867 - 1945): Topic Page
German graphic artist and sculptor. One of the leading expressionists, she is noted for her harrowing and often disturbing drawings, etchings, lithographs, and woodcuts on the themes of social injustice, poverty, and human suffering.
El Lissitzky (1890 - 1941): Toppic Page
Russian artist and architect. During the 1920s he was extremely important in propagating new Russian art in Western Europe.
Kasimir Malevich (1878 - 1935): Topic Page
Russian painter. He was concerned with presenting a new vision which, though not possible outside the context of a scientific and industrial society, was not directly related to the problems of functional design.
Henri Matisse (1869 - 1954): Topic Page
Henri Matisse, born at Le Cateau-Cambrésis (Nord,France), was one of the leaders of avant-garde art before the First World War.
Joan Miró (1893 - 1983): Topic Page
Joan Miró was a Spanish painter, ceramist, and sculptor, and a leading member of the Surrealist movement.
Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973): Topic Page
Artist, the dominating figure of early 20th Century art. His break with tradition came with ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’ (1906–7, New York), the first exemplar of analytical Cubism, a movement which he developed with Braque (1909–14).
Diego Rivera (1886 - 1957): Topic Page
1886–1957, Mexican mural painter, studied as a youth with Posada and other Mexican painters; husband of Frida Kahlo.
Egon Schiele (1890 - 1918): Topic Page
Austrian painter and draftsman known for his aggressive, nervous style and his explicitly erotic subjects.
Ben Shahn (1898 - 1969): Topic Page
Lithuanian-born US painter. The most distinguished of the US Social Realists, his art drew attention to social and political issues that were often particularly controversial.
Max Beckmann: Topic Page
One of the most important painters of the twentieth century, who fled Nazi Germany and after World War II emigrated to the United States.
Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940): Topic Page
French painter and printmaker. He was a founding member of les Nabis, and is noted for his decorative paintings of intimate domestic interiors with figures and for his brilliantly coloured lithographs.

Photographers

Eugene Atget (1857 - 1927)
From France and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History
Photographer (active 1898-1927) of Paris’ streets, parks, and countryside.
Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908 - 2004): Topic Page
Photographer, born in Chanteloup, Paris, France. He worked only in black-and-white (except for some early commercial work), concerned exclusively with the capturing of visual moments illustrating contemporary life.
Louis Daguerre (1787 - 1851)
From France and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History
Artist, proprietor of the Diorama, and inventor of the daguerreotype. Born at Cormeilles-en-Parisis to Louis Jacques Daguerre and his wife, Anne Antoinette (née Hauterre), Daguerre was raised after 1791 at Orléans.
Nadar (1820 - 1910)
From The Columbia Encyclopedia
French pioneer photographer and writer, b. Paris. Nadar opened a photographic studio in 1853 that became a meeting place for literary and artistic celebrities whose faces were captured in his superb portraits.
Nicephore Niepce (1765 - 1833)
From Chamber's Biographical Dictionary
French chemist, one of the pioneers of photography. Nicéphore Niepce was born in Chalon-sur-Saône, Burgundy. He served under Napoleon I and in 1795 became administrator of Nice.
William Henry Fox Talbot (1800 - 1877): Topic Page
English pioneer of photography. He invented the paper-based calotype process, patented in 1841, which was the first negative/positive method. Talbot made photograms several years before Louis Daguerre's invention was announced.

Sculptors

Constantin Brancusi (1876 - 1957): Topic Page
French sculptor born in Romania, noted for the simplicity of his abstract forms.
Alexander Calder (1898 - 1976): Topic Page
Among the most inventive of 20th-century sculptors, Calder also worked as a book-illustrator and painter.
Marcel Duchamp (1887 - 1968): Topic Page
Prominent avant-garde painter and installation artist, most often associated with the manifestations of Dada.
Sir Jacob Epstein (1880 - 1959): Topic Page
British sculptor, born in the U.S. of Russo-Polish parents.
Henry Moore (1898 - 1986): Topic Page
Henry Moore, long considered England's greatest sculptor, was largely responsible for the gradual emergence of British art from provincialism into the mainstream of modern art.
Auguste Rodin (1840 - 1917): Topic Page
French sculptor, b. Paris. Rodin's work is generally considered the most important contribution to sculpture of his century, although some recent critical opinion has found his allegorical works pretentious.

