Search

The caricature is an art form of amusement and pictorial wit. The word caricatura (from Italian caricare, ‘to exaggerate,’ ‘to overload’) originally referred to an exaggerated imitation of nature in the portrait. In caricature, the artist demonstrates quickness of design, graphic skill, and pictorial wit. As a situational work of art, a caricature is primarily a domain of drawing. Until the 18th century, caricatures circulated in private or semi-public circles, and were not used in graphic reproduction. Early …

1. LiteratureConcetto (Italian; from Latin  conceptus, “gathering,” “thought/purpose”) is a term that was adopted into many western European languages (Spanish  concepto/ conceto, English conceit). Ernst Robert Curtius defines it as an “acute”  (“scharfsinnig”) or “pedantic” (“spitzfindig”) expression and “semantic play” (“Sinnspiel”) [2. 298, 301], and Hugo Friedrich as “as abnormal a payoff as possible, a striking semantic or conceptual play, eloquent, telling, stinging, and recherché” (“eine möglichst abnorme Pointe, ein frappierend…

1. FunctionThe monarchical or princely court everywhere in Europe in the early modern period was at once a center of political power and a focus of social life for the noble elite (Nobility). Courtly culture and its vision of the ideal life as lived by the courtier exerted a defining influence (Cortegiano; see below, 5.1.) primarily on the culture of the nobility, but also on metropolitan urban elites, and sometimes, as in France in the 17th and early 18th centuries, on the culture of provincial towns. The language and conventions of behavior at court became exemplary.During the High M…

1. ConceptThe artists known as Nazarenes acquired their name in early 19th-century Rome in reference to their appearance  alla nazarena, which was associated with Jesus of Nazareth, especially because of their long hair parted in the middle. Johann Friedrich Overbeck – in this respect the model for the Nazarene circle – adopted this hairstyle from the winter of 1812/13 at the latest. The nickname was not derisive, but derived from a usage dating back to the 17th century denoting a superficial resemblance to depic…

1. Terminological historyA general understanding of naturalism as the representation of nature in art was closely associated in the early modern period with theories of the imitation of nature (Latin  imitatio naturae; cf. Mimesis). Yet the fact that nature was studied is not evidence in itself of naturalism (cf. Nature study [art]). Study in nature (as opposed to working in the studio) was a possible positive connotation of naturalism, but the term could equally be negative in tone, indicating a breach of the norms of imitatio, which aimed at a representation of nature that wa…

1. Concept and definition Enlightenment in English is first attested from 1865 as a translation of the German  Aufklärung, which was first recorded in 1691. With their European cognates  lumières (French), illuminismo (Italian), and  ilustración (Spanish), they denote the most influential European educational and cultural movement of the 18th century, as well as its overriding goals: to subject all authorities, traditions, and hierarchies to the critical measure of a newly defined reason, and to abolish them if they ran counter…

1. Introduction An art exhibition is a presentation of art objects in a context, the location and duration of which may vary. It is subject to organizational conditions, a particular purpose or occasion. Unlike an art collection or museum, presentation is temporary, and the works in an art exhibition are not associated with the location [6]. Boundaries between the art exhibition and the museum of art were fluid in the early modern period [4], but limited duration was the characteristic of the exhibition. Older and contemporary works of art might be exhibited toge…

Figura serpentinata describes an ideal artistic figure: a stylized rotated body compared to a coiled snake, either at rest or in motion, ideally conceived as viewable from multiple perspectives [4]. Throughout the early modern era, theory of art (Art theory) treated this ideal figure, with its crucially close ties with mannerism, as one of the central ways to conceive of poise and motion. It was originally formulated by the art theorist Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo (1584) [2. 22–24], who compared the figura serpentinata to a flame and ascribed its invention to Michelange…

1. DefinitionOf the five senses, the one associated with the mouth (taste; Latin  gustus or  sapor, Italian and Spanish  gusto, French  goût, German  Geschmack) became by the 17th century, at the latest, a universal term for the ability to perceive beauty, to prize it, to assess it, and in some cases to (re)produce it. In this sense, it also stood for the ability to do or embody what is appropriate (Latin  aptum; Decorum) and worthy in any situation.Gerrit Walther2. Tastemakers, functions, placesThe concepts and guiding ideals of taste were supplied by classical rhetoric, …

1. Rhetorical terminological traditionThe term decorum (Greek  prépon; Latin  aptum, decorum, convenientia; Italian  decoro, convenienza, convenevolezza; French  bienséance, convenance) originates in rhetoric, and denotes that which is seemly and appropriate for speech and conduct. Its range of application encompasses language and its stylistic theory, ethical and moral considerations of conduct in public and private life according to gender, age, and class, and aesthetic aspects of architecture and the fine art…

1. Terminology The response of the Catholic Church (usually called the “Old Church” in the Reformation period) to the Reformation began gradually. Historians have coined various terms for it. Today there is still no term that covers both the efforts at reform within the Church during the 16th century and the attempt to win back the Church’s lost socio-political terrain. The competing terms include  Catholic Reformation,   Counter-Reformation, Catholic confessionalization, and recatholization.The reaction of the Old Church (and the states and territories that …

1. Introduction The history of early modern art theory from the 15th to the mid-19th century offers no semblance of a linear tradition in the discipline. Primary and secondary currents are encountered. It has long been recognized that the general history of early modern art, with its heterogeneity of genre and divergent development across Europe, is no longer reducible to a teleological history of style, but there are clearer international traditions of thought in the field of art theory. Art theo…