The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (87 page)

canvas
.

A woven cloth used as a
support
for painting. The best-quality canvas is made of linen; other materials used are cotton, hemp, and jute. It is now so familiar a material that the word ‘canvas’ has become almost a synonym for an
oil painting
, but it was not until around 1500 that it began to rival the wooden
panel
(which was more expensive and took longer to prepare) as the standard support for movable paintings (the transition came later in Northern Europe than in Italy). Canvas is not suitable for painting on until it has been coated with a
ground
, which isolates the fabric from the paint; otherwise it will absorb too much paint, only very rough effects will be obtainable, and parts of the fabric may be rotted by the
pigments
. It must also be made taut on a
stretcher
or by some other means.

 
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canvas board
.

Sheet of cardboard or pasteboard covered with sized and primed cloth, usually cotton. It was first made commercially in the second half of the 19th cent. and is chiefly used by amateurs as a cheap substitute for canvas or for outdoor sketching.

 
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(1887–1945).
Czech painter, graphic artist, designer, and writer. He was a member of an association called the Group of Avant-garde Artists formed in Prague in 1911 by Otto
Gutfreund
and Emil
Filla
with the object of combining
Cubism
and German
Expressionism
into a new national artistic style. The Expressionist current in his work prevailed. Like his brother, the celebrated writer Karel
apek (several of whose books he illustrated), he was deeply concerned with fundamental moral and social questions. They fervently opposed the threat from Nazi Germany in the 1930s; Karel died the year before the Second World War began, but Josef lived to see its full horrors and died in a concentration camp.

 
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(
c.
1624–79).
Dutch marine and landscape painter. He was a wealthy Amsterdam dyer who taught himself to paint during his spare time, but there is nothing of the Sunday painter in his work. Typically his paintings show handsome vessels on calm rivers or seas; they have a grandeur of composition, a limpid quality of light, and an exquisite sense of tonality that places them among the finest marine paintings of any time or place. Cappelle also painted winter landscapes and beach scenes. His work is rare; the best collection is in the National Gallery in London. He was affluent enough to make a distinguished art collection.

 
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capriccio
.

Italian term, meaning ‘caprice’, that can be applied to any fantasy subject, but is most commonly used of a type of townscape popular in the 18th cent. in which real buildings are combined with imaginary ones or are shown with their locations rearranged.
Canaletto
and
Guardi
often painted pictures of this type, and there is a painting by William
Marlow
in the Tate Gallery, London, showing St Paul's Cathedral above a Venetian canal.
Goya's
Los Caprichos
are etchings of fantastic subjects of a completely different kind.

 
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