Available in | German, French, Italian, English |
---|---|
Owner | Swiss Institute for Art Research (SIAR) |
Created by | Karl Jost (director) |
URL | http://www.sikart.ch |
Commercial | No |
Launched | February 2006 |
SIKART is a biographical dictionary and a database on visual art in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It is published online by the Swiss Institute for Art Research (SIAR). Conceptually and in content, it is an expanded and continually updated online version of the SIAR's 1998 Biographical Lexicon of Swiss Art, [1] which featured 12,000 short entries and some 1,100 detailed biographical articles. [2]
SIKART states that it is aimed at both specialists and members of the general public with an interest in art. It covers professional artists from Switzerland and Liechtenstein "who work or have worked in the genres of painting, drawing, engraving, sculpture, video, installation, photography, performance and web art", but not artists "who worked or work exclusively in the applied arts (graphic art, design, bell foundry, gold work, ceramics, documentary photography, etc.)" [2]
The content is written in the language the artist is most associated with: French, Italian or German. The artists are rated with one to five stars according to their significance, which determines the depth of coverage. For all artists in SIKART, the database records the name (and any variants), the dates of birth and death, a brief CV, keywords and descriptors, lexica entries, a bibliography and a link to the artist's website (if any). For artists rated with three to five stars, biographical articles of two to four pages in length are also provided, as are digital reproductions of their artworks. [2]
SIKART is funded by the Swiss Confederation, the Swiss cantons and private donors. [2] The website can be accessed free of charge, but at launch SIAR intended to charge for access at a later date so as to enable SIKART to operate independently of public funding. [3]
Salomon Gessner (1730–1788) was a Swiss painter, graphic artist, government official, newspaper publisher and poet; best known in the latter instance for his Idylls.
Appenzell is a village, though considered as a town by the FSO, and the capital of the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden in Switzerland. Appenzell has no municipal government of its own; rather, the different parts of Appenzell belong to and are governed by the districts Appenzell, Schwende and Rüte. Because of that, for firefighting, energy and water, the village Appenzell has a special-purpose municipality, the Feuerschaugemeinde.
Ferdinand Hodler was one of the best-known Swiss painters of the nineteenth century. His early works were portraits, landscapes, and genre paintings in a realistic style. Later, he adopted a personal form of symbolism which he called "parallelism".
Uwe Wittwer is a Swiss artist. He lives and works in Zürich, Switzerland. The media he uses include watercolor, oil painting, inkjet prints and video.
Swiss Standard German, or Swiss High German, referred to by the Swiss as Schriftdeutsch, or Hochdeutsch, is the written form of one of four official languages in Switzerland, besides French, Italian and Romansh. It is a variety of Standard German, used in the German-speaking part of Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It is mainly written, and rather less often spoken.
The Society for Art History in Switzerland is a Swiss learned society dedicated to promoting the understanding of Swiss art history and particularly of Swiss topography of art, including the study and maintenance of Swiss cultural heritage sites. The society, founded in 1880, publishes a wide range of monographs, guides, and inventories. These include the series Art monuments of Switzerland, which includes more than one hundred volumes, the first of which was published in 1927. It also publishes the quarterly journal Kunst und Architektur in der Schweiz.
Martin Disler was a Swiss painter, draughtsman and writer. He is associated with the Neue Wilde painting style.
Steff Gruber is a film director, photographer, author, entrepreneur and telecommunications and internet pioneer.
François Barraud was a Swiss painter.
Irène Zurkinden was a Swiss painter.
Stefan Haenni is a Swiss painter and a crime novel writer.
Franz Anatol Wyss is a Swiss painter.
Charles Wyrsch was a Swiss artist and painter.
Anita Spinelli was a Swiss artist, painter and drawer also known for her approaches to graphic work.
Ernst Brunner was a Swiss documentary and ethnographic photographer.
Hans von Matt was a Swiss painter and sculptor. He was at the heart of an artists' network, known to some contemporaries as much for their fun-loving lifestyle as for serious artistic endeavour. He emerged as a writer on the arts and a "culture politician". He was born and lived in Central Switzerland.
Gen Atem is a visual and performance artist, musician, writer, and Zen-master. He lives and works in Zurich, Switzerland.
Hans Brandenberger was a Swiss sculptor, and medallist. His work was part of the sculpture event in the art competition at the 1948 Summer Olympics.
Du is a magazine focused on art and culture, headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland. It was founded in 1941 and was often viewed as one of the leading voices on art and culture in Europe. The magazine is known for its focus on photography; prominent photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Werner Bischof and Réne Burri were contributors for the magazine.