Artists express their ideas in many different ways. Sculptors create three-dimensional figures, architects design buildings, writers use words, dancers use movement, and musicians make music. Those who use shapes, lines, colors, tones, and textures to create pictures are called painters. The works that they produce are called paintings. The paintings of professional artists are often displayed in museums and galleries. Painting has also become a popular form of entertainment, however, and people of all ages create pictures using watercolors, oils, acrylics, and finger paints. Subjects of paintingsPainters can use their art to express their devotion to a religion, to tell a story, or simply to present a pleasing image. In some cases the artist is paid to paint a certain subject, and in other cases the artist is free to address whatever subject interests him or her. Religion has been a popular subject of painters in all cultures for hundreds of years. Their works often portray a god or a scene from a religious text such as the Bible. One of the most famous paintings in the world is Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper. The work is painted on the wall of a church in Italy. It shows the biblical story of Jesus Christ having his final meal with his disciples. Other painters focus on famous legends and events in history. Still others show scenes from daily life. Paintings that portray scenes or events from everyday life are called genre paintings. Artists also paint portraits, or pictures of people. Sometimes artists make portraits of themselves. Such paintings are called self-portraits. All of the above are known as figurative works because they portray the human figure in some way. In landscape painting, on the other hand, the focus is on buildings and scenes from nature. Paintings that show natural inland scenery are called landscapes, and those that illustrate seas are called seascapes. Similarly, there are cityscapes, moonscapes, streetscapes, and cloudscapes. Artists also paint motionless objects such as fruits and vegetables. These are called still-life paintings. Some artists communicate their ideas through images that do not represent any specific object. These works are called abstract paintings. Elements of designThe design of a painting is the arrangement of its lines, shapes, colors, tones, and textures into an expressive pattern. The combination of colors and shapes can communicate a particular mood or produce a sensation of space, volume, movement, and light. Many paintings use basic geometrical designs such as squares, circles, and triangles. Painters can use these shapes in many different ways, however, to create different effects. Paintings are two-dimensional because they are created on a flat surface. Some paintings look flat, but others look three-dimensional because of the use of lines and shading and the placement of geometric shapes. MaterialsPainters use brushes or other tools to apply color to a surface. The color comes from pigments. These are substances that are ground into a powder and then mixed with oils or other substances to make them easier to spread and to make them stick to the surface. They take different forms depending on how they are mixed. These include paints, such as oil paints (or oils) and watercolors, as well as pastels. Pastels are not as diluted as paints. They are a thick paste formed into sticks, similar to crayons. Paints are commonly mixed on a surface called a palette, which is made from metal, wood, or plastic. Paintbrushes are made from the hairs of various animals, including sables, or from the bristles of hogs and boars. Some are made out of nylon and other artificial materials. Some painters, when working with oils, do not use brushes but apply the paint with a palette knife that has a thin, flexible blade. The artist's colors are applied to a wide range of surfaces, including paper, card, cloth, wood, ivory, china, canvas, and metal. Some paintings are made on wet plaster. These frescoes, as they are known, are well suited to large wall surfaces. HistoryEarly artHumans have been making paintings for thousands of years. Some of the earliest known paintings were found on the walls of caves in France and Spain. These date back about 15,000 years, and they allow historians to learn about the people who painted them. They generally show animals that were hunted by early humans. Similarly, paintings on rocks that date from about 6,000 years ago in the Sahara region of northern Africa show the animals that the local people there were hunting at the time they were painted. Soon other forms of painting appeared. As people began creating pottery and building shelters they decorated these surfaces with paint. Samples of painted pottery from at least 5,000 years ago have been found in what are now China and Iran. - A detail from a wall painting from a tomb in Thebes, Egypt, dates from about 1450 BC. It is …
Painting was practiced in one form or another in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome as well. The Egyptians decorated their tombs and temples with elaborate paintings. The Greeks painted decorative objects such as vases in addition to the walls of their temples, and the Romans painted the walls of their homes and temples as well. Middle Ages - A fresco, or wall painting, by the Italian artist Giotto shows a scene from the Christian Bible. …
The Middle Ages, which lasted from about 500 to 1500 AD, saw the development of new forms of painting. Although artists continued to paint murals, or wall paintings, some worked on a smaller scale. These forms were related to the spread of Christianity throughout Europe during this period. In the eastern part of Europe artists painted religious pictures on wooden panels. These works, called icons, were an important part of the worship of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. - A detail from an Indian manuscript shows one style of miniature painting that was used to …
In both eastern and western Europe artists also began creating illuminated manuscripts. These were hand-written books with miniature paintings that illustrated the text. Many were religious texts such as the Bible. Earlier artists, including some in ancient Rome, had created such works, but during the Middle Ages they became common. The form was used in the Middle East and India as well. - A detail of a hanging scroll by Kuo Hsi is an example of Chinese landscapes. The scroll dates from …
