The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (113 page)

 
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contrapposto
.

Term (Italian for ‘set against’) applied to poses in which one part of a figure twists or turns away from another part. It was originally applied, during the
Renaissance
, to a relaxed asymmetrical pose characteristic of much Greek and Roman sculpture in which the body's weight is borne mainly on one leg, so that the hip of that leg rises relative to the other (the
Doryphoros
of
Polyclitus
is a classic example). The term is now, however, used in a much broader sense and applied equally to painting as to sculpture. The acknowledged master of
contrapposto
was
Michelangelo
, and his
Mannerist
followers (for example
Bronzino
) often devised poses of wilful complexity in order to demonstrate their skill in the field.

 
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conversation piece
.

A portrait group in a domestic or landscape setting in which two or more sitters are engaged in conversation or other polite social activity. Conversation pieces are usually, though not always, small in scale. They were especially popular in Britain during the 18th cent., but the use of the term is not confined to British painting or to this period. Arthur
Devis
and the young
Gainsborough
were notable practitioners.

 
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(1926– ).
British
naïve
painter. She took up painting seriously in early middle age and in 1975 had her first exhibition, at the Plymouth Arts Centre. It was a great success and within a few years she was well known through other exhibitions, television appearances, and the publication of the first of several collections of her work in book form (
The Works
, 1978), with the paintings accompanied by her own amusing captions. Her chubby, usually jovial characters have also been much used on greetings cards. Cook's subjects are drawn from everyday life and frequently involve the kind of saucy humour associated with seaside holidays (she used to run a boarding house in Plymouth) and tabloid Sunday newspapers (often she incorporates newsprint in her work).

 
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(1911–84).
British art historian and collector. He lived in France for much of his life and was severely critical of the British for what he regarded as their failure to appreciate or patronize modern art. His main interest was
Cubism
, and in 1932 he decided to devote part of his inheritance to forming a collection of its four main protagonists—
Picasso
,
Braque
,
Gris
, and
Léger
—in its greatest period, 1907–14. He later added works by other artists, but the Cubists remained the core. In the Second World War he worked in intelligence and helped to identify, protect, and repatriate works of art. Picasso was later a neighbour and visitor in southern France, but their friendship turned to hostility. Cooper, indeed, had a notoriously difficult temperament and enjoyed controversy; in the 1950s he became particularly well known for his attacks on the
Tate Gallery
and its Director Sir John
Rothenstein
. He was a formidable scholar and published substantial books on all four major Cubists.

 
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(1609–72).
English
miniaturist
, the nephew and probably the pupil of John
Hoskins
. Cooper was the greatest English miniaturist of the 17th cent. and he enjoyed a European reputation and the patronage of both Oliver Cromwell and Charles II. His portraits are almost always of the bust only, but within this limitation his range is remarkable: he presents each sitter with a force and individuality besides which the life-size portraits by contemporaries such as
Lely
appear doll-like, and his ambitious composition and
Baroque
sense of design mark a complete breach with the tradition of
Hilliard
and Hoskins. His brother
Alexander
(before 1609–60) was also a miniaturist. He worked mainly on the Continent—in the Netherlands and at the Swedish court.