MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUE (Oil Painting)

Most artists today use commercial materials but some prefer to make their own paints in the traditional way. Oil paint consists of pigment ground in oil that dries on exposure to air. The pigments, or colored powders, must be lightproof, insoluble, and chemically inert. The oil is usually linseed but may be poppy or walnut. Sometimes varnish is added to the mixture, which is then ground. The stiff, creamy paste that results is packaged in flexible tubes. The painting surface consists of a support, either a wood or composition panel, or more frequently, linen, cotton, or jute canvas stretched on a frame or glued to a board. The support is covered with a ground, a thin coating of gesso or other gypsum and glue, or size. The ground makes the support less absorbant and provides an even painting surface that is neither too rough nor too smooth. The ground may be white but is often given a toning coat of gray, tan, or pink. Traditionally, oil painting proceeds in stages. First the design may be sketched on the ground in pencil, charcoal, or paint diluted with turpentine. Then broad areas of color are filled in with thin paint. They are successively refined and corrected in thicker paint to which oil and varnish are added. The paint is usually applied with brushes made from stiff hog bristle, although softer brushes of badger or sable hair may be used. Paint may also be applied with a flexible, wide-bladed painting or palette knife, or the fingers. The process may require only a few sessions or extend over months or even years. Once the painting has dried, at least a year after completion it is varnished to protect it from dirt and to enrich the color. Because all varnishes eventually darken, the varnish used should be removable and eventually replaced.

History of Oil Painting

Oil painting was traditionally thought to have been invented by the Flemish painter Jan van Eyck in the early 15th century, but it is now known to have existed earlier. Van Eyck explored the medium within the linear conventions of tempera, making a detailed drawing on a gesso-covered panel and then building up layers of transparent oil glazes. The technique was popularized in Italy by the Sicilian painter Antonello da Messina and was fully exploited by Renaissance painters. The Venetians took the further step of painting on canvas, which provided a much larger surface and could be rolled up for shipping. They developed a freer style based on a rough monochrome underpainting in tempera with added oil glazes. Dutch painters such as Rembrandt and Frans Hals and the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez experimented with impasto. Academic painters of the 18th and 19th centuries did under-painting in black and gray oil, then repainted in color. The range of colors was limited, however, and many have faded. All work was done in the studio. In the 19th century, developments in chemistry produced new and brilliant pigments. The invention of collapsible tin tubes, replacing the old bladders, meant that artists could work outdoors directly from nature. Chemical additives to keep paint fresh made possible greater use of impasto. Underpainting virtually disappeared. French impressionists applied masses of small dots of bright color directly to the canvas. With the development of nonobjective painting in the 20th century, painters experimented with new techniques. They built up texture with sand, ashes, or plaster, stained canvases, and worked with commercial house paints and spray paints. They combined paint with photography and printed materials in collage. The versatility of oil paint has made it one of the most expressive media of the 20th-century artist; nevertheless, since the 1960s many artists have found acrylic paints better suited to their needs

Oil Painting

Oil Painting, art of applying oil-based colors to a surface to create a picture or other design. Oil painting developed in Europe in the late Middle Ages. It quickly found wide acceptance because—in contrast to older wax- and water-based media, such as encaustic painting, fresco, tempera painting, and watercolor—it is easier to work with and permits a greater variety of effects. Oil paint dries relatively slowly with little change in color. Tones are therefore easy to match, blend, or grade, and corrections are easy to make. The painter is not limited to linear brushstrokes but may apply paint in glazes, washes, blobs, trickles, spray, or impasto (thick application of pigment). Without being restricted to a prearranged design, the painter can freely change and improvise. Rich effects can be obtained with color and chiaroscuro (shading).

Modern Art, painting, sculpture

Modern Art, painting, sculpture, and other forms of 20th-century art. Although scholars disagree as to precisely when the modern period began, they mostly use the term modern art to refer to art of the 20th century in Europe and the Americas, as well as in other regions under Western influence. The modern period has been a particularly innovative one. Among the 20th century’s most important contributions to the history of art are the invention of abstraction (art that does not imitate the appearance of things), the introduction of a wide range of new artistic techniques and materials, and even the redefinition of the boundaries of art itself.

Modern art

Modern art comprises a remarkable diversity of styles, movements, and techniques. The wide range of styles encompasses the sharply realistic painting of a Midwestern farm couple by Grant Wood, entitled American Gothic (1930, Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois), and the abstract rhythms of poured paint in Black and White (1948, private collection), by Jackson Pollock. Yet even if we could easily divide modern art into representational works, like American Gothic, and abstract works, like Black and White, we would still find astonishing variety within these two categories. Just as the precisely painted American Gothic is representational, Willem de Kooning’s Marilyn Monroe (1954, private collection) might also be considered representational, although its broad brushstrokes merely suggest the rudiments of a human body and facial features. Abstraction, too, reveals a number of different approaches, from the dynamic rhythms of Pollock’s Black and White to the right-angled geometry of Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue (1937-1942, Tate Gallery, London) by Dutch painter Piet Mondrian, whose lines and rectangles suggest the mechanical precision of the machine-made. Other artists preferred an aesthetic of disorder, as did German artist Kurt Schwitters, who mixed old newspapers, stamps, and other discarded objects to create Picture with Light Center

20th-century art

Thus 20th-century art displays more than stylistic diversity. It is in the modern period that artists have made paintings not only of traditional materials such as oil on canvas, but of any material available to them. This innovation led to developments that were even more radical, such as conceptual art and performance art—movements that expanded the definition of art to include not just physical objects but ideas and actions as well.

Baroque Art and Architecture

The style dominating the art and architecture of Europe and certain European colonies in the Americas throughout the 1600s, and in some places, until 1750. A number of its characteristics continue in the art and architecture of the first half of the 18th century, although this period is generally termed rococo and corresponds roughly with King Louis XV of France. Manifestations of baroque art appear in virtually every country in Europe, with other important centers in the Spanish and Portuguese settlements in the Americas and in other outposts. The term baroque also defines periods in literature and music.

What is Art?

Art, the product of creative human activity in which materials are shaped or selected to convey an idea, emotion, or visually interesting form. The word art can refer to the visual arts, including painting, sculpture, architecture, photography, decorative arts, crafts, and other visual works that combine materials or forms. We also use the word art in a more general sense to encompass other forms of creative activity, such as dance and music, or even to describe skill in almost any activity, such as “the art of bread making” or “the art of travel.” In this article art refers to the visual arts.