Art terms
Learn about the materials, techniques, movements, and themes of modern and contemporary art from around the world.
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Showing 11 of 351 art terms
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Radical Architecture
A cohort of Italian architects and designers active from the late 1960s through the 1970s. They placed themselves in opposition to the rationalism and functionalism of 20th-century modernism and formed during a tumultuous period characterized by political violence and extremism, student uprisings, and social unrest. Working in collectives including Archizoom, Superstudio, and Studio Alchimia, they produced experimental, anti-establishment architectural and interior designs, furnishings, and objects. A spirit of playfulness undergirded an approach that had serious aims. Their eccentric output—ranging from speculative monuments meant to foster worldwide order to lounge chairs shaped like an oversized patch of grass—broke from what they saw as the prescriptive thinking of the past to shape a future free of war, inequality, materialism, and other human ills.
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Raking light
Bright light, usually beamed obliquely, used to reveal such things as surface texture and detail
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Rayograph
A term invented by Man Ray, in which he merged his name with the word “photograph” to describe his particular approach to the technique of making photograms. As old as photography itself, photograms are photographic prints made by placing objects and other elements on photosensitive paper and exposing it to light, without the use of a camera.
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Readymade
A term coined by Marcel Duchamp in 1916 to describe prefabricated, often mass-produced objects isolated from their intended use and elevated to the status of art by the artist choosing and designating them as such. The term “assisted Readymade” refers to works of this type whose components have been combined or modified by the artist.
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Relational aesthetics
A mode of art practice that establishes spaces, situations, or environments for a variety of social interactions. In essence, the social space or interaction becomes the work of art itself. The term was popularized by French critic and curator Nicholas Bourriaud in 1998.
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Relief
Figures or forms carved or molded so as to project from a flat surface, as in sculpture, or the apparent projection of such shapes in a painting or drawing. A work of art featuring such a projection; a method of printing in which the image is carried on raised surfaces, such as letterpress.
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Relief print
A general term for those printmaking techniques in which the printing surface is cut away so that the image alone appears raised on the surface. Relief prints include woodcut, linoleum cut, letterpress, and rubber or metal stamping. The raised areas of the printing surface are inked and printed, while the areas that have been cut away do not pick up the ink
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Resin
Any of numerous plant-based, clear, translucent, yellow or brown, solid or semisolid, viscous substances—including copal, rosin, and amber—used principally in lacquers, varnishes, inks, adhesives, plastics, and pharmaceuticals. Resins can also be made from synthetic sources.
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Return to order (rappel à l’ordre)
A conservative cultural movement in France in the years following World War I. This movement was defined by a renewed interest in classicism, nationalism, and a rejection of the avant-garde. Many artists—especially those who experienced battle firsthand—were deeply affected by the destabilization wrought by WWI and the horrors of modern industrial warfare, and reacted to this shock by rejecting new, experimental art in favor of work that embraced academic fine-art traditions and emphasized balance, precision, and order.
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Ritual
A series of actions, performed by an individual or group, according to a prescribed sequence. Rituals often include objects, dress, music, or body movements that are symbolic or have spiritual meaning.
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Rods and cones
The photoreceptor cells in our eyes that are responsible for our sensitivity to light and color
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