Decorative Art

The oldest surviving pieces of decorative art, made out of wood and bone, date from the Stone Age. They were created for personal adornment, weapons, or tools, and they were typically decorated with animal and human figures.

About 6000 B.C., people in the Middle Eastern region called Mesopotamia changed from a nomadic (wandering) society to a farming society. They began to make tools, textiles, and pottery decorated with scenes of everyday life or with abstract patterns.

Artists soon learned how to hammer copper, gold, and silver into different shapes to make jewelry, goblets, and weapons. The people who lived around the Mediterranean Sea made gold objects decorated with the forms of animals, humans, and plants. Artists in northern Europe used geometric shapes, such as circles, squares, spirals, crosses, and triangles.

As more cultures arose around the world, each developed its own style of decorative art. But neighboring cultures also learned about each other's artistic styles through trade and warfare, so some similarities in style can be found in various regions around the world.

Most of what is known of ancient Egyptian decorative arts comes from tombs. It was usual to provide the person who died with everything he or she might need in the afterlife, including furniture to sit or sleep on, weapons to hunt with, jewelry to wear, and games to play. Tomb walls were often decorated with paintings of the deceased engaged in everyday activities. Because many Egyptian gods were represented as real or imaginary animals, Egyptian decoration is full of snakes, lions, cats, eagles, and sphinxes.

Early Egyptian craftsmen used stone for vessels and many other objects. Some stone vessels had two handles and straps so that they could be hung on the wall. Of the many different kinds of stone used, the blue lapis lazuli was the most prized.

The Egyptians were also skilled at working metal, which they used to make vessels, statues, and jewelry and to decorate furniture. Gold was easily shaped and decorated with raised designs, called reliefs, or designs formed by hammering wire of different metals into the surface. Metal was often combined with stone to make jewelry in the shape of animals. Ivory was also carved and often used with ebony (a hard, black wood). Simple designs of lotus and papyrus plants were used on furniture, tools, and tableware. These plant forms were often combined with human or animal heads. Sometimes the bodies of people had the heads of sacred animals.

The decorative arts of China and Japan were flowing and graceful because they were closely tied to calligraphy (the art of beautiful writing). Materials such as jade, porcelain, silk, and lacquer, which were unknown in Europe for centuries, were commonly used. Painted decorations focused on nature, with flowers, birds, and mountainous landscapes.

Chinese craftsmen were famous for their mastery of any material they used, such as bronze, jade, ceramics, and silk. Chinese decoration featured several successive styles, including animal forms, plant shapes, and depictions of people. Symbols such as the dragon and phoenix appeared in Chinese art about 2000 B.C.

The earliest and finest bronzes ever made date from the Shang (1523-1000's B.C.) and Zhou (1000's-221 B.C.) dynasties. (A dynasty is a period of time when one family rules.) Vessels for cooking, serving liquids, and holding food each had unique shapes and were decorated with carvings of dragons, snakes, locusts, birds, and imaginary beings. These vessels were cast by a technique called lost wax casting. The original model was made of wax, or clay covered with wax. Then the artist would cover the model with a thick layer of plaster or clay, with several holes in it. The model in its shell was then heated. The wax melted and flowed out through the holes. Next, melted bronze was poured into the shell through the same holes, replacing the wax. When the bronze cooled and hardened, the shell was broken away, and a candlestick, doorknob, or plate had been created.

The Chinese made bells and other musical instruments out of the colorful gemstone jade, which makes a unique sound when struck. Artists of the Shang and Zhou dynasties skillfully carved jade rings, disks, axes, and knives and then polished them to a shine. But the high point of Chinese jade-carving was during the Han dynasty (202 B.C.-A.D. 220), when artists carved miniature figurines, ornaments for sashes, and little jade trees with many graceful curves. During the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), jade was so richly carved it resembled lace.

The Chinese developed a new kind of pottery called porcelain. When porcelain is fired (baked in a kiln), it hardens into a fine, almost transparent, white material. The most famous porcelain was decorated with blue-and-white glazes, as well as with "secret" carved designs that were not visible unless the piece was viewed directly in strong light. Over the centuries the Chinese developed exquisite new shapes in porcelain and painted them with floral designs.

The use of silk, obtained from the cocoon of the silkworm, was a carefully guarded secret among Chinese artisans for many years. This fine material was woven into clothing and tapestries.

Japanese decorative arts were strongly influenced by Chinese art, but the Japanese eventually developed their own unique designs. Japanese ornament is based on a feeling for the harmony of nature and for human beings, carefully placed in compositions. The result is a style that has strongly influenced European art.

The Japanese believed that an object is truly beautiful only when it serves a purpose. They therefore decorated all kinds of objects used in their everyday lives. Artisans created beautiful lacquer (shiny-coated) objects, some featuring imaginary landscapes filled with people and dainty buildings, which were varnished with different colors.

