Art terms
Learn about the materials, techniques, movements, and themes of modern and contemporary art from around the world.
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Showing 23 of 351 art terms
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Mail art
A practice emerging in the 1960s based on sending and exchanging works of art through the postal service. In the following decades, mail art networks expanded globally through the circulation of mailing lists, newsletters and ‘zines.
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Manifesto
A public declaration, often political in nature, of a group or individual’s principles, beliefs, and intended courses of action. Manifestos typically materialize as written documents.
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Maps, borders, and networks
People have been creating maps since ancient times. The earliest map, thought to be a schematic representation of the night sky, was found in the caves of Lascaux, France. It dates to 14,500 BCE. While we often regard maps as objective representations, they are in fact laden with subjective views of the world. And maps change over time. Borders and boundaries are constantly in flux, shifting with wars and politics and in response to changes in international relations. Many artists have used maps to tell wide-ranging stories about conflict, migration, identity, and social, cultural, or political networks.
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Mass production
The production of large amounts of standardized products through the use of machine-assembly production methods and equipment.
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Media and performance art
Since the early 20th century, artists have been incorporating such non-traditional forms as dance, music, and their own actions into their art. The artists of the Dada and Futurist movements, for example, presented provocative performances meant to shock the public awake to their vision of society. But before World War II, performance occupied a less privileged place in the art world than the traditional mediums of painting, printmaking, and sculpture. Even the relatively newer and rapidly developing mediums of film and photography were more readily accepted as art than performance. By the late 1950s, artists found themselves confronted by the realities of postwar reconstruction, new wars and ideologies (among them the Vietnam War and Communism), burgeoning social movements spurred by historically disenfranchised populations and increasingly disaffected younger generations, and a flurry of technological innovations. Within this cultural climate, artists began to question the role, relevance, and definition of art as they knew it. They blurred the boundaries between disciplines and embraced and re-configured new technologies, creating works that have come to be known as Media Art. Perhaps most radically, artists from the early 20th century on have been breaking down the barriers between art and life by presenting projects outside of the context of museums and galleries, staging performances in the public sphere, and bringing everyday activities and materials into their work. Suddenly, art could be anything, and everything could be art.
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Medium format camera
Any camera that records an image, digitally or on film, larger than a 35mm frame but smaller than 4 × 5 inches. Between the 1920s and the 1950s, these handheld cameras became especially popular among photojournalists.
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Melodrama
A drama, such as a play, film, or television program, characterized by exaggerated emotions, stereotypical characters, and interpersonal conflicts. Behavior or occurrences having melodramatic characteristics.
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Merz
A term invented by Dadaist Kurt Schwitters to describe collage and assemblage works he made from scavenged scrap materials. He took the word Merz from the name Commerz Bank, which appeared on a piece of paper he cut up and included in one of his collages.
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Metabolist architecture
A movement in Japanese architecture of the 1960s reflecting the belief that cities could be designed according to organic paradigms. Metabolist architects hoped that the use of biological processes as models would give them efficient ways to deal with the rapid growth and technological progress of societies all over the world. Their design philosophy involved gigantic buildings. This monumental scale reflected operations they also saw at work in contemporary urban growth; their buildings were to become nodes in the organic fabric of the rapidly growing city.
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Metaverse
Online, multidimensional universe that can simultaneously accommodate individual users and groups as well as their identities, holdings, and transactional systems within a larger and expanding ecosystem whose reliability, in part, is supported by the blockchain.
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Mexican Muralism
A movement beginning in the early 1920s in Mexico in which the government commissioned artists to make art that would educate the mostly illiterate population about the country’s history and present a powerful vision of its future. The movement followed the Mexican Revolution. Inspired by the idealism of the Revolution, artists created epic, politically charged public murals that stressed Mexico’s pre-colonial history and culture and that depicted peasants, workers, and people of mixed Indian-European heritage as the heroes who would forge its future. The murals were executed in techniques including fresco, encaustic, mosaic, and relief. José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros were considered the leaders of the Mexican Muralism.
