Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid
surface (called the "matrix" or "support").[1] The medium is commonly applied to the
base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and airbrushes,
can be used.

In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action (the final
work is called "a painting"). The support for paintings includes such surfaces as
walls, paper, canvas, wood, glass, lacquer, pottery, leaf, copper and concrete, and the
painting may incorporate multiple other materials, including sand, clay, paper,
plaster, gold leaf, and even whole objects.

Painting is an important form in the visual arts, bringing in elements such as drawing,
composition, gesture (as in gestural painting), narration (as in narrative art), and
abstraction (as in abstract art).[2] Paintings can be naturalistic and representational (as
in still life and landscape painting), photographic, abstract, narrative, symbolistic (as
in Symbolist art), emotive (as in Expressionism) or political in nature (as in
Artivism).

A portion of the history of painting in both Eastern and Western art is dominated by The Mona Lisa (1503–1517) by
religious art. Examples of this kind of painting range from artwork depicting Leonardo da Vinci is one of the
mythological figures on pottery, to Biblical scenes on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, to world's most recognizable paintings.
scenes from the life of Buddha (or other images of Eastern religious origin).

Contents
History
Elements of painting
Color and tone
Non-traditional elements
Rhythm
Aesthetics and theory
Painting media
Oil An artistic depiction of a group of rhinos was made in the Chauvet
Pastel Cave 30,000 to 32,000 years ago.
Acrylic
Watercolor
Ink
Hot wax or encaustic
Fresco
Gouache
Enamel
Spray paint
Tempera
Water miscible oil paint
Digital painting
Painting styles
Western
Modernism
Impressionism
 Abstract styles
Outsider art
Photorealism
Surrealism
East Asian
Islamic
Indian
African
Contemporary art
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
Types of painting
Allegory
Bodegón
Figure painting
Illustration painting
Landscape painting
Portrait painting
Still life
Veduta
See also
Notes
Further reading

History
The oldest known paintings are approximately 40,000 years old, found in both the
Franco-Cantabrian region in western Europe, and in the caves in the district of Maros
(Sulawesi, Indonesia). Cave paintings were then found in Kalimantan, Indonesia in
the Lubang Jeriji Saléh cave believed to be 40,000 - 52,000 years old. More recently,
in 2021, cave art of a pig found in an Indonesian island, and dated to over 45,500
years, has been reported.[3][4] However, the earliest evidence of the act of painting
has been discovered in two rock-shelters in Arnhem Land, in northern Australia. In
the lowest layer of material at these sites, there are used pieces of ochre estimated to
be 60,000 years old. Archaeologists have also found a fragment of rock painting
preserved in a limestone rock-shelter in the Kimberley region of North-Western Prehistoric cave painting of aurochs
Australia, that is dated 40,000 years old.[5] There are examples of cave paintings all (French: Bos primigenius
over the world—in Indonesia, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, China, Australia, primigenius) ), Lascaux, France
Mexico,[6] etc. In Western cultures, oil painting and watercolor painting have rich
and complex traditions in style and subject matter. In the East, ink and color ink
historically predominated the choice of media, with equally rich and complex traditions.

The invention of photography had a major impact on painting. In the decades after the first photograph was produced in
1829, photographic processes improved and became more widely practiced, depriving painting of much of its historic
purpose to provide an accurate record of the observable world. A series of art movements in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries—notably Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, and Dadaism—challenged the
Renaissance view of the world. Eastern and African painting, however, continued a long history of stylization and did not
undergo an equivalent transformation at the same time.
Modern and Contemporary art has moved away from the historic value of craft and
documentation in favour of concept. This has not deterred the majority of living
painters from continuing to practice painting either as a whole or part of their work.
The vitality and versatility of painting in the 21st century defy the previous
"declarations" of its demise. In an epoch characterized by the idea of pluralism, there
is no consensus as to a representative style of the age. Artists continue to make
important works of art in a wide variety of styles and aesthetic temperaments—their
merits are left to the public and the marketplace to judge.
The oldest known figurative painting

Elements of painting is a depiction of a bull that was

discovered in the Lubang Jeriji Saléh
cave in Indonesia. It was painted
40,000 - 52,000 years ago or earlier.
Color and tone

Color, made up of hue, saturation, and value, dispersed over a surface is the essence
of painting, just as pitch and rhythm are the essence of music. Color is highly
subjective, but has observable psychological effects, although these can differ from
one culture to the next. Black is associated with mourning in the West, but in the
East, white is. Some painters, theoreticians, writers, and scientists, including
Goethe,[7] Kandinsky,[8] and Newton,[9] have written their own color theory.