Like the Chinese, the Japanese were highly skilled in ceramics. The development of the tea ceremony encouraged a love of simplicity and ritual, and teacups and pots were made with simple shapes and glazes. Artists introduced colorful designs to porcelain, and even ornamented porcelain with gold and silver. Small decorative figures were made out of ceramics or cast in bronze.

Woodblock printing in Japan was adopted from China in the 700's. This technique was used mostly to reproduce inexpensive religious works. It reached its highest development in the 1700's, when the skills of the designer, woodcutting specialist, and painter combined to create full-color illustrations.

The decorative arts of ancient Greece and Rome were very similar. The Romans, who conquered Greece in 148 B.C., chose to model much of their society after Greece and adopted many styles of Greek art. Unlike the highly stylized arts of Asia and Africa, Greek and Roman art was more realistic and closer to nature.

Among the earliest examples of Greek decorative art are paintings on vases. In one technique, called black-figure painting, the subjects were painted on the vase with liquid clay that turned black after firing in a kiln. In another technique, red-figure painting, the backgrounds were painted black and the figures were formed by the areas of red clay left unpainted. These paintings were typically scenes of everyday life or of characters from Greek mythology.

Gold jewelry decorated with filigree was very popular in the Greek and Roman worlds. Vessels were made of iron about the year 600 B.C., but bronze was the favorite material of Greek artisans. Out of bronze they fashioned statues and many useful objects for everyday use, such as weapons, vessels, and medals.

The columns of Greek temples supported decorative panels of relief sculptures, which featured animal or plant-like forms as well as scenes from mythology and battles. Other common types of sculpted ornament included bucrania (an ox skull surrounded by ribbons) and acanthus leaves.

Although no Greek paintings beside those on vases have survived to modern times, many Roman frescoes (paintings made on wet plaster) have been found decorating walls in the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Because Pompeii and Herculaneum were buried by a volcanic eruption in A.D. 79, houses, furniture, and many examples of decoration were preserved. These included gold bracelets and necklaces, vessels cut out of semi-precious stones, and glassware of many different colors. Rich textiles once hung on walls. The Romans also covered their floors with mosaics, pictures formed by arranging small stones or pieces of enameled glass in cement.

During Europe's Middle Ages (500-1500), most art was made for rulers or the church and featured bright colors, rich decorations, and stylized forms. Sculptures, paintings, stained-glass windows, and gold reliquaries (containers holding the remains of a Christian saint or martyr) filled major cathedrals. Colorful tapestries, jewelry, clothes, and armor were made for powerful lords and their families.

Monasteries produced a large amount of decorative art. The covers of Bibles and other religious books were decorated with gold, silver, ivory, enamel, and delicately painted leather. The monks painted the pages with brilliantly colored illustrations, some showing scenes of the seasons.

German iron and bronze workers were known for their candlesticks and church doors. Gates and screens for cathedrals were beautifully made, and fancy metal hinges held together the wooden slats of great doors. The hinges often ended in patterns of leaves or flowers.

Stained-glass windows were a distinct feature of the Gothic style of architecture, which developed during the 1100's. The decorative quality of these windows was enhanced by ornate stone supports that divided each window into separate panes. The patterns formed by these supports, called tracery, consisted of arcs and circles combined with shapes from nature. Large windows illustrated stories from the Bible. Tracery patterns were also used on furniture and wall panels and in metalwork.

The Gothic period also brought a greater use of armor decoration. Designs were engraved or etched into the metal. Sometimes the engraved lines were filled with hard black or silver paste to create a bolder pattern.

Fewer religious articles were made toward the end of the Middle Ages. Rich merchants wanted objects for their homes. Vases, handwoven rugs and clothing, and the corners of tables were decorated with the same imaginary animals that appeared on the lord's shields or flags.

The Renaissance ("rebirth"), which began in Italy in the 1400's, was an age of rediscovery. European artists tried to find new ways to express themselves and turned to the arts and ideas of classical Greece and Rome. They studied Greek and Roman ruins, trying to imitate not only the forms but also the materials. The shapes of animals, plants, and people were also studied in an effort to create more natural forms in painted and carved decoration. Churches were no longer built with pointed arches, and their roofs were now supported by columns topped with capitals.

New types of furnishings were developed to satisfy a growing demand for rugs, ceramics, tapestries, glassware, and paintings. One method of decorating wooden furniture was intarsia. Small pieces of wood of different colors were set into the surface to form special patterns or scenic designs such as landscapes. Another method was to create geometric designs by setting little pieces of ivory and bone into the wood. Low wooden chests were decorated with thin fabric, on which a design was built up with a plaster-like paste called gesso. Final details were carved into the gesso, and the piece was gilded (covered with thin gold leaf).

The Italians invented a kind of ceramic decoration called majolica. Majolica pottery was decorated with brilliantly colored scenes from Greek mythology, the Bible, or Italian history. Large majolica plates and vessels were not meant to be used but only displayed and admired.

Gold was engraved or decorated with enamel, and craftsmen rediscovered how to cast gold and bronze with the lost wax method. They also developed new ways of making glassware in all sorts of shapes and colors.

