Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

postmodernism

(Encyclopedia)postmodernism, term used to designate a multitude of trends—in the arts, philosophy, religion, technology, and many other areas—that come after and deviate from the many 20th-cent. movements that ...

arch

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Arches arch, the spanning of a wall opening by means of separate units (such as bricks or stone blocks) assembled into an upward curve that maintains its shape and stability through the mutual...

herm, in Greek art

(Encyclopedia)herm hûrm [key], in 6th-century Greek art, vertical pillar surmounted by a bearded human head and often having a phallus below. These structures were considered sacred to Hermes. They were placed on ...

Metropolitan Museum of Art

(Encyclopedia)Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, founded in 1870. The Metropolitan Museum is the foremost repository of art in the United States and one of the world's great museums. It opened in 1880 on it...

National Gallery of Art

(Encyclopedia)National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, established by an act of Congress, 1937. Andrew W. Mellon donated funds for construction of the building as well...

North American Native art

(Encyclopedia)North American Native art, diverse traditional arts of Native North Americans. In recent years Native American arts have become commodities collected and marketed by nonindigenous Americans and Europe...

Museum of Primitive Art

(Encyclopedia)Museum of Primitive Art, New York City, a privately supported institution, established in 1957. It was devoted entirely to the arts of the indigenous cultures of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas and ...

Browse by Subject