| Term | Description |
Sacral-Idyllic | A landscape scene whose theme is usually of country life. |
Salmagundi Club | Founded in 1871 in New York City by a group of artists, the Salmagundi Club became an important gathering place for artists to exhibit their work, exchange ideas, and have much comaraderie. The group began as a sketching club, but expanded to formal exhibitions and auctions, elaborate social events, and the building of commodious structures.
An underlying bond was and remains a commitment to realist styles regardless of the trends among critics and the marketplace.
Early members first met in the studio of sculptor John Scott Hartley, and among their activities was boxing, fencing, much smoking, eating, and drinking coffee. Women were not admitted until 1973.
In its early days, Salmagundi Club members were followed closely by the press because of their bohemiun lifestyle and exotic parties.
The Club has been located in Greenwich Village, which in 1871 was the center of culture and gentility.
Credit: "American Artist", 'Salmagundi Club Turns 125', December, 1996 |
Salon/Paris Salons | A word generally descriptive of a fashionable gathering of artists, writers and intellectuals held in a private home. The term is linked to Paris, France where Salons began as state-sponsored exhibitions of conservative academic art juried by government appointees. The early Salons were controlled by the Academy of Fine Arts, but the term’s meaning expanded to included a variety of both official and dissident organizations. Being asked to participate in these Salons was a special mark of prestige for American artists, who, following the Civil War, began going to Paris in large numbers. The Salons placed their work in "a high level and fully international context." (Weinburg 23) The Salon critieria also set international standards for painting and led American taste to switch their preferences from English to French fine art. Salon exhibitions originated in the 17th century with members of the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. Installation was at the Salon Carre of the Louvre with permission of King Louis XIV (1643-1715). In the 19th century, these exhibits grew too large for the Salon Carre, but continued to be named after the venue. Before 1834, the Salons were biennial, but then became annuals sponsored by the French government. In 1881 control was transferred to the Societe des Artistes Francais. In 1890, the French government organized a new Salon on the Champs Elysses under the auspices of the Societe Nationale Des Beaux-Arts. Its exhibitions were held in the spring at the same time as that of the Society des Artists Francais. Among 18th and 19th century American artists studying in Paris who exhibited at the Salons were John Vanderlyn, George Healy, Oliver Frazer, Christian Schussele, Marie-Francois-Regis Gignoux, Thomas Hicks, John LeFarge and Edward Harrison May. Sources: Barbara Weinberg, "The Lure of Paris"; ArtLex.com, courtesy of Michael Delahunt
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Salt Lake Art Center School | Art school affiliated with the Salt Lake City Art Center, it opened in 1931. Among the teachers were Joseph Everett, Maurice Brooks, Rose Salisbury and Michael Cannon. Gordon Cope served as the first director |
San Francisco Art Association | Founded in 1871 to promote and cultivate "fine arts in the community," its organizers, including civic-minded non-artist patrons, met at the library of the Mechanics Institute. The first SFAA exhibition was 1872, and painter Juan Buckingham Wandesford served as first president. In 1874, the Association began its involvement with art education and museums by opening the San Francisco School of Design, which, affiliated in 1893 with the University of California and became the California School of Design with its museum being the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art. In 1916, the Association joined with the San Francisco Society of Artists, avant-garde painters, and took over the directorship of the Museum of Modern Art in the Palace of Fine Arts. The teaching academy name then changed in 1917 to the California School of Fine Arts, which in 1926 was housed in the Association headquarters at 800 Chestnut Street. In 1961, the Association and the CSFA merged under the name of the San Francisco Art Institute, a name it has retained. Early artist members of the SFAA included Rowena Meeks Abdy, Harry Best, Albert Bierstadt, Hugo Fisher. Euphemia Fortune, Armin Hansen, William Keith, Jules Tavernier and Raymond Dabb Yelland. Source: Betty Hoag McGlynn, “The San Francisco Art Association”, Traditional Fine Arts Online: http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/2aa/2aa651.htm; AskART database (LPD) |
San Francisco School of Design | See San Francisco Art Association |
San Ildefonso Pottery | From a Tewa-speaking Indian Pueblo north of Santa Fe, New Mexico, San Ildefenso Pottery of the 20th century is polished black-on-black ware. Its most famous potter is Maria Martinez. She often signed her work "Maria" or "Marie" and is thought to be the first Pueblo potter to sign a pot. She and her husband, Julian, developed the unique blackware by using powdered dung in the firing process that changed the traditional red pots to black. The couple worked together until his death in 1943. She died in 1980.
Source:
"Native American Art of the Southwest" by Linda Eaton |
Sand Painting | From a Navajo Indian word "iikaah", meaning "the place where the gods come and go". Sand Paintings are linked to the Southwest Navajo culture and have been a part of their religious rituals, especially healing, from time undocumented in white culture. For the healing ceremony, traditionally a Sand Painting is made under the guidance of a medicine man and should be destroyed before dawn. If not destroyed, dire retribution could be visited upon both the medicine man and the person he is attempting to help. The patient was supposed to sit in the middle of the completed painting, face the east toward the door of the hogan, an eight-sided home. Then the Navajo gods would arrive from the east and impart their healing powers to the Sand Painting. Until the latter part of the 20th century, Sand Paintings were one to three inches thick and composed of a sprinkling through a cupped hand of different colored materials such as flower petals, rocks, fresh sand and pollen. Four principal colors were used: White symbolizing dawn and the sacred mountain of Shell Peak or Mount Blanca in Colorado; Turqoise blue for the sky and for Turquoise Mountain or Mount Tailor in New Mexico; Yellow for twilight and for Abalone Shell Mountain or San Francisco Peak in Arizona; and Black for darkness and for Black Coal Mountain or Mount Hesperus in Colorado. A woven batten made from cloth or animal skin was used to smooth the mixture. In the 1940s, the Navajos began making permanent sand paintings, which have been purchased by reservation visitors and which allow designs to be kept for posterity. The components are sprinkled onto an exoxy-covered board, but designs are original to protect the magic and special significance of the traditional paintings. Also, dating from the 1930s, Navajos have used traditional sand-painting designs in weavings, but again motifs are varied so as not to violate sacred meanings. Source: Helaine Fendelman and Joe Rosson, Scripps Howard News Service, "Scottsdale Tribune", 7/9/2005, D2 (LPD) |
Santa Clara Pottery | Pottery whose signature mark is the bear's paw and that is made by Pueblo Indians of Santa Clara, New Mexico. Polished blackware and polished redware are the two most common types known commercially. They date back to about 1879 when examples were collected by representatives of the Smithsonian Institution. Demands for ceramics as collectibles rather than practical items led to a growing commercial market and to modifications such as pots which no longer hold water and aesthetic carved decoration. Carved designs first appeared in 1920, pioneered by Sefarina Tafoya, one of the most famous of the Santa Clara potters along with her daughter Margaret Tafoya. The blackware was smothered in dung before firing, causing the carbon in the smoke to be absorbed by the clay. The bear's paw, a unique Santa Clara design, commemorates the bear who, according to Santa Clara legend, led the Indians to water in time of drouth.
