Grabar Igor (1871-1960) was a Russian painter and a representative mainly of socialist realism. After being graduated from the department of law at Petersburg University he turned to art. Studied in the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts in 1894 – 1896 and in Munich. In his early years Grabar was influenced by the jugendstil and later by impressionism, but his paintings "The Chrysanthema" and "The Uncleared Table" are closer to neoimpressionism. In 1913 - 1925 he was the head of the Tretyakov Gallery. Grabar was recognized as a People's Artist of the Soviet Union in 1956 for his work in the areas of portrait painting and historical revolutionary themes. Graffiti. From the Italian graffito for 'scratched', a decorating technique of scratching through one layer of wall plaster or the 'slip' of pottery to reveal a contrasting colour beneath. Also, drawings or words scratched on walls etc. in public places. In the 1980s graffiti became a widespread art practised by younger artists who then came to prominence, e.g. *Basquiat and *Haring, but prior to this in the 1950s *Twombly's distinctive art style had already been inspired by graffiti he saw in Rome. Graffiti. Term applied to an arrangement of institutionally illicit marks in which there has been an attempt to establish some sort of coherent composition; such marks are made by an individual or individuals (not generally professional artists) on a wall or other surface that is usually visually accessible to the public. The term ‘graffiti’ derives from the Greek graphein (‘to write’). Graffiti (sing. graffito) or SGRAFFITO, meaning a drawing or scribbling on a flat surface, originally referred to those marks found on ancient Roman architecture. Although examples of graffiti have been found at such sites as Pompeii, the Domus Aurea of Emperor Nero (reg AD 54–68) in Rome, Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli and the Maya site of Tikal in Mesoamerica, they are usually associated with 20th-century urban environments. They may range from a few simple marks to compositions that are complex and colourful. Motives for the production of such marks may include a desire for recognition that is public in nature, and/or the need to appropriate a public space or someone else’s private space for group or individual purposes. Graffiti are recognized as a way of dealing with problems of identification in overcrowded or self-denying environments, and are an outlet through which people may choose to publish their thoughts, philosophies or poems. Illegitimate counterparts to the paid, legitimate advertisements on billboards or signs, graffiti utilize the walls of garages, public toilets and gaol cells for their clandestine messages. Graphic arts. The collective term for the pictorial arts outside paintings, e.g. engraving, lithography, silk screen, etc. Grass and Earth Society [Sodosha]. Japanese group of Western-style (Yoga) painters, active between c. 1915 and 1922 in Tokyo. Its principal member was the painter Ryusei Kishida, who was said to have thought up the group’s name when he saw grass growing by the roadside as he walked along a Tokyo street. Other founder-members were Kazumasa Nakagawa (1893–1991) and Shohachi Kimura (1893–1958). Although Kishida was interested in the realistic depiction of nature, the group did not have a uniform style and concentrated on organizing exhibitions. In October 1915 the group held its first exhibition, sponsored by the Society of Contemporary Art, at the premises of the Yomiuri newspaper in Tokyo. The show comprised 172 works by 23 artists including the group’s founders. In the second exhibition in 1916 were 118 works shown by 13 artists, including Kishida’s Sketch of a Road Cut Through a Hill (1915; Tokyo, N. Mus. Mod. A.). A total of nine exhibitions were organized by the group, the last being held in 1922. Grasset Eugene (b Lausanne, 25 May 1841; d Paris, 23 Oct 1917). French illustrator, decorative artist and printmaker of Swiss birth. Before arriving in Paris in the autumn of 1871, Grasset had been apprenticed to an architect, attended the Polytechnic in Zurich and travelled to Egypt. In Paris he found employment as a fabric designer and graphic ornamentalist, which culminated in his first important project, the illustrations for Histoire des quatre fils Aymon (1883). Grasset worked in collaboration with Charles Gillot, the inventor of photo-relief printing and an influential collector of Oriental and decorative arts, in the production of this major work of Art Nouveau book design and of colour photomechanical illustration. Grasset used a combination of medieval and Near Eastern decorative motifs to frame and embellish his illustrations, but most importantly he integrated text and imagery in an innovative manner which has had a lasting influence on book illustration. Greco, El i.e. 