Moreover, the use of language is only an abstraction for a color equivalent. The word
"red", for example, can cover a wide range of variations from the pure red of the
visible spectrum of light. There is not a formalized register of different colors in the
way that there is agreement on different notes in music, such as F or C ♯ . For a
painter, color is not simply divided into basic (primary) and derived (complementary
or mixed) colors (like red, blue, green, brown, etc.).
Chen Hongshou (1598–1652), Leaf
Painters deal practically with pigments,[10] so "blue" for a painter can be any of the album painting (Ming dynasty)
blues: phthalocyanine blue, Prussian blue, indigo, Cobalt blue, ultramarine, and so
on. Psychological and symbolical meanings of color are not, strictly speaking, means
of painting. Colors only add to the potential, derived context of meanings, and
because of this, the perception of a painting is highly subjective. The analogy with
music is quite clear—sound in music (like a C note) is analogous to "light" in
painting, "shades" to dynamics, and "coloration" is to painting as the specific timbre
of musical instruments is to music. These elements do not necessarily form a melody
(in music) of themselves; rather, they can add different contexts to it.

Non-traditional elements Georges Seurat, Circus Sideshow

(French: Parade de cirque) (1887–88)
Modern artists have extended the practice of painting considerably to include, as one
example, collage, which began with Cubism and is not painting in the strict sense.
Some modern painters incorporate different materials such as metal, plastic, sand, cement, straw, leaves or wood for their
texture. Examples of this are the works of Jean Dubuffet and Anselm Kiefer. There is a growing community of artists who
use computers to "paint" color onto a digital "canvas" using programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter, and many
others. These images can be printed onto traditional canvas if required.

Rhythm

Jean Metzinger's mosaic-like Divisionist technique had its parallel in literature; a characteristic of the alliance between
Symbolist writers and Neo-Impressionist artists:

I ask of divided brushwork not the objective rendering of light, but iridescences and certain aspects of color still
foreign to painting. I make a kind of chromatic versification and for syllables, I use strokes which, variable in
quantity, cannot differ in dimension without modifying the rhythm of a pictorial phraseology destined to translate
the diverse emotions aroused by nature. (Jean Metzinger, circa 1907)[11]
Rhythm, for artists such as Piet Mondrian,[12][13] is important in painting as it is in
music. If one defines rhythm as "a pause incorporated into a sequence", then there
can be rhythm in paintings. These pauses allow creative force to intervene and add
new creations—form, melody, coloration. The distribution of form or any kind of
information is of crucial importance in the given work of art, and it directly affects
the aesthetic value of that work. This is because the aesthetic value is functionality
dependent, i.e. the freedom (of movement) of perception is perceived as beauty. Free
flow of energy, in art as well as in other forms of "techne", directly contributes to the
aesthetic value.[12]

Music was important to the birth of abstract art since music is abstract by nature—it
does not try to represent the exterior world, but expresses in an immediate way the
inner feelings of the soul. Wassily Kandinsky often used musical terms to identify his
works; he called his most spontaneous paintings "improvisations" and described
more elaborate works as "compositions". Kandinsky theorized that "music is the
ultimate teacher,"[14] and subsequently embarked upon the first seven of his ten
Compositions. Hearing tones and chords as he painted, Kandinsky theorized that (for Jean Metzinger, La danse
example), yellow is the color of middle C on a brassy trumpet; black is the color of (Bacchante) (c.1906), oil on canvas,
closure, and the end of things; and that combinations of colors produce vibrational 73 x 54 cm, Kröller-Müller Museum
frequencies, akin to chords played on a piano. In 1871 the young Kandinsky learned
to play the piano and cello.[15][16] Kandinsky's stage design for a performance of
Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition illustrates his "synaesthetic" concept of a
universal correspondence of forms, colors and musical sounds.[17]

Music defines much of modernist abstract painting. Jackson Pollock underscores that
interest with his 1950 painting Autumn Rhythm (Number 30).[18]

