See also: Painting (matter)

Literally, the term painting indicates the matter and the practice consisting in applying a Couleur to a surface such as the Papier, the fabric, the Bois, the Verre, the Laque, the Béton and many other supports. In a direction Art istic, the term “painting” means the combination of this activity with the Dessin, the composition, i.e. it integrates of the esthetic considerations.

In this direction, painting is the means for the Artist-painter of representing a personal expression on subjects as varied as there exist artists. It is thus a form of Art.

Painting can be a naturalist and figurative, photographic, abstract. It can have contained narrative, symbolic system, emotional or policy, but most of the Histoire of painting is dominated by reasons and spiritual and religious ideas. In this kind of religious Painting, is often depicted mythological figures, biblical scenes or representations of the human body itself like spiritual subject.

Overall picture

What characterizes painting is the perception and the representation of the intensity. Each point in space has a different intensity which can be represented while painting in black or white while passing by all the nuances of gray. In practice, the painters can mix forms by juxtaposing different surfaces of intensity.

The Color and the Tonalité are the gasoline even of painting like are the height and the rate/rhythm in the Musique. The color is strongly subjective, but has psychological effects and significances Symbolique S which can differ from one culture to another. The Noir is associated with mourning in the Western countries whereas in Asia, it is the Blanc. Some painters, theorists, authors and scientists, such as Goethe, Kandinsky or Newton, wrote their own theory of the color. In the language, the word indicating a color very often includes different colors and tonalities. Thus, the word “Rouge” can cover a large range of color. There is not a formal register of the various colors as it is the case for the note S of music, even if of system Pantone is usually employed in the Imprimerie or graphic industry .

For a painter, the color is not simply divided into primary colors and complementary (like the red, blue, the green, the brown one, etc). Indeed, they use Pigment S which their make it possible to obtain large varieties of colors. For example, the “Bleu” for a painter can be the Cyan, the Indigo, the Bleu of cobalt, the Navy blue, etc

The Rythme is as important in painting as in the music. The rate/rhythm is a pause in a unit which makes it possible the creative force to intervene and add new elements, a form, a melody, a coloring.

The modern artists considerably extended the practice of painting to include, for example, the joining, which began with the Cubisme. Other painters incorporated materials varied such as the Sable, the Ciment, the Paille or the Bois, like one makes Jean Dubuffet or Anselm Kiefer to quote only them. There is also a growing community artists who use from now on computers to paint on a numerical fabric by using programs such as Photoshop, Paint, and much of others. These images can be printed if it is necessary on a traditional fabric. (see: numerical Painting)

It is in 1829 that the first Photographie appeared then, starting from second half of the 19th century, the photographic processes improved. Whereas photography became increasingly widespread, painting lost much of its historical role which was to provide a precise vision of the observable world. It is in this context that with the course 20th century new movements artistic like the Impressionnisme appeared, the Post-impressionnisme, the Fauvisme, the Expressionnisme, the Cubisme and the Dadaïsme which radically changed the perception of the world inherited the Rebirth.

The Modern art and contemporary thus mark an evolution of the painting which passed from a traditionally historical and documentary role to that of Concept.

History of painting

See also: History of painting

Oldest paintings known to date are in the Grotte Chauvet in France and they have, according to the majority of the historians, approximately 32  000 years. Engraved and painted with Ocher red and a black Dye, they represent especially scenes of hunting with horses, rhinoceroses, lions, buffalo and men. One finds other examples of Cave painting everywhere in the world, in France, Spain, with the Portugal, in China, Australia, etc

In the Occidental cultures, the Oil-base paint and the Aquarelle are the Médium (painting) most known, with rich and complex traditions in the choice of the models and the topics. In the Eastern countries, it is the black or coloured Encre which always prevailed.

Esthetics and theory in painting

The Esthétique tried to be the “science of the beauty” and it was an important matter for Philosophe S of the S such as Kant or Hegel. The traditional philosophers like Plato and Aristote also theorized on art and painting in particular. Plato tended to neglect the painters, but also the sculptors, in his philosophical approach. He considered that painting could not represent Vérité, but only one copy of reality and that it acted of a simple trade, like the shoe manufacture or the Ferronnerie. On the contrary, Leonard de Vinci estimated that “painting is a intellectual thing”. Kant distinguished the Beauté and the Sublimation, by privileging the latter clearly. Even if this approach did not aim painting in particular, it were taken again by painters like Turner or Caspar David Friedrich.

Hegel as-with recognized impossibility to him of reaching the concept of the universal beauty and, in its test Leçons on esthetics , he wrote that painting is one of three romantic arts, with poetry and the music, because of its intellectual symbolic system role and its dimension.

Among the painters who wrote theoretical work on painting, it is necessary to quote first of all Leonardo da Vinci ( trattato beyond will pittura ), Eugene Delacroix and, at the 20th century, Salvador Dali, Paul Klee, Jean Monneret and Kandinsky. This last estimated that painting has a spiritual value and it attached the primary colors to the feelings or essential concepts.

The visionniric Iconographie also attempted to theorize painting. The creator of this discipline, Jean-Pierre Alaux, tried to analyze the visual symbols in their dimension cultural, religious, social and philosophical to arrive to a better comprehension of the symbolic system activity of humanity.

Various types of painting

According to the medium

See also: Medium (painting)

There exist various types of painting which one generally identifies according to the preparation (the medium) being used to dilute the painting and which determines the functional characteristics of painting, such as the Viscosité, the Miscibilité, the Solubilité, the time of drying, etc

One can in particular quote:

According to the technique

To paint, the artists developed a multitude of many techniques but also special tools to extend the colors on different the supports to be painted. These tools can be of industrial or manual production, see also quite simply being reduced to the use of the fingers, the fabrics or any object which fall to them under the hand.

  • painting with the Pochoir

  • the complementarity of the colors
  • the pictorial Composition
  • painting in Transparence
  • the Aplat which consists in applying uniform field coloured
  • liquid painting, by using a painting fluxed using medium (painting or of water, making it possible to obtain dependant effects
  • painting by brushing consisting in putting painting on brush-brushes or a rag that one rubs it on a support in order to lose part of his color to him to obtain an effect évanescent of the color.
  • the painting by projection ( splashing ) which consists in projecting remote painting on the fabric, a little like the Dripping
  • painting by scraping or Scarification S which allows, using a tool abrasive or cutting, to take matter, medium and to update the sub-bases, even the support even, which can be thus even attacked, perforated.
  • painting by Irisation
  • painting with the Fresco
  • painting with the knife

Certain painters were even further developing a technique of painting with all their body, while rolling themselves on fabrics.

According to the support

See also: Support of painting

Material of painting

  • Medium S

  • Tools for painting
  • Support S

various movements in painting

The movements in painting indicate the various elements, techniques and methods visual which characterize the work of an artist. A Artist-painter can fall under a movement either because it was consciously implied there, or because historians of art placed it in this category.

Through the centuries, many movements appeared:

See also: Movements in painting, Movements in Western painting

Main themes in painting

In painting, as in other artistic forms, there exist recurring topics.

See too

Related articles

External bonds

  • the base Mona Lisa, of the Management of the museums of France

  • Web Gallery off Art: the European painting of 1100 to 1800 - 12.400 images - biographies (in English)
  • The Russian Art Gallery: the Russian painting of 1300 now - 460 images
  • Musée criticizes of the Sorbonne
  • “  Of the painting considered in its effects on the men in general, and of his influence on manners and the government of the people   ”, George-Marie Raymond

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