'The Greek'. Domenikos Theotokopoulos (1541 —1614). Spanish painter born in Crete. G. was trained as a painter of icons in the Byzantine tradition. About 1 s6o lie went to Venice (Crete was a Venetian colony) and became a pupil of Titian, then to Rome with an introduction to Cardinal Farnese from Giulio Clovio, of whom he painted a portrait. He attracted some attention and had pupils but c. 1570 moved to Toledo, where he lived until his death. There are 3 main phases in his development. The pictures from the 1st phase (1570—80) show Venetian influence and especially Titian's: line drawing disappears, the use of colour is unlimited and the purely pictorial dominates (compare Titian's Colgolha with G.'s). G.'s dramatic use of light and shade and his portrait style indicate Tintoretto's influence-as well as that of Veronese, Bassano and perhaps Correggio. The Holy Trinity (1577-8) belongs to this period. The 2nd phase (1580-1604) combines some Byzantine features (especially plastic forms) with a growing sense of rhythm and movement; it includes The Martyrdom of St Maurice (1580), commissioned by Philip II in 1580 but not accepted, and Colgotha (1590). The Burial of Count Orgaz (1586), a legendary theme, shows St Augustine and St Stephen lowering the body into the grave. The canvas is filled with figures, some of them portraits, and contrasts yet unifies the human and heavenly worlds, the austerity and solemnity of the lower part of the painting and the radiance of the Holy Ghost in the upper. The eye is led upwards to the figure of Christ, who is beseeched by John the Baptist to receive the count's soul. This spiritual exaltation is typical of G.; another example is The Despoiling of Christ (1583). The best of the portraits painted in this period is the Cardinal Don Fernando Nino de Cuevara (1598). From about 1590 G. concentrated increasingly on portraying inner beauty and in the last phase achieved complete inward expression. From 1604 the rhythm and the simplicity of form and colour increase. The combination of Byzantine influence with rhythm, movement, intensity of expression obtained through elongation and distortion of form, use of light and unusual colour (the blues and lemons), convey the exaltation and radiance of the Holy Ghost. The later paintings include the Vision of St John the Divine (1610—14) and the View of Toledo (1608). The latter is no mere landscape: it is a vision in which nature has overcome man. Works include: St Martin and the Beggar (1597—9): Resurrection of Chirist (1597—1604); Assumption of the Virgin Mary (1608—13); and Adoration of the Shepherds (1612-14). Greiner Otto (1869—1916). Symbolism. Gresham group. Association of Hungarian artists who met regularly at the Gresham Café in Budapest from the mid-1920s to 1944. A loose and friendly association free from institutional constraints, they were united merely by the approximate similarity of their aesthetic thinking, rather than any particular style. Such leading members of the Hungarian avant-garde as Róbert Berény and Aurél Bernáth were, especially in their youth, among the artists at the Gresham. In the 1920s the group contained such representatives of the nascent Hungarian Expressionist movement as József Egry, István Szonyi, Béni Ferenczy and Pál Pátzay (1896–1979). They are also often referred to as the ‘post-Nagybánya school’, which refers to the principles of the NAGYBÁNYA COLONY, active in the 1910s, and to their desire to uphold the artistic tradition and stance of the group represented primarily by Károly Ferenczy. Greuze Jean-Baptiste (1725-1805). French painter who became famous with the appearance of his Father of the Family Reading the Bible at the Paris Salon in 1755. Praised by Diderot and other moral philosophers, his large-scale genre subjects usually had a moral lesson to tell, as in Return from the Wineshop. They were made famous from Britain to Russia through engravings. However, it is Ins portraits, particularly of children (Boy with Lesson Book), which arc-preferred today. His art had declined even before the outbreak of the Revolution, which ruined him. Grey  Alex (born November 29, 1953 in Columbus, Ohio) is an artist specializing in spiritual and psychedelic art (or visionary art) that is sometimes associated with the New Age movement. His oeuvre spans a variety of forms including performance art, installation art, sculpture, and painting. Grey is a member of the Integral Institute. He is also on the board of advisors for the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics, and is the Chair of Wisdom University's Sacred Art Department. He and his wife Allyson Grey are the co-founders of the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, aka CoSM, a non-profit institution supporting Visionary Culture in New York City. Grie George (born May 14, 1962) is one of the first digital neo-surrealist artists, well known for numerous 3D, 2D, and matte painting images. Born in USSR during the Soviet Union Regime he did not adopt traditional and politically correct socialistic realism art style, but chose instead to follow the more controversial path of modern surrealism. Gris Juan (originally Jose Gonzalez) (1887— 1927). Spanish painter, sculptor and draughtsman. G. studied in Madrid, and settled in 1906 in Paris, where he became *Picasso's friend and one of the avant-garde. His development was slow. He earned a living as an ill. but continued to paint, and exhibited from 19T2. His work was noticed by the art dealer *Kahnweiler, who placed him under contract. G. as a result was able to devote himself entirely to painting and became a leading *Cubist, e.g. Portrait of Picasso (1912). He remained faithful to the Cubist aesthetic; his work developed from simplified, precise forms based on the world of objects (e.g. La Place Ravignan, Still Life in Front of an Open Window, 1915) to the monumental compositions of 1916-19, a flat coloured architecture. From this time he experimented with polychrome sculpture, inspired by *Lipchitz. His last period expressed his increasing preoccupation with colour, e.g. Cuitar with sheet of music (1926). G. regarded himself as a classical