Painting
Painting - 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.
See also articles on individual
painters, e.g., Rubens ; countries, e.g., Dutch art ; periods, e.g.,
Renaissance art and architecture ; techniques, e.g., encaustic .
Materials and
Techniques
Painters use a number of materials
to produce the effects they desire. 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.
Список литературы
Для
подготовки данной работы были использованы материалы с сайта http://www.homeenglish.ru/