Source:
Native American Art of the Southwest by Linda Eaton |
Santa Cruz Art League | An association founded in Santa Cruz, California in 1919 by Frank Heath and Margaret Rogers. It was an outgrowth of a group of student painters of Heath's and continues into the 21st Century in a location at 526 Broadway in Santa Cruz. The mission is to encourage visual and performing arts through classes and exhibitions. Sources: Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"; website: http://www.scal.org/ (LPD) |
Santa Fe Art Colony | A loose knit association of artists active in the early 20th Century in Santa Fe, New Mexico, it was well established between 1900 and 1920 and remained active until 1942. Members "helped forge a robust regional art movement" and included artists and writers. About 75 artists lived there year round, and others were seasonal visitors. "The founders of the Santa Fe colony were Carlos Vierra and Kenneth M. Chapman." (Gibson, 31) Among the founding members were Marsden Hartley, Andrew Dasburg, Robert Henri and John Sloan, who is regarded as the most dominant member. Accomplishments of the Colony members including the establishment of the Museum of New Mexico in the Palace of the Governors, and participation in archaeological research led by professionals from the University and the American Archaeological Institute. Source: "Santa Fe Art Colony", Gerald Peters Gallery", Exhition catalogue by Sharyn Udall and Julie Schimmel, 2006; Arrell Morgan Gibson, "The Santa Fe and Taos Colonies". (LPD) |
Saugatuck (Ox-Bow) School of Painting | Founded in 1910 as a summer school near the village of Saugatuck, Michigan by Walter Marshall Clute and Frederick Fursman, teachers at the Art Institute of Chicago. Shortly after the school was renamed Ox-Bow and was moved several times from the Bandle Farm, a place where Clute and Fursman loved to paint on the east bank of the Kalamazoo River and property owned by the family of artist Bessie Bandle. The final location was in Saugatuck at the Riverside Hotel, a 20-room restored hotel, later named the Ox-Bow Inn. In 1915, Fursman became the Director for the next 30 years. That same year, the School was gifted 110 acres for expansion and painting expeditions. In 1919, the entity was renamed the Ox-Bow School of Painting and was taken over by the Art Institute of Chicago. Other art schools formed in the area: AK Studio, Taylor Art School founded in 1931 by Cora Bliss Taylor, and Greason School of Painting founded in 1931 by William Greason. Source: www.michiganhistorymagazine.com/extra/2008/septoct/saugatuck.html; http://www.ox-bow.org/history/; Edward Bentley; (LPD) |
Scale* | Size in relation to some “normal” or constant size. Compare with proportion. |
Scandinavian Academy | See Academie Scandinave |
Scarab Club | A Detroit organization formed in 1910 with the purpose of providing a place of fellowship, instruction, and exhibition for artists.
It is the descendant of the Hopkin Club, which started in 1907 by admirers of old "Bob" Hopkin, Detroit's first painter of wide repute. After Hopkin's death in 1910, Club members reorganized it with the name Scarab Club, after the Egyptian beetle which in the Egyptian culture was a symbol of immortality.
The Clubhouse is at 217 Farnsworth in Detroit, and the lounge has a large mural by Paul Honore.
Credit:
www.dia.org/ucca/scarab/scarab.html
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School of Art | A term describing artists sharing creative ideas and methods that committed them "to a single theme, style, technique, and/or art philosophy". (60) An example is the 19th century Hudson River School, about 60 artists whose 'school' was not an art school with classrooms, but was shared ideas and painting experiences with easels and sketch pads in the Hudson Valley. Source of quote: Arrell Morgan Gibson,"The Santa Fe and Taos Colonies" (LPD) |
School of Representational Art (SORA) | Founded in 1990 in Chicago by Bruno Surdo, SORA is dedicated to training art students in traditional, academic methods, which Surdo learned in Minneapolis at the Atelier Lack. SORA has a four-year curriculum, with the first year learning to draw from casts, "the time honored tradition", and from live models. The second year is a transition from charcoal drawing to monochromatic oils, moving to bust portraiture and emphasizing accuracy of angles and anatomy. Still life is introduced in the third year, with life drawing and portraiture continued. In the fourth year, creative portraiture is the focus with the emphasis on expressiveness or emotions, mood and symbolism. Source: Mark Mitchell, 'Sight-Size and More at SORA', "Drawing" magazine, Summer 2007 |
Scratchboard | A medium consisting of a layer of alkyd clay (white) on a support board. The white clay is coated with permanent India Ink which is scratched, scraped and stippled with sharp tools creating white lines (grooves) in a variety of textures to define the image. It is a precise and exacting medium with dramatic effect. Source: Cynthia McBride, McBride Gallery, Annapolis, MD |
Screenprint, Silkscreen, Serigraph | A Screen-print or Silk-screen is an image made from a commercial reproduction process whereby paint or ink is forced through a fine screen onto the paper that has a stencil design so that exposed areas receive the paint. Parts that do not appear on the print are blocked with photosensitive emulsion that has been exposed with high intensity arc lights. To produce the direct transfer of the image from screen to paper, a squeegee is pulled from back to front. A separate stencil is required for each color if paint is used, and one hundred or more colors may be necessary to achieve the desired effect. The process of Screen-printing or Silk-screening is commonly used for printing posters, wallpaper, ceramic designs and text instructions on manufacturers goods. The term Serigraph means nearly the same thing as Screen-print or Silk-screen, but differs because of the degree of participation of the artist. Silk-screen printers are persons who make commercial art by doing translations from artists' sketches. In other words, as printers they are copying images and not creating them. But Serigraphs result from an artist's total involvement beginning with the making of the design and the stencils, and then the applying of the medium, usually paint, and then the pulling the copies. Because the creative hand-of-the-artist is totally involved, many art professionals argue that Serigraphy is a fine-art original process and not simply a printing process. This "fine-art" or creative approach to Screen-printing began in 1938 with New York City artists working for the Federal Art Project. Especially active were Anthony Velonis, Doris Meltzer, Harry Shokler, and Edward Landon. Art critic Carl Zigrosser coined the name and was so taken with the innovation he arranged for Serigraph exhibitions. Credit: Ralph Mayer, “A Dictionary of Art Terms and Techniques”; Peter Falk, "Who Was Who in American Art" (LPD) |
Sculpture in the Park | An annual sculpture exhibition and sale since 1983 in Loveland, Colorado during August. The Loveland High Plains Arts Council is the sponsor. Each year, several sculptors are selected to do a work that will be installed in Benson Park, Loveland's city park. Participating sculptors include Darlis Lamb, George Walbye, Martha Pettigrew, Jan Mapes and David Turner. Source: Editor, 'Rocky Mountains Best of the West', "Southwest Art", July 2006, p. 96 |
Sculpture* | A three-dimensional form modeled, carved or assembled. |
Scumble | The term for a "film of color laid over another paint so that it modifies the original color" but does not completely conceal it. ...Scumbled paintings are usually characterized by a pearly opalescence or a soft smoky optical effect". Scumblers are stiff bristle brushes used in the application of scumble.
Credit:
Reed Kay, "Painters Guide to Studio Methods and Materials" |
Scumblers | A term for stiff-bristled brushes that apply scumble (see Glossary). The term was also a self-assigned name of a group of Bucks County, Pennsylvania artists who, from 1900 to 1920, regularly spent their summers together in Edison, near Doylestown in Bucks County. The area was noted for picturesque scenery and distinguished by a seven-arched stone bridge, dating from 1821, which crossed the Neshaminy River.
It is thought the groups' name of Scumblers is derived from the artist term "scumble", which is a "film of color laid over another paint so that it modifies the original color" but does not completely conceal it. ...Scumbles are usually characterized by a pearly opalescence or a soft smoky optical effect". Scumblers are stiff bristle brushes used in the application of scumble (Reed Kay, PAINTERS GUIDE TO STUDIO METHODS AND MATERIALS)
Artist members who have been identified as "Scumblers" include Winfield Bardsley, Clive Clevenger, Louis Dougherty, William Hofstetter, Ellis Oliver, Charles Grafly, and John Ramsey Conner. Many of these visitors were lodged at Turk's Head Tavern in Edison, but the place where they socialized and did indoor painting was called "The Shack", a structure on property near Neshaminy Creek.