painter; for him a painting was a self-contained creation and within its context he used objects to express ideas. Grisaille. Monochrome painting in greys sometimes used as an underpainting or to imitate sculptural features as in the paintings of early Netherlandish artists such as D. Bouts or J. van Eyck. Also a type of stained-glass painting of which the most famous example is the 'Five Sisters' window in York Minster. Gropius Walter born May 18, 1883, Berlin, Ger. died July 5, 1969, Boston, Mass., U.S. German architect and educator who, particularly as director of the Bauhaus (1919–28), exerted a major influence on the development of modern architecture. His works, many executed in collaboration with other architects, included the school building and faculty housing at the Bauhaus (1925–26), the Harvard University Graduate Center, and the United States Embassy in Athens. Gros Jean-Antoine (1771—T835). French painter whose earlier work exerted a powerful influence on the development of Romanticism in France. His training by J.-L. *David and intellectual assent to classicism eventually stifled his temperamental bias towards Romanticism, and after David's death (1825) he took over the leadership of the outmoded classical school, produced unsatisfactory paintings and committed suicide. Among his important works are Napoleon Visiting the Plague-stricken at Jaffa (1804) and The Battle of Aboukir (1806). Grosz George (1893—1959). German *Expressionist painter and graphic artist best known for his pen and ink drawings satirizing the German nation during and after World War I; in 1933 he settled in the U.S.A. His own experiences of the war in the German army, as a civilian in Berlin (1916—17) and in a military asylum, made a searing impression. A founding member of the Berlin *Dada group, he was also part of the *New Objectivity movement. In his work he exposed with merciless and horrifying precision the officials and profiteers who lived off the war and, after it, the vice, the political chaos and the complacency of the bourgeoisie. Grotesque. Originally derived from the mural decoration of excavated classical grottoes. These consisted of panels where fantastic shapes of human beings, animals, etc. were joined together by flowers, garlands and arabesques into a symmetrical design covering the wall or ceiling. Very popular in the 16th с The term came to be applied to distorted exaggerations, humorous or horrifying, in various art forms, especially sculpture. Ground. Term used in (1) painting, of the foundation surface of white oil paint or gesso laid down on the canvas or panel to receive the painting; (2) music, for a repeated figure played in the bass and serving as a support for variations above it; (3) embroidery, of the basic overall background over which the pattern is worked. Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel (GRAV). A group of artists founded in Paris in 1960. Their approach to art was quasi-scientific, and concerned with the qualities of colour, light and movement. The group owed much to *Constructivism, and in its own turn made an important contribution to the development of *Kinetic art. The artists associated with it were Garcia-Rossi, *Le Fare, Morellet, Sobrino, Stein and Yvaral. Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel [GRAV]. Group of artists active in Paris from 1960 to 1968. Eleven artists signed the original manifesto, but only six of them formed the core of the group: Horacio García Rossi (b 1929), Francisco Sobrino, François Morellet, Julio Le Parc, Joël Stein (b 1926) and Jean-Pierre Vasarely, known as Yvaral (b 1934). The group took its name from the Centre de Recherche d’Art Visuel, founded in Paris in July 1960. Following the belief of Victor Vasarely (father of Yvaral) that the concept of the artist as a solitary genius was outdated, the artists’ main aim was to merge the individual identities of the members into a collective activity that would be more than the sum of its parts. They also believed that ‘workers collaborating with the aid of scientific and technical disciplines [would] be the only true creators of the future’. The group exhibited in Europe within the framework of the NOUVELLE TENDANCE movement, and it successfully developed the logic of group activity through the strategy of anonymity and the holding of collective events called Labyrinths. From the outset, members of GRAV adopted the principle of submitting individual work to the consideration of the group as a whole, which would determine its relevance to the overall programme. In 1961 they felt confident enough to assert that ‘plastic reality’ was inherent in ‘the constant relationship between the plastic object and the human eye’. This conviction led them to experiment with a wide spectrum of kinetic and optical effects, employing various types of artificial light and mechanical movement as well as optical or ‘virtual’ movement. In Assez de mystifications!, the text that they published on the occasion of the Paris Biennale in 1961, they sought to forge a connection between their efforts to engage the ‘human eye’ and their forthright denunciation of the élitism of traditional art, which appealed to ‘the cultivated eye...the intellectual eye’. Group f.64. American group of photographers, active 1932–5. It was a loose association of San Francisco Bay Area photographers who articulated and promoted a modern movement in photographic aesthetics. The group was formed in August 1932 by photographers who shared an interest