Piet Mondrian, Composition en

rouge, jaune, bleu et noir (1921),
Gemeentemuseum Den Haag

Aesthetics and theory

Aesthetics is the study of art and beauty; it was an important issue for 18th- and 19th-
century philosophers such as Kant and Hegel. Classical philosophers like Plato and
Aristotle also theorized about art and painting in particular. Plato disregarded painters
(as well as sculptors) in his philosophical system; he maintained that painting cannot
depict the truth—it is a copy of reality (a shadow of the world of ideas) and is
nothing but a craft, similar to shoemaking or iron casting.[19] By the time of
Leonardo, painting had become a closer representation of the truth than painting was
in Ancient Greece. Leonardo da Vinci, on the contrary, said that "Italian: La Pittura
è cosa mentale" ("English: painting is a thing of the mind").[20] Kant distinguished
between Beauty and the Sublime, in terms that clearly gave priority to the former.
Although he did not refer to painting in particular, this concept was taken up by
Female painter sitting on a
painters such as J.M.W. Turner and Caspar David Friedrich.
campstool and painting a statue of
Hegel recognized the failure of attaining a universal concept of beauty and, in his Dionysus or Priapus onto a panel
which is held by a boy. Fresco from
aesthetic essay, wrote that painting is one of the three "romantic" arts, along with
Pompeii, 1st century
Poetry and Music, for its symbolic, highly intellectual purpose.[21][22] Painters who
have written theoretical works on painting include Kandinsky and Paul Klee.[23][24]
In his essay, Kandinsky maintains that painting has a spiritual value, and he attaches
primary colors to essential feelings or concepts, something that Goethe and other writers had already tried to do.
 Iconography is the study of the content of paintings, rather than their style. Erwin
Panofsky and other art historians first seek to understand the things depicted, before
looking at their meaning for the viewer at the time, and finally analyzing their wider
cultural, religious, and social meaning.[25]

In 1890, the Parisian painter Maurice Denis famously asserted: "Remember that a
painting—before being a warhorse, a naked woman or some story or other—is
essentially a flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order."[26] Thus,
many 20th-century developments in painting, such as Cubism, were reflections on
the means of painting rather than on the external world—nature—which had
previously been its core subject. Recent contributions to thinking about painting have
been offered by the painter and writer Julian Bell. In his book What is Painting?,
Bell discusses the development, through history, of the notion that paintings can
express feelings and ideas.[27] In Mirror of The World, Bell writes:

A work of art seeks to hold your attention and keep it fixed: a history of
Nino Pisano, Apelles or the Art of
art urges it onwards, bulldozing a highway through the homes of the
painting in detail (1334–1336); relief
of the Giotto's Bell Tower in imagination.[28]
Florence, Italy

Painting media
Different types of paint are usually identified by the medium that the pigment is suspended or embedded in, which determines
the general working characteristics of the paint, such as viscosity, miscibility, solubility, drying time, etc.

Oil

Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium
of drying oil, such as linseed oil, which was widely used in early modern Europe.
Often the oil was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these
were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body and gloss. Oil paint eventually
became the principal medium used for creating artworks as its advantages became
widely known. The transition began with Early Netherlandish painting in northern
Europe, and by the height of the Renaissance oil painting techniques had almost
completely replaced tempera paints in the majority of Europe.

Honoré Daumier, The Painter (1808–

Pastel 1879), oil on panel with visible
brushstrokes
Pastel is a painting medium in the form of a
stick, consisting of pure powdered pigment
and a binder.[29] The pigments used in pastels are the same as those used to produce
all colored art media, including oil paints; the binder is of a neutral hue and low
saturation. The color effect of pastels is closer to the natural dry pigments than that of
any other process.[30] Because the surface of a pastel painting is fragile and easily
smudged, its preservation requires protective measures such as framing under glass; it
may also be sprayed with a fixative. Nonetheless, when made with permanent
pigments and properly cared for, a pastel painting may endure unchanged for
centuries. Pastels are not susceptible, as are paintings made with a fluid medium, to
the cracking and discoloration that result from changes in the color, opacity, or
dimensions of the medium as it dries.

Maurice Quentin de La Tour, Portrait Acrylic

of Louis XV of France (1748), pastel
Acrylic paint is fast drying paint containing pigment suspension in acrylic polymer
emulsion. Acrylic paints can be diluted with water, but become water-resistant when
dry. Depending on how much the paint is diluted (with water) or modified with acrylic gels, media, or pastes, the finished
acrylic painting can resemble a watercolor or an oil painting, or have its own unique characteristics not attainable with other
media. The main practical difference between most acrylics and oil paints is the
inherent drying time. Oils allow for more time to blend colors and apply even glazes
over under-paintings. This slow drying aspect of oil can be seen as an advantage for
certain techniques, but may also impede the artist's ability to work quickly.