Architecture

General

Architect: Topic Page
Person qualified to design buildings and to supervise their erection.
Architecture: Topic Page
The design of the visual appearance of structures; their internal arrangements of space; selection of external and internal building materials; design or selection of natural and artificial lighting systems, as well as mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems; and design or selection of decorations and furnishings.

Materials

Brick: Topic Page
Ceramic structural material that, in modern times, is made by pressing clay into blocks and firing them to the requisite hardness in a kiln.
Cement: Topic Page
Binding material used in construction and engineering, often called hydraulic cement, typically made by heating a mixture of limestone and clay until it almost fuses and then grinding it to a fine powder.
Concrete: Topic Page
Structural masonry material made by mixing broken stone or gravel with sand, cement, and water and allowing the mixture to harden into a solid mass.
Insulation: Topic Page
Use of materials or devices to inhibit or prevent the conduction of heat or of electricity.
Iron: Topic Page
Iron is a lustrous, ductile, malleable, silver-gray metal found in Group 8 of the periodic table.
Steel: Topic Page
Alloy of iron, carbon, and small proportions of other elements. Iron contains impurities in the form of silicon, phosphorus, sulfur, and manganese; steelmaking involves the removal of these impurities, known as slag, and the addition of desirable alloying elements.
Wood: Topic Page
Botanically, the xylem tissue that forms the bulk of the stem of a woody plant. Xylem conducts sap upward from the roots to the leaves, stores food in the form of complex carbohydrates, and provides support; it is made up of various types of cells specialized for each of these purposes.

Interior Design

Furniture: Topic Page
Movable functional items such as tables, chairs, and beds needed to make a room or a home more comfortable and easier to live and work in.
Interior decoration: Topic Page
Adornment of the interior of a building, public or domestic, comprising interior architecture, finishing, and furnishings.
Lighting: Topic Page
Light produced by artificial means to allow visibility in enclosures and at night.
Stained glass: Topic Page
In general, windows made of colored glass. With the development of medieval architecture, stained glass assumed a unique structural and symbolic importance.
Wallpaper: Topic Page
Was used in Europe in the 16th and 17th cent. as an inexpensive substitute for costly hangings.

Urban Planning

Aqueduct: Topic Page
Any artificial channel or conduit for water, originally applied to water supply tunnels, but later used to refer to elevated structures of stone, wood, or iron carrying navigable canals across valleys.
Bridge: Topic Page
Structure that provides a continuous path or road over water, valleys, ravines, or above other roads.
Canal: Topic Page
Artificial waterway constructed for drainage, irrigation, or navigation.
City planning: Topic Page
Process of planning for the improvement of urban centers in order to provide healthy and safe living conditions, efficient transport and communication, adequate public facilities, and aesthetic surroundings.
Dam: Topic Page
Structure built across a river to hold back a body of water (called a reservoir) in order to prevent flooding, provide water for irrigation and storage, and provide hydroelectric power.
Fortification: Topic Page
System of defense structures for protection from enemy attacks. Fortification developed along two general lines: permanent sites built in peacetime, and emplacements and obstacles hastily constructed in the field in time of war.
Fountain: Topic Page
Natural or artificially conveyed flow of water. In ancient Greece columnar shrines were built over springs and dedicated to deities or nymphs.
Garden: Topic Page
Land set aside for the cultivation of flowers, herbs, vegetables, or small fruits, for either utility or ornament.
Housing: Topic Page
In general, living accommodations available for the inhabitants of a community.
Irrigation: Topic Page
In agriculture, artificial watering of the land. Although used chiefly in regions with annual rainfall of less than 20 in. (51 cm), it is also used in wetter areas to grow certain crops, e.g., rice.
Town planning: Topic Page
The design of buildings or groups of buildings in a physical and social context, concentrating on the relationship between various buildings and their environment, as well as on their uses.
Tunnel: Topic Page
Passageway through a mountain, under a body of water, or underground.
Zoning: Topic Page
Legislative regulations by which a municipal government seeks to control the use of buildings and land within the municipality.