"Baroque" is the name given to European art of the 1600's and early 1700's that was characterized by ornate designs and curved shapes that gave the impression of motion. Baroque decoration was heavy and dramatic.

Large pieces of furniture such as cabinets and desks were common during this period. The popular form of decoration was marquetry, in which veneers (thin layers) of ivory, bone, mother-of-pearl, brass, bronze, tortoiseshell, and different kinds of wood were set onto the wooden panels of furniture to create decorative designs.

The rococo style developed in the early 1700's. Rococo also featured curved shapes to evoke movement, but it had a lighter and more delicate appearance than baroque. Decoration was now swirling and moving, with clouds, garlands, or draperies. Depictions of rocks, shells, scrolls, flowers, fruits, and leaves were used on nearly all the decorative art of the day, as well as on architecture and in painting. Rooms became oval or round, and furniture was curved and swayed. Everything had light gold borders, and angels and cherubs played in smoke and clouds.

During this period, European artists also studied the designs found on Chinese and other Asian silks, furniture, and porcelain. The forms that developed, called chinoiserie, were not copied directly from the Chinese but were combined with European forms. They copied the lacquer style and the light, airy paintings of the Japanese as well. And the secrets of silk and porcelain were finally discovered.

The Industrial Revolution, which began in the mid-1700's, was a time of great technological growth throughout Europe and the United States. By the mid-1900's, many objects that were once made by hand were now mass-produced by machines and sold to millions of people. Any object could be decorated in the style of any country or historical period. At first manufacturers of decorative objects tried to copy the appearance of handmade art, but the results were not always very pleasing. However, artisans who made handcrafted objects found it difficult to compete with the speed and low cost of mass production. Mass-produced goods--even though they lacked the quality of earlier decorative art--came to dominate the markets.

Some architects and designers rebelled against these developments. The most prominent was William Morris of England, who with his followers founded the arts and crafts movement to revive craftsmanship and good design. Although many people did not agree with the arts and crafts movement, Morris' ideas slowly began to affect decorative art. Other artists agreed that machine-made products were ugly, but they did not think that art should return to the past. These artists were part of the art nouveau ("new art") movement, which featured a style of flowing, curved lines and flat color patterns. It affected all the arts, from posters to architecture.

Another movement, art deco, also arose about this time. Art deco designers wanted to join art and industry, and they chose materials and forms that could be easily mass produced. Glass, plastic, and chrome were often used, and the designs had a sleek, streamlined look. The style was used for clothing, jewelry, and furniture as well as for household objects such as clocks and teapots.

With the development of the artistic movement called modernism in the early 1900's, many architects and designers argued that the form or shape of an object should be dictated by its function, or what it is supposed to do, and that all kinds of ornament should be avoided. Architects such as Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius believed that the most pleasing object is one that works the best; a teapot is useless if its design makes the tea drip when it is poured. Ornament was extra, and therefore unnecessary. Students at the Bauhaus, a German design school founded by Gropius, dedicated themselves to the development of objects that were practical as well as beautiful.

Modernism also encouraged a new exploration of materials for their own decorative effects. Plastic was molded into useful and pleasing shapes for wastepaper baskets, wall surfaces, and even kitchenware. Steel frames, synthetic textiles, and flexible materials were used to create new kinds of furniture that were both comfortable and light.

Practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface This article is about artistic painting. For other uses, see Painting (disambiguation). "Painter" redirects here. For other uses, see Painter (disambiguation).

Painting is a visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix"[1] or "support").[2] The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and airbrushes, may be used. One who produces paintings is called a painter.

In art, the term "painting" describes both the act and the result of the action (the final work is called "a painting"). The support for paintings includes such surfaces as walls, paper, canvas, wood, glass, lacquer, pottery, leaf, copper and concrete, and the painting may incorporate multiple other materials, including sand, clay, paper, plaster, gold leaf, and even whole objects.

Painting is an important form of visual art, bringing in elements such as drawing, composition, gesture, narration, and abstraction.[3] Paintings can be naturalistic and representational (as in still life and landscape painting), photographic, abstract, narrative, symbolistic (as in Symbolist art), emotive (as in Expressionism) or political in nature (as in Artivism).

A portion of the history of painting in both Eastern and Western art is dominated by religious art. Examples of this kind of painting range from artwork depicting mythological figures on pottery, to Biblical scenes on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, to scenes from the life of Buddha (or other images of Eastern religious origin).