Credit:
http://www.employees.csbsju.edu/roliver/eao/scumblers/ |
Seavest Collection of Contemporary Realism | Focused on Contemporary Realist painters with the goal of asserting the resurgence of realism in art, primarily American, the collection began in 1980 with Richard D. Segal of Westchester County, New York. He wrote: "What attracted me to the art which I purchased ws simply appreciation of the aesthetic. . . I have learned and appreciated the power of poetry to offer 'a momentary stay against confusion' and found that works of art had that same effect on me". Artists represented include Janet Fish, Richard Estes, Neil Jenney, Richard Prince and Alice Neel. From September 14, 2003 to February 15, 2004, the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, New York held an exhibition of the collection titled "Facing Reality". Sources: http://www.seavestcollection.org/; http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/4aa/4aa92.htm |
Secondary Colors* | A hue created by combining two primary colors, as yellow and blue mixed together yield green. In pigment the secondary colors are orange, green and violet. |
Self-Portrait | A two or three-dimensional depiction with art materials of the artist by the artist. Many of them as originals, or even as prints, are desirable collector's items because of the personal nature of the expression---it is a way of getting close to the artist. Self-portraits are common in Europe and America from the 19th century, but the tradition is much earlier. In the ancient Greek civilization in 438 B.C., the sculptor, Phidias, reportedly was jailed for placing his self-portrait in the frieze he did for the Parthenon because it was perceived as equating himself with the gods. German artist, Albrecht Durer (1471-1528), was the first artist to create a significant number of self-portraits, beginning when he was age 28 with a depiction of himself as a Christ-like figure. Between 1629 and 1669, Van Rijn Rembrandt (1606-1669) did a series of self-portraits. Among 19th and 20th-century painters, styles of self-portraits are wide ranging from the more formal poses by William Merritt Chase and George de Forest Brush to semi-modernist of Thomas Eakins to the ultra-mod renderings by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jim Dine. Source: AskART database; John O’Hern, ‘Artists’ self-portraits’, “American Art Collector”, May 2006, pp. 40-45. (LPD) |
Serigraph | See Screenprint |
Serravezza Marble | White marble from centry Italy, it comes from quarries near Pietra Santa where the Serra and Vezza Rivers converge.
American sculptor Hiram Powers found this marble, having searched for material that was more pure than the tradionally used Carrara marble.
Serravezz marble is fine grained and resembles porcelain that in turn resembles the look that Powers sought of pure white, smoothe human flesh.
Credit:
Donald Martin Reynolds, "Masters of American Sculpture"
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Sezessionstil | See Art Nouveau. This is the Austrian term for Art Nouveau and means Secession style. |
Sfumato* | From the Italian word for “smoke”, a technique of painting in thin glazes to achieve a hazy, cloudy atmosphere, often to represent objects or landscape meant to be perceived as distant from the picture plane. |
Shade/Shading | See Tone |
Shape* | A two-dimensional area having identifiable boundaries created by lines, color of value changes or some combination of these; broadly, form. |
Shaped Canvas | An experimental method begun in the 1960s among some European and American artists whereby canvas is manipulated to form three-dimensional work and becomes the primary medium itself. This technique of using the traditional support or ground for oil painting to create sculpture is one of the leading-edge artistic innovations that blurred the distinction between painting and sculpture. A reviewer first used the words, "shaped canvas", as a formal term in September 1960 to describe a New York City exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery by Frank Stella of minimalist-shaped works that combined painting and canvas. Names of other American artists associated with the movement include Edward Clark, Lee Bontecou, Sven Lukin, Neil Williams, Charles Hinman, Richard Smith, Ellsworth Kelly, Kenneth Noland and Leon Polk Smith. Sources: “Phaidon Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Art”; Robert Atkins, “ART-SPEAK” (LPD) |
Sherwood Studio Building | Located at 58 West 57th Street in New York City, it has been described as the "uptown headquarters of art, seminal in the history of both art and housing." (Gray) Constructed in 1880 by art patron and real estate developer James Sherwood, it was pioneering as the first structure in the city to combine living and working space and was also the initial art-related facility in the neighborhood that became New York City's art center. Nearby buildings following The Sherwood were the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Students League, Carnegie Hall and upscale galleries such as Knoedler & Durand-Ruel. According to its builder, The Sherwood was to be a place for artists "in receipt of sufficient income to live comfortably, even elegantly." (Gray) The completed structure was a seven-story brick building with 44 apartments, 15 foot high studios, one or two bedrooms, an over-sized elevator to accommodate large artworks, and speaking tubes. Sherwood's great nephew, J. Carroll Beckwith along with Frederic Church are credited with suggesting the facility, and Beckwith, who oversaw the construction, "lived and worked on the top floor of the building for over thirty years." Located near big brownstone town houses such as the Cornelius Vanderbilt mansion, 'The Sherwood' became the leading center of the city's social and cultural life in the early 1900s. (Harris) However, living there was not always blissful. Occupants including Beckwith complained that there was a party every night, that Sherwood was tightfisted about maintenance, that the building's heating system did not work, the elevator was not reliable, and dogs were not allowed, etc. Resident artists included Robert Henri, Al Hirschfeld, Willard Metcalf, Robert Van Boskerck, Henry Siddons Mowbray, Herbert Denman, William Allen Sullivant, Robert Reid, Samuel Isham, Harry Watrous and Carleton Chapman. The building was demolished in 1960, and replaced with an apartment house. Sources: Christopher Gray, 'Streetscapes', archives, "The New York Times", 8/9/1998. Harris Antiques biography; http://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/2548320884/; John Davis, "Paintings and Sculpture in the National Academy of Design, 1826-1925", p. 35. (LPD) |
Shidoni Foundry | A foundry nationally known for the quality of its bronzes and their patinas, it is located in the Tesuque Valley five miles north of Santa Fe. The name, Shidoni, is from a Navajo word for greeting. The owner and operator is Tommy HIcks, who bought the 8 acres of land in 1971 when it was a farm. He replaced an apple orchard on the property with a sculpture garden and the chicken coop with the foundry. Now (2004) there are 25 full-time employees who pour an average of 3500 pounds of bronze a week and create more than 1000 sculptures each year. A specialty is monumental pieces including a 36-foot tall depiction of "Don Juan" by John Houser that took four years in the casting process. Most of the casting is done with the lost-wax method, which involves 10 steps including digital computations.
Source:
Southwest Art, July 2004. Dottie Indyke, "Playing with Fire" |
Shin Hanga | A Japanese word meaning 'new prints' in English and referring to a Japanese art movement that was strong between 1915 and 1962 but has lost strength because of sophistication within the international art market. Shin Hanga was a bringing back of the prevalent 17th to 19th century Japanese collaborative method of creating prints so that they were affordable for many people. Market driven, especially by the United States, 20th century proponents rebelled against the dominant method of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which involved expensive prints made by artists as sole creators. Shin Hanga artists and promoters reinstated the traditional "ukiyo-e" process of mass production with multiple creative hands. However, Shin Hanga prints were not popular in Japan and have come to be regarded as having less value than “sosaku hanga”, solo artist created prints. Japanese “shin hanga” artists included Hashiguchi Goyo, Kawase Hasui, Ota Masamitsu and Yoshida Hiroshi. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_hanga (LPD)
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Shinnecock Summer School of Art | A school dedicated to plein-air painting organized and opened in 1891 by William Merritt Chase in the Shinnecock Hills of Southampton on the east end of Long Island. The school, whose location was known as Students at the Art Village, lasted for twelve years and was the first major out-door art school in America. It was a pleasurable place for his many students to get away from the hot summers in New York City and also brought income to Chase who struggled financially during some of these years. The area was known for its beaches and dunes and conducive to Chase’s interest in plein-air painting, especially atmospherics. Reportedly a daughter once ran to him shouting "Papa come quickly; here is a cloud passing for you." In addition to landscapes and genre scenes, many of them with family members as models, Chase and his students painted Native Americans who occupied a nearby reservation. Chase’s large family, some serving as models for him and his students, stayed nearby in Southampton, a town that continues today to be an art colony. The Chase family home was designed by New York architects McKim, Meade and White. Open-air classes conducted by Chase attracted many curious observers. Once a week, he held public critiques that sometimes became loud and confrontational when he expressed strong disapproved of a painting. Reportedly he shouted at a student, who said her canvass expressed the way she felt, “the next time you feel that way, DON’T PAINT.” He repeatedly urged his students to keep their eyes open, “to be free and vigilant observers”. Fortunately for posterity, his wife Alice was a dedicated photographer whose surviving photos document many scenes of life at the Shinnecock Summer School. Well-known artists who studied there include Alson Skinner Clark, Alice Schille, Rockwell Kent, Gifford Beal, Elizabeth Strong, Charles Hawthorne, Arthur Burdett Frost, Ellen Rand, Rhoda Nicholls, Lydia Emmet, Gaines Donoho and Julian Onderdonk. (Written by Lonnie Dunbier). Sources: Prudence Peiffer, ‘William Merritt Chase’, “Plein Air” magazine, July 2005; William Gerdts, “American Impressionism”; AskART database. (LPD) |
Ship Carvers | Men who carved, usually in wood, decorative items for ships, including figureheads, furniture and architectural features. Their skills were most in demand in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when America was beginning to build its fleet of sailing vessels and forming its Navy. In the last quarter of the 18th Century, Boston and Philadelphia were rivals in this activity and a number of Ship Carvers worked there, producing a wide variety of work. Many of the early figureheads were allegorical with names such as Harmony, America, Minerva or referenced heroes in history such as Julius Caesar or Hannibal. However, by the early 19th Century, the trend shifted from Baroque, allegorical figures to less dramatic-appearing subjects including realistic portraiture such as Presidents George Washington and John Adams. William Rush of Philadelphia was one of the most famous Ship Carvers and for fifty years, oversaw a woodcarving shop in Philadelphia. Other Ship Carvers were Samuel McIntire, the Skillin brothers, John and Simeon Jr., and Samuel; John Brown, William Dearing and Daniel Train. (See Figureheads) Source: Ralph Sessions, 'William Rush and the American Figurehead', "The Magazine Antiques", Fall, 2005, pp. 148-153 (LPD) |
Siccative/Drier | A compound obtained from several metals including lead, iron, mangonese and cobalt that, when added to oil paint, accelerates the drying process. However, pigments affect the drying process so some colors with Siccatives added respond more quickly than others. Cobalt is regarded as the most effective. Drier is another word for Siccative, and Retardent is the opposite of Drier or Siccative.