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Mezzotint
An intaglio printmaking technique that creates soft, velvety gradations of tone. The term comes from the Italian mezzotinto, meaning “half tint.” In this process, the entire surface of a metal printing plate is uniformly roughened using serrated tools called rockers to create tiny indentations that will hold ink. A tool called a burnisher is used to smooth over areas of the surface not intended to hold ink, creating an image or composition. When damp paper is placed on top of the inked plate and run through a press, the smoother, burnished sections result in light areas in the image, and the unburnished sections produce dark areas.
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Migration and movement
People have always moved around the world. Early humans were nomadic, traveling in search of food, shelter, and safety. Today, people move for many different reasons, including economic, political, cultural, religious, and environmental. Sometimes, events beyond people’s control, like war or natural disaster, leave them displaced and forced to migrate. Other times, people migrate voluntarily, perhaps in search of better work opportunities or a different lifestyle. For many artists, their own migrations and those of their ancestors shape their identities and the art they produce. As people move, they bring their knowledge, experiences, and beliefs with them. Often, as much as they absorb the culture of their new home, they influence it with their own traditions.
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Minimalism
A primarily American artistic movement of the 1960s, characterized by simple geometric forms devoid of representational content. Relying on industrial technologies and rational processes, Minimalist artists challenged traditional notions of craftsmanship, using commercial materials such as fiberglass and aluminum, and often employing mathematical systems to determine the composition of their works.
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Mobile
A type of sculpture consisting of balanced, separate parts that move, especially in response to air currents.
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Model
A detailed three-dimensional representation, usually built to scale, of another, often larger, object. See also, Architectural Model); 2. A person who poses for an artist
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Modern art
Art made from the 1880s to the 1970s—a time marked by the growth of cities, the rise of industry, a surge in technologies, and the development of mass media. During this period, everyday life changed for people around the world. Artists of diverse backgrounds contributed to this change, experimenting with new subjects, styles, materials, and techniques in their works.What it meant to be “modern” depended on when and where an artist worked. Some artists developed new ways of representing external realities and inner experiences. Others broke down boundaries between art, architecture, design, and craft. Many confronted political turmoil or social and economic injustice. But across distinct eras and geographies, modern artists shared a spirit of innovation. They challenged traditional ways of making art, reimagining who art is for and what it could be.
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Monochrome
A work of art rendered in only one color.
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Monotype
A unique print, typically painterly in effect, made by applying paint or printing ink to a flat sheet of metal, glass, or plastic. The painted image is transferred to paper either by manually rubbing or using a press. Mediums are applied to the plate using two different methods. In the additive, or “light-field,” technique, ink or paint is applied directly to the plate, often with a brush. In the subtractive, or “dark-field,” technique, the plate is covered with a layer of ink or paint, and the image is formed by manipulating and removing the ink or paint using a variety of tools, including brushes, rags, or the artist’s fingers. Each plate typically yields one monotype, but subsequent pulls (sometimes called “ghost impressions” because of their relative faintness) can be made from the residual mediums on the plate.
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Montage
An assembly of images that relate to one another in some way to create a single work or part of a work of art. A montage is more formal than a collage, and is usually based on a theme.
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Multiple
A term referring to small-scale, three-dimensional works of art conceived and produced in relatively large editions, and often issued by the same individuals or organizations that publish prints.
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Munsell color system
A system developed in Germany around 1910 by painter, professor, and color theorist Albert H. Munsell, who wanted to describe color with the same degree of specificity with which we can speak about music. Based on rigorous measurements of people’s visual responses to color, the Munsell color system specifies and orders colors based on three dimensions: hue, value (lightness), and chroma (intensity or purity). In addition to being the simplest color system to grasp, it was employed by most of the New York School.
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Mural
A large painting applied to a wall or ceiling, especially in a public space.
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