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Art Definitions

Not realistic, though the intention is often based on an actual subject, place, or feeling. Pure abstraction can be interpreted as any art in which the depiction of real objects has been entirely discarded and whose aesthetic content is expressed in a formal pattern or structure of shapes, lines and colors. When the representation of real objects is completely absent, such art may be called non-objective.

Art without reference to anything outside itself - without representation, without recognizable objects.

A non-representational style of sculpture and painting, predominantly American, that dates from the late 1960s, characterized by its rejection of expressive content and its use of "minimal" formal means.

Art in which it is the artist's intention to present again or represent a particular subject; especially pertaining to realistic portrayal of subject matter.

The science of the "beautiful" in a work of art. The aesthetic appeal of a work of art is defined by the visual, social, ethical, moral, and contemporary standards of society. The study and philosophy of the quality and nature of sensory responses related to, but not limited by, the concept of beauty.

Narrative painting has an element of literacy, whereas genre painting does not usually include a literate element. In a narrative picture, the viewer is seeing a moment in a story that allows the viewer to understand what happened prior to and after the moment caught by the artist.

A 1940's New York painting movement based on Abstract Art. A style of non-representational painting that relies on the physical movement of the artist in using such gestural techniques as vigorous brushwork, dripping, and pouring. Dynamism is often created through the interlaced directions of the paint.