Source: Ralph Mayer, "A Dictionary of Art Terms and Techniques" |
Sight-Size | A drawing method whereby students place their drawing boards in close proximity of the subject and "transfer points of reference and measurements directly." (86) |
Silhouette* | The outer shape of an object. An outline often filled in with color. |
Silkscreen | See Screenprint |
Silvermine Art Colony | Located in New Canaan, Connecticut, this colony was founded in the early 1900s and was led by Solon Borglum, who loved the countryside. The group met in Borglum's barn that became known as the Knockers Club and then, outgrowing that facility, built the Silvermine Guild Arts Center, which was formally incorporated in 1922. In 1924, the School of Art was officially opened there, and in addition to visual arts, classes were offered in dance, film making, and acting. |
Simultaneous Contrast* | The tendency of complementary colors to seem brighter and more intense when placed side by side. |
Site Specific | The words usually pertain to sculpture that is conceived for, dependent on, and inseparable from the location where it is placed. Scale, size, and placement result from an analysis of the particular environmental components.
Richard Serra, installation sculptor, said: "The concept of site-specific sculpture has nothing to do with opinion or belief. It is a concept which can be verified in each case. . .The evidence of the process can become part of the content. . .How the work alters the site is the issue, not the persona of the author." ("Art and Theory", Edited by Charles Harrison and Paul Wood). |
Situationist International | An artistic, political and cultural movement which was founded in the Italian village of Cosio d'Arroscia on July 28,1957, it is a fusion of several things among them CoBrA, Lettrism, Dada, Imaginist Bauhaus and Surrealism. Its most prominent member was the French writer Guy Debord (1931 - 1994). However, during its life several important artists were counted as members, among them, Asger Jorn, Jorgen Nash, Ralph Rumney, Armando, Jacqueline de Jong, Lothar Fischer, Heimrad Prem, Helmut Sturm, Hans Peter Zimmer, Ansgar Elde and Constant Nieuwenhuys. The movement’s political ideology was anti capitalist and called for the destruction of modern consumer, mass media driven society. Its artistic components were detournement, Anti-art, graffiti and Dada. They produced films, paintings, graphics, comics and posters. Their artistic stance was ‘there is no situationist art only situationist uses of art.’ Their most famous/infamous venture was decapitating the sculpture of the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen harbour (1964). A tamer example was mechanically painting 70 to 90 foot rolls of canvas then cutting them up to sell as individual works of art. Its architecture advocated buildings suspended from wires and cities constructed as one labyrinthine interconnected structure. The movement went through many purges and splits. J.V. Martin and Guy Debord were its only two constant members from its beginning to end, in 1972. Source: Written and submitted by M.D. Silverbrooke, Art Historian and Collector, West Vancouver, British Columbia. |
Sketch Artist | An artist who records an impression quickly in watercolor, pencil, or some other medium that is easily managed. The term applies to a number of circumstances, historical and current, including expedition artists who sketched geographical descriptions or to newspaper-hired artists working in courtrooms to record proceedings where cameras were either unavailable or not allowed.
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Sketch/Study | A Sketch is a preliminary drawing for a more finished work of painting or sculpture or other type of artwork. Often it is done hastily, spontaneously, and not going into detail, just shows the intended compositional lines, mood, etc. A Sketch differs from a Study in that a Study is usually very detailed, well thought out, and not spontaneous. The purpose of a Study is generally for exploring future ideas and to anticipate compositional problems and evaluate best handling of the finished work. Source: Ralph Mayer, "A Dictionary of Art Terms and Techniques" (LPD) |
Sketchbooks | Books with blank paper pages used by artists to sketch ideas for artwork with pencil, chalk, watercolor, charcoal or oil. Usually the sketch is not detailed. Sketchbooks are interesting because they often function as a sort of diary of the artist's thoughts and experiences leading to the creation of a work of art. The Fogg Museum at Harvard University has an extensive collection of Sketchbooks, which was on exhibition from August 1 to October 22, 2006. Museum personnel did a five-year cataloguing project of all the Sketchbooks in the collection. The exhibition reflects that work and features the more famous artists. Source: Editor, 'Famous Sketchbooks on Display', "Drawing Magazine", Summer, 2006, p. 6 (LPD) |
Slade School of Art | Founded in 1871, and now a part of the University of London, the founding purpose was to "provide progressive training based on intensive study from the life model." Yearly prizes were awarded for portrait, life, antique and landscape drawing, and beginning in the 1890s, the university kept the award-winning works. Source: Miriam Kramer, 'Reports from Europe', "The Magazine Antiques", January 2007, p. 40 |
Social Realist/Social Realism | In American art, Social Realist is a general term referencing two periods of art, both with socio-political themes known as Social Realism. The first period of Social Realism was in the 1920s and 1930s and was led by Robert Henri and John Sloan, both with newspapers illustrations backgrounds and both teachers at the Art Students League. These early Social-Realist artists were dubbed by critics as the ASHCAN school because themes addressed victims of the industrial revolution and the extremes of capitalism and often were depictions of ordinary people going about daily life---some of them beggars whose food came from alleys and 'ash cans'. These ‘ash-can’ school artists included George Luks, George Bellows and Everett Shinn. The Social Realist movement in the 1930s became strongly tied to the Depression and the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a government program whose section, the Federal Arts Project, employed many artists who needed work. Suffering and observing poverty and other perceived class-struggle injustices, many of these artists expressed socio-political themes such as Ben Shahn in his painting "Prohibition" and his series on the Rikers Island Penitentiary (1934-1935). Other social realist artists of that era were Jack Levine, George Biddle, Thomas Hart Benton, Stuart Davis, Philip Evergood and Guy Pene DuBois. Frank Van Sloun of San Francisco was one of the few West-Coast Social Realists. After World War II, Social Realism became an all-purpose term applied to realistic artwork of working classes. The meaning also took on the implication that it was artwork for the less sophisticated, those who could only relate to blatantly realistic styles and not to the subtleties of abstraction. The term, in that usage, has been applied to the propaganda art of the Soviet Union, China and North Korea. Sources: “Phaidon Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Art”; AskART database; Robert Atkins, "Art Speak". (LPD) |
Societe Anonyme, Inc. | Known as A Museum of Modern Art, The Societe opened in April 1920 at 19 East 47th Street in New York City and remained active until 1950. Organizing members were artists Katherine Dreier and Marcel Duchamp, and they served respectively as President and Secretary during the Societe's existence. The purpose was to provide a location to exhibit and promote modernist art, a venue that had disappeared with the 1917 closing of 291 Gallery of Alfred Stieglitz. At that time other galleries and museums were unwilling to be exclusive sponsors of contemporary art, so the Society Anonyme became the first museum of contemporary art in the United States as well as Europe. Between 1920 and 1940, the Societe held 84 exhibitions of artwork by avant-garde American and European artists. Also held were radio shows, symposia, readings and performances of modern dance and modern music. The ongoing legacy of the Societe Anonyme was its collection of over 600 works in all media, formed largely by Dreier and Duchamp and bequeathed in 1941 to the Yale University Art Gallery. Source: "Phaidon Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Art" |
Society for Sanity in Art | Founded in Chicago by Josephine Hancock Logan in 1936, the Society for Sanity in Art was opposed to all forms of modernism, including abstract expressionism, surrealism, and many other changes going on in the world at that time. Branches of the group established themselves all around the country. Haig Patigian, a San Francisco sculptor and member of that city’s Bohemian Club, was an influential supporter of the Society and served as its president in the 1940s. Other artists associated with the group, or recipients of its awards were: William Winthrop Ward (1901-1985); Florence Louise Bryant (1890-1968); Henry (Percy) Gray (1869-1952); Rudolph F. Ingerle (1879-1950); Frank Montague Moore (1877-1967); Thomas Hill (1829-1908); Frank C. Peyraud (1858-1948); Theodore Wores (1859-1939); and Chauncey Foster Ryder (1868-1949). Margaret Fitzhugh Browne founded the local chapter of the Society for Sanity in Art in Boston. Some current societies of artists had their origins with the Society for Sanity in Art. California painter Sam Hyde Harris (1889-1977) during the 1940s was strongly aligned with a group of artists who disparaged aspects of the modern art movement, and they formed a chapter of the organization, later to be renamed Artists of the Southwest. In 1939, a western branch of the Society for Sanity in Art changed its name to the Society of Artists, and later to the Society of Western Artists (SWA), which was eventually to become the largest representational art society west of the Mississippi. (LPD) |