History

[edit] Main article: History of painting

The oldest known are more than 40,000-60,000 years old (art of the Upper Paleolithic) and found in the caves in the district of Maros (Sulawesi, Indonesia). The oldest are often constructed from hand stencils and simple geometric shapes.[4][a]

In November 2018, scientists reported the discovery of the then-oldest known figurative art painting, over 40,000 (perhaps as old as 52,000) years old, of an unknown animal, in the cave of Lubang Jeriji Saléh on the Indonesian island of Borneo.[6][7] In December 2019, cave paintings portraying pig hunting within the Maros-Pangkep karst region in Sulawesi were discovered to be even older, with an estimated age of at least 43,900 years. This finding was recognized as "the oldest known depiction of storytelling and the earliest instance of figurative art in human history."[8][9] In 2021, cave art of a pig found in Sulawesi, Indonesia, and dated to over 45,500 years ago, has been reported.[10][11] On July 3, 2024, the journal Nature published research findings indicating that the cave paintings which depict anthropomorphic figures interacting with a pig and measure 36 by 15 inches (91 by 38 cm) in Leang Karampuang are approximately 51,200 years old, establishing them as the oldest known paintings in the world.[12][13]

There are examples of cave paintings all over the world—in Indonesia, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, China, India, Australia, Mexico,[14] etc. In Western cultures, oil painting and watercolor painting have rich and complex traditions in style and subject matter. In the East, ink and color ink historically predominated the choice of media, with equally rich and complex traditions.

The invention of photography had a major impact on painting. In the decades after the first photograph was produced in 1829, photographic processes improved and became more widely practiced, depriving painting of much of its historic purpose to provide an accurate record of the observable world. A series of art movements in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—notably Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, and Dadaism—challenged the Renaissance view of the world. Eastern and African painting, however, continued a long history of stylization and did not undergo an equivalent transformation at the same time.[citation needed]

Modern and Contemporary art has moved away from the historic value of craft and documentation in favour of concept. This has not deterred the majority of living painters from continuing to practice painting either as a whole or part of their work. The vitality and versatility of painting in the 21st century defy the previous "declarations" of its demise. In an epoch characterized by the idea of pluralism, there is no consensus as to a representative style of the age. Artists continue to make important works of art in a wide variety of styles and aesthetic temperaments—their merits are left to the public and the marketplace to judge.

The Feminist art movement[15] began in the 1960s during the second wave of feminism. The movement sought to gain equal rights and equal opportunities for female artists internationally.

Elements of painting

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Color and tone

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Color, made up of hue, saturation, and value, dispersed over a surface is the essence of painting, just as pitch and rhythm are the essence of music. Color is highly subjective, but has observable psychological effects, although these can differ from one culture to the next. Black is associated with mourning in the West, but in the East, white is. Some painters, theoreticians, writers, and scientists, including Goethe,[16] Kandinsky,[17] and Newton,[18] have written the own color theory.

Moreover, the use of language is only an abstraction of color equivalent. The word "red", for example, can cover a wide range of variations from the pure red of the visible spectrum of light. There is not a formalized register of different colors in the way that there is agreement on different notes in music, such as F or C♯. For a painter, color is not simply divided into basic (primary) and derived (complementary or mixed) colors (like red, blue, green, brown, etc.).

Painters deal practically with pigments,[19] so "blue" for a painter can be any of the blues: phthalocyanine blue, Prussian blue, indigo, Cobalt blue, ultramarine, and so on. Psychological and symbolical meanings of color are not, strictly speaking, means of painting. Colors only add to the potential, derived context of meanings, and because of this, the perception of a painting is highly subjective. The analogy with music is quite clear—sound in music (like a C note) is analogous to "light" in painting, "shades" to dynamics, and "coloration" is to painting as the specific timbre of musical instruments is to music. These elements do not necessarily form a melody (in music) of themselves; rather, they can add different contexts to it.

Non-traditional elements

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Modern artists have extended the practice of painting considerably to include, as one example, collage, which began with Cubism and is not painting in the strict sense. Some modern painters incorporate different materials such as metal, plastic, sand, cement, straw, leaves or wood for the texture. Examples of this are the works of Jean Dubuffet and Anselm Kiefer. There is a growing community of artists who use computers to "paint" color onto a digital "canvas" using programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter, and many others. These images can be printed onto traditional canvas if required.

Rhythm

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Jean Metzinger's mosaic-like Divisionist technique had its parallel in literature; a characteristic of the alliance between Symbolist writers and Neo-Impressionist artists:

I ask of divided brushwork not the objective rendering of light, but iridescences and certain aspects of color still foreign to painting. I make a kind of chromatic versification and for syllables, I use strokes which, variable in quantity, cannot differ in dimension without modifying the rhythm of a pictorial phraseology destined to translate the diverse emotions aroused by nature. (Jean Metzinger, c. 1907)[20]

Rhythm, for artists such as Piet Mondrian,[21][22] is important in painting as it is in music. If one defines rhythm as "a pause incorporated into a sequence", then there can be rhythm in paintings. These pauses allow creative force to intervene and add new creations—form, melody, coloration. The distribution of form or any kind of information is of crucial importance in the given work of art, and it directly affects the aesthetic value of that work. This is because the aesthetic value is functionality dependent, i.e. the freedom (of movement) of perception is perceived as beauty. Free flow of energy, in art as well as in other forms of "techne", directly contributes to the aesthetic value.[21]