in pure and unmanipulated photography as a means of creative expression. It derived its name from the smallest possible aperture setting on a camera, the use of which resulted in the greatest and sharpest depth of field, producing an image with foreground and background clearly focused. The original membership consisted of Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, John Paul Edwards (1883–1958), Sonya Noskowiak (1900–75), Henry Swift (1891–1960), Willard Van Dyke (1906–86) and Edward Weston. The emphasis on clarity was partly a reaction against the lingering Pictorialism in West Coast photography, exemplified by the work of William Mortensen (1897–1965) and Anne Brigman (1869–1950), who achieved painterly effects through manipulation of the negative and print. Group of Plastic Artists [Czech: Skupina Vytvarnych Umelcu]. Bohemian avant-garde group, active 1911–17. In February 1911 a fundamental rift between the older and younger generations in the MÁNES UNION OF ARTISTS was occasioned by the fall in subscriptions to the union’s journal Volné smery after its new editors, Emil Filla and Antonín Matejcek, reproduced Picasso’s work and published Filla’s article on the virtues of the new primitivism. The majority of the young contributors to the journal pointedly withdrew from the Mánes Union. Towards the end of 1911 they established the Group of Plastic Artists, oriented towards Cubism; its members were Vincenc Benes, V. H. Brunner, Josef Capek, Emil Filla, Josef Gocár, Otto Gutfreund, Vlastislav Hofman (1884–1964), Josef Chochol, Pavel Janák, Zdenek Kratochvíl, Frantisek Kysela, Antonín Procházka, Ladislav Síma, Václav Spála, the writers Karel Capek (1890–1938) and Frantisek Langer, and the art historian V. V. Stech. For personal reasons and differences of opinion, Bohumil Kubista, Otokar Kubín and Matejcek remained outside the group and soon returned to the Mánes Union. Gocár was elected the group’s first president. Group of Seven. Group of Canadian landscape painters influential and controversial in the 1920s and 1930s; they stressed design and colour, and aimed to produce decorative but specifically Canadian landscapes. The group was founded in 1919 by Lawren Harris, F. H. Varley, Arthur Lismer, Franz Johnston, A. Y. Jackson, J. E. H. MacDonald and F. Carmichael. Group of Seven. Canadian group of painters. It was named in May 1920 on the occasion of an exhibition held in Toronto and was initially composed of Frank Carmichael (1890–1945), Lawren S. Harris, A. Y. Jackson, Franz Johnston (1888–1949), Arthur Lismer, J. E. H.MacDonald and Fred Varley. On Johnston’s resignation in 1926, A. J. Casson (1898–1992) was invited to join. The group later expanded to include two members from outside Toronto, Edwin H. Holgate from Montreal (in 1930) and Lionel LeMoine FitzGerald from Winnipeg (in 1932). The essential character of the group’s style and approach to landscape painting was in evidence well before their official formation in 1920, and some of their most important pictures also pre-date that first exhibition. Although they continued to show together officially only until December 1931 and disbanded in 1933, when former members helped establish a successor organization with a much larger membership drawn from all over the country (the Canadian Group of Painters), the term continued to be applied to the later works of the group’s original members. Group portrait. Term applied to the painting of a family or other group of real people, as opposed to mythological, historical, religious and other paintings in which a number of people appear. Such portraits were often commissioned and were a great challenge to the artist, who had to give each sitter equal importance while producing a work of art. The genre flourished in 17th-c. Holland; its famous exponents include Rembrandt and Hals. Group X. Group of British artists formed in 1920. It exhibited at the Mansard Gallery, Heal’s, in London, between 26 March and 24 April of that year. The nucleus of the group, whose name had no precise significance, was a regrouping of the Vorticists, comprising Wyndham Lewis, Jessica Dismorr, Frederick Etchells, Cuthbert Hamilton, William Roberts and Edward Wadsworth; these artists were joined by Frank Dobson, Charles Ginner, McKnight Kauffer and John Turnbull. Although the artists were united in a belief that ‘the experiments undertaken all over Europe during the last ten years should be utilized directly and developed, and not be lightly abandoned or the effort allowed to relax’ (Lewis, exh. cat., intro.), the works exhibited were characterized chiefly by a tendency to angular figuration; the critic Frank Rutter (1876–1937) wrote in the Sunday Times (28 March 1920) that ‘the real tendency of the exhibition is towards a new sort of realism, evolved by artists who have passed through a phase of abstract experiment’. Grunewald Matthias or Matins Gothart Nithart called (c 1475-1528). German painter, born in Wurzburg, Bavaria. G. was trained in Alsace in the style of Schongauer, and travelled through Germany, living in Isenheim, Seligenstadt, Aschaffenburg and Mainz, where he was court painter to the Elector. He died in Halle, where he painted a series of pictures in the cathedral for the Elector of Mainz. G.'s masterpiece is the set of 10 paintings for the Isenheim altar (finished r. 1515; now at the Mus. Unterhnden, Colmar). They were intended to be seen in 3 groups which changed as panels were opened and shut: 2 scenes from the life of St Anthony flanking