Abstraction

                 is a relative term for it's present in varying degrees in all works of art from full representation to complete nonobjectivity. (A term given to the visual effects derived by the simplification and/or rearrangement of the appearance of natural objects or nonrepresentational work arranged simply to satisfy artists' needs for organization or expression.)

Abstract Art

The term given to one of the major forms of nonrepresentational and semi-representational art of the 20th century. It began with Cubism in the second decade of the 20th century and reached a peak about the middle of the century.

Abstract Expressionism

An American style of painting that developed in the late 1940s sometimes called "Action or Gestural painting." It was characterized by a nonrepresentational stuly that stressed psychological or emotional meaning.

abstract texture

A texture derived from the appearance of an actual surface but rearranged and/or simplified by the artist to satisfy the demands of the artwork.

academic

Art that conforms to established traditions and approved conventions as practiced in Art Academies. An art that stresses standards and set procedures and rules.

accent

Any stress or emphasis given to elements of a composition that makes them attract more attention than other features that surround or are close to them.               can be created by a brighter color, darker tone, greater size, or any other means by which a difference is expressed (see dominance).

Achromatic (value)

Relating to differences of light and dark; the absense of hue and its intensity.

Action/Gestural Painting

An Abstract-Expressionist style that involves dripping, spraying, and brushing techniques in the application of pigment to the painting surface. Dribbled lines, roughly textured surfaces, and interwoven shards of color were meant to carry the emotional message to the spectator without reference to anything in the objective world.

actual shape

Clearly defined or positive areas (as opposed to an implied shape).

actual texture

A surface that can be experienced through the sense of touch (as opposed to a surface visually simulated by the artist).

addition

A sculptural term that means building up, assembling, or putting on material.

additive color

Color created by superimposing light rays. Adding together (or superimposing) the three physical primaries (lights)-red, blue, and green-will produce white. The secondaries are cyan, yellow, and magenta.

aesthetic, aesthetics

 The theory of the artistic or the "beautiful"-traditionally a branch of philosophy, but now a compound of the philosophy, psychology, and sociology of art. As such,             is no longer solely confined to determining what is beautiful in art, but attempts to discover the origins of sensitivity to art forms and the relationships of art to other phases of culture (such as science, industry, morality, philosophy, and religion). Frequently,           is used in this book to mean concern with artistic qualities of form as opposed to descriptive form or the mere recording of facts in visual form (see objective).

allover pattern

Refers to the repetition of designed units in a readily recognizable systematic organization covering the entire surface.

amorphous shape

A shape without clarity or definition: formless, indistinct, and of uncertain dimension.

analogous colors

Colors that are closely related in hue(s). They are usually adjacent to each other on the color wheel.

approximate symmetry

The use of similar imagery on either side of a central axis. The visual material on one side may resemble that on the other, but is varied to prevent visual monotony.

art

The formal expression of a conceived image or imagined conception in terms of a give medium. (Sheldon Cheney)

assemblage, Assemblage (art style)

A technique that brings together individual items of rather bulky 3D nature that are displayed in situ in their original posiion rather than being limited to a wall. As a style it is associated with artists like Rauschenberg and Kienholz.

assymetry

Having unlike, or non-corresponding, appearances-"without symmetry." An example: a 2D artwork that, without any necessarily visible or implied axis, displays an uneven distribution or parts throughout.

atectonic

Characterized by considerable amounts of space; open, as opposed to massive (or tectonic), and often with extended appendages.

atmospheric (aerial) perspective

The illusion of deep space produced in graphic works by lightening values, softening details adn textures, reducing value contrasts, and neutralizing colors in objects as they recede (see perspective).

balance

A sense of equilibrium achieved through implied weight, attention, or attraction, by manipulating the visual elements within an artwork in order to accomplish unity.