Music was important to the birth of abstract art since music is abstract by nature—it does not try to represent the exterior world, but expresses in an immediate way the inner feelings of the soul. Wassily Kandinsky often used musical terms to identify his works; he called his most spontaneous paintings "improvisations" and described more elaborate works as "compositions". Kandinsky theorized that "music is the ultimate teacher",[23] and subsequently embarked upon the first seven of his ten Compositions. Hearing tones and chords as he painted, Kandinsky theorized that (for example), yellow is the color of middle C on a brassy trumpet; black is the color of closure, and the end of things; and that combinations of colors produce vibrational frequencies, akin to chords played on a piano. In 1871 the young Kandinsky learned to play the piano and cello.[24][25] Kandinsky's stage design for a performance of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition illustrates his "synaesthetic" concept of a universal correspondence of forms, colors and musical sounds.[26]

Music defines much of modernist abstract painting. Jackson Pollock underscores that interest with his 1950 painting Autumn Rhythm (Number 30).[27]

Aesthetics and theory

[edit] Main article: Theory of painting

Aesthetics is the study of art and beauty; it was an important issue for 18th- and 19th-century philosophers such as Kant and Hegel. Classical philosophers like Plato and Aristotle also theorized about art and painting in particular. Plato disregarded painters (as well as sculptors) in his philosophical system; he maintained that painting cannot depict the truth—it is a copy of reality (a shadow of the world of ideas) and is nothing but a craft, similar to shoemaking or iron casting.[28] By the time of Leonardo, painting had become a closer representation of the truth than painting was in Ancient Greece. Leonardo da Vinci, on the contrary, said that "Italian: La Pittura è cosa mentale" ("English: painting is a thing of the mind").[29] Kant distinguished between Beauty and the Sublime, in terms that clearly gave priority to the former.[citation needed] Although he did not refer to painting in particular, this concept was taken up by painters such as J.M.W. Turner and Caspar David Friedrich.

Hegel recognized the failure of attaining a universal concept of beauty and, in his aesthetic essay, wrote that painting is one of the three "romantic" arts, along with Poetry and Music, for its symbolic, highly intellectual purpose.[30][31] Painters who have written theoretical works on painting include Kandinsky and Paul Klee.[32][33] In his essay, Kandinsky maintains that painting has a spiritual value, and he attaches primary colors to essential feelings or concepts, something that Goethe and other writers had already tried to do.

Iconography is the study of the content of paintings, rather than their style. Erwin Panofsky and other art historians first seek to understand the things depicted, before looking at their meaning for the viewer at the time, and finally analyzing their wider cultural, religious, and social meaning.[34]

In 1890, the Parisian painter Maurice Denis famously asserted: "Remember that a painting—before being a warhorse, a naked woman or some story or other—is essentially a flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order."[35] Thus, many 20th-century developments in painting, such as Cubism, were reflections on the means of painting rather than on the external world—nature—which had previously been its core subject. Recent contributions to thinking about painting have been offered by the painter and writer Julian Bell. In his book What is Painting?, Bell discusses the development, through history, of the notion that paintings can express feelings and ideas.[36] In Mirror of The World, Bell writes:

A work of art seeks to hold your attention and keep it fixed: a history of art urges it onwards, bulldozing a highway through the homes of the imagination.[37]

Painting media

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Different types of paint are usually identified by the medium that the pigment is suspended or embedded in, which determines the general working characteristics of the paint, such as viscosity, miscibility, solubility, drying time, etc.

Hot wax or encaustic

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Encaustic painting, also known as hot wax painting, involves using heated beeswax to which colored pigments are added. The liquid/paste is then applied to a surface—usually prepared wood, though canvas and other materials are often used. The simplest encaustic mixture can be made from adding pigments to beeswax, but there are several other recipes that can be used—some containing other types of waxes, damar resin, linseed oil, or other ingredients. Pure, powdered pigments can be purchased and used, though some mixtures use oil paints or other forms of pigment. Metal tools and special brushes can be used to shape the paint before it cools, or heated metal tools can be used to manipulate the wax once it has cooled onto the surface. Other materials can be encased or collaged into the surface, or layered, using the encaustic medium to adhere it to the surface.

The technique was the normal one for ancient Greek and Roman panel paintings, and remained in use in the Eastern Orthodox icon tradition.

Watercolor

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Watercolor is a painting method in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle. The traditional and most common support for watercolor paintings is paper; other supports include papyrus, bark papers, plastics, vellum or leather, fabric, wood and canvas. In East Asia, watercolor painting with inks is referred to as brush painting or scroll painting. In Chinese, Korean, and Japanese painting it has been the dominant medium, often in monochrome black or browns. India, Ethiopia and other countries also have long traditions. Finger-painting with watercolor paints originated in China. There are various types of watercolors used by artists. Some examples are pan watercolors, liquid watercolors, watercolor brush pens, and watercolor pencils. Watercolor pencils (water-soluble color pencils) may be used either wet or dry.