Society of American Artists | A progressive art movement founded in New York City in 1877 by a group of young painters led by Cincinatti painter Frank Duveneck. Among the group were William Merritt Chase, Walter Shirlaw, John LaFarge, Eastman Johnson, George Inness, Alexander Wyant, Elihu Vedder, Abbott Thayer, Theodore Robinson, John Twachtman and J. Frank Currier. Other members were Thomas Dewing, William Morris Hunt, William Sartain and Homer Dodge Martin. Their purpose was to challenge the conservative dominance of the National Academy of Design and to have exhibitions introducing progressive styles from Europe, especially Germany and France. As a result, the Society provided venues for the introduction of Tonalism and Impressionism and other 'avant-garde' movements from Europe into America. The earliest exhibition of the Society was in 1878 at the Kurtz Gallery in New York City. It was noted by critics as having paintings dominated by the Munich and Tonalist influences of heavy application of paint, dramatic use of light and dark (chiaroscuro), and muted tones. As time went on, Impressionism dominated the Society's exhibits over the Munich School and Tonalism. Sources: William Gerdts, "American Impressionism"; "The Britannica Encyclopedia of American Art"; David A. Cleveland, ‘The New York Water Color Club’, “The Magazine Antiques”, November 2005, pp. 116-121. |
Society of American Landscape Painters | A short-lived exhibition group of twelve Tonalist-style painters formed in 1898. Members held five annual exhibitions and then terminated their association in 1903. Only the first two exhibitions made much impression, and the others had mixed reviews. A reason given for the failure of sustaining interest is that the best-known Tonalist painters did not join such as Henry Ward Ranger, Dwight Tryon and Birge Harrison. Also, there was waning interest generally in Tonalism, and members of the Society went diverse ways. Source: Ralph Sessions, Introduction, "The Poetic Vision: American Tonalism", Spanierman Galleries, LLC exhibition book, 2005 |
Society of Animal Artists | The Society of Animal Artists is an association of animal and wildlife painters and sculptors.
Founded in 1960, the Society is devoted to promoting excellence in the portrayal of the creatures sharing our planet, and to the education of the public through its informative art seminars, lectures and teaching demonstrations.
The Society's membership is represented by artists from the United States, Canada, Europe, Africa, Japan, and Australia are represented in the Society's membership.
The goal of these artists is to help animal and wildlife art to achieve a place of honor in the field of fine art.
http://www.societyofanimalartists.com |
Society of Canadian Painters-Etchers and Engravers | See Print and Drawing Council of Canada |
Society of Graphic Designers of Canada | An organizational entity since 1956 with national certification. Its purpose is promoting high standards of visual design and ethical business practices through seminars, conferences and exhibits. Members are design professionals, educators and students. Source: http://www.gdc.net/ |
Society of Independent Artists | Founded in 1916 in New York City, the Society was composed of American and foreign artists who wanted a venue for exhibiting modernist artwork without restrictions of jury selection, style, or subject matter. It was a counter-gesture to the National Academy of Design and was modeled on the French Societé des Artistes Independants, a pre-World War I group that opened exhibitions to artists without controlling style or subject matter. A key figure was Marcel Duchamp who came to New York in 1915 for his first extended stay. His reputation was already established as being among the avant-garde was already from the Armory Show two years earlier with his cubist entry, “Nude Descending the Staircase”. He was readily accepted into the social and intellectual circle of Walter and Louise Arensberg, wealthy collectors of modernist art, and the young Beatrice Wood, a future well-known potter. The Arensbergs with Duchamp and Wood spearheaded a group called the Society of Independent Artists, whose goal was to hold exhibitions that allowed anyone to exhibit anything if they paid the six-dollar entry fee. But according to Beatrice Wood, Duchamp again became the subject of controversy when two days before the exhibition began, "there was a glistening white object in the storeroom getting readied to be put on the floor." It was a urinal on its side and was signed R. Mutt. Unknown to his fellow organizers, Duchamp was the anonymous entrant. Other participants, many of them with little established reputation, paid minimal fees to enter their work in the Society's yearly spring exhibitions that were held from 1917 to 1944, when the Society ended. The first exhibition was March 6 to April 6, 1917 and was held at the Grand Central Palace in New York. With about 2500 paintings and 1200 artist participants, it was the largest art exhibition in American history. It was also one of the most controversial because it had no jury, and installation, which was alphabetical by artist name, appeared random and disorganized. Exhibitions accompanied by catalogues continued on an annual basis, although none was as sensational as the first. By 1919, participation had dropped to about one third of the original group with many foreign artists dropping out in the face of increased American political isolationism. Among the most important artist-founders of the Society of Independent Artists in addition to Duchamp were Katherine Dreier, William J. Glackens, Albert Gleizes, John Marin, Walter Pach, Man Ray, John Sloan and Joseph Stella. The first managing director was Walter Arensberg, and John Sloan was President from 1918 to 1944. However, Duchamp and Arensberg dropped out after the first exhibition because Duchamp was denied entry for his “Fountain by R.Mutt”, the urinal piece that many found so shocking. Source: “Phaidon Dictionary of Twentieth Century Art”; Clark Marlor, “The Society of Independent Artists Exhibition Record 1917-1944. (LPD)
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Society of Men Who Paint the Far West | See Society of Painters of the Far West |
Society of New Mexico Painters | See New Mexico Painters |
Society of Ozark Painters | Founded in 1914 by Chicago artists Carl Kraftt and Rudolph Ingerle, the Society was dedicated to regional landscape painting of the Ozarks of south-central Missouri. Kraftt first visited the mountainous region in 1912. Painters were attracted there because they were enchanted by the dramatic landscape of the region and "the delicate color of its hazy atmosphere". The appeal of the Ozarks as a sanctuary increased with the turmoil of World War I, and many of the artists focused on scenes that contrasted with the ugliness of war. Kraftt painted there for more than two decades and referred to the region as his "cathedral of nature". (Kennedy 128)
Sources:
Elizabeth Kennedy, "Chicago Modern"
Peter Falk, "Who Was Who in American Art" |
Society of Painters in Pastel | The first organized group in the United States to promote pastels as a serious medium. Founded in 1884 in New York City, the Society was also one of the more short-lived art societies as it dissolved in 1890, having had only four exhibitions. Reasons for termination are vague, but the founding of the New York Water Color Club in 1890 that embraced both watercolor and pastel and had many members of the SPP likely was regarded as a legitimate replacement. Members included Robert Blum, William Merritt Chase, John Twachtman, J. Alden Weir and Hugh Bolton Jones. The Society of Painters in Pastel has been credited as one of the major venues for the spread from Europe to America of the stylistic and personal influence of James McNeill Whistler because of his exhibition promotion in the Society led by Weir, Blum and Twachtman. Whistler, opening the door to Impressionism and Tonalism, has been described as having a "sketchy, intimate, and idiosycratic style, which successfully translated the most transitory effects of atmosphere and light onto toned paper." Source: David A. Cleveland, ‘The New York Water Color Club’, “The Magazine Antiques”, November 2005, pp. 116-121. |
Society of Painters of the Far West | Also known as the Society of Men Who Paint the Far West, this reference is to a group of early 20th Century eastern painters who traveled and worked in the American West. The earliest group of westward travelers were sponsored in 1910 by the Santa Fe Railroad and the American Lithograpic Company and the destination was the Grand Canyon of Arizona. Included were Elliott Daingerfield, Edward Potthast, Frederick Ballard Williams and De Witt Parshall. In 1912, they exhibited their paintings in numerous venues in the East. Included were many Grand Canyon scenes, and among the additional artists were George Inness, Jr., George McCord, William Ritschel, Thomas Moran and Joseph Henry Sharp. Source: William Gerdts, "Art Across America", Volume III, p. 170 (LPD) |
Society of Six | Association of post impressionist painters formed in 1917 in Oakland, California. Members were William Clapp, August Gay, Selden Gile, Maurice Logan, Louis Siegriest and Bernard von Eichman. |
Southern States Art League | An organization formed in 1921 in Charleston, South Carolina to promote art and artists of the region through exhibitions focused on Southern art. Elizabeth O'Neill Verner was "Charleston's most dedicated member of the League." (11)
Credit:
Martha R. Severens, "The Charleston Renaissance" |
Southwest Indian Art | An encompassing description of creative endeavors of Indians in New Mexico and Arizona. Included are the Navajos, Hopi and Zunis of the Western Pueblos and those of the Eastern Pueblos along the Rio Grande River and the Acoma and Laguna groups. the Southwest Indian artists are noted for painting, sculpture, pottery, weaving, wood-carving, jewelry, and basketry, and often the work is complex in design, refined in color and symbolic of their daily lives and religious beliefs.