Bauhaus

Originally a German school of architecture that flourished between WWI and WWII. The           attracted many leading experimental artists of both 2 and 3D fields.

biomorphic shape

Irregular shape that resembles the freely developed curves found in live organisms.

calligraphy

Elegant, decorative writing. Lines used in artworks that possess the qualities found in this kind of writing may be called "calligraphic" and are generally flowing and rhythmical.

casting

A sculptural technique in which liquid materials are shaped by being poured into a mold.

cast shadow

The dark area that occurs on a surface as a result of something being placed between the surface and a light source.

chiaroscuro

1. Distribution of light and dark in a picture.

2. A technique of representation that blends light and shade gradually to create the illusion of 3D objects in space or atmosphere.

chroma

1. The purity of hue or its freedom from white, black, or gray.

2. Intensity of hue.

chromatic

Pertaining to the presence of color.

chromatic (value)

The value (relative degree of lightness or darkness) demonstrated by a given color.

classical

Art forms that are characterized by a rational, controlled, clear, and intellectual approach. The term derives from the ancient art of Greece in the fourth and fifth centuries B.C. The term "       " has an even more general connotation, meaning an example or model of first rank or highest class in any kind of form, literary, artistic, natural, or otherwise. Classicism is the application of, or adherence to, the priciples of Greek culture by such Renaissance civilizations, and the art of the Neoclassical movement in the early 19th century.

closed-value composition

Values are limited by the edges or boundaries of shapes.

closure

A Gestalt concept where the development of groupings or patterened relationships occurs when incomplete information is seen as a complete-unified whole-the artistic provides minimum visual clues and the observer brings them to final recognition.

collage

A pictorial technique where the artist creates the image, or a portion of it, by adhering real materials that possess actual textures to the picture plane surface, often combining them with painted or drawn passages.

color

The visual response to the wavelengths of sunlight identified as red, green, blue, etc.; having the physical properties of hue, intensity, and value.

Color Field Painting

A branch of Post Painterly Abstraction. A style closely related to Geometric Abstraction. It is also called Hard Edge Painting. The artists filled extremely large canvases with bright color meant to involve the viewer psychologically. They created unified shapes, fields, and/or symbols of the artists' personal feelings. The field of color were flat in technique and bonded or integral to the surface.

color tetrad

Four colors, equally spaced on the color wheel, containing a primary and its complement and a complementary pair of intermediates. This has also come to mean any organization of color on the wheel forming a rectangle that could include a double split-complement.

color triad

Three colors spaced an equal distance apart on the color wheel forming an equilateral triangle. The 12-color wheel is made up of a primary triad, a secondary triad, and two intermediate triads.

complementary colors

Two colors directly opposite each other on the color wheel. A primary color is complementary to a secondary color, which is a mixture of the two remaining primaries.

composition

An arrangement and/or structure of all the elements, as organized by the priciples, that achieves a unified whole. Often used interchangeably with the term "design."

concept

1. A comprehensive idea or generalization.

2. An idea that brings diverse elements into a basic relationship.

Conceptual Art

 The most significant concern of Conceptual Art is the "idea." Though often denying the use of art marerials and form in preference to conveying a message or analyzing an idea through photography, words, and "found" objects of human construction. at the extreme, all that is needed is an idea or concept. It first appeared in the 1960s.

conceptual perception

Creative vision derived from the imagination.

Constructivism

Pre-communist movement founded in Russia by Vladimir Tatlin that proclaimed total abstraction as the new realism in art in 1920. It had much to do with assembly and new use of contemporary materials and application of traditional materials in both painting and sculpture.

content

The expression, essential meaning, significance, or aesthetic value of a work of art.           refers to the sensory, subjective, psychological, or emotional properties we feel in a work of art, as opposed to our perception of its descriptive aspects alone.

contour

In art, the line that defines the outermost limits of an object or a drawn or painted shape. It is sometimes considered to be synonymous with "outline"; as such, it indicates an edge that also may be defined by the extremities of values, textures, or colors.

craftsmanship

Aptitude, skill, or quality worksmanship in use of toold and materials.

cross-contour

A line that crosses and defines the surface undulations between, or up to, the outermost edges of shapes or objects.

Cubism

The name given to the painting style invented by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque between 1907 and 1912, wich used multiple views of objects to create the effect of their three dimentionality, while acknowledging the 2D surface of the picture plane. Signaling the beginning of abstract art, it is a semi-abstract style that continued the strong trend away from representational art initiated primarily by Cezanne in the late 1800s.

curvilinear

Stressing the use of curved lines; as opposed to "rectalinear," which stresses straight lines.