Gouache

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Gouache is a water-based paint consisting of pigment and other materials designed to be used in an opaque painting method. Gouache differs from watercolor in that the particles are larger, the ratio of pigment to water is much higher, and an additional, inert, white pigment such as chalk is also present. This makes gouache heavier and more opaque, with greater reflective qualities. Like all water media, it is diluted with water.[38] Gouache was a popular paint utilized by Egyptians,[39] Painters such as Francois Boucher used this medium. This paint is best applied with sable brushes.

Ceramic Glaze

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Glazing is commonly known as a premelted liquid glass. This glaze can be dipped or brushed on. This glaze appears chalky and there is a vast difference between the beginning and finished result. To be activated glazed pottery must be placed in a kiln to be fired. This melts the Silica glass in the glaze and transforms it into a vibrant glossy version of itself.[40][41]

Ink

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Ink paintings are done with a liquid that contains pigments or dyes and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing with a pen, brush, or quill. Ink can be a complex medium, composed of solvents, pigments, dyes, resins, lubricants, solubilizers, surfactants, particulate matter, fluorescers, and other materials. The components of inks serve many purposes; the ink's carrier, colorants, and other additives control flow and thickness of the ink and its appearance when dry.

Enamel

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Enamels are made by painting a substrate, typically metal, with powdered glass; minerals called color oxides provide coloration. After firing at a temperature of 750–850 degrees Celsius (1380–1560 degrees Fahrenheit), the result is a fused lamination of glass and metal. Unlike most painted techniques, the surface can be handled and wetted Enamels have traditionally been used for decoration of precious objects,[42] but have also been used for other purposes. Limoges enamel was the leading centre of Renaissance enamel painting, with small religious and mythological scenes in decorated surrounds, on plaques or objects such as salts or caskets. In the 18th century, enamel painting enjoyed a vogue in Europe, especially as a medium for portrait miniatures.[43] In the late 20th century, the technique of porcelain enamel on metal has been used as a durable medium for outdoor murals.[44]

Tempera

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Tempera, also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigment mixed with a water-soluble binder medium (usually a glutinous material such as egg yolk or some other size). Tempera also refers to the paintings done in this medium. Tempera paintings are very long-lasting, and examples from the first centuries CE still exist. Egg tempera was a primary method of painting until after 1500 when it was superseded by the invention of oil painting. A paint commonly called tempera (though it is not) consisting of pigment and glue size is commonly used and referred to by some manufacturers in America as poster paint.

Fresco

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Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, done on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Italian word affresco [afˈfresːko], which derives from the Latin word for fresh. Frescoes were often made during the Renaissance and other early time periods. Buon fresco technique consists of painting in pigment mixed with water on a thin layer of wet, fresh lime mortar or plaster, for which the Italian word for plaster, intonaco, is used. A secco painting, in contrast, is done on dry plaster (secco is "dry" in Italian). The pigments require a binding medium, such as egg (tempera), glue or oil to attach the pigment to the wall.

Oil

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Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil, such as linseed oil, poppyseed oil which was widely used in early modern Europe. Often the oil was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body and gloss. Oil paint eventually became the principal medium used for creating artworks as its advantages became widely known. The transition began with Early Netherlandish painting in northern Europe, and by the height of the Renaissance oil painting techniques had almost completely replaced tempera paints in the majority of Europe.

Pastel

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Pastel is a painting medium in the form of a stick, consisting of pure powdered pigment and a binder.[45] The pigments used in pastels are the same as those used to produce all colored art media, including oil paints; the binder is of a neutral hue and low saturation. The color effect of pastels is closer to the natural dry pigments than that of any other process.[46] Because the surface of a pastel painting is fragile and easily smudged, its preservation requires protective measures such as framing under glass; it may also be sprayed with a fixative. Nonetheless, when made with permanent pigments and properly cared for, a pastel painting may endure unchanged for centuries. Pastels are not susceptible, as are paintings made with a fluid medium, to the cracking and discoloration that result from changes in the color, opacity, or dimensions of the medium as it dries.

Acrylic

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Acrylic paint is fast drying paint containing pigment suspension in acrylic polymer emulsion. Acrylic paints can be diluted with water but become water-resistant when dry. Depending on how much the paint is diluted (with water) or modified with acrylic gels, media, or pastes, the finished acrylic painting can resemble a watercolor or an oil painting, or have its own unique characteristics not attainable with other media. The main practical difference between most acrylics and oil paints is the inherent drying time.[47] Oils allow for more time to blend colors and apply even glazes over under-paintings. This slow drying aspect of oil can be seen as an advantage for certain techniques but may also impede the artist's ability to work quickly. Another difference is that watercolors must be painted onto a porous surface, primarily watercolor paper. Acrylic paints can be used on many different surfaces.[47][48] Both acrylic and watercolor are easy to clean up with water. Acrylic paint should be cleaned with soap and water immediately following use. Watercolor paint can be cleaned with just water.[49][50][51]