Watercolor

Watercolor is a painting method in which the

paints are made of pigments suspended in a
Ray Burggraf, Jungle Arc (1998),
water-soluble vehicle. The traditional and
acrylic paint on wood
most common support for watercolor
paintings is paper; other supports include
papyrus, bark papers, plastics, vellum or
leather, fabric, wood and canvas. In East Asia, watercolor painting with inks is
referred to as brush painting or scroll painting. In Chinese, Korean, and Japanese
John Martin, Manfred on the
painting it has been the dominant medium, often in monochrome black or browns.
Jungfrau (1837), watercolor
India, Ethiopia and other countries also have long traditions. Finger-painting with
watercolor paints originated in China. Watercolor pencils (water-soluble color
pencils) may be used either wet or dry.

Ink

Ink paintings are done with a liquid that contains pigments or dyes and is used to
color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing with a
pen, brush, or quill. Ink can be a complex medium, composed of solvents, pigments,
dyes, resins, lubricants, solubilizers, surfactants, particulate matter, fluorescers, and
other materials. The components of inks serve many purposes; the ink's carrier,
colorants, and other additives control flow and thickness of the ink and its
appearance when dry.
Sesshū Tōyō, Landscapes of the
Four Seasons (1486), ink and light
Hot wax or encaustic color on paper

Encaustic painting, also known as hot wax painting, involves using heated beeswax
to which colored pigments are added. The liquid/paste is then applied to a surface—
usually prepared wood, though canvas and other materials are often used. The
simplest encaustic mixture can be made from adding pigments to beeswax, but there
are several other recipes that can be used—some containing other types of waxes,
damar resin, linseed oil, or other ingredients. Pure, powdered pigments can be
purchased and used, though some mixtures use oil paints or other forms of pigment.
Metal tools and special brushes can be used to shape the paint before it cools, or
heated metal tools can be used to manipulate the wax once it has cooled onto the
surface. Other materials can be encased or collaged into the surface, or layered, using
the encaustic medium to adhere it to the surface.

The technique was the normal one for ancient Greek and Roman panel paintings,
and remained in use in the Eastern Orthodox icon tradition.

Fresco

Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, done on plaster on walls or
ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Italian word affresco [afˈfresːko], which
derives from the Latin word for fresh. Frescoes were often made during the
Renaissance and other early time periods. Buon fresco technique consists of painting
in pigment mixed with water on a thin layer of wet, fresh lime mortar or plaster, for
Encaustic icon from Saint
which the Italian word for plaster, intonaco, is used. A secco painting, in contrast, is
Catherine's Monastery, Egypt (6th-
done on dry plaster (secco is "dry" in Italian). The pigments require a binding
century)
medium, such as egg (tempera), glue or oil to attach the pigment to the wall.
 Gouache

Gouache is a water-based paint consisting of pigment and other materials designed to

be used in an opaque painting method. Gouache differs from watercolor in that the
particles are larger, the ratio of pigment to water is much higher, and an additional,
inert, white pigment such as chalk is also present. This makes gouache heavier and
more opaque, with greater reflective qualities. Like all watermedia, it is diluted with
water.[31]

Enamel

Enamels are made by painting a

substrate, typically metal, with
powdered glass; minerals called
color oxides provide coloration.
White Angel (fresco), Mileševa After firing at a temperature of
monastery, Serbia 750–850 degrees Celsius
(1380–1560 degrees
Fahrenheit), the result is a fused
lamination of glass and metal. Unlike most painted techniques, the
surface can be handled and wetted Enamels have traditionally been used
for decoration of precious objects,[32] but have also been used for other
purposes. Limoges enamel was the leading centre of Renaissance
enamel painting, with small religious and mythological scenes in Jean de Court (attributed), painted Limoges enamel
dish in detail (mid-16th century), Waddesdon
decorated surrounds, on plaques or objects such as salts or caskets. In
Bequest, British Museum
the 18th century, enamel painting enjoyed a vogue in Europe, especially
as a medium for portrait miniatures.[33] In the late 20th century, the
technique of porcelain enamel on metal has been used as a durable
medium for outdoor murals.[34]

Spray paint

Aerosol paint (also called spray paint) is a type of paint that comes in a sealed pressurized container and is released in a fine
spray mist when depressing a valve button. A form of spray painting, aerosol paint leaves a smooth, evenly coated surface.
Standard sized cans are portable, inexpensive and easy to store. Aerosol primer can be applied directly to bare metal and
many plastics.

