Art Terms Art encyclopedia Page 2

ACTION PAINTING

Abstract expressionist painting is associated with one name in particular: Jackson Pollock. With daring techniques such as "action painting," the American continues to influence the art scene to this day.

LANDSCAPE

Reflection of human feelings or spiritual image of nature: these are common aspects of landscape painting of the 18th and 19th centuries. But the special genre of representational painting did not always occupy such a high place.

BIEDERMEIER

Biedermeier is on its way to no longer being regarded as a musty product of stuffy taste, but is being rediscovered as a highly cultivated art movement.

BAROQUE ART

No epoch in European cultural history is as characterized by contradictions as the age of the Baroque - yet this style of art, which is often dismissed as "pompous," is once again attracting increasing attention.

NUDES IN ART

The nude is one of the oldest and most fascinating motifs in art. After all, the motif of the unclothed body offers virtually inexhaustible possibilities for depicting man's view of himself, his ideals, fears and dreams.

ZERO

End of painting, new beginning of art: Zero marks, as it were, the zero point before the new artistic beginning and changed the face of German post-war art so profoundly and lastingly that the effects are still noticeable today.

BRÜCKE

On June 7, 1905, four young Dresden students founded the artist group "Brücke". Their goal was to find new forms of pictorial expression with wild strokes and ecstatic colors. German Expressionism was born.

INSIGHT INTO PRIVATE COLLECTIONS

Insights into private art collections: Whether old masters or contemporaries, art is booming. More and more art enthusiasts are building up their own, often contemporary, collections. Thus, great art treasures are often hidden in private rooms.

PORTRAIT

The depiction of the human figure is one of the oldest motifs in painting. But it was not until the Renaissance and its new view of man as an autonomous individual that the portrait gained in importance.

THE NEUE WILDE

Painting experienced a brief but fierce renaissance in the early 1980s. Young artists joined forces to paint against the formal asceticism of Minimal and Concept Art.

LIGHT ART

Art with light? With artificial light? Eectrical light is one of the prerequisites for creating what is now called light art. The examination with predominantly artificial light, is a relatively young, but increasingly independent art genre.

DADA

In their rebellion against bourgeois artistic standards, they favored incomprehensible and often shocking artistic procedures: the Dadaists, who questioned the classical concept of art more fundamentally than any movement before them.

READYMADE

Plaything of Dadaism and the Surrealists, icon for Pop Art, Nouveau Réalisme and Conceptual Art: the Readymades, inseparable from Marcel Duchamp, revolutionized the concept of art and the understanding of art.

VIDEO ART

Originating as an art form in the early 1960s in Germany and America, it has since advanced to become one of the most influential genres of 20th century art: video art.

POSTMODERNISM

It is to be seen as a countermovement to modernity, which is increasingly perceived as sterile and totalitarian: Postmodernism. A spiritual-cultural movement whose beginnings lie in the second half of the 20th century.

IMPRESSIONISM

An exhibition in Paris in 1874 gave birth to what was probably the most exciting and up to then the newest style in 19th century art: Impressionism.

VENICE BIENNALE

The Biennale has been held in Venice every two years since 1895 and is one of the most important exhibitions of international contemporary art.

POP ART

Whether Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, or Robert Rauschenberg: no other concept of style in the modern art history of the 20th century has shaped our idea of aesthetics, design, and the "American way of life" as decisively as Pop Art.

PHOTOGRAPHY

More than any other visual medium, photography has shaped our perception of the world. It is an omnipresent medium. Against this backdrop, it is surprising that photography is taking up more and more space in the current art scene. Can a mass medium be art?

SURREALISM

The founders of Surrealism did not initially see themselves as representatives of a new art movement, but rather as advocates of a revolutionary worldview in which the unconscious, the paradoxical, and the dreamlike played a primary role.