Between 1946 and 1949, Leonard Bocour and Sam Golden invented a solution acrylic paint under the brand Magna paint. These were mineral spirit-based paints. Water-based acrylic paints were subsequently sold as latex house paints.[52] In 1963, George Rowney (part of Daler-Rowney since 1983) was the first manufacturer to introduce artists' acrylic paints in Europe, under the brand name "Cryla".[53] Acrylics are the most common paints used in grattage, a surrealist technique that began to be used with the advent of this type of paint. Acrylics are used for this purpose because they easily scrape or peel from a surface.[54]

Spray paint

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Aerosol paint (also called spray paint)[55] is a type of paint that comes in a sealed pressurized container and is released in a fine spray mist when depressing a valve button. A form of spray painting, aerosol paint leaves a smooth, evenly coated surface. Standard sized cans are portable, inexpensive and easy to store. Aerosol primer can be applied directly to bare metal and many plastics.

Speed, portability and permanence also make aerosol paint a common graffiti medium. In the late 1970s, street graffiti writers' signatures and murals became more elaborate, and a unique style developed as a factor of the aerosol medium and the speed required for illicit work. Many now recognize graffiti and street art as a unique art form and specifically manufactured aerosol paints are made for the graffiti artist. A stencil protects a surface, except the specific shape to be painted. Stencils can be purchased as movable letters, ordered as professionally cut logos or hand-cut by artists.

Water miscible oil paint

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Water miscible oil paints (also called "water soluble" or "water-mixable") is a modern variety of oil paint engineered to be thinned and cleaned up with water,[56][57] rather than having to use chemicals such as turpentine. It can be mixed and applied using the same techniques as traditional oil-based paint, but while still wet it can be effectively removed from brushes, palettes, and rags with ordinary soap and water. Its water solubility comes from the use of an oil medium in which one end of the molecule has been altered to bind loosely to water molecules, as in a solution.

Sand

[edit] Main article: Sandpainting

Sandpainting is the art of pouring coloured sands, and powdered pigments from minerals or crystals, or pigments from other natural or synthetic sources onto a surface to make a fixed or unfixed sand painting.

Digital painting

[edit] Main article: Digital painting

Digital painting is a method of creating an art object (painting) digitally or a technique for making digital art on the computer. As a method of creating an art object, it adapts traditional painting medium such as acrylic paint, oils, ink, watercolor, etc. and applies the pigment to traditional carriers, such as woven canvas cloth, paper, polyester, etc. by means of software driving industrial robotic or office machinery (printers). As a technique, it refers to a computer graphics software program that uses a virtual canvas and virtual painting box of brushes, colors, and other supplies. The virtual box contains many instruments that do not exist outside the computer, and which give a digital artwork a different look and feel from an artwork that is made the traditional way. Furthermore, digital painting is not 'computer-generated' art as the computer does not automatically create images on the screen using some mathematical calculations. On the other hand, the artist uses his own painting technique to create a particular piece of work on the computer.[58]

Other- Unruly Painting Methods. Painting is not confined to one method over another. Artists such as Andy Warhol Explored the limits of painting. Oxidization[59] was utilized by Andy Warhol as he painted canvases sprawled on the ground. He then had his assistants and friends urinate on the still-wet[60] Paint to witness the visible changes that would occur.

Menstrual Painting Other interesting painting mediums have helped women and menstruating individuals gain freedom and liberty over their bodies. Blood from menstrual periods has been used to paint images across the world for centuries.[61] Sarah Maple, a contemporary artist, has used her menstrual blood to create portraits to help erase the taboo covering the topic of periods.

Painting styles

[edit] Main article: Style (visual arts)

Style is used in two senses: It can refer to the distinctive visual elements, techniques, and methods that typify an individual artist's work. It can also refer to the movement or school that an artist is associated with. This can stem from an actual group that the artist was consciously involved with or it can be a category in which art historians have placed the painter. The word 'style' in the latter sense has fallen out of favor in academic discussions about contemporary painting, though it continues to be used in popular contexts. Such movements or classifications include the following:

Western

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Modernism

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Modernism describes both a set of cultural tendencies and an array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Modernism was a revolt against the conservative values of realism.[62][63] The term encompasses the activities and output of those who felt the "traditional" forms of art, architecture, literature, religious faith, social organization, and daily life were becoming outdated in the new economic, social, and political conditions of an emerging fully industrialized world. A salient characteristic of modernism is self-consciousness. This often led to experiments with form, and work that draws attention to the processes and materials used (and to the further tendency of abstraction).[64]

Impressionism

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The first example of modernism in painting was impressionism, a school of painting that initially focused on work done, not in studios, but outdoors (en plein air). Impressionist paintings demonstrated that human beings do not see objects, but instead see light itself. The school gathered adherents despite internal divisions among its leading practitioners and became increasingly influential. Initially rejected from the most important commercial show of the time, the government-sponsored Paris Salon, the Impressionists organized yearly group exhibitions in commercial venues during the 1870s and 1880s, timing them to coincide with the official Salon. A significant event of 1863 was the Salon des Refusés, created by Emperor Napoleon III to display all of the paintings rejected by the Paris Salon.