Speed, portability and permanence also make aerosol paint a common graffiti medium. In the late 1970s, street graffiti writers'
signatures and murals became more elaborate and a unique style developed as a factor of the aerosol medium and the speed
required for illicit work. Many now recognize graffiti and street art as a unique art form and specifically manufactured aerosol
paints are made for the graffiti artist. A stencil protects a surface, except the specific shape to be painted. Stencils can be
purchased as movable letters, ordered as professionally cut logos or hand-cut by artists.

Tempera

Tempera, also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigment mixed with
a water-soluble binder medium (usually a glutinous material such as egg yolk or some other size). Tempera also refers to the
paintings done in this medium. Tempera paintings are very long-lasting, and examples from the first centuries CE still exist.
Egg tempera was a primary method of painting until after 1500 when it was superseded by the invention of oil painting. A
paint commonly called tempera (though it is not) consisting of pigment and glue size is commonly used and referred to by
some manufacturers in America as poster paint.

Water miscible oil paint

Water miscible oil paints (also called "water soluble" or "water-mixable") is a modern variety of oil paint engineered to be
thinned and cleaned up with water, rather than having to use chemicals such as turpentine. It can be mixed and applied using
the same techniques as traditional oil-based paint, but while still wet it can be effectively removed from brushes, palettes, and
rags with ordinary soap and water. Its water solubility comes from the use of an oil medium in which one end of the molecule
has been altered to bind loosely to water molecules, as in a solution.

Digital painting

Digital painting is a method of creating an art object (painting) digitally or a technique for making digital art on the computer.
As a method of creating an art object, it adapts traditional painting medium such as acrylic paint, oils, ink, watercolor, etc. and
applies the pigment to traditional carriers, such as woven canvas cloth, paper, polyester, etc. by means of software driving
industrial robotic or office machinery (printers). As a technique, it refers to a computer graphics software program that uses a
virtual canvas and virtual painting box of brushes, colors, and other supplies. The virtual box contains many instruments that
do not exist outside the computer, and which give a digital artwork a different look and feel from an artwork that is made the
traditional way. Furthermore, digital painting is not 'computer-generated' art as the computer does not automatically create
images on the screen using some mathematical calculations. On the other hand, the artist uses his own painting technique to
create a particular piece of work on the computer.[35]

Painting styles
Style is used in two senses: It can refer to the distinctive visual elements, techniques, and methods that typify an individual
artist's work. It can also refer to the movement or school that an artist is associated with. This can stem from an actual group
that the artist was consciously involved with or it can be a category in which art historians have placed the painter. The word
'style' in the latter sense has fallen out of favor in academic discussions about contemporary painting, though it continues to be
used in popular contexts. Such movements or classifications include the following:

Western

Modernism

Modernism describes both a set of cultural tendencies and an array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from
wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Modernism was a
revolt against the conservative values of realism.[36][37] The term encompasses the activities and output of those who felt the
"traditional" forms of art, architecture, literature, religious faith, social organization, and daily life were becoming outdated in
the new economic, social, and political conditions of an emerging fully industrialized world. A salient characteristic of
modernism is self-consciousness. This often led to experiments with form, and work that draws attention to the processes and
materials used (and to the further tendency of abstraction).[38]

Impressionism

The first example of modernism in painting was impressionism, a school of painting

that initially focused on work done, not in studios, but outdoors (en plein air).
Impressionist paintings demonstrated that human beings do not see objects, but
instead see light itself. The school gathered adherents despite internal divisions
among its leading practitioners and became increasingly influential. Initially rejected
from the most important commercial show of the time, the government-sponsored
Paris Salon, the Impressionists organized yearly group exhibitions in commercial
venues during the 1870s and 1880s, timing them to coincide with the official Salon.
A significant event of 1863 was the Salon des Refusés, created by Emperor
Napoleon III to display all of the paintings rejected by the Paris Salon. Claude Monet's 1872 Impression,
Sunrise inspired the name of the
movement
Abstract styles

