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Terms to do with art that confuse
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There are many terms in the art world that have the potential to confuse.
I'm not really talking about borrowed terms like plein air ("painting from life in the great outdoors"), more about terms that sound like they (ought to) mean something else.
Still life is, of course, pictures of inanimate objects. Not a living organism that is in stasis, which is what it sounds like.
One that often gets misused is Realist or Realism. I've capitalised the words to indicate that I am referring to a specific term, but if I were speaking you wouldn't hear the capital letters.
You all know, of course, that a Realist painting is one from, or following, the political painting movement of which Courbet is the best known artist. His paintings showed the real situations in the French provinces, of which insular Parisians were apparently unaware. It is hard to imagine a Realist paintings that was not realistic in style, nor one that was not figurative.
It doesn't help that there is a Photorealist movement, too, that aims to mimic photographs.
And then there's Social Realism (a development of Realism) and Socialist Realism (in which socialist states attempted to shape reality using a startling modern style). Don't confuse those two.
I used the word figurative up there. Nothing to do with pictures of people, as you know, but a word that refers to painting things in a recognisable fashion. The opposite of abstract.
I'mm stopping now because, even though I have come aross evidence of people not knowing what an abstract work of art is, I think I've written enough.
Anybody got any other words that they want to throw in?
