Surrealism
An avant-garde movement beginning in the 1920s, focusing on irrational or unexpected imagery and drawing on the potential of the unconscious
Stimuli
Sensory input, like the things we see or hear
Images
man-made representations or recreations of sights
Mystification
The act of obfuscating or deliberately obscuring something; making it unnecessarily complicated to prevent others from understanding
Composition
The arrangement of objects in the pictorial space of an artwork
Oligarchy
A structure of power in which wealth and influence is concentrated in the hands of a few
Mechanical reproducibility
The capacity for an image to be re-printed again and again. Berger borrows this concept from Walter Benjamin, who associates reproducibility with the destruction of a work's aura, or its rarified status as unique in a given place and time.
Spectator
A viewer—in this case, often one who looks at an artwork
Conventions
The traditional forms and practices of a given artistic tradition
Ideology
A structuring set of beliefs and assumptions that inform one's relation to the world
Capital
money; often used as a metonym for "the capitalist class"
Commodity
An exchangeable good
Tangibility
The quality of appearing to be physically touchable
Memento mori
A painting that reflects on mortality, reminding its viewer of the inevitability of death
Metaphysical
Religious or spiritual quality beyond the scientific principles of the known world
Verisimilitude
The faithful visual recreation of real life
Capitalism
The economic system predicated on private ownership and market exchange
Proprietary
Invested in the acquisition and maintenance of private property
Publicity
Advertising
Medium
The format of an artwork—i.e. painting, photograph, video, or advertisement
Pastiche
A style that references many previous works, often in a seemingly random way; usually meant as a derogatory description
