Terms

During the late 18th and early centuries, the spirit of romanticism began to be seen in works of art. It has often been viewed as a movement created in opposition to neoclassicism, but it was far more than this.

A salon is a government sponsored exhibition. Originally held in 1725 as the annual event of the French Academy of Art (Académie des Beaux-Arts), the salons signaled what styles, subjects, or individuals were considered most admirable. Juries selected the works and then arranged them in floor-to-ceiling displays ("salon-style" galleries).

In western art history, "academic" applies to the artists and objects influenced by a European academy of fine art training. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the French Academy of Art (Académie des Beaux-Arts) heavily influenced the aesthetic trends in Europe and the United States. Neoclassicism and Romanticism were both movements embraced as academic.

In the aftermath of World War II, many young artists in Japan—as in Europe and the United States—challenged themselves to rethink their inherited artistic and pictorial traditions. Recognizing this growing cultural foment, in 1954 Jirō Yoshihara (1905-1972) rallied a number of such artists together in the city of Ashiya, a suburb of Osaka, to start the avant-garde group known as the Gutai Art Association.

On a visit to Mexico in 1928, Jerry Bywaters made the acquaintance of the great Mexican muralist, Diego Rivera. Bywaters was profoundly affected by the older man's views on the role of the artist and the society in which he worked.

Realism calls for an objective and truthful depiction of contemporary life. The art movement emerged after the Revolution of 1848 that overturned the French monarchy. Just as the French population called for democratic reform, the Realists democratized the subject matter of works of art by rejecting idealized classicism and exotic romanticism for the portrayal of modern subjects observed in the every-day.

A World's Fair (also known as a world fair, world exposition, or universal exposition) is an international exhibition of art, design, engineering, and cultural practices that originated in 1851 with "The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations," held in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London.