Dada

A nihilistic, anti-art, anti-everything movement resulting from the social, political, and psychological dislocations of WWI. The movement, which literally means "hobbyhorse," is important historically as a generating force for Surrealism. The Dada movement began in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1916.

decorative

(art, line, shape, color, space, and so forth)

Ornamenting or enriching but, more importantly in art, emphasizing the 2D nature of an artwork or any of its elements. Decorative art emphasizes the essential flatness of a surface.

descriptive (art)

A type of art that is based upon adherence to actual appearance.

design

The underlying plan on which artists base their total work. In a broader sense, design may be considered synonymous with the term form.

de Stijl

A Dutch form of art featuring primary colors within a balanced structure of lines and rectangles. It was a style meant to perfectly express the higher mystical unity between humankind and the universe. Translated as "the Style," is was the form of abstraction developed by Piet Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg about 1914-17.

dominance

The principle of visual organization where certain elements assume more importance than others in the same composition or design. Some features are emphasized and others are subordinated.

economy

Distilling the image to the basic essentials for clarity of presentation.

elements of art

Line, shape, value, texture, and color-the basic ingredients the artist uses separately or in combination to produce artistic imagery. Their use produces the visual language of art.

Environmental Art

A form of art taking its name from the fact that it surrounds and affects the spectator like the environment. Derived primarily from Assemplage and Pop Art, it is now generally called Site and Earth Art.

equivocal space

A condition, usually intentional on the artist's part, when the viewer may, at different times, see more than one set of relationships between art elements or depicted objects. This may be compared to the familiar "optical illusion."

empression

1. The manifestation through artistic form of a throught, emotion, or quality of meaning.

2. In art, expression is synonymous with the word content.

Expressionism

A form of art in which there is a desire to express what is felt rather than perceived or reasones. Expressionistic form is defined by an obvious exaggeration of natural objects for the purpose of emphasizing an emotion, mood, or concept. It can be better understood as a more vehement kind of Romanticism. The term is best applied to a movement in art of the early 20th century, encompassing the Fauves and German groups, although it can be used to describe all art of this character.

Fantastic Art

Not a particular style or movement, but a term used to describe the kind of art that arose as a reaction to the machine cult in Abstract Art and the bloodshed in WWI. It extolled artistic freedom to reemphasize the emotional and intuitive side of creativity.

Fauves (Fauvism)

A name (meaning "wild beasts") for an art movement that began in Paris, France, about 1905. It was expressionistic art in a general sense, but more decorative, orderly, and charming than German Expressionism.

form

1. The organization of inventive arrangement of all the visual elements according to the priciples that will develop unity in the artwork. 

2. The total appearance or organization.

4D space

A highly imaginative treatment of forms that gives a sense of intervals of time or motion.

fractional representation

A device used by various cultures (notably the Egyptians) in which several spatial aspects of the same subjects are combined in the same image.

Futurism

A sub-movement within the overall framework of abstraction adopted by many 20th century artists. The imagery of          artists was based on an interest in time, motion, and rhythm, which they felt were manifested in the machinery and human activities of modern times and their extension into the future.

genre

Subject matter that concerns everyday life, domestic scenes, family relationships, etc.

geometric shape

A shape that appears related to geometry.            

         are usually simple, such as triangles, rectangles, and circles.

Gestalt, Gestalt psychology

A German word for "form." Defined as an organized whole in experience. Around 1912, the           psychologists promoted the theory that explains psychological phenomena by their relationships to total forms, or Gestalten, rather than their parts.

glyptic

1. The quality of an art material like stone, wood, or metal that can be carved or engraved. 

2. An art form that retains the color, tensile, and tactile quality of the material from which it was created.

3. The quality of hardness, solidity, or resistance found in carved or engraved materials.

golden mean/golden section

1. Golden mean-"perfect" harmonious proportions that avoid extremes; the moderation between extremes. 

2. Golden section-a traditional proportional system for visual harmony expressed when a line or area is divided into two sections so that the smaller part is to the largest as the larger is to the whole. The ratio developed is 1:1.6180....or, roughly, 8:13.

 graphic art

1. 2D art forms such as drawing, painting, making prints, etc.

