Back to list

Added Aug 23, 2018

Art Glossary

This glossary will be periodically amended as time permits, adding more terms.

Abstract art: art that does not attempt to represent external reality, but seeks to achieve its effect using shapes, forms, colors, and texture

Contemporary art: art that is created in our time, after the 1950s to 1960s.

Giclee print: refers to a technology that uses high-quality inkjet printers to reproduce art. Reproductions can be on various materials such as canvas, fine art paper, and others.

Impressionist art: art term that was first used in France during the 19th century to describe a trend toward painting the more mundane things of everyday life as opposed to grander subject matter showing events such as major battles. The impressionist artists paint an ‘impression’ of what they see rather than painting in a realism style. Impressionism seeks to capture the movement and life of what is happening in the present moment.

Modern art: art created between the 1860s to 1880s and the 1950s to 1960s.

Photorealism: art that is realism art but generally referring to art created from studying a photograph and painting an exact duplicate on canvas.

Realism art: the term began in the 19th century in France to describe art that attempts to show the reality of what it depicts without the addition of artistic conventions with regard to form and color.

Surrealism art: art that reinvents the human experience, doing away with a rational vision of life and depicting more of the experience of the unconscious and dreamworld. It represents the unexpected and the uncanny instead of the conventional.