Abstract painting uses a visual language of form, colour and line to create a composition that may exist with a degree of
independence from visual references in the world.[39][40] Abstract expressionism was an American post-World War II art
movement that combined the emotional intensity and self-denial of the German Expressionists with the anti-figurative
aesthetic of the European abstract schools—such as Futurism, Bauhaus and Cubism, and the image of being rebellious,
anarchic, highly idiosyncratic and, some feel, nihilistic.[41]
Action painting, sometimes called gestural abstraction, is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled,
splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied.[42] The resulting work often emphasizes the
physical act of painting itself as an essential aspect of the finished work or concern of its artist. The style was widespread
from the 1940s until the early 1960s, and is closely associated with abstract expressionism (some critics have used the terms
"action painting" and "abstract expressionism" interchangeably).

Other modernist styles include:

Color Field
Lyrical Abstraction
Hard-edge painting
Pop art

Outsider art

The term outsider art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for art brut (French: [aʁ bʁyt],
"raw art" or "rough art"), a label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of
official culture; Dubuffet focused particularly on art by insane-asylum inmates.[43] Outsider art has emerged as a successful
art marketing category (an annual Outsider Art Fair has taken place in New York since 1992). The term is sometimes
misapplied as a catch-all marketing label for art created by people outside the mainstream "art world," regardless of their
circumstances or the content of their work.

Photorealism

Photorealism is the genre of painting based on using the camera and photographs to gather information and then from this
information, creating a painting that appears to be very realistic like a photograph. The term is primarily applied to paintings
from the United States art movement that began in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As a full-fledged art movement,
Photorealism evolved from Pop Art[44][45][46] and as a counter to Abstract Expressionism.

Hyperrealism is a genre of painting and sculpture resembling a high-resolution photograph. Hyperrealism is a fully-fledged
school of art and can be considered an advancement of Photorealism by the methods used to create the resulting paintings or
sculptures. The term is primarily applied to an independent art movement and art style in the United States and Europe that
has developed since the early 2000s.[47]

Surrealism

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the artistic and literary production of
those affiliated with the Surrealist Movement. Surrealist artworks feature the element of surprise, the uncanny, the
unconscious, unexpected juxtapositions and non-sequitur; however, many Surrealist artists and writers regard their work as an
expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost, with the works being an artifact. Leader André Breton was
explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was above all a revolutionary movement.

Surrealism developed out of the Dada activities of World War I and the most important center of the movement was Paris.
From the 1920s onward, the movement spread around the globe, eventually affecting the visual arts, literature, film and music
of many countries, as well as political thought and practice, philosophy and social theory.

East Asian
Chinese
Tang Dynasty
Ming Dynasty
Shan shui
Ink and wash painting
Hua niao
Southern School
Zhe School
 Wu School
Contemporary
Japanese
Yamato-e
Rimpa school
Emakimono
Kanō school
Shijō school
Superflat
Korean

Islamic
Arabic miniature
Mughal miniature
Ottoman miniature
Persian miniature

Indian
Oriya school
Bengal school
Kangra
Madhubani
Mysore
Rajput
Mughal
Samikshavad
Tanjore
Warli
Kerala mural painting

African
Tingatinga

Contemporary art

1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s

Abstract Abstract Arte Povera Appropriation Bio art Digital
Expressionism expressionism Ascii Art art Cyberarts Painting
American American Bad Painting Culture Cynical Hyperrealism
Figurative Figurative jamming Realism Classical
Body art
Expressionism Expressionism Demoscene Realism
Artist's book Digital Art
Bay Area Abstract Electronic art Information art Relational art
Figurative Imagists Feminist art
Figuration Internet art Street art
Movement Bay Area Installation art
Libre Stuckism
Lyrical Figurative Land Art Massurrealism
Graffiti Art Maximalism Superflat
Abstraction Movement Lowbrow (art
movement) Live art New media art Pseudorealism
New York Color field
Figurative Mail art Videogame art
Computer art Photorealism Software art
Expressionism Postminimalism Superstroke
Conceptual art
 New York Fluxus Process Art Postmodern New VJ art
School Happenings Video art art European Virtual art
Neo- Painting
Hard-edge Funk art Indigenous Art
painting Pattern and conceptual art Young British
Decoration Neo- Artists
Lyrical
Abstraction expressionism
Minimalism Neo-pop
Neo-figurative Sound art
Neo-Dada Transgressive
art
New York
School Video
installation
Nouveau
Réalisme Institutional
Critique
Op Art
NeoGeo
Performance art
Pop Art
Postminimalism
Washington
Color School
Kinetic art

Types of painting

Allegory

Allegory is a figurative mode of representation conveying meaning other than the literal. Allegory communicates its message
by means of symbolic figures, actions, or symbolic representation. Allegory is generally treated as a figure of rhetoric, but an
allegory does not have to be expressed in language: it may be addressed to the eye and is often found in realistic painting. An
example of a simple visual allegory is the image of the grim reaper. Viewers understand that the image of the grim reaper is a
symbolic representation of death.