the carved centre-piece (r. 1505, by Backoffen) of St Anthony enthroned with SS Augustine and Jerome; the Annunciation, Concert of Angels, Virgin and Child and Resurrection; and the Crucifixion, St Anthony and St Sebastian (supposedly a self-portrait). Below these was the Pieta which disclosed the carved Christ and Apostles of the predella (also by Backoffen). The spirit of the Renaissance is remote from G.'s work, but he imbued the medieval German art to which he adhered with an entirely original personal vision expressed in the distorted, tortured forms and strange colouring of the Crucifixions. His range is enormous, encompassing the horrifying Crucifixion and serene Virgin and Child of the Isenheim altar. The Karlsruhe Crucifixion — the greenish, blood-spattered body of Christ, its deformed limbs, where even the nails pinning the claw-like hands, the crown of thorns and the draperies are painted in the same tortured manner — is utterly different from the Madonna who stands in a beautiful garden, fresh and tender. The Mocking of Christ is filled with large-figures caught in frenzied movement. Christ, his eyes covered, is gripped by the hair by his assailant, whose fist is poised ready to strike; another, holding Christ's bonds, is about to lash him with the knotted end of a rope. The figure of Christ in this painting, abused and defiled, directly contrasts with that in the Resurrection, in which Christ ascends suffused with a golden celestial light. G. also painted The Meeting of Si Hrasmus and St Maurice which formed part of the Halle commission. Grupo CAYC. Argentine group of artists. It was founded in Buenos Aires in 1971 as the Grupo de los Trece by the critic Jorge Glusberg (b 1938) and renamed Grupo CAYC because of its close association with the Centro de Arte y Comunicación. The group held its first public show in 1972 in the exhibition Hacia un perfil del arte latino americano at the third Bienal Coltejer, Medellín, Colombia. The group’s chief members were Jacques Bedel, Luis Benedit, Jorge Glusberg, Víctor Grippo, the sculptor Leopoldo Maler (b 1937), the sculptor Alfredo Portillos (b 1928) and Clorindo Testa. Treating the visual aspect of works of art as just one element in order to demonstrate the complexity and richness of the creative process, they took a wide view of Latin American culture that spanned the cosmogony of Pre-Columbian societies to the technological and scientific concepts of the late 20th century. In 1977 they won the Gran Premio Itamaraty at the 14th Sao Paulo Biennale with their collective work Signs of Artificial Eco-systems. Grupo Hondo. Spanish group of painters. It was formed in Madrid in 1961 by Juan Genovés, José Paredes Jardiel (b 1928), Fernando Mignoni (b 1929) and Chilean Gastón Orellana (b 1933) and was active until 1964. They first exhibited together in 1961 at the Galería Nebli, Madrid, reacting against the total abstraction of Art informel but applying its free, automatic, rapid and uninhibited techniques to a socially committed and Expressionist ‘neo-figurative’ style. They acquired two new members, José Vento (b 1925) and Carlos Sansegundo (b 1930), for their second exhibition in 1963, at the Sociedad de Amigos de Arte in Madrid, but they went their separate ways a year later. Grupo R. Catalan group of architects. They were active in Barcelona from 1951 to 1959. Their aim was the renewal of Catalan architecture. The group, which included Oriol Bohigas, Joaquim Gili Moros (b 1916), Josep Martorell, Antoni de Moragas Gallissa (b 1913), José Pratmarsó Parera (b 1913), José María Sostres Maluquer and Manuel eq Valls Verges (b 1912), was formed through a competition organized by the Colegio de Arquitectos de Cataluña y Baleares in January 1949 to solve housing problems in Barcelona. They were later joined by Pau Montguró and Francesc Vayreda. For them the development of architecture and urban planning was based not only on technical, but also on economic and social considerations. Outstanding among their activities were the exhibitions held in the Galerias Layeyanas in Barcelona (1952, 1954 and 1958) and courses that they organized including ‘Economics and Urban Development’ and ‘Sociology and Urban Development’. Gruppe 5 [Nor.: ‘Group 5’]. Norwegian group of artists active from 1961. It has had a decisive influence on the recognition of abstract art in Norway. The group was founded in 1961 by the Spanish-born Ramon Isern (Solé) (b 1914; d 1989), together with Håkon Bleken (b 1929), Halvdan Ljøsne (b 1929), Lars Tiller (1924–94) and Roar Wold (b 1926). They were all teachers in the architectural department (Institutt for form og farge) of the Norges Tekniske Høgskole in Trondheim. They wished to define their shared opposition to the traditional and conventional Trondheim art world and to break Oslo’s dominance of Norwegian art. Without any agreed ideological platform, they examined, in non-representational paintings, the relationship between plane, form, colour, space, the process of abstraction and the legacy of Constructivism, as they had in their teaching. In their abstract paintings the Constructivist stamp was rhythmically enlivened by the materiality of colours and such evocative spatially expansive subjects as that of Wold’s At the Edge of the Beach (1963; Oslo, Mus. Samtidskst). Isern made geometrically defined and totem-like sculptures in different materials, as well as tapestries with similar forms. Most of the group’s members also executed charcoal drawings, graphics and