In the Far East during this period the Japanese and Chinese began a long tradition of creating delicate watercolor and ink paintings on long scrolls. The scrolls were made of paper or silk. Many of the Chinese scrolls were landscapes, while the Japanese scrolls often told a story by mixing text with pictures. Artists also painted folding screens and screen doors. At the end of this period artists began to create easel paintings in addition to wall paintings. These are smaller works that are created on an easel and can be moved and hung on walls. RenaissanceIn about the late 14th century a new movement called the Renaissance began in Europe. The Renaissance was a period of exploration, discovery, and emphasis on the arts. It is associated particularly with the Italian cities of Florence and Rome. During the early Renaissance, artists began to paint more realistic pictures than those of the Middle Ages. They made a careful observation of the world about them in order to represent that world in painting. - The Creation of Adam, detail of the ceiling fresco in the Sistine Chapel, Vatican, by …
In the early 16th century artists such as Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michelangelo introduced bold ideas. Leonardo, in particular, experimented with new paint mixtures and techniques for creating more natural shades of color and light. His masterpiece, Mona Lisa, is one of the most studied paintings in the history of art. Michelangelo was a sculptor and architect as well as a painter. One of his greatest works is a huge fresco covering the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City. Slightly later in the 16th century the northern Italian city-state of Venice became another center of Renaissance painters. The most notable of these were Titian, Tintoretto, and Paolo Veronese. - Peasant Dance, an oil painting on wood by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, …
Artists outside of Italy were influenced by the work being done there. Many traveled to Italy to study. Some of the most prominent artists outside of Italy during the Renaissance were Albrecht Dürer and Hans Holbein the Younger in Germany, Pieter Brueghel in what is now Belgium, and El Greco, who was born in Greece but lived much of his life in Spain. BaroqueIn the 17th century a style known as baroque became prominent in European art. Once again the movement started in Italy and later spread across the continent. Baroque paintings use rich colors and dramatic effects of light and shade to express strong emotions. The best-known Italian painter of this era was Caravaggio. He used everyday settings and objects to portray religious scenes. The Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens traveled from Flanders, which is now part of Belgium, to Italy in 1600. There he studied the works of the masters of Italian art. He returned to Flanders and set up a studio that became an artistic center for Flanders, England, Spain, and central Europe. He added his own individual sense of color and design to the baroque style so that his paintings were full of life and energy. Rubens influenced many other painters, including Diego Velázquez in Spain. To the north of Flanders was the Netherlands. There the Dutch master painters Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Jan Vermeer concentrated on portraits and scenes of 17th-century Dutch life. 18th centuryIn the first half of the 18th century French painters such as Jean-Antoine Watteau reacted against the bold style of the baroque in creating a style known as rococo. These paintings featured soft landscapes and decorative scenes of elegantly dressed people. - The English artist Thomas Gainsborough painted The Morning Walk in …
In England William Hogarth was influenced by the rococo style. The subject of many of his paintings, however, was the foolish behavior of people in society. Two other well-known English painters of the 18th century were Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough, both of whom were known for their portraits of fashionable people. This interest in portraits was carried over to the English colonies in North America. John Singleton Copley and Gilbert Stuart were two of the best-known painters of the colonial and early American period. During this same period, a Spaniard named Francisco de Goya was a court painter for the king of Spain. Unlike most court artists, however, he painted unflattering portraits of the people of the court whom he did not admire. Goya also painted scenes from Spanish life, including bullfights, and scenes of war and violence. Toward the end of the 18th century European painters turned to a form called neoclassicism. They depicted scenes from the classical world, meaning that of ancient Greece and Rome, with clean lines and no extra details. This was in part as a change from the swirling designs of the earlier, very elaborate, rococo style. Also, scientists had recently discovered the ruins of the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. As people learned about these discoveries they became interested in the worlds that they revealed. The works of this period were very orderly. One of the major painters of this period was the Frenchman Jacques-Louis David. 19th century - Boatbuilding near Flatford Mill, a painting by English artist John …
Some artists were opposed to the formal approach of the neoclassicists. They preferred to express their imagination and emotions in very personal paintings. These artists were called romanticists. They had a strong appreciation for nature as well. Two English painters known for their landscapes were John Constable and J.M.W. Turner. They sought to capture aspects of the natural world, and they used light and color with great freedom. Other artists of the 19th century were interested in presenting depictions of everyday life and its problems. Instead of focusing on historical themes or grand ideas they showed simple people going about their jobs. The paintings were not necessarily exact copies of their subjects. Instead they showed the true nature of the person or scene. This was known as realism. It was popular especially in France in the mid-1800s. Gustave Courbet was one of the most influential of the realists. He insisted that paintings should inspire social change. Honoré Daumier painted scenes of working-class people in the slums of Paris. In the United States Thomas Eakins and Winslow Homer also worked in the realist tradition. Impressionists - Self-portrait by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, oil on canvas, 1910; in the Archives Denyse Durand-Ruel, …