Source:
"Native American Art of the Southwest" by Linda Eaton |
Southwestern Association for Indian Arts | Established in 1980 to provide financial support to living American Indian artists whose careers are highly promising. Also included is exhibition space at the Santa Fe Indian Market and increased national publicity through special promotion. Recipients include Angela Babby and Larson Goldtooth. Source: http://www.swaia.org/cnewsd.php?id=115 |
Space* | In painting, space may be defined as the distances between shapes on a flat surface and the illusion of three-dimensions on a two-dimensional surface. Also refers to a physical site where art is displayed for viewing. |
Spanish Village Art Colony | In Balboa Park, San Diego, it is an art colony on 1,200 acres dating back to the mid 1930s, when its Center building of Spanish-Renaissance architecture was constructed for the California Pacific International Exposition in 1935. Sherman Trease was the initial organizer of the art center, which grew from a dilapidated set of buildings into an tourist attracting art village of 1200 acres with zoo, performing arts theatres, museums, restaurants, and 38 artist studios. It closed during World War II and resumed operation in 1947. Activities include woodcarving, painting, pottery, fiber art, metal work and glass blowing. Early Spanish Village artists included Jeanne Rimmer and Anni Baldaugh. Sources: http://www.aroundandaboutsandiego.com/spanish_village.html; San Diego Historical Society (LPD) |
Sporting Art | A general term for paintings and sculpture, usually in realist style, depicting people in outdoor recreational activity involving hunting and fishing, which is also known as ‘field and stream’. Also included are equestrian activities such as racing and field hunting with dogs and horses as well as yachting. Other common subjects are wild animal hunting, fly fishing, shooting waterfowl and shorebirds, waterfowl decoys, foxhunting, and even still life of hunting objects. The term has expanded from its origins, which are tied to gentility and the leisure activities of 18th-Century British noblemen. While enjoying their sport as 'country gentlemen, they wanted to commemorate their favorite horses, dogs or other sporting scenes, and would ask the top artists of the day to depict these subjects. A scholar and collector of Sporting Art is Robert B. Mayo, whose essay, “American: The Sporting View”, was published in 1985 by the Longwood Fine Arts Center in Farmville, Virginia. In this essay, he traces Sporting Art in America back to 1607 in Jamestown Colony when Captain John Smith made the comment that “birds blocked out the sun on their Southern migration.” At first hunting was a necessity for survival, but by the mid-18th Century, some Americans of comfortable circumstances were treating it as sport. By the mid-19th Century, hunting and fishing were common activities of genteel men. Gradually Sporting Art has worked its way into a respected part of American Art, but its status remains secondary because of its close association with illustration in popular magazines such as “Field and Stream” and the purchase by the ‘masses’ of widely published lithography prints of Currier & Ives and by Ducks Unlimited, a conservation organization of the late 20th Century. American artists known for Sporting Art include Robert Abbett, Bob White, Frank Benson, Edmund Osthaus, Ogden Pleissner, William Tylee Ranney, Aiden Ripley, and Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait. Sources: “Gray’s Sporting Journal”, Christie’s Auction House-Sporting Art Auction; Stephen O’Brien Jr. Fine Arts; Cross Gate Gallery; http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/2aa/2aa238.htmAskART database. (LPD) |
St. Botolph Club | A men's club organized in Boston in 1880 to promote art and literature. The group sponsored exhibitions from which they formed a Club collection.
In 1888, the Club held the first (anywhere) one-man exhibition of work by John Singer Sargent, which was a huge success. St. Botolph's Club also held Boston's first exhibition of paintings by French Impressionist Claude Monet.
The Club, located at 199 Commonwealth Avenue, continues its existence with more emphasis on socializing than on art exhibitions.