collages, such as Ljøsne’s oil painting Accumulation (1965; Oslo, Mus. Samtidskst) with glued-on newspaper clippings and disturbing spatial effects, and wrote articles about art theory. Gruppe 33 [Kunstlervereinigung Gruppe 1933]. Swiss group of artists. It was founded in Basle in 1933 by the painters Otto Abt (1903–82), Walter Bodmer, Paul Camenisch (1893–1970), Theo Eble (1899–1974), Max Haufler, Charles Hindenlang (1894–1960), Carlo König (1900–70), Rudolf Maeglin (1892–1971), Ernst Max Musfeld (1900–64), Otto Staiger (1894–1967), Max Sulzbachner (b 1904) and Walter Kurt Wiemken (1907–40), the sculptors Daniel Hummel and Louis Weber (b 1891) and the architect Paul Artaria. Camenisch was effectively leader of the group, which arose in opposition to the conservatism of the Gesellschaft Schweizerischer Maler, Bildhauer und Architekten (GSMBA) and also to the rising tide of hostility to modern art engendered by the Nazis in neighbouring Germany. Soon after its foundation a programme propagated by the members claimed their aim to be ‘the active participation in the development of the plastic arts without ignoring the phenomena and expression of our time’. Left-wing and anti-fascist politically, the members of the group worked within various modern currents such as Surrealism, Constructivism and abstract art. With the expansion of its membership, however, it soon attracted artists from less modern tendencies as well as photographers, film makers, graphic designers and stage designers. There also arose a significant grouping of socially engaged architects. Gruppe 53. German group of painters founded in Düsseldorf in 1953 and active until 1959. In 1953 some young Düsseldorf artists banded together to form an association known as the Künstlergruppe Niederrhein, with a shared interest in art informel and the intention of mounting exhibitions, in opposition to the established artists’ association, the Rheinische Secession. From 1954 the group emerged as Gruppe 53, with joint exhibitions held primarily in buildings owned by the Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, and every second year at the Städtische Kunsthalle in Düsseldorf. The members included Peter Brüning, Winfried Gaul (b 1928), Gerhard Hoehme, Horst Egon Kalinowski, Herbert Kaufman (b 1924), Peter Royen (b 1923), Rolf Sackenheim (b 1921) and Friedrich Wertmann (b 1927). Abstract artists from outside Düsseldorf, such as Karl Fred Dahmen (1917–81), Bernard Schultze and Emil Schumacher, were also invited to exhibit with them, as were other Düsseldorf artists representing various developing trends in painting. Thus Konrad Klapheck, who worked figuratively, and members of the Zero group, including Heinz Mack, Otto Piene and Günther Uecker, exhibited with Gruppe 53. There was no common aesthetic programming policy, although representative works include Brüning’s Bild 2/63 (1963; Bonn, Städt. Kstmus.), Gaul’s Good-bye to Rembrandt (1956–7; Saarbrücken, Saarland Mus.) and Hoehme’s Black Spring (1956; priv. col.). Economic and organizational interests formed the basis of their joint action, along with the desire to establish abstract art. All those involved painted in an abstract way and rejected geometrically inspired ‘cold abstraction’. The group received considerable support from the collector, art historian and later gallery owner Jean-Pierre Wilhelm (1912–68). He made contacts with gallery owners, especially in Paris, and with artists from abroad. When the opportunities for exhibiting abstract work by young artists in Düsseldorf had improved as a result of Gruppe 53’s commitment, and when other commercial galleries opened in addition to Wilhelm’s Galerie 22, the reasons motivating the group disappeared, and it was consequently disbanded in 1959. Gruppe Progressiver Kunstler [Gruppe der Progressiven] German group of artists. It was founded in Cologne in 1925 by Franz Seiwert (1894–1933) and Heinrich Hoerle (1895–1936), with Otto Freundlich, Gerd Arntz (b 1900), Hans Schmitz (1896–1977), Augustin Tschinkel (b 1905) and the photographer August Sander. The group extended the programme of a ‘proletarian’ art that had characterized Seiwert and Hoerle’s STUPID GROUP and their intervening work to include artists from other centres in the Rhineland and throughout Germany. They supported the revolutionary opposition to the ineffectual Weimar Republic, which they saw as a tool of repressive right-wing elements in the establishment. Following collaborations with the idealist and pacifist Berlin periodical Die Aktion, Seiwert and Hoerle started their own artistic publication, A bis Z, in October 1929, beginning the group’s most fertile period. While the periodical attracted contributions from a broad cross-section of artists (including Raoul Haussmann, Jean Hélion and László Moholy-Nagy), the group favoured a stripped-down figurative style, whose schematized forms and abstract elements drew attention to the mechanization of contemporary existence. With echoes of Oskar Schlemmer’s work and of Parisian Purism, some compositions also tended towards the coldness of Neue Sachlichkeit. Their critical political stance made them an immediate target for Nazi opposition. The group and periodical were ended in 1933, Seiwert died the same year, and Hoerle and Freundlich’s work was subsequently designated as entartete Kunst. Gruppo degli Otto Pittori Italiani. Italian group of eight painters. It was formed in 1952 after the disintegration of FRONTE NUOVO DELLE ARTI. Six of them had belonged to the