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Vocabulary
Art Deco: The first international decorative style, Art Deco originated from the large exhibition, held in Paris in 1925, called the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes. Although this movement flourished between the wars, its characteristic stylized and slightly abstracted forms remain evident in contemporary architecture. The Art Deco style is extremely eclectic and varied including references to Art Nouveau, most of the important artistic movements that followed (Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism) and such archaeological interests as ancient Egyptian and Mayan art. One of the chief unifying factors of Art Deco is the emphasis on geometrical patterns, as well as the full acceptance of the machine age and the consequent abandonment of the traditional barrier between “fine” and “applied” art.
American Scene Painting: This general descriptive term has been applied to the work of a number of painters active in the 1920s and 1930s such as Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, and John Steuart Curry. It represents a movement in American art away from abstraction toward realism, and is a continuation of the American tradition of genre painting. As part of the reaction against formalism, artists were concerned with the depiction of their chosen subjects. However, the first painters of what was later to be called “the American Scene” show a strong vein of social commentary or satire only partially carried on by their successors.
Mural Painting: A painting executed in any medium, most readily in fresco, tempera, or oil, painted directly on or attached to a particular wall surface. Frequently painted in important public places, mural paintings, know from ancient times, are perhaps the earliest form of "mass propaganda".
Public Works of Art Project (PWAP): The PWAP was the first relief project established under the Roosevelt administration. It provided work for artists from December 1933 to June 1934. Its goals were to present quality art for public buildings, such as hospitals and schools, while offering relief or unemployed artists. Over 3,500 artists were eventually employed by this project.
Relief: Type of sculpture in which the design or figures extend out from a surface on which they are carved (subtractive method) or attached (additive method).
High relief: Sculpture in which the figures or ornamentation are raised more than half their thickness from the background.
Low relief: Type of sculpture in which the figures project less than one-half their actual proportion from the background.
Treasury Section of Fine Arts (The Section): Active from 1934 through 1943, The Section sponsored competitions for commissions to decorate federal buildings including many post offices.Works Progress Administration/Federal Art Project (WPA/FAP): Established in 1935, the WPA/FAP employed, at its peak it, three million people, mostly in construction projects, such as the building of roads, airports, parks, bridges, libraries, and other public buildings. Only two percent of the workers employed at it's peak were artists, receiving commissions for easel and mural paintings, sculpture, and graphics.
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