The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (437 page)

(
c.
1485–1547).
Venetian painter, active mainly in Rome. According to
Vasari
, he trained with Giovanni
Bellini
, but his early work was most strongly influenced by
Giorgione
, whose
Three Philosophers
(Kunsthistorisches Mus., Vienna) Sebastiano is said to have completed after the master's death. Their styles, indeed, can be so close as to cause paintings to be disputed between them, most notably the unfinished
Judgement of Solomon
(National Trust, Kingston Lacy). This large and impressive work was attributed to Giorgione by
Ridolfi
, but scholarly opinion now increasingly tends towards giving it to Sebastiano. The half-length
Salome
(or
Judith
?) (NG, London, 1510) shows the magnificent painterly skills of an undoubted work of Sebastiano at this date; it has a sensuous beauty reminiscent of Giorgione, but also a statuesque grandeur that is Sebastiano's own. In 1511 Sebastiano moved to Rome on the invitation of the banker Agostino Chigi, and he remained there for the rest of his life apart from a visit to Venice in 1528–9 after the Sack of Rome. For Chigi he painted mythological frescos at the Villa Farnesina, where
Raphael
also worked. It was with
Michelangelo
rather than Raphael, however, that Sebastiano formed a friendship and a professional relationship. Michelangelo not only recommended him to people of influence, but also made drawings for him to work from, as with
The Raising of Lazarus
(NG, London, 1517–19). This was painted in competition with Raphael's
Transfiguration
(Vatican), both being intended for Norbonne Cathedral, and Vasari suggests that Michelangelo helped Sebastiano in order to discredit the Raphael faction, who had denigrated his powers as a colourist. Under Michelangelo's guidance Sebastiano's work became grander in form whilst losing much of its beauty of handling, the lack of sensuous appeal being accentuated when he began experimenting with painting on slate, as in
The Flagellation
(S. Pietro in Montorio, Rome). Some of the finest works of Sebastiano's Roman years are his portraits, and after Raphael's death (1520) he had no rival in the city in this field, his work attaining a distinctive sombre grandeur. Clement VII (Giulio de'
Medici
), the subject of one of Sebastiano's finest portraits (Museo di Capodimonte, Naples 1526), appointed him keeper of the papal seals in 1531 and after this he was less active as a painter. The seals were made of lead, ‘piombo’ in Italian, hence Sebastiano's nickname.

 
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(Italian: dry). Term applied to a technique of mural painting in which the colours are applied to dry plaster, rather than wet plaster as in
fresco
. The colours were either
tempera
or
pigments
ground in lime-water; if lime-water was used, the plaster had to be damped before painting, a method described by
Theophilus
and popular in northern Europe and in Spain. In Italian
Renaissance
art the finishing touches to a true fresco would often be painted
a secco
, as it is easier to add details in this way; because the secco technique is much less permanent, such passages have frequently flaked off with time. Thus in
Giotto's
Betrayal
in the Arena Chapel, Padua, the details of many of the soldiers' weapons are now missing.

 
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Section d'Or
.

Group of French painters who worked in loose association between 1912 (the date of their first exhibition) and 1914, when the war brought an end to their activities. The name, which was also the title of a short-lived magazine published by the group, was suggested by Jacques
Villon
in reference to the treatise on the
Golden Section
by Luca Pacioli , reflecting the interest of the artists involved in questions of proportion and pictorial discipline. Other members of the group included
Delaunay
,
Duchamp
,
Duchamp-Villon
,
Gleizes
,
Gris
,
Léger
,
Metzinger
, and
Picabia
. The common stylistic feature of their work was a debt to
Cubism
.

 
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(1924– ).
American sculptor. His career was slow to mature. He studied at various art colleges and took a degree in art education at New York University in 1950, but until 1958 he worked mainly as a chicken farmer, painting
expressionist
nudes in his spare time. In 1958 he made his first sculpture and in 1960 he began producing the kind of work for which he has become famous—life-size unpainted plaster figures, usually combined with real objects to create strange ghostly tableaux. Examples are:
The Gas Station
(National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1963);
Cinema
(Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, 1963);
The Restaurant Window
(Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne, 1967). The figures are made from casts taken from the human body; he uses his family and friends as models. In the 1970s he began to incorporate sound and lighting effects in his work. Segal has been classified with
Pop art
and
Environment art
, but his work is highly distinctive and original, his figures and groups dwelling in a lonely limbo in a way that captures a disquieting sense of spiritual isolation.

 
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(1858–99).
Italian
Divisionist
painter. He lived and worked mainly in the Swiss Alps and is best known for his views of mountain scenery. In later life, from
c.
1890, he often painted weirdly symbolic and mystical pictures (
The Bad Mothers
, Walker Art Gal., Liverpool), but most of his work is a more straightforward celebration of nature. There is a Segantini museum at St Moritz.