2. The 2D use of the elements.

3. May also refer to the techniquest of printing as used in newspapers, books, magazines, etc.

Happenings

A form of participatory art in which artists and spectators were engaged. Sometimes called "assemblages on the move." It stemmed from Dada and came into being with Pop Art in the mid to late 1950s. Being ephemeral, Happenings are recorded by photographers and cinema-makers. Now, Performance Art is the more popular term (see Performance Art).

harmony

The quality of relating the visual elements of a composition.              is achieved by repetition of characteristics that are the same or similar. These cohesive factors create pleasing interaction.

high-key color

Any color that has a value level of middle grey or lighter.

hatching

Repeated strokes of an art tool producing clustered lines (usually parallel) that create values. In "cross"-       similar lines pass over the hatched lines in a different direction, usually resulting in darker values.

high-key value

A value which has a level of middle grey or lighter.

highlight

The portion of an object that, from the observer's position, receives the greatest amount of direct light.

hue

Designates the common name of a color and indicates its position in the spectrum or on the color wheel.       is determined by the specific wavelength of the color in a ray of light.

illusionism

The imitation of visual reality created on the flat surface of the picture plane by the use of perspective, light-and-dark shading, etc.

illustration(al)

An art practice that stresses anecdotes or story situations.

implied line

                            (subjective lines) are those that dim, fade, stop and/or disappear where the missing part is implied to continue and is visually completed by the observer as the line reappears.

implied shape

A shape suggested or created by the psychological connection of dots, lines, areas, or their edges, creating the visual appearance of a shape that does not physically exist (see Gestault).

Impressionism

A movement of the late 19th century primarily connected with such painters as Claude Monet adn Camille Pissarro. A form of realistic painting based on the way in which changing aspects of light affect human vision, it challenged older modes of such representation.

infinite space

A concept in which the picture frame acts as a window through which objects can be seen receding endlessly.

intensity

The saturation, strength, or purity of hue. A vivid color is of high         ; a dull color is of low         . 

intermediate color

A color produced by a mixture of a primary color and a secondary color.

interpenetration

The movement of planes, objects, or shapes through each other, locking them together within a specific area of space.

intuitive space

The illusion of space that the artist creates by instinctively manipulating certain space-producing devices including overlapping, transparency, interpenetration, inclined planes, disproportionate scale, fractional representation, and the inherent spatial properties of the art elements.

invented texture

A created texture whose only source is in the imagination of the artist. It generally produces a decorative pattern and should not be confused with an abstract texture.

isometric projection (perspective)

A technical drawing system in which a 3D object is presented 2 Dimensionally; starting with the nearest vertical edge, the horizontal edges of an object are drawn at a 30 degree angle and all verticals are projected perpendicularly from a horizontal base.

Kinetic Art

A form of art named after a Greek word (kinesis) meaning "motion." Art that involves an element of random or mechanical movement. 

kinetic assemblages

An assemblage that moves, a mobile, for example (see assemblage).

line (actual)

The path of a moving point that is made by a tool, instrument, or material as it moves across an area. A

        is usually made visible because it contrasts in value with its surroundings. 3D lines may be made by using string, wire, tubes, solid rods, etc.

linear perspective (geometric)

A system used to develop 3D images on a 2D surface; it develops the optical phenomenon of dimenishing size by treating edges as converging parallel lines. They extend to a vanishing point or points on the horizon (eye-level) and receded from the viewer (see perspective).

local (objective) color

The color as seen in the objective world (green grass, blue sky, red barn, etc.).

Local value

The relative light and dark of a surface, seen in the objective world, that is independent of any effect created by the degree of light falling on it.

low-key color

Any color that has a value level of middle gray or darker.

low-key value

Any value that has a level of middle grey or darker.

manipulation

The sculptural technique that refers to the shaping of pliable materials by hands or tools.

Mass

1. In graphic art, a shape that appears to stand out 3D from the space surrounding it or appears to create the illusion of a solid body of material.

2. In the plastic arts, the physical bulk of a solid body of material.

medium, media (pl.)

The material(s) and tool(s) used by the artist to create the visual elements perceived by the viewer.

Minimalism

Abstract art forms reduced to the barest essentials that reveal very little variation in the use of the elements.

Mobile

A 3D, moving sculpture.