Bodegón

In Spanish art, a bodegón is a still life painting depicting pantry items, such as
victuals, game, and drink, often arranged on a simple stone slab, and also a painting
with one or more figures, but significant still life elements, typically set in a kitchen
or tavern. Starting in the Baroque period, such paintings became popular in Spain in
the second quarter of the 17th century. The tradition of still life painting appears to
have started and was far more popular in the contemporary Low Countries, today
Belgium and Netherlands (then Flemish and Dutch artists), than it ever was in Francisco de Zurbarán, Still Life with
southern Europe. Northern still lifes had many subgenres: the breakfast piece was Pottery Jars (Spanish: Bodegón de
augmented by the trompe-l'œil, the flower bouquet, and the vanitas. In Spain, there recipientes) (1636), oil on canvas, 46
were much fewer patrons for this sort of thing, but a type of breakfast piece did x 84 cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid
become popular, featuring a few objects of food and tableware laid on a table.

Figure painting

A figure painting is a work of art in any of the painting media with the primary subject being the human figure, whether
clothed or nude. Figure painting may also refer to the activity of creating such a work. The human figure has been one of the
contrast subjects of art since the first Stone Age cave paintings, and has been reinterpreted in various styles throughout
history.[48] Some artists well known for figure painting are Peter Paul Rubens, Edgar Degas, and Édouard Manet.

Illustration painting
Illustration paintings are those used as illustrations in books, magazines, and theater
or movie posters and comic books. Today, there is a growing interest in collecting
and admiring the original artwork. Various museum exhibitions, magazines, and art
galleries have devoted space to the illustrators of the past. In the visual art world,
illustrators have sometimes been considered less important in comparison with fine
artists and graphic designers. But as the result of computer game and comic industry
growth, illustrations are becoming valued as popular and profitable artworks that can
acquire a wider market than the other two, especially in Korea, Japan, Hong Kong
and the United States.

Landscape painting

Landscape painting is a term that covers the

depiction of natural scenery such as
mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, lakes, and
forests, and especially art where the main
subject is a wide view, with its elements
arranged into a coherent composition. In
Reza Abbasi, Two Lovers (1630)
other works landscape backgrounds for
figures can still form an important part of the
Andreas Achenbach, Clearing Up, work. The sky is almost always included in
Coast of Sicily (1847), The Walters the view, and weather is often an element of the composition. Detailed landscapes as
Art Museum[49][50] a distinct subject are not found in all artistic traditions and develop when there is
already a sophisticated tradition of representing other subjects. The two main
traditions spring from Western painting and Chinese art, going back well over a
thousand years in both cases.

Portrait painting

Portrait paintings are representations of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display
the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. The art of the portrait flourished in Ancient Greek and especially
Roman sculpture, where sitters demanded individualized and realistic portraits, even unflattering ones. One of the best-known
portraits in the Western world is Leonardo da Vinci's painting titled Mona Lisa, which is thought to be a portrait of Lisa
Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo.[51]

Still life

A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically
commonplace objects—which may be either natural (food, flowers, plants, rocks, or
shells) or man-made (drinking glasses, books, vases, jewelry, coins, pipes, and so
on). With origins in the Middle Ages and Ancient Greek/Roman art, still life
paintings give the artist more leeway in the arrangement of design elements within a
composition than do paintings of other types of subjects such as landscape or
portraiture. Still life paintings, particularly before 1700, often contained religious and
allegorical symbolism relating to the objects depicted. Some modern still life breaks
the two-dimensional barrier and employs three-dimensional mixed media, and uses
found objects, photography, computer graphics, as well as video and sound.

Veduta

A veduta is a highly detailed, usually large-scale painting of a cityscape or some Otto Marseus van Schrieck, A
other vista. This genre of landscape originated in Flanders, where artists such as Paul Forest Floor Still-Life (1666)