earlier group: Renato Birolli, Antonio Corpora, Ennio Morlotti, Emilio Vedova, Giuseppe Santomaso and Giulio Turcato; the other founder-members were Afro and Mattia Moreni (b 1920). The group, which exhibited at the Venice Biennale of 1952, was coordinated by Lionello Venturi, who described its style as ‘abstract-concrete ...born of a tradition that began around 1910 and that includes Cubism, Expressionism and Abstraction’. Geometric or post-Cubist forms dominate these artists’ work; however, the naturalistic colour and atmospheric luminosity of such paintings as Vedova’s Cosmic Vision (1952; New York, MOMA) and Birolli’s Brambles and Paths (1953; Brescia, Cavellini priv. col., see Venturi, 1959, pl. 14, p. 47) typify this group’s leanings towards expressive abstraction. During the 1950s Birolli, Corpora and Morlotti became more involved with Informalism and Tachism, and Santomaso and Vedova were significantly inspired by Hans Hartung and Wols respectively. Of the eight, Afro was the most outstanding exponent of lyrical expressionism, largely achieved through his use of vibrant and transparent colour in works such as Underwater Fishing (1955; Pittsburgh, PA, Carnegie). Gruppo N. Italian group of artists. It was formed in Padua in 1959. It included Alberto Biasi (b 1937), Ennio Chiggio (b 1937), Giovanni Antonio Costa (b 1935), Edoardo N. Landi (b 1937) and Manfredo Massironi (b 1937). The group gained notoriety in 1959 when Massironi competed unsuccessfully for the Premio San Fedele, for which he submitted a piece of cardboard that he had selected because of the interesting optical qualities of its surface. During the 1960s Gruppo N played an important part in the development of Op art in Italy. The work of Biasi, for example, included geometric abstract reliefs with striking optical effects, such as the Optical-dynamic Relief (Drops) (painted iron and card, 1962; Padua, priv. col.); this attempted to create an effect analogous to the patterns caused by drops of water falling on a liquid surface. The group’s gallery, Studio N, which opened in Padua in November 1960, rapidly became an important centre for experimental art, music and poetry. The group had its own room at the Venice Biennale of 1964 and also participated in various exhibitions of Arte programmata in Italy, as well as showing work at Studio F in Ulm (1963) and the Museum Sztuki, Lódz (1967). Gruppo 7. Italian group of architects. It was formed in 1926 by seven students from the Scuola Superiore di Architettura del Politecnico, Milan: GIUSEPPE TERRAGNI, Guido Frette, Ubaldo Castagnoli, Sebastiano Larco, Carlo Enrico Rava, Luigi Figini and Gino Pollini. Castagnoli was replaced in 1927 by Adalberto Libera. Gruppo T. Italian group of artists. It was founded in Milan in 1959 and active until 1962. The founders were Giovanni Anceschi (b 1939), Davide Boriani (b 1936), Gianni Colombo (b 1937) and Gabriele de Vecchi (b 1938). These artists, who were primarily interested in kinetic art, first exhibited as a group in 1960 in the Galleria Pater in Milan, where they held six exhibitions entitled Miriorama 1–6, none lasting more than a few days. In the last of these shows the four founder-members were joined by Grazia Varisco (b 1937). Gruppo T’s works frequently invited the participation of the exhibition visitor: for example, Boriani’s Magnetic Surfaces contained patterns of iron dust that changed as the objects were handled. By contrast the exhibits of a show held at the Galleria Danese in December 1960 were powered by electric motors (e.g. Rotoplastik by Colombo). The group cooperated with other artists with similar aims, including Gruppo N, at whose gallery, Studio N, in Padua they exhibited in 1962. They also were supported by Lucio Fontana, who presented an exhibition of their work at the Galleria La Salita in Rome in 1961. Gruppo T’s last exhibition was at the Galleria del Cavallino in 1962. Guardi Francesco (1712-93). Venetian landscape painter and draughtsman, brother-in-law of *Tiepolo and son of a painter. His son Giacomo (1764—1835) carried on his workshop. G.'s development was slow and his early paintings lacked originality since he was mainly concerned with satisfying the popular demand for small religious and genre paintings. He absorbed the influence of his contemporaries *Canaletto and *Longhi but evolved a new type of landscape painting, which became very popular. He can be ranked with Constable, Turner and the painters of Barbizon as a pioneer of a new approach to landscape for his subjective use of light and atmosphere expressed with a nervous, calligraphic touch. In his maturity he portrayed Venetian social life brilliantly and accurately. He recorded the excitement of the Ascent in a Balloon and the ceremonial of the Doge embarking on the Bucintoro. Guariento d'Arpo ( fl Padua, 1338; d 1367–70). Italian painter. He was the leading painter of his time in Padua and is first recorded there as a master in 1338. The origin of his eclectic but highly distinctive style is not to be explained in terms of the influence of an ill-defined regional Byzantinism, as posited in older accounts, but rather as an alert and discriminating synthesis of trends current in the Veneto following visits to the area by such artists as Giotto and Giovanni Pisano. Guariento’s style combines elements obviously drawn from Giotto’s work in Padua and elsewhere with a more overtly Gothic sense of line and rhythm and a dramatic approach to narrative, occasionally verging on caricature. Guarini