Painting is direct application of pigment to a surface to produce by
tones of color or of light and dark some representation or decorative
arrangement of natural or imagined forms.
Materials and Techniques
Painters use a number of materials to produce the effects they
need. These include the materials of the surface, or ground; the
pigments employed; the binder, or medium, in which the color is mixed;
and its diluting agent. Among the various media used by artists are
fresco , watercolor , oil, distemper, gouache, tempera , and encaustic .
In addition to these, painting properly embraces many other techniques
ordinarily associated with drawing , a term that is often used to refer
to the linear aspects of the same art.
If painting and drawing are not always clearly distinguishable from each
other, both are to be distinguished from the print (or work of graphic
art), in which the design is not produced directly but is transferred
from another surface to that which it decorates. While the print may be
one of many identical works, the painting or drawing is always unique.
Painting has been freely combined with many other arts, including
sculpture, architecture, and, in the modern era, photography.
History
In ancient Greece and medieval Europe most buildings and
sculptures were painted; nearly all of the ancient decoration has been
lost, but some works from Egypt have preserved their coloring and give
us an insight into the importance such an art can assume. The art of
painting in China was linked from the 1st cent. AD with the development
of the Buddhist faith. Early Christian and then Byzantine artists
established iconographic and stylistic prototypes in wall painting and
manuscript illumination that remained the basis for Christian art (see
iconography ).
Highly spiritualized in concept, the medieval painting tradition
gave way to a more worldly orientation with the development of
Renaissance art. The murals of Giotto became a vehicle for the
expression of new and living ideas and sentiments. At the height of the
Renaissance a large proportion of the works were decorations of walls
and altarpieces, which were necessarily conceived in terms of their part
in a larger decorative whole and their appeal for a large public. The
greatest masterpieces of Raphael and Michelangelo and of the Florentine
masters are generally public works of this character. The same period
also saw the rise of the separate easel painting and the first use of
oil on canvas. Simultaneously are found the beginnings of genre and
other secular themes and the elaboration of portraiture .
Basing their art on the technical contributions of the
Renaissance, e.g., the study of perspective and anatomy, the baroque
masters added a virtuosity of execution and a style of unparalleled
drama. From the age of the rococo, painting tended in the direction of
greater intimacy. It is noteworthy, for example, that many of the
masterpieces of the 19th cent., and particularly of impressionism , are
small easel paintings suitable for the private home. The same period saw
the rise of the large public gallery with both temporary and permanent
exhibitions, an institution greatly expanded in the 20th cent.
A reawakened interest in mural painting and the contributions of
painting to such arts as the motion picture and video have led some to
believe that a return to a greater emphasis on the public functions of
the art is taking place. Such a view can find support in the notable
influence of abstract painting in the fields of industrial and
architectural design. This art also continues to enjoy undiminished
popularity in the home and gallery. Painting has had a long and glorious
world history as an independent art. From Giotto to Picasso and from Ma
Yuan to Hokusai , painting has never ceased to produce great exponents
who have expressed not merely the taste but the aspirations, the
concepts of space, form, and color, and the philosophy of their
respective periods.
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