Sam Francis

Untitled, 1984

106.7 X 73 inch

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What is a medium in art?

What is a medium in art?

The term medium in art refers both to the type of art being created and the materials used to make the artwork. For example, painting, printmaking, and sculpture are types of art that are referred to as mediums. The materials used in these mediums include oils, acrylics, inks, and clay.

Image © Anna Kolosyuk / Unsplash
Pop art

Pop Art is an art movement that began in Britain in 1955 and in the late 1950s in the U.S. It challenged traditional fine arts by incorporating imagery from popular culture, such as news, advertising, and comic books. Pop Art often isolates and recontextualizes materials, combining them with unrelated elements. The movement is more about the attitudes and ideas that inspired it than the specific art itself. Pop Art is seen as a reaction against the dominant ideas of Abstract Expressionism, bringing everyday consumer culture into the realm of fine art.

Lettrism

Lettrism is an art form that uses letters, words, and symbols to create artwork. The movement was established in Paris in the 1940s and later gained popularity in the 1950s in America. Lettrisme is the French spelling of the movement's name, derived from the French word for letter.

Monotype

Monotype is a printmaking technique where an image is painted or drawn on a nonabsorbent, smooth surface, traditionally an etching plate of copper, but now also acrylic, zinc, or glass. The image is then transferred to paper using a printing press, creating a unique print. The first pressing removes most of the ink, making it difficult to produce additional prints with the same richness, resulting in a one-of-a-kind artwork.

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