Books

The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of 20th Century Architecture
Contains wide ranging and authoritative coverage of the whole spectrum of architecture and urban planning in the 20th century, and of leading architects and engineers the world over.
Time Saver Standards for Architectural Design: Technical Data for Professional Practice by Michael J. Crosbie
One of the most widely recognized and respected resources for architects, engineers, and designers, bringing together the knowledge, techniques, and skills of some of the most well-known experts in the field.
Dictionary of Architecture and Construction
Comprehensive in scope, this title's range spans terms encountered in the practice of architecture from Classical to green, from traditional materials to the latest products, from precise definitions of architectural styles to the particulars of specifications writing.

Publisher Collection Books

The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Homes through World History
Covers the homes of ancient times to the late Middle Ages, the Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution, and the Post-Industrial Revolution to the Present.

Please note: Publisher Collections are not part of Credo General Reference collections. Your library may not have access, please check your subscription.

Elements & Styles

Architectural Elements

Arch: Topic Page
The spanning of a wall opening by means of separate units assembled into an upward curve that maintains its shape and stability through the mutual pressure of a load and the separate pieces.
Buttress: Topic Page
Mass of masonry built against a wall to strengthen it.
Caisson: Topic Page
In engineering, a chamber, usually of steel but sometimes of wood or reinforced concrete, used in the construction of foundations or piers in or near a body of water.
Column
From The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Art Terms
A free-standing pillar, usually circular in section, and often built in accordance with one of the orders of architecture.
Cornice
From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Molded or decorated projection that forms the crowning feature at the top of a building wall or other architectural element; specifically, the uppermost of the three principal members of the classic entablature, hence by extension any similar crowning and projecting element in the decorative arts.
Dome: Topic Page
A roof circular or (rarely) elliptical in plan and usually hemispherical in form, placed over a circular, square, oblong, or polygonal space.
Molding: Topic Page
In architecture, furniture, and decorative objects, a surface or group of surfaces of projecting or receding contours.
Spire: Topic Page
High, tapering structure crowning a tower and having a general pyramidal outline.
Tower: Topic Page
Structure, the greatest dimension of which is its height.
Tracery: Topic Page
Bands or bars of stone, wood, or other material, either subdividing an opening or standing in relief against a wall and forming an ornamental pattern of solid members and open spaces.
Vault: Topic Page
Ceiling over a room, formed in any one of a variety of curved shapes.
Window: Topic Page
In architecture, the casement or sash, fitted with glass, which closes an opening in the wall of a structure without excluding light and air.

Architectural Styles

Bauhaus: Topic Page
German school of art, design, and architecture founded in 1919 in Weimar by the architect Walter Gropius, who aimed to fuse art, design, architecture, and crafts into a unified whole.
Brutalism
From Bloomsbury Guide to Human Thought
Brutalism (from French brut, ‘unadorned’) was an architectural movement which had great vogue in the 1950s and 1960s.
Functionalism
From The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of 20th Century Architecture
Architectural principle according to which the form of a building is to be derived from the function it is intended to fulfill; the schematic and technological aspect of architectural modernism (Rationalism), whose wider theoretical stance comprises also philosophical, political, social, economic, stylistic and symbolical questions.
Georgian architecture: Topic Page
It includes several trends in English architecture that were predominant during the reigns (1714–1830) of George I, George II, George III, and George IV.
Gothic architecture: Topic Page
Style of architecture that flourished in Europe from the mid-12th century to the end of the 15th century.
Gothic revival: Topic Page
Term designating a return to the building styles of the Middle Ages.
Green design
From The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Design Since 1900
Is a general design term that emerged in the late 1980s. An international surge of interest in ecological issues resulted from various man-made disasters (e.g., the leaks of radiation at Chernobyl and crude oil in Alaska) combined with the growing awareness of the accumulating effects on the environment of the industrial world (e.g., global warming).
International style
From The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of 20th Century Architecture
The phrase ‘International Style’ was one among many terms used in the 1920s to denote modern architecture. Introduced by an American in order to characterize a particular kind of European architecture (Rationalism), the term became generally applied in later decades to a broad range of contemporary buildings.
Islamic architecture: Topic Page
The architecture of the Muslim world, highly diverse but unified by climate, culture, and a love of geometric and arabesque ornament, as well as by the mobility of ideas, artisans, and architects throughout the region.
Norman architecture: Topic Page
Style of architecture used in England in the 11th and 12th centuries, also known as Romanesque.
Organic architecture
From The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of 20th Century Architecture
As with most concepts used in architecture, the concept of an ‘organic’ style is borrowed from other fields and remains difficult to delimit once applied to architecture and building. It subsumes the harmonic relationship between the whole and the parts, but is also tied to natural processes such as birth, growth, and death.
Southwestern architecture
From The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Regional Cultures: The Southwest
The quintessential Southwestern architecture is that found in Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico—hand-crafted adobe structures in shades of warm oranges and sunset reds, with flat roofs and projecting vigas.
Tudor style: Topic Page
Descriptive of the English architecture and decoration of the first half of the 16th cent., prevailing during the reigns (1485–1558) of Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary I.
Vernacular architecture
From Encyclopedia of American Studies
According to architect Amos Rapoport ninety-five percent of the world's structures qualify as examples of vernacular buildings, if what is understood by the term are those structures that are not designed by professional architects.
Victorian architecture
From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
Style of architecture, furnituremaking, and decorative art covering the reign of Queen Victoria, from 1837 to 1901. The era was influenced by significant industrial and urban development, and the massive expansion of the British Empire.
Church Buildings: Topic Page
In architecture, a building designed as a place of worship for the Christian church community.