Credit:http:www.jssgallery.org/Letters/Notes/St_Botolph_Club.htm |
St. Ives Colony | A descriptive term for a group of American and British painters and sculptors who have worked and socialized together in St. Ives, Cornwall, England. Continuing as an active colony into the 21st century, the colony began in the late 19th century with British painters Julius Olsson, Adrian Stokes and Louis Grier. They set up an organization called the St. Ives Arts Club, composed of visiting and resident artists. St. Ives in its early years attracted many American painters who found the extraordinary light conducive to their newly-adopted style of Impressionism. The town of St. Ives with its cobbled streets, fishermen’s cottages and exotic harbor views, was on an early railroad line, which facilitated visitors who came in droves beginning in the late 1870s. One of the early arrivals was James McNeill Whistler who visited in 1883 with British painter Walter Richard Sickert. Among the American artists to spend time at the newly-established colony of St. Ives was Edward Emerson Simmons who arrived in 1886. He became a key figure in the colony, and did "a series of marine paintings that remain his best-known easel paintings". (Gerdts) Impressionist Francis Brooks Chadwick was there in 1887, and Walter Schofield arrived in 1903. George Gardner Symons arrived in 1898, and inspired by the scenic outdoor vistas, adopted plein-air painting techniques. Hayley Lever was at St. Ives in the 1890s and began his signature seacoast paintings. Modernist painter Edith Cockcroft was there in the early 20th century, and exhibited one of her resulting paintings at the National Academy of Design in 1908. Painter and illustrator Anne Fish was at St. Ives before World War I, and George Turland Goosey arrived in 1921. Many of these artists took over fishermen’s cottages, which were increasingly vacated with the decline of the marine industry. Ironically the influx of artists boosted the local economy at a time of economic depression. During World War II, the St. Ives School of Paintings, was established under the influence of British sculptors Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson. American sculptor Brian Wall became Hepworth's assistant there in 1954. (Written by Lonnie Dunbier) Sources: "Phaidon Dictionary of Twentieth Century Art"; William Gerdts, "American Impressionism"; AskART database; http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/work/england/cornwall/article_1.shtml |
Statue/Statuary | A carved or modeled figure, especially of a person or animal. The tradition goes back to earliest recorded cultures, but among 19th and early 20th-century American sculptors, creating statuary, usually in neo-classical and realist styles, was ‘bread and butter’. It was a time when heroes were celebrated with public monuments, and sculptors received commissions for commemorative works from institutions, city governments and individuals. Many of the sculptures had allegorical and religious themes to suggest that the subject transcended commonality and was associated with that which was lofty, grand and noble. Nude figures were acceptable in that Victorian period as long as certain rules were followed. The context was to be an uplifting theme to avoid any suggestion of carnality or sensual desire. Often white marble was used for these nude figures to suggest virginity and purity. American sculptors of this era known for their public statues included Thomas Ball, Augustus St. Gaudens, William Couper, Daniel Chester French, Thomas Crawford, Gertrude Whitney, Richard Greenough, Hermon Atkins MacNeil, Lorado Taft, Alexander Milne Calder, Myra Musselman-Carr and Launt Thompson. Sources: Greta Elena Couper, "An American Sculptor on the Grand Tour"; Ralph Mayer, "A Dictionary of Art Terms and Techniques"; AskART database |
Statuette | A carved or modeled figure or figurine that is half size or less of the actual figure. Source: Ralph Mayer, "A Dictionary of Art Terms and Techniques" |
Ste. Genevieve Art Colony | Active from 1932 to 1940 in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, a French Colonial town near St. Louis dating to 1735. Its picturesque beauty attracted painters dedicated to American Scene painting during the Great Depression. The Ste. Genevieve artists were Regionalists dedicated to finding meaning in their own surroundings. Founders were Jesse Beard Rickley and Aimee Schweig. Affiliated artists were Thomas Hart Benton, Joe Jones, Fred Conway, Max Ziegler, Joseph Vorst, Oscar Thalinger, Bernard Peters, Joseph Meert, Miriam McKinnie, Martyl Schweig and Sister Cassiana Marie. The town remains a tourist attraction with local groups sponsoring tours of French Creole homes, the annual King’s Ball, and a Winter Rendezvous with French Christmas festivities. From October 16 to December 3, 2005, the St. Louis Art Guild sponsored an exhibition titled “The Art Colony of Ste. Genevieve”. Sources:
http://www.stlouisartistsguild.org/art_exhibits/bio/ste_gen.htm; http://www.saintegenevievetourism.org/events.htm
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Stencil/Stenciling | See Theorem Painting/Stenciling |
Stendahl Art Galleries | Founded in 1921 by Earl Stendahl, the gallery played an important role in early 20th century southern California art. Initial focus of the gallery was Primitive or Pre-Columbian art, but contemporary art was added. Among the artists who exhibited there were Jean Charlot, Edgar Payne, Guy Rose, William Wendt and Armin Hansen. Source: siris-archives.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?uri=full |
Stereography/Stereoscopy | A photographic method that produced the illusion of depth, it was invented in 1840 by Sir Charles Wheatstone. The method involved lenses spaced the same distance apart as human eyes, which, in turn provided the viewer with side-by-side images. When viewed through a stereoscopic apparatus, the effect was three-dimensional. Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that the effect “is a surprise such as no painting ever produced. The mind feels its way into the very depths of the picture.” (Viewpoints) On an 1859 Lander Expedition of the Overland Route west through Wyoming, Albert Bierstadt and Francis Frost went along as artists and creators of stereoscopic images. Bierstadt's brothers, Albert and Charles Bierstadt, became well known as stereographers. Sources: Wikipedia; Gordon Hendricks, "Albert Bierstadt"; Fern and Kaplan, "Viewpoints", p. 26 (LPD) |
Stile Liberty | See Art Nouveau. The term in Italian derives from the London department store that made and sold Art Nouveau fabrics. |
Still Life* | A painting or other two-dimensional work in which the subject matter is an arrangement of objects – fruit, flowers, tableware, pottery, and so forth – brought together for pleasing contrasts of shape, color, and texture. Also, the arrangement of the objects itself. |
Stippling | A pattern of closely spaced dots or small marks used to create a sense of three-dimension on a flat surface, especially in drawing and printmaking. See also HATCHING, CROSS-HATCHING. Stippling can be achieved with an engraving or etching process by using a needle to inflict "minute deperssions of varying depth into the surface of the copper plate". The method, developed in England and perfected in France in the early 19th century, is especially conducive to to receiving color. Because of subtlety of tone and "seamless transition of color", it has been a popular methd with botanical artists.
Source:
"Joel Oppenheimer" 35th Anniversary Catalogue, 2004, of the Natural Art Gallery
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Stone | Rock that has been suitably cut for carving. Stone is a traditional material for sculptors since prehistoric times and up to the advent of bronze casting. Sandstone, marble, granite and limestone are the most commonly used stone for sculptors, but in modern commercial definition, marble is in a separate category. Of working with stone, sculptor Isamu Noguchi said in 1968: "Stone is directly linked to the core of matter. It is a molecular conglomeration, so to speak. If you strike a stone it echoes back with the spirit of existence within us. It is an echo of the whole universe . . . It had a life before the existence of human beings . . . Stone is always old and new, and like a living being it exists with links to the past, the present,, and the future. . . Stones are the bones of the earth." (Duus 317) For most sculptors, stone is extracted from quarries such as Carrara in Italy or Aji in Japan. The work, which often involves slicing into mountainsides, is extremely dangerous, and a single mistake with loose boulders or flying chips can kill and injure workers. Among American sculptors other than Noguchi who are noted for working in stone are Jenny Holzer, who carves text political and social messages into site-specific stone formations, and Oreland Joe who carves Indian figures reflective of his Navajo-Ute heritage and who works primarily in alabaster, marble and limestone. Arguably the most famous stone carver in western art history is Gutzon Borglum, who carved the Presidential portraits into the side and top of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. Sources: Ralph Mayer, "A Dictionary of Art Terms and Techniques"; Masayo Duus, "The Life of Isamu Noguchi"; AskART database. |
Stone City Art Colony | During the Depression year summers of 1932 and 1933, Grant Wood organized the Stone City Art Colony to promote regional art, specifically that which reflected the distinctive character of the Midwest. He was assisted by Marvin Cone, and funding came from a Carnegie Foundation Grant.
The Colony was headquartered in the large, limestone mansion of the Green Estate, overlooking Stone City, Iowa. Students lived in ice wagons converted into living quarters. Unfortunately, the Depression caused the colony to close after only two seasons.
Stone City is a small unincorporated village situated along the Wapsipinicon River in east central Iowa. Before the invention and widespread use of Portland Cement, Stone City was a thriving community. It's three large limestone quarries supplied the finest building stone in the region. Today Stone City is a slow, quiet, picturesque place. It is a place to remember the past and consider the future.
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Stonelain Pottery | See Associated American Artists |
Stoneware | Pottery fired at a high temperature so that it is non-porous and extremely long lasting. It is the opposite of earthenware, which is porous, hard paste and fired at a low temperature. Examples are many 19th-century stone crocks and stoneware. Sources: Ralph Mayer, "A Dictionary of Art Terms and Techniques"; Kimberley Reynolds and Richard Seddon, "Illustrated Dictionary of Art Terms" |
Straight Photography | See F/64 |
Street Art | See Graffiti, Street Art |
Street Painters | A group of painters in New York City in the late 1970s and early 1980s committed to directness, meaning that little interfered between the process of seeing and the recording and preserving in paint of what the artist saw. The Street-Painter method was for the artist to set up an easel on the street and then paint on the spot what was observed. Because there was no masking of harsh realisties, the movement resembled the early 20th century social- realist Ash Can painters that included Robert Henri and John Sloan.
Members of the Street Painters were Tad Day, Ronald DeNota, Jessie Benton-Evans, Simon Gaon, Don Gray, Myron Heise, Kenneth McIndoe, and Philip Sherrod.Gaon and Sherrod were the founders, and began as Street Painters with Times Square as their painting location.
