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Tate Britain
Industry: Art history
Number of terms: 11718
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An intaglio technique in which a metal plate is manually incised with a burin, an engraving tool like a very fine chisel with a lozenge-shaped tip. The burin makes incisions into the metal at various angles and with varying pressure which dictates the quantity of ink the line can hold—hence variations in width and darkness when printed. The technique of engraving metal dates from classical antiquity as a method of decorating objects. However it was not until about 1430 in Germany that engraved plates began to be used for making prints. Photoengraving is a process using acid to etch a photographically produced image onto a metal plate that can then be printed from.
Industry:Art history
The process of recreating a digital art work to keep it alive. As technology becomes more sophisticated, the early video cameras, software programs and computers of the 1970s and 1980s are virtually obsolete. Conservators have had to emulate artworks made on oudated technology—such as an old Spectrum computer—in existing technology. This process has caused considerable debate about the nature of conservation in this context and about technological nostalgia in contemporary art.
Industry:Art history
In printmaking any process used to create a raised or depressed surface. It is sometimes used to create false plate-marks in lithographs or screenprints.
Industry:Art history
The age of Queen Elizabeth I (reigned 1558-1603) saw a flowering of the arts in Britain not least in the plays of Shakespeare. Painting flourished too, although principally in the form of portraiture. The Queen herself took a keen interest in her portraits, guiding artists such as Hilliard and Gheeraerts in the creation of stylised images of immense elegance, wealth and power. This artificial and decorative style became characteristic of Elizabethan painting in general. Highly skilled artists often remained anonymous as in The Cholmondeley Ladies.
Industry:Art history
The most common examples of electronic media are video recordings, audio recordings, slide presentations, CD-ROM and online content. The term also incorporates the equipment used to create these recordings or presentations; television, radio, telephone, computer. Much of the theory surrounding the use of electronic media by artists is based on Walter Benjamin's seminal essay of 1936, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, which discussed the democratisation of art, freed from its confines as a unique entity thanks to the development of photographic reproduction and forms such as cinema, where there is no unique original.
Industry:Art history
King Edward VII of Britain was the son of Queen Victoria whose longevity meant that he did not accede to the throne until 1901, when he was sixty. Initiated the Entente Cordiale which in 1904 marked new era of good relations with France. He died in 1910. As Prince of Wales he had been notorious for his love of good living and his reign, and the term Edwardian, is associated with the final phase of the long period of peace, prosperity and upper-class dominance and luxury that was brought to an end by the First World War. In France known as Belle Epoque. The great painter of the Edwardian rich was Sargent, followed by De Laszlo, but the life of more ordinary people was vividly depicted by e. G. Strang.
Industry:Art history
A series of identical impressions from the same printing surface. Since the late nineteenth century the number of prints produced has usually been restricted and declared as a 'limited edition'; before this prints were often produced in as many numbers as the process would allow. Modern artists' prints are usually limited to a specified number, anything between 2 and 1,000 or more. Sometimes the quantity is dictated by the process—the plate wears out—but more commonly it is restricted by the artist or publisher, in which case the printing surface is usually destroyed. Editioned prints are usually signed, numbered, and often dated by the artist. An edition of twenty-five will be numbered 1/25, 2/25, etc. These are usually accompanied by a number of proof prints, identical to the edition; those produced for artist are marked 'AP' (artist's proof), those for the printer or publisher 'PP' (printer's proof). A number of working proofs may also be made. 'Bon à tirer' (good to print) proofs provide a standard to guide the printer.
Industry:Art history
A group of students at the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf in the mid 1970s who studied under the influential photographers Bernd and Hiller Becher, known for their rigorous devotion to the 1920s German tradition of Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity). The Bechers' photographs were clear, black and white pictures of industrial archetypes (pitheads, water towers, coal bunkers). Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Axel Hütte, Thomas Ruff and Thomas Struth modified the approach of their teachers by applying new technical possibilities and a personal and contemporary vision, while retaining the documentary method their tutors propounded.
Industry:Art history
An intaglio process in which incised lines are drawn on a plate with a sharp, pointed needle-like instrument (not the engraving burin). Drypoint is usually done on copper plates as the softer metal lends itself to this technique. The process of incising creates a slightly raised ragged rough edge to the lines, known as the burr. Both the incised line and specifically the burr receive ink when the plate is wiped, giving the printed line a distinctive velvety look. Owing to the delicate nature of the burr, drypoint is usually made in small editions, stopping before the burr is crushed by the pressure of the intaglio press. Drypoint is often combined with other etching techniques.
Industry:Art history
Essentially, drawing is a technique in which images are depicted on a flat surface by making lines, though drawings can also contain tonal areas, washes and other non-linear marks. Ink, pencil, crayon, charcoal and chalk are the most commonly used materials, but drawings can be made with or in combination with paint and any other wet or dry media.
Industry:Art history