Abstract styles

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Abstract painting uses a visual language of form, colour and line to create a composition that may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world.[65][66] Abstract expressionism was an American post-World War II art movement that combined the emotional intensity and self-denial of the German Expressionists with the anti-figurative aesthetic of the European abstract schools—such as Futurism, Bauhaus and Cubism, and the image of being rebellious, anarchic, highly idiosyncratic and, some feel, nihilistic.[67]

Action painting, sometimes called gestural abstraction, is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied.[68] The resulting work often emphasizes the physical act of painting itself as an essential aspect of the finished work or concern of its artist. The style was widespread from the 1940s until the early 1960s and is closely associated with abstract expressionism (some critics have used the terms "action painting" and "abstract expressionism" interchangeably).

Other modernist styles include:

• Color Field
• Lyrical Abstraction
• Hard-edge painting
• Pop art

Outsider art

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The term outsider art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for art brut (French: [aʁ bʁyt], "raw art" or "rough art"), a label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture; Dubuffet focused particularly on art by insane-asylum inmates.[69] Outsider art has emerged as a successful art marketing category (an annual Outsider Art Fair has taken place in New York since 1992). The term is sometimes misapplied as a catch-all marketing label for art created by people outside the mainstream "art world", regardless of their circumstances or the content of their work.

Photorealism

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Photorealism is the genre of painting based on using the camera and photographs to gather information and then from this information, creating a painting that appears to be very realistic like a photograph. The term is primarily applied to paintings from the United States art movement that began in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As a full-fledged art movement, Photorealism evolved from Pop Art[70][71][72] and as a counter to Abstract Expressionism.

Hyperrealism is a genre of painting and sculpture resembling a high-resolution photograph. Hyperrealism is a fully-fledged school of art and can be considered an advancement of Photorealism by the methods used to create the resulting paintings or sculptures. The term is primarily applied to an independent art movement and art style in the United States and Europe that has developed since the early 2000s.[73]

Surrealism

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Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s and is best known for the artistic and literary production of those affiliated with the Surrealist Movement. Surrealist artworks feature the element of surprise, the uncanny, the unconscious, unexpected juxtapositions and non-sequitur; however, many Surrealist artists and writers regard their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost, with the works being an artifact. Leader André Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was above all a revolutionary movement.

Surrealism developed out of the Dada activities of World War I and the most important center of the movement was Paris. From the 1920s onward, the movement spread around the globe, eventually affecting the visual arts, literature, film and music of many countries, as well as political thought and practice, philosophy and social theory.

East Asian

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• Chinese
  • Tang Dynasty
  • Ming Dynasty
  • Shan shui
  • Ink and wash painting
  • Hua niao
  • Southern School
    • Zhe School
    • Wu School
  • Contemporary
• Japanese
  • Yamato-e
  • Rimpa school
  • Emakimono
  • Kanō school
  • Shijō school
  • Superflat
• Korean

Southeast Asia

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• Indonesian

Islamic

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• Arabic miniature
• Ottoman miniature
• Persian miniature
• Calligraphy

Indian

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Miniature painting

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Miniature paintings were the primary form of painting in pre-colonial India. These were done on a special paper (known as wasli) using mineral and natural colours. Miniature painting is not one style but a group of several styles of schools of painting such as Mughal, Pahari, Rajasthani, Company style etc.

Mughal miniature painting is a particular style of South Asian, particularly North Indian (more specifically, modern day India and Pakistan), painting confined to miniatures either as book illustrations or as single works to be kept in albums (muraqqa). It emerged[74] from Persian miniature painting (itself partly of Chinese origin) and developed in the court of the Mughal Empire of the 16th to 18th centuries. Mughal painting immediately took a much greater interest in realistic portraiture than was typical of Persian miniatures. Animals and plants were the main subject of many miniatures for albums, and were more realistically depicted.[75][76][77]

Rajasthani painting evolved and flourished in the royal courts of Rajputana[78] in northern India, mainly during the 17th century. Artists trained in the tradition of the Mughal miniature were dispersed from the

imperial Mughal court, and developed styles also drawing from local traditions of painting, especially those illustrating the Sanskrit Epics, the Mahabharata and Ramayana. Subjects varied, but portraits of the ruling family, often engaged in hunting or their daily activities, were generally popular, as were narrative scenes from the epics or Hindu mythology, as well as some genre scenes of landscapes, and humans.[79][80] Punjab Hills or Pahari painting of which Kangra, Guller, Basholi were major sub-styles. Kangra painting is the pictorial art of Kangra, named after Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, a former princely state, which patronized the art. It became prevalent with the fading of Basohli school of painting in mid-18th century.[81][82] The focal theme of Kangra painting is Shringar (the erotic sentiment). The subjects are seen in Kangra painting exhibit the taste and the traits of the lifestyle of the society of that period.[83] The artists adopted themes from the love poetry of Jayadeva and Keshav Das who wrote ecstatically of the love of Radha and Krishna with Bhakti being the driving force.[