Guarino. (1624-83) architect. Guercino, II ('the squint eyed') Giovanni Francesco Barbien called (1591-1666). Italian painter. He was born at Cento near Ferrara and worked there for much of his life; he also worked in Rome (1621—3) and Bologna (from 1642). The Carracci, Caravaggio and the Venetian school were important influences on his development. Between 1616 and 1621 in a number of notable altarpieces he evolved a colouristic, painterly style which culminated in Aurora. This fine illusionistic painting was the model for many later Baroque ceiling paintings and makes an interesting comparison with Reni's more restrained treatment of the same subject (1613) in the Palazzo Rospigliosi, Rome. In Burial and Reception into Heaven of St Petronilla, also painted in Rome, G. abandoned the vigorous treatment of Aurora in favour of Annibale Carracci's type of classicism. The power and originality of his work steadily declined as he became involved in the Counter-Reformation under the influence of which he painted uninspired pietistic altarpieces, many of them in the manner of his rival Reni. On the death of Reni, G. took over his workshop in Bologna. The Royal Library, Windsor, has the best coll. of G.'s very fine drawings. Guerin Pierre-Narcisse (1774-1833). French painter, pupil of J.-N. Regnault. As an exponent of Neoclassicism he alternated between the styles of J.-L. David and Regnault but in either case produced work of extreme banality. Gericault and Delacroix studied under him. Guillaumin Armand (1841 —1927). French Impressionist painter. He was a friend of С Pissarro and Cezanne and exhibited at the 1st (1874), and most subsequent. Impressionist exhibitions. Pale violet and orange predominate in his landscapes. Guimard Hector born March 10, 1867, Lyon, Fr. died May 20, 1942, New York, N.Y., U.S. Architect, decorator, and furniture designer, probably the best-known French representative of Art Nouveau. Guimard studied and later taught at the School of Decorative Arts and at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (“School of Fine Arts”) in Paris. Although much of his work is more engineering than architecture, he considered himself an architecte d'art. His Castel Béranger apartment building at 16 rue La Fontaine, Passy, Paris (1894–98), was one of the first Art Nouveau edifices outside Belgium, where the style originated. Several entrance structures (1898–1901) for the Paris Métro (subway), of cast iron in plantlike forms, are his best-known works. The Place de la Bastille station suggests Chinese pagoda architecture as well as Art Nouveau. The elevations and decorative ironwork of his apartment houses at 17–21 and 60 rue La Fontaine (1911) are tasteful and restrained. More bizarre, perhaps because its setting permitted a freer treatment, is the Castel Henriette in Sèvres(1903). Guimard also designed an Art Nouveau synagogue, at 10 rue Pavée, Paris (1913). Gupta. N. Indian empire of the 4th-6th cs AD, at its peak under Chandra Gupta II (c. 380-414). Music and Sanskrit literature (Kalidasa) achieved a golden age. G. Buddhist sculpture, e.g. the red sandstone standing Buddha from Mathura, reached a pinnacle of refinement at Sarnath, notably the 'wet Buddhas' so-named from their sheer, clinging draperies. The G. balance between stylistic simplicity and decoration, physical refinement and massiveness, influenced subsequent Buddhist art in S.E. Asia. Fine G. Hindu sculptures are at the rock-cut shrine of Uday-agari, Bhopal, and in the reliefs on the Dashavatara temple at Deogarh, both in N. central India. G. Buddhist painting survives in works of remarkable grace and realism at Ajanta. Guston Philip (1913-80). Born in Canada of Russian-Jewish emigre parents, moved to California 1919. He met *Pollock 1927. Initially adhering to the tradition of the Italian Renaissance, he became acquainted with the artists of the Mexican mural movement in 1932 and visited the studios of *Orozco and *Siqueiros, later becoming involved in mural projects, in association with De Kooning, Gorky and Pollock. In the late 1940s G. turned to lyrical abstract painting and his disciples dubbed his work 'Abstract Impressionism'. In the 1970s he returned to figurative paintings of cartoon-like simplicity of line and socially conscious subject matter. These works, usually on a large scale, were of great importance to the younger generation of neo-figurative artists. Gutai [Gutai Bijutsu Kyokai; Jap.: Concrete Art Association]. Japanese group of artists, active between 1954 and 1972. It was formed by 18 young avant-garde artists, led by JIRO YOSHIHARA, one of the founders of Japanese abstract painting. Following Yoshihara’s guidance in creating an anti-individualistic form of expression, the group started by holding an open-air exhibition at the Ashiyagawa riverside. The members began experimenting in performance art, for example breaking through single-leaf paper screens and creating other staged pieces such as San baso ultra-moderne by Kazuo Shiraga (b 1924). This consisted of archers firing at a theatrical set and was performed in Osaka in 1957. The group also practised kinetic art, for example in Work: Water by Sadamasa Motonaga, in which water was filtered through suspended fabrics at the Second Open-air Exhibition in Ashiya in 1956. Guttuso Renato (1912—87). Italian *Social Realist painter. Co-founder of 'Fronte Nuovo delle Arte', also member of the Communist party. The vigour of his style and imagination transcended his polemical approach to subject matter.