This is a generic term applied to woodfree body papers and boards which have been coated by an off machine process, or more recently, on machine on one or both sides and taking a very high polish.
Such grades are produced in a variety of substances, in colour tones and tints, depending on end use. Such grades are widely used for the reproduction of colour work, publications, advertising material etc where first class illustration is required.
Traditionally only papers coated by the brush method were regarded as art papers, but the term has now been extended to cover most off machine coating methods.