Later in the 19th century a group of French artists applied the idea of realism to the portrayal of light and color. These painters tried to match the colors and tones that they saw in nature. Some tried to reproduce the effect of reflected light by putting thick touches of bright, contrasting color side by side. This style of painting came to be known as impressionism. Some of the greatest impressionists were Édouard Manet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, and Claude Monet. Edgar Degas also studied the effects of light. He even studied photographs of racehorses and ballet dancers in action to make his pictures look more alive. Although the movement was based mostly in France, it had followers in the United States as well. These included Mary Cassatt and John Singer Sargent. Postimpressionists - A detail of the painting Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh shows the …
A group of artists known as postimpressionists carried the movement further. Georges Seurat of France developed a new style in which he painted entirely by using dots of pure color. This style was called pointillism. Whereas Seurat was interested in developing a particular technique, the Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh was interested in emotions. He expressed these through rich colors and strong brushstrokes. The French painter Paul Cézanne believed that a picture should not be bound by the realities of its subjects. Ignoring small surface details, he concentrated more on strong basic forms. Another French painter, Paul Gauguin, used startling color to capture nontraditional scenes. He is well known for the bright pictures he painted of the people and landscape of the South Pacific island of Tahiti. 20th centuryThrough their individual approach to colors, shapes, and subject matter the impressionists and postimpressionists paved the way for modern forms of painting. An important trend throughout the 20th century was that of abstract, or nonobjective, art. This means art that does not depict recognizable objects. In this style basic shapes remain, but the finished picture may not resemble the subject that was painted. The Russian-born artist Wassily Kandinsky created some of the first abstract paintings in the early years of the century. CubismOne of the most important abstract painters of the 20th century was Pablo Picasso, a Spaniard who lived most of his life in France. Picasso helped create a style of abstract painting called cubism. In cubism the forms of objects were reduced to their simplest shapes and were often broken up so that more than one side of an object could be seen at one time. Beyond cubismIn the 1920s a movement called surrealism served as an alternative to cubism. In this form of abstract art fantasy was combined with reality, sometimes by portraying recognizable objects in unexpected settings. Two Spanish painters—Salvador Dali and Joan Miró—made surrealist paintings that portrayed dreams, nightmares, and fantasies. The Mexican artist Diego Rivera studied cubism but later focused on painting colorful simple forms. In the 1920s he and José Clemente Orozco brought back the art of fresco painting with their large murals. Painted in public places in the United States and Latin America, Rivera's colorful murals focused on industry and social history. Some important 20th-century painters worked outside of these emerging styles. The Swiss painter Paul Klee used elements of cubism in his work, but he was entirely original in his use of humor and caricature, or mockery. His richly colored works often featured almost childlike representations of figures in comic situations. The French artist Henri Matisse experimented with bold color compositions and repeated patterns throughout his career, influencing many painters who came after him. Although he borrowed elements from cubism and other movements, the Russian-born French artist Marc Chagall developed a style that cannot be classified with any artistic movement of his time. Chagall filled his paintings with images from his personal life and his upbringing in Russia. New forms in the United StatesIn the United States there had been a strong tradition of realism since colonial times. Some U.S. painters, including Edward Hopper, Grant Wood, and Andrew Wyeth, continued in that tradition into the 20th century. In 1913, however, an art exhibition held in New York City introduced abstract act to Americans. Georgia O'Keeffe was one of the U.S. painters who were influenced by the new styles. She is known for her paintings of such natural forms as animal bones, flowers, and rocks. After 1940 New York City became the center of painting. There such artists as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko were important figures. Their style of painting was known as abstract expressionism. The painters used new techniques and large canvases to express their feelings. For instance, Pollock applied paint in an unusual manner: he laid the canvas on the floor and poured the paint on it. The lines of color, therefore, reflect the movements of his arm and body as he applied the paint. In the 1950s a movement known as pop art began. Painters of this movement were inspired by common objects such as soup cans and street signs as well as advertisements, photographs, and comic strips. They used a hard-edged style with strong, flashy colors. Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol are among the best-known artists who worked in this style. New developmentsArtists continued to explore new ways of painting into the 21st century. They experimented with new materials and sometimes caused controversy by portraying religious and historical subjects in modern ways. The boundaries of traditional painting also changed as artists began attaching real objects to the painted surface. Some used neon tubes and mirrors, and others even designed panels and boxes with colored shapes that revolved under electric power. |