The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (470 page)

 
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(1577–1640).
Florentine sculptor in bronze, the chief pupil and follower of
Giambologna
. After the latter's death Tacca completed a number of his works and succeeded him as sculptor to the
Medici
Grand Dukes of Tuscany. Tacca's works for them include his masterpieces, the four
Slaves
(1615–24) at the foot of
Bandinelli's
statue of Ferdinand I de' Medici at Leghorn. His last work was the equestrian statue of Philip IV of Spain (1634–40) for the Plaza de Oriente, Madrid, in which the King is shown on a rearing horse. This
Baroque
pose was imposed on Tacca, having been already used in pictures of the King by
Rubens
and
Velázquez
(a copy of a painting by one or the other of these artists was sent to Florence to act as a model). The smooth, generalized treatment of the work shows, however, that Tacca remained essentially a
Mannerist
sculptor. Tacca's son
Ferdinando
(1619–86) was also a sculptor; his best works are his graceful bronze statuettes.

 
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Tachisme
.

A style of abstract painting popular in the late 1940s and 1950s characterized by irregular dabs or splotches of colour (
tache
is French for spot or blotch). The term was given wide currency by the French critic Michel Tapié in his book
Un Art autre
(1952). Tachisme had affinities with
Abstract Expressionism
(although it initially developed independently of it) in that it strove to be completely spontaneous and instinctive, excluding deliberation and formal planning, and the term is often used as a generic label for any European painting of the time that parallels the American movement. However, Tachisme was primarily a French phenomenon (Jean
Fautrier
, Georges
Mathieu
, and the German-born but Paris-based
Wols
were among the leading exponents), and Tachiste paintings are characteristically more elegant and less aggressive than the work of the American Abstract Expressionists. The terms ‘
abstraction lyrique
’ (
lyrical abstraction
)
‘Art Autre’
(other art), and
‘Art Informel’
(art without form) are sometimes used synonymously with Tachisme, although certain critics use them to convey different nuances, sometimes corresponding with niceties of theory rather than with observable differences in practice. To add to the confusion of terminology, the word ‘tachisme’ was used differently in the 19th cent., being applied pejoratively to the
Impressionists
and the
Macchiaioli
.

 
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tactile values
.

Term introduced into art criticism by Bernard
Berenson
in his
Florentine Painters of the Renaissance
(1896) to describe those qualities in a painting that stimulate the sense of touch. He thought that
Giotto
was the first master since
classical
antiquity whose painting demonstrated these qualities, which he considered to be a distinctive feature of Florentine painting and held to be ‘life enhancing’. His theories were not very cogent, and the term is now little used.

 
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(
c.
1362/3–1422)
. Sienese painter, active in Pisa, Perugia, San Gimignano, and Volterra, his native city. He was a conservative artist, but is noteworthy for his series of frescos on Roman Republican heroes and civic Virtues (1406–14) in the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, which are early examples of a type that became popular in the Renaissance.

 
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(1889–1943).
Swiss artist, the wife of Jean
Arp
. She met Arp in Zurich in 1915 and married him in 1922. Her prolific output included
collages
, embroideries, paintings, puppets, sculpture, and stage designs, much of her work being in an abstract style distinguished by its rhythmic vitality. She died from an accident with a leaking stove.