They received media coverage, held panel discussions, were reviewed in magazines and newspapers, and held exhibitions including at the Bond Street Gallery, World Trade Center, and Adelphi University. |
Study | See Sketch/Study |
Stump | See Tortillon |
Style | A characteristic, or number of characteristics, which we can identify as constant, recurring, or coherent. In art, the sum of such characteristics associated with a particular artist, group, or culture, or with an artist’s work at a specific time. Source: Artlex.com with permission of Michael Delahunt |
Stylized | Descriptive of works based on forms in the natural world, but simplified or distorted for design purposes. Source: Artlex.com with permission of Michael Delahunt. |
Sublime | In the context of aesthetics, a concept dating back to the ancient world, and when applied to American landscape painting, especially pertains to the 19th-century Hudson River School. Historical American painter Washington Allston (1779-1843) lectured on the Sublime from principles he had learned in England. He described it as an "infinite idea" of which we are not necessarily even aware, but which operates as the ‘true cause’ of the ‘ever stimulating, yet ever-eluding’ nature of experience that . . .’the imagination cannot master’ and which will thus ‘master the imagination’. Perpetuated by Thomas Cole and his followers, the sublime relates to creating artwork so large in size and so stirring of imagination the viewer is overwhelmed and is transported by feelings of reaching a plane higher than 'humaness'. In other words, a special power seems to be emanating, which often stimulates imagination and stirs fear and uncertainty. It is the opposite of 'beautiful'. Techniques to create the Sublime for the Hudson River School painters were depicting wilderness as overpowering with vaguely threatening geological structures – such as mountains, canyons, and trees split by lightening. These effects inspired shudders of fear and feelings of awe at the enormity of the divine creation and uncertainty as to the resolution. It is written that the "most sublime literature of all was the Bible, closely followed, in eighteenth-century opinion, by Milton's modern Christian epic "Paradise Lost". Source: Andrew Wilton and Tim Barringer, "American Sublime, Landscape Painting in the United States, 1820-1880", pp. 11-12 (LPD) |
Sundblom Circle/Sundblom Studio | A group of illustrators working for Haddon Sundblom (1899-1976) in Chicago during the 1920s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. They were distinctive because of creating some of the images that remain in the collective memories of people living in that era such as the Santa Claus in the Coca Cola ads. Sundblom was the leading commercial art illustrator in Chicago, and had presitigious clients such as Coca Cola, Cashmere Bouquet, Maxwell House, Proctor and Gamble and Colgate. The original business was named Sundblom and Anderson and was located at 840 North Michigan Avenue. Other locations were 510 North Dearborn and on Ontario Street. Among those illustrators around him were Howard Terpning, Charles R. Showalter, Pearl Frush, Waler Parke, Chuck Miller, Don Buhrman, Morgan Kane and Dick Thompson. As a group they worked together in that one artist did the initial work, and others then contributed finishing touches. Sources: John F. Showalter, M.D., 'The Life and Art of Charles R. Showalter', "Illustration" magagine, Spring, 2006; Robert E. Olsen, 'The Rediscovery of Charles R. Showalter', "Illustration" magazine, Spring 2006, pp. 25-44. (LPD) |
Support/Ground | The surface on which a work of two-dimensional art is made, i.e., canvas, paper, cardboard, or wood.
Source: Artlex.com with permission of Michael Delahunt |
Sur Le Motif | A French term meaning 'from the theme'. In fine art, it refers to an artist working directly from the subject of the artwork as opposed to working from a concept in one's head such as that which is 'heroic' or 'mythological'. In other words, the artist has the actual work in view. Sur-le-motif circumstances include being in the countryside painting a landscape, working from a still-life set up in a studio or painting a portrait from the model.
Source: Jim Smyth and Brigitte Curt, 'the Real Meaning of our Favorite Art Terms', "Plein Air Magazine", May 2005; website of Galerie Plein Aire, Carmel, CA |
Surrealism | A painting style of the early 20th century that emphasized the validity and fascination with images and visions from dreams and fantasies, as well as an intuitive, spontaneous method of recording such imagery, often combining unrelated or unexpected objects in compositions.
The movement was founded in Paris by Andre Breton and launched in 1924 with the publication of his "First Manifesto of Surrealism". A year later the Galerie Pierre in Paris hosted the first Surrealism exhibition. The movement, named by Andre Breton from work by poet Guillaume Apollinaire, caught hold in the United States in the 1930s and was much dominated by the influence of Salvadore Dali.
Other early 20th-century American artists associated with early Surrealism were Man Ray, Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy, Lorser Feitelson, Helen Lundeberg, Arshile Gorky, Philip Evergood, Jackson Pollock, Bradley Tomlin, Peter Blume, William Baziotes, Enrico Donati, and Mark Rothko. As an expression of a coherent group, Surrealism ended with the outbreak of World War II, but its themes continue to appear in American and European art. Sources: Artlex.com, courtesy of Micheal Delahunt; "Phaidon Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Art"; AskART database (LPD) |
Symbol/Symbolism | An image or sign that represents something else, because of convention, association, or resemblance. Symbolism was an art movement focused on Symbols and is linked to a late 19th-century group of French poets led by Baudelaire, Mallarme, Rimbaud and Verlaine. They, in turn, were influential on French painters Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Odilon Redon, Gustave Moreau and James Ensor. They never formed a cohesive group but shared a common interest in mystical and spiritual expression in their art and a rebellion against realism and impressionism that depicted the observable world. In other words Symbolists expressed ideas and not just descriptions of the real world. As a lasting influence, it resulted in a body of imaginative painting and foreshadowed Surrealism and Freudian dream paintings. Much of the subject matter of Symbolists came from mythology and religion "typically presented in the form of enigmatic images and allegorical scenes that evoke abstract ideas and emotions in the spectator who is drawn into a vague, fantastic world." (Reynolds) In American art, Symbolist Painting was a movement from 1890 to 1925 whereby artists expressed personal inner vision, idealization and fantasy. Exponents drew from a variety of religions and philosophies including the Theosophists led by Madam Blavatsky and the teachings of Emmanuel Swedenborg. American Symbolist painters include William de Leftwich Dodge, Reginald Machell, Maxfield Parrish, Abbott Handerson Thayer, Arthur Mathews, Charles Rollo Peters, Rex Slinkard, Mabel Alvarez, Agnes Pelton, Gottardo Piazzoni, Kahlil Gabran, Pamela Colman Smith, John White Alexander, Elizabeth Alexander, and Magda Heuermann. Many Native American artists have employed Symbolism for centuries and today continue to reference their religion and traditions. Exemplary twentieth-century Indian symbolists include Fritz Scholder, Allan Houser, Fred Kabotie and Pablita Velarde. (Written by Lonnie Dunbier). Sources: "Phaidon's Dictionary of Twentieth Century Art"; Kimberley Reynolds and Richard Seddon, "Illustrated Dictionary of Art Terms"; AskART database (LPD) |
Symmetrical | Descriptive of a design in which the two halves of a composition on either side of an imaginary central vertical axis correspond to one another in size, shape, and placement. |
Synchromism | A style of painting focused on pure color and its harmony (synchromy). The theory focused on creating shapes by color delineations rather than sharp lines and juxtaposing the colors to produce interesting effects of the spectrum. The Synchromist movement originated in Paris between 1908 and 1911 by American painters Morgan Russell and Stanton MacDonald-Wright, who painted and studied books on color theory together. It has been called "the first American movement to arise in modern painting" (Phaidon 376) and "the only one of the early 'isms' in international modern art originated by Americans." ("Britannica 555) Synchromism was brought to public attention in the New York Armory Show of 1913. Influences were Claude Monet and Impressionism and the paintings of Paul Cezanne and Henri Matisse. With the outbreak of World War I, Russell and Wright ceased their collaboration, but the influence of their work continued. Thomas Hart Benton, friend of Wright, used the work "synchromy" in his titles, and Andrew Dasburg did painting much influenced by Synchromism. Sources: "Phaideon Dictionary of Twentieth Century Art"; "The Britannica Encyclopedia of American Art" (LPD) |
Synthetic Cubism | See Cubism |
Systemic Painting/Systems Art | Part of the initial phase of Conceptual Art in the 1960s and 1970s, it was used in 1968 by Jack Burnham in an "Artforum" article, 'Real Systems Art'. Two years earlier, Lawrence Alloway curated "Systemic Painting", an exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum, which featured color-field and hard-edge painting that had "systemic variations on a single geometric motif, such as a circle or chevron."(Atkins, 69). The reference is technical with a somewhat elusive-seeming meaning, but relates to mobility, meaning artwork that moves or appears to move in a controlled manner. Names of artists involved include Marcel Duchamp and Neil Williams. Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_art; Robert Atkins, "ArtSpeak" (LPD)
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