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museums of art

(Encyclopedia)museums of art, institutions or buildings where works of art are kept for display or safekeeping. The word museum derives from the Greek mouseion, meaning temple to the works of the Muses. This articl...

Cincinnati Art Museum

(Encyclopedia)Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1877 by the Women's Art Museum Association, the museum opened in 1886. Its collections contain examples spanning 3,000 years of artistic production....

German art and architecture

(Encyclopedia)German art and architecture, artistic works produced within the region that became politically unified as Germany in 1871 generally followed the stylistic currents of Western Europe. The sentimental...

restoration, in art

(Encyclopedia)restoration, in art: see art conservation and restoration. ...

Dia Art Foundation

(Encyclopedia)Dia Art Foundation, American foundation that supports contemporary art and artists, est. 1974 by art dealer Heiner Friedrich and his wife, art patron Philippa de Menil. The foundation, which commissio...

academies of art

(Encyclopedia)academies of art, official organizations of established artists. Lorenzo de' Medici's informal circle of great artists and thinkers was modeled on similar groups formed in classical Greece. The first ...

forgery, in art

(Encyclopedia)forgery, in art, the false claim to authenticity for a work of art. A forger often unconsciously produces a confusion of styles or subtly accents elements reflecting contemporary bias. A major examp...

composition, in art

(Encyclopedia)composition, in art, the organization of forms and colors within the work of art. In traditional sculpture this means the arrangement of masses and planes. In representational painting it means the gr...

illumination, in art

(Encyclopedia)illumination, in art, decoration of manuscripts and books with colored, gilded pictures, often referred to as miniatures (see miniature painting); historiated and decorated initials; and ornamental bo...

nimbus, in art

(Encyclopedia)nimbus nĭmˈbəs [key], in art, the luminous disk or circle or other indication of light around the head of a sacred personage. It was used in Buddhist and other Asian art and by the early Greeks and...