Modeling

A sculptural technique meaning to shape a pliable material.

modern art, modernism

The term"                 " is applied to almost all progressive or avant-garde phases of art from the time of the Impressionists in the late 1880s to the growth of Postmodernism in the 1960s.           is usually associated with nonrepresentational, formally organized kinds of modern art, as opposed to the organic and/or fantastic branches. 

moments of force 

Direction and the degree of energy implied by the art elements in specific compositional situations; amounts of visual thrusts produced by such manners as dimension, placement, and accent.

monochromatic

Having only one hue; the complete range of value of one color from black to white.

motif

A designed unit or pattern that is repeated often enough in the total composition to make it a significant of dominant feature.          is similar to "them" or "melody" in a musical composition.

movement

Eye travel directed by visual pathways in a work of art.

naturalism, Naturalism (art style)

The approach to art that is essentially a description of things visually experienced. Pure          would contain no personal interpretation introduced by the artist; this is a physical impossibility. As a style,            is associated with Courbet and Messionier

natural texture

Textures created as a result of nature's processes.

negative area(s)

The unoccupied or empty space left after the positive elements have been created by the artist. However, when these areas have boundaries, they also function as design shapes in the total structure.

Neo-Abstraction

Within the umbrella of Postmodern art there exists a hard core of artists who have chosen to remain in the abstract manner. Most of them are influenced by the rich color work of such artists as Frank Stella and Al Held.

neutralized color

A color that has been greyed or reduced in intensity by being mixed with any of the neutrals or with a complementary color.

Neo-expressionism

Dating from the early 1980s, the style reaffirmed they psychic of the early 20th century Expressionism. It became perhaps the most distinctive direction in Postmodernism.

neutrals

1. The inclusion of all color wavelengths will produce white, and the absence of any wavelengths will be perceived as black. With         , no single color is noticed-only a sense of light or dark or the range from white through grey to black.

2. A color altered by the addition of its complement so that its original sensation of hue is lost or greyed. 

35,000-28,000 bc

Upper Paleolithic: Late Old Stone Age.

Stone Tool Industries.

28,000 Art begins: Cave paintings and fertility goddesses (Europe).

35,000-3000 bc

Prehistoric Art

4000 bc-ad 146

Ancient Art

200-1300 ad

Early Christian and Medieval Art

1300-1600

Renaissance Art

1600-1800

Baroque and Rococo Art

1780-1900

Nineteenth-Centur Art

1900-1955

Early Twentieth-Centur Art

1945-1990s

Late Twentieth-Century Art

10,000 bc

Mesolithic: Middle Stone Age.

End of last Ice Age.

6,000-3,000 bc

Neolithic: New Stone Age.

Begins Middle East; speads to Europe. Settled agricultual communities: pottery, architecture begins.

4000 bc

Egyptian Art:

Old Kingdom

3000 bc

Sumerian Art:

Iraq. Invention of writing.

2800 bc

Aegean Art: 

Isle of Crete. Minoan I & II.

2300 bc

Akkadian Art: 

Syria and Iraq

2000 bc

Aegean Art: 

Mycenaean Age; Greece.

Minoan III; Crete.

1700 bc

Babylonian Art:

Syrian and Iraq

1600 bc

Egyptian Art:

New Empire

1500 bc

Neolithic:

Ends in Europe

1100 bc

1000 bc

Aegean Art: 

Homeric Age, Greece-Turkey

Etruscan Art:

Italy

900 bc

Assyrian Art:

Middle East

750 bc

Greek Art:

Archaic Age; Greece and South Italy

Etruscan Art:

North Italy

600 bc

Neo-Babylonian Art:

Middle East

550 bc

Achaemenid Persian Art: 

Iran/Middle East

470 bc

Greek Art:

Classical Age, Greece

330 bc

Greek Art:

Ptolemaic Age, Egypt

320 bc

Greek Art: 

Hellenistic Age, Greece and Middle East

(Seleucid Empire)

280 bc

Roman Art:

Roman Republic, Italy

140 bc

Graeco-Roman Art:

Italy to Greece and Middle East

30 bc-ad 146

Imperial Roman Art:

Italy, parts of Europe and Middle East

30 bc

Jesus Christ born

500 bc-ad 400

Migratory Period Art in Europe:

Celts, Goths, Slavs, Scandinavians

200 ad

Iranian (Persian) Art:

Sassanid Empire

Late Imperial Roman Art 

and

Early Christian Art:

Italy and Europe

330 ad

Early Byzantine Art:

Centers at Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey and parts of Middle East.

