The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (111 page)

 
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Conceptual art
.

Term embracing various forms of art in which the idea for a work is considered more important than the finished product, if any. The notion goes back to
Duchamp
, but it was not until the 1960s that Conceptual art became a major international phenomenon (it first made an impact in Britain with the exhibition ‘When Attitudes Become Form’ at the
Institute of Contemporary Arts
, London, in 1969). It often overlaps with other avant-garde forms of expression (
Body art
,
Land art
,
Minimal art
,
Performance art
, for example), and its manifestations have been very diverse. Photographs, texts, maps, diagrams, sound cassettes, video, etc., have been used as communication media, and most Conceptual artists deliberately render their productions visually uninteresting in order to divert attention to the ‘idea’ they express (see
KOSUTH
, for an example). Exponents and admirers of Conceptual art see it as posing questions about the nature of art and provocatively expanding its boundaries; to the general public and to many critics it usually seems pretentious and hollow. There are no readily apparent means for discriminating successful from unsuccessful, professional from amateurish, good from bad, examples of Conceptual art, and to many people the abbreviation ‘Con art’ that is sometimes used must seem remarkably apposite.

 
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Concrete art
.

Term applied to abstract art that repudiates all figurative reference. The term was coined by van
Doesburg
, who in 1930 issued a manifesto entitled
Art Concret
, disguised as the first number of a review (no other numbers were issued), and it is often particularly associated with Max
Bill
. Although Concrete art is often severely geometrical, it is not necessarily so; Bill's sculpture, for example, often uses graceful spiral or helix shapes.

 
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(d. 1574).
Italian painter, sculptor, and writer, a pupil and friend of
Michelangelo
. He was an insignificant artist and his only claim to fame is his
Life of Michelangelo
, published in 1553. Three years earlier the first edition of Giorgio
Vasari's
Lives
had appeared, and Michelangelo seems to have taken exception to some of the statements made there. Condivi's
Life
was meant as a corrective, and he writes not only from intimate personal knowledge, but obviously at times almost at dictation from the master. Johannes
Wilde
(
Michelangelo
, 1978, pp. 9–12) considers that Condivi was a ‘simpleton’ who could not have composed ‘such an eminently readable book’ unaided, and thinks that Annibale Caro (1507–66), a humanist man of letters, was probably the ghost writer.

 
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(1544–1607).
The most important member of a large and prolific family of Flemish painters, many of whom are not clearly distinguishable personalities. He was born at Antwerp and in 1587 emigrated to Frankenthal, where he became a leader of a group of landscape painters established there. In 1595 he settled permanently in Amsterdam. Coninxloo's early landscapes are panoramic views of vast valleys and great mountain ranges populated by biblical or mythological personages. In later works, such as the majestic
Forest
(Kunsthistorisches Mus., Vienna), he narrows his field of vision and takes as his subject the mood evoked by luxuriant nature. His younger countrymen, Roelant
Savery
and David
Vinckboons
, who had also come to Holland at about the same time, were influenced by Gillis's late works. Among his many pupils were two major Dutch artists, Esaias van de
Velde
and Hercules
Seghers
.

 
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