1. The literal meaning of the  term avant garde is forward guard, the soldiers at the head of a column.  It can broadly defined as  A group (of artists) active in the invention and application of new ideas and techniques in an original or experimental way.  Avant garde art movements can be used to mean three different types of groups of artists
a) a stylistic avant garde a group who try to change the style and/or content of art
b) a political avant garde a group who try to change the political or social system though the use of  new forms of art
c) The radical avant garde _ in this course called The Avant Garde with capital letters -a group  which tries to change the institution of art, (Peter Burger) From 1860-1960 ( the Modernist period) all three types of avant garde valued originality and despised  repetition  (Peter Burger, Roslaind Krauss)
2. The first historically use of the avant garde was stylistic - it was used in 1863 to describe the experimental style of the impressionist painters such as Manet