Coptic Christian Art:

Egypt

Early Christian Art: 

Western Europe and Italy

476 ad

Roman Art ends.

493 ad

Early Byzantine Art: 

Introduece at Ravenna and Venice.

570-632 ad

Mohammed founds Islamic religion.

650 ad

Islamic Art:

Beginning in Syria, Palestine, and Iraq

760 ad

Carolingian Art:

France, Germany, and North Italy

800 ad

Developed Byzantine Art:

Middle East, Greece, Balkans, and parts of Italy.

950 ad

Ottonian Art:

Mostly in Germany

1000 ad

Romanesque Art:

France, England, Northern Spain (Moslems in South), Italy, and Germany.

1150 ad

Gothic Art:

France, Italy, Northern Spain, Germany, and England

1300 ad

Proto-Renaissance Italy:

Duccio, Giotto, Pisan (sculpt)

1400 ad

Early Renaissance Italy: 

Donatello (sculpt), Masaccio, Francesca, Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo Lippi, Brunelleschi (arch), da Vinci

1500 ad

High Renaissance Italy:

Titan, Raphael, Michelangelo

1520 ad

Mannerism and Early Baroque Italy:

Caravaggio, Bernini (sculpt) 

1600 ad

Baroque Art in Europe: 

Rubens, van Dyck, Velasquez

Early Colonial Art in the Americas

1700 ad

Rococo Art: 

Watteau, Boucher

Colonial Arts and Early Federal Art in U.S.:

West, Copley

1780 ad

Neoclassicism: 

France:

David, Ingres

1820-1826 ad

Romanticism:
France:

Delacroix, Goya, Ryder

1850 ad

Realism (and Naturalism): 

Rodin, Courbet, Eakins, Homer, 

1870 ad

Impressionism: 

Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Degas, 

1880 ad

Post-Impressionism:

Cezanne, Gauguin, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec, van Gogh, Bonnard

1900 ad

Post-Impressionist Sculpture:

Maillol, Lachaise, Kolbe

1902-1907 ad

German Expressionism: 

Die Brucke (The Bridge)

Munch, Kandinsky, Marc, Kuehn

Die Neue Sachlichkeit (The New Objectivity)

Independent German Expressionists

1906 ad

Expressionist Sculpture

Cubism: 

France:

Picasso, Braque, Leger, Gris

1910-1920 ad

Abstract Art: Germany

Albers, Kandinsky

Russia: Constructivism: 

Tatlin, Mondrian

de Stijl architecture

U.S.:

O'Keefe

Fantasy in Art-Individual Fantasists:

Rousseau

1913 ad

 Armory Show, New York

helps introduce avante-garde art to U.S.

1914 ad

Dadaism:

Duchamp, 

1920-1930 ad

Later Empressionism:

1924 ad

Surrealism:
France:

Picasso, Gonzales, Bacon, Dali, Magritte

1930-1940 ad

Realist Painting and Photography (straight) in U.S.:

Wyeth, Wood, Benton

F-64 Group of Photographers: 

Weston, Adams, Cunningham

1945-1951 ad

Abstract Expressionist Painting (Action or Gestural): 

de Kooning, Miro, Matta, Pollack, Kline

Surreal Abstract or Abstract Expressionism Sculpture:

1960s

 Post-Painterly Abstraction (Hard Edge or Color Field Painting):

Duchamp, Rothko

1965-1990s

Postmodernism:

 Computer Art (1980s)

New Realism:

Hanson, Close, Estes

New Realism (Photorealism)

Neo-Expressionism:

Rothenberg

Neo-Abstraction:

Nonobjective, nonrepresentational (art)

A type of art that is entirely imaginative and not derived from anything visually perceived by the artist. The elements, their organization, and their treatment by the artist are entirely personalized and , consequently, not associated by the observer with any previously experience natural objects.

1960s-1970s

Kinetics and Light Sculpture:

Duchamp, Calder

Minimalism:

U.S.:

Pop Art: 

England:

U.S: 

Rauschenberg, Lictenstein, Warhol, Oldenberg

Happenings/Performance Art

Site and Earth Art Environmental Art):

Duchamp, Oldenberg

objective (art) and (shape)

A type of art that is based, as near as possible, on physical actuality or optical perception. Such art tends to appear natural or real.