The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (168 page)

(1787–1855).
English watercolour painter, a pupil of
Varley
. He was a popular and prolific artist and much of his work is repetitive. Early in his career he specialized in scenes of Wales and the Lake District, but after 1814 he spent much of his time near the coast because of his wife's health, and turned increasingly to seascapes.

 
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Field painting
.

A type of painting developed in the USA
c.
1950 in which the picture is no longer regarded as a structure of inter related elements but as a single indivisible expanse. Field painting has affinities with
Systemic painting
and with the
All-over style
initiated by Jackson
Pollock
. The term
Colour Field painting
has been used when emphasis is placed upon brilliance and saturation of colour. Rather than a specific style it may be regarded as an aspect of a very general tendency during the 1950s and 1960s to eschew traditional composition in favour of a single ‘total’ theme.

 
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figurative art
.

Art in which recognizable figures or objects are portrayed. The term ‘representational art’ is used synonymously; the opposite is non-figurative or
abstract art
.

 
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(
c.
1400–
c.
1469).
Florentine sculptor, architect, and writer on art. His nickname is derived from the Greek for ‘lover of virtue’. He probably trained with
Ghiberti
and his most important work in sculpture—the bronze doors of St Peter's in Rome (1433–45)—are heavily indebted to Ghiberti's doors for the Baptistery in Florence, although much less accomplished. After being expelled from Rome for allegedly stealing a relic, Filarete went to Florence and Venice, then in 1450 settled in Milan. There he worked mainly as an architect, his principal work being the Ospedale Maggiore (begun 1457, completed in the 18th cent.), which helped to introduce the
Renaissance
style to Lombardy and created new standards of comfort and sanitation in hospital design. His novel ideas came out also in his
Treatise on Architecture
, written in 1461–4. It includes a vision of a new city, Sforzinda (named after his patron, Francesco
Sforza
), which is the first symmetrical town-planning scheme of modern times. Among his ingenious proposals for his ideal city was a Tower of Virtue and Vice, a ten-storey structure accommodating a brothel on the ground floor and an astronomical observatory at the top.

 
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(1882–1953).
Czech painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and writer on art. Between 1907 and 1914 he spent much of his time in France, Germany, and Italy, and during this period he turned from his early
Expressionist
manner to
Cubism
, becoming the pioneer and one of the most distinguished exponents of the style in Czechoslovakia. He passed the First World War in the Netherlands and during the Second World War he was imprisoned in the concentration camp at Buchenwald. In his post-1945 work he moved to a more naturalistic style.

 
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fine arts
.

Term applied to the ‘higher’ non-utilitarian arts, as opposed to
applied
or
decorative arts
. In its most common usage the term is taken to cover painting, sculpture, and architecture (even though architecture is obviously a ‘useful’ art), but it is often extended to cover poetry and music too. The term came into use in the 18th cent. See also
LIBERAL ARTS
.

 
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