Function Material Paintings 
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JUNE 16, 2025
When you think of artists who changed the course of 20th-century art, Robert Rauschenberg stands out not just for his revolutionary ideas, but for his fearless exploration of materials, media, and meaning. “Painting relates to both art and life.
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JULY 23, 2025
Famed for his approach to construction and detailing, Zumthor’s designs have often explored the sensory aspects of spaces and tactile materials – and this beams from every polished concrete surface in the LACMA expansion, which will be known as the David Geffen Galleries. Even calling the idea “nutty”. The reality isn’t an issue for Govan.
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JULY 16, 2025
Materials and Mediums The La Tène period saw the Celts become master metal crafters. Metalwork was at the heart of all things essential to daily life – whether functional or ritual-based. Reproductions often look overly polished and machine perfect, and can use materials like plated brass rather than gold or silver.
The Art Newspaper
JUNE 18, 2025
Their design principles directly reflect their belief system, prioritising communal wellbeing, functionality and a sense of divine order.” The group rebuffed excessive ornamentation, instead embracing the natural qualities of the materials they used, such as local wood like cherry and maple.
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AUGUST 21, 2024
It’s the Zen influence of asymmetry (fukinsei) that’s perhaps most apparent throughout the history of art and can be seen in paintings from Caravaggio to van Gogh. A key figure in male-dominated mid-century abstraction, Agnes Martin ’s evocative painted canvases were covered with pencil drawn grids and finished with a thin layer of paint.
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OCTOBER 14, 2024
However, the underlying defining principles hold true in the art that emerged from the movement: a rejection of history and traditional concepts like realism, innovation, and experimentation (shown in abstract shapes, colors, and lines), and an emphasis on new materials and techniques. Juan Gris, Portrait of Pablo Picasso, 1912.
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AUGUST 26, 2024
From the intricate designs and beautiful functionality of ancient astrolabes to the ornate craftsmanship of Renaissance telescopes, and the sleek modernism of personal cameras, the evolution of scientific instruments has provided a fascinating meeting point between aesthetic and functional precision through the ages.
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