Prehistoric & Ancient

Prehistoric Architecture

Barrow: Topic Page
Burial mound, usually composed of earth but sometimes of stones.
Easter Island: Topic Page
An isolated volcanic island in the Pacific, 3700 km (2300 miles) west of Chile, of which it is a dependency: discovered on Easter Sunday, 1722; annexed by Chile in 1888; noted for the remains of an aboriginal culture.
Megalith: Topic Page
Prehistoric stone monument of the late Neolithic (New Stone Age) or early Bronze Age.
Monolith: Topic Page
Single isolated stone or column, usually standing and of great size, used as a form of monument.
Pyramid
From The classical tradition
Architectural form consisting of a square or trapezoidal base with four triangular sides meeting at a central point or apex. The pyramid achieved its characteristic form in pharaonic Egypt, where edifices of this type were employed as sepulchral monuments.

Ziggurat
From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Form of temple common to the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians. The ziggurat was a pyramidal structure, built in receding tiers upon a rectangular, oval, or square platform, with a shrine at the summit.

Prehistoric Structures

Acropolis: Topic Page
The Acropolis of Athens was a ceremonial site beginning in the Neolithic Period. The area was adorned during the time of Cimon and Pericles with some of the world's greatest architectural and sculptural monuments.

Avebury: Topic Page
Europe's largest stone circle (diameter 412 m/1,350 ft), in Wiltshire, England.

Machu Picchu: Topic Page
Inca site in Peru. The imposing city is one of the largest pre-Columbian sites found virtually intact.

Newgrange
From Brewer's Dictionary of Irish Phrase and Fable
A megalithic passage tomb dating from about 3200 bc. It is situated in the Boyne Valley, near Slane in Co. Meath. The grave-mound, which is kidney-shaped, is about 11 m (36 ft) high and 90 m (300 ft) in diameter, and has been reconstructed with materials found on the site after a major excavation that began in 1962.

Stonehenge: Topic Page
Megalithic monument on Salisbury Plain, 3 km/1.9 mi west of Amesbury in Wiltshire, England.

Ancient Structures

Colosseum: Topic Page
Also known as the Flavian amphitheatre, the Colosseum in Rome was the largest of the ancient amphitheatres.

Great Wall of China: Topic Page
Fortifications, c.1,500 mi (2,400 km) long, winding across N China from Gansu prov. to Hebei prov. on the Yellow Sea.

Hadrian's Wall: Topic Page
Line of fortifications built by the Roman emperor Hadrian across northern Britain from the Cumbrian coast on the west to the North Sea on the east.

Pantheon
From The Bloomsbury Guide to Art
Originally built under Agrippa in 27 bc, the present building is of ad 118-25 and is entirely the work of the Emperor Hadrian, an amateur architect.

Parthenon: Topic Page
[Gr.,=the virgin's place], temple sacred to Athena, on the acropolis at Athens. Built under Pericles between 447 B.C. and 432 B.C.

Petra: Topic Page
Ancient rock city in present-day Jordan. The site includes some 800 structures, the best known of which is the Khazneh el-Farun, a mausoleum, monument, or temple with a two-story facade and Hellenistic split pediment.

Seven wonders of the ancient world
From Science in the Ancient World: An Encyclopedia
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World were selected by the ancients themselves as being astonishing examples of human creativity and construction.

Ancient Architecture

Byzantine Architecture: Topic Page
The architecture of the Byzantine Empire at its outset was essentially that of the Late Roman Empire from which it emerged in the early fourth century CE.

Egyptian architecture
From The Columbia Encyclopedia
The architecture of the ancient Egyptians, formulated prior to 3000 B.C. and lasting through the Ptolemaic period (323–30 B.C.).

Greek architecture: Topic Page
The art of building that arose on the shores of the Aegean Sea and flourished in the ancient world.

Roman architecture: Topic Page
Structures produced by the ancient Romans.

Greek Orders

Orders of architecture: Topic Page
In classical tyles of architecture the various columnar types fall, in general, into the five so-called classical orders, which are named Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan, and Composite.

Doric Order: Topic Page
Earliest of the orders of architecture developed by the Greeks and the one that they employed for most buildings.

Ionic Order: Topic Page
The spreading scroll-shaped capital is the distinctive feature of the Ionic order; it was primarily a product of Asia Minor.

Corinthian Order: Topic Page
Most ornate of the classic orders of architecture. It was also the latest, not arriving at full development until the middle of the 4th cent. B.C.

Early

Famous Structures

Canterbury Cathedral: Topic Page
Cathedral in Canterbury, Kent, England. The finest work of four centuries of medieval English architecture, from Norman to Perpendicular, is represented in the building.

Hagia Sophia: Topic Page
Originally a Christian church at Constantinople (now Istanbul), later a mosque, and now converted into a museum.

Hampton Court Palace: Topic Page
Former royal residence near Richmond, England, 24 km/15 mi west of central London. Hampton Court is one of the greatest historical monuments in the UK.

Hereford Cathedral: Topic Page
Cathedral in the city of Hereford, Herefordshire, England. Founded not later than 680 by its first bishop, Putta, it was destroyed in 1055 by the Welsh, and rebuilt late in the 11th century.

Salisbury Cathedral: Topic Page
Cathedral in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. With the exception of its crowning tower and spire, it is a building of uniform Early English design, built to one plan between 1220 and 1258 (unlike any other English cathedral except Exeter).

Sistine Chapel: Topic Page
Private chapel of the popes in Rome, one of the principal glories of the Vatican. Built (1473) under Pope Sixtus IV, it is famous for its decorations.

Taj Mahal: Topic Page
It is considered one of the most beautiful buildings in the world and the finest example of the late style of Indian Islamic architecture.

Tower of London: Topic Page
A palace-fortress started by William I as a wooden fortification in 1067 and replaced by him with one in stone (c.1077–97).

Westminster Abbey: Topic Page
A Gothic church in London: site of a Benedictine monastery (1050-65); scene of the coronations of almost all English monarchs since William I.

Windsor Castle: Topic Page
British royal residence in Windsor, founded by William the Conqueror on the site of an earlier fortress.

York Minster: Topic Page
Cathedral in York, England. It is the cathedral and metropolitan church of St Peter, and one of the most famous of Europe's Gothic buildings.

Pantheon (Rome, Italy): Topic Page
Constructed during the reign of the emperor Hadrian between 118 and 125 ce in the Campus Martius district of ancient Rome, the imposing Pantheon still dominates its surroundings today.

Cathédrale de Chartres: Topic Page
The Cathedral of Chartres, dedicated to the Virgin Mary (Notre Dame) and situated approximately 80 kilometers from Paris, is one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in France and a popular place of pilgrimage due to the presence of the Sancta Camisa, a tunic said to have belonged to the Virgin Mary and given to the church in 876.

Architects

Leon Battista Alberti (1404 - 1472): Topic Page
Alberti seems to have turned to architecture in the 1440s. His treatise De Re Aedificatoria (On Architecture) was substantially complete in 1452.

Giovanni Bernini (1598 - 1680): Topic Page
Italian sculptor and architect, b. Naples. He was the dominant figure of the Italian baroque.

Francesco Borromini (1599 - 1667): Topic Page
Borromini broke with the past by a combination of fearless invention and respect for geometrical form and structural principles: it is precisely these characteristics that his work shares with the Gothic buildings it sometimes seems to imitate.

Donato Bramante (1444 - 1514): Topic Page
Italian Renaissance architect and painter, b. near Urbino. His buildings in Rome are considered the most characteristic examples of High Renaissance style.

Filippo Brunelleschi (1377 - 1446): Topic Page
The Florentine artist Filippo Brunelleschi was architect, engineer, and sculptor.

Charles Bulfinch (1763 - 1844): Topic Page
American architect whose major works include the Massachusetts State House in Boston (1798) and the completion of the U.S. Capitol (1830).

Nicholas Hawksmoor (1661 - 1736): Topic Page
English architect. Hawksmoor spent much of his career as an assistant to his two most illustrious contemporaries, Sir Christopher Wren and Sir John Vanbrugh.

François Mansart (1598 - 1667): Topic Page
In many ways the French architect François Mansart followed the French classical style created by Salomon de Brosse (1571 - 1626).

Balthasar Neumann (1687 - 1753): Topic Page
Balthasar Neumann was one of the two leading German architects of the 18th century, the other being J.M. Fischer.

Andrea Palladio (1508 - 1580): Topic Page
Italian architect who revived and developed classical architecture, especially the ancient Roman ideals of symmetrical planning and harmonic proportions.

Giorgio Vasari (1511 - 1574): Topic Page
Italian art historian, architect, and painter. His most important architectural work was the Uffizi Palace, Florence (now an art gallery).

Sir Christopher Wren (1632 - 1723): Topic Page
Sir Christopher Wren was England's greatest Baroque architect. As an architect of European stature, Wren exerted an enormous influence over late-17th- and early-18th-century British architecture.

Modern

Famous Structures

Brooklyn Bridge
From Encyclopedia of American Studies
The Brooklyn Bridge is arguably New York's most enduring and inspiring architectural landmark and a legitimate global icon.

Chrysler Building
From Encyclopedia of Urban America: The Cities and Suburbs
The formal and symbolic flamboyance of the Chrysler Building in New York City was occasionally witty, often elegant, and resolutely unorthodox.

Crystal Palace
From Encyclopedia of World Trade From Ancient Times to the Present
An architectural wonder that housed the 1851 Great Exhibition of the Works of All Nations in England.

Empire State Building
From Encyclopedia of Urban America: The Cities and Suburbs
For many years, the Empire State Building was the most famous of New York’s many skyscrapers, eclipsed perhaps only since 1972 when the World Trade Center exceeded its height.

Fallingwater
From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Bear Run, Pa., house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Fallingwater (1936–39) is an architectural tour de force of Wright's organic philosophy, whereby a building should be completely integrated with its environment.

Guggenheim Museum
From The Columbia Encyclopedia
Officially Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, major museum of modern art in New York City.

Statue of Liberty: Topic Page
A giant statue, on Liberty Island, New York harbour, of a woman, sculpted by Frédéric Bartholdi, given to the US by France.

World Trade Center: Topic Page
Former building complex in lower Manhattan, New York City, consisting of seven buildings and a shopping concourse on a 16-acre (6.5-hectare) site; it was destroyed by a terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001.

Architects

Le Corbusier (1887 - 1965): Topic Page
Like Gropius and Mies van der Rohe, he helped to ensure the universal recognition of a new architectural language which he believed spoke for the rapidly changing patterns of 20th-century life.

Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (1832 - 1923): Topic Page
French engineer who constructed the Eiffel Tower for the 1889 Paris Exhibition.

Walter Gropius (1883 - 1969): Topic Page

German architect, in the USA from 1937. A founder director of the Bauhaus school in Weimar 1919-28, he advocated teamwork in design and artistic standards in industrial production.

Charles McKim (1847 - 1909): Topic Page
American architect, b. Chester co., Pa., studied (1867–70) at the École des Beaux-Arts. He was one of the founders of the firm of McKim, Mead, and Bigelow, which in 1879 became McKim, Mead, and White.

I.M. Pei (1917 - ): Topic Page
Chinese-American architect. He is known for his sensuous use of such materials as marble, concrete, and glass and for his soaring interior spaces.

Mies Van der Rohe (1886 - 1969): Topic Page
German-American architect. A pioneer of modern architecture and one of its most influential figures, he is famous for his minimalist architectural dictum "less is more."

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867 - 1959): Topic Page
American architect; influential through his love of natural textures, his mastery of organic architecture, and his conception of architectural space and open planning.