The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (59 page)

 
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(1845–1929).
German art historian. His career was centred on the Berlin Museum; in 1872 he was appointed assistant in the department of sculpture, of which he became director in 1883, in 1903 he became director of the Gemäldegalerie (picture gallery), and in 1905 director general of all the royal museums of Prussia, a post he held until he retired in 1920. Under Bode's administration the Berlin Museum became one of the world's outstanding collections. Apart from being a noted scholar, Bode was one of the pioneers of modern museum organization and display, combining pictures, sculptures, and frames in harmonious arrangements and achieving a balance between creating an up-to-date setting for works of art and reconstructing their historical milieu. His main publications were in the field of Dutch and Flemish art (particularly
Rembrandt
and his contemporaries), but he also wrote on Italian art and assisted
Burckhardt
with his
Cicerone
.

 
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bodegón
.

Spanish term, literally meaning ‘tavern’ or ‘chophouse’, applied strictly to domestic (particularly kitchen) scenes that have a prominent still-life element.
Velázquez
painted several
bodegones
early in his career. More loosely, the term is used as a synonym for still life.

 
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Body art
.

A type of art in which the artist uses his or her own body as the medium: it is closely related to
Conceptual art
and
Performance art
, and flourished mainly at the same time that these forms of expression were at their peak—the late 1960s and 1970s. Sometimes works of Body art are executed in private and communicated by means of photographs or films; sometimes the execution of the ‘piece’ is public. Sometimes the demonstration is prechoreographed; sometimes it is extemporaneous. Spectator participation is not usually invited. Several leading exponents of Body art have been concerned with self-inflicted pain or ritualistic acts of endurance. For example, in ‘Seedbed’ (1972) the American Body artist Vito Acconci (1940– ) spent several hours daily masturbating under a gallery-wide ramp while the sounds of his activity were relayed via loudspeakers to visitors overhead. The philosophy behind such works is obscure.

 
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body colour
.

Paint that is opaque rather than transparent, more specifically
watercolour
mixed with a white
pigment
.
Gouache
is an alternative name for body colour used in the more restricted sense.

 
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(1761–1845).
French painter and engraver. He painted portraits, domestic and
genre
scenes, and
scènes galantes
, which brought him into disrepute at the time of the Revolution. In 1823 he took up
lithography
and used this technique to popularize his scenes from contemporary life. He was extremely prolific (claiming to have executed 5,000 portraits), and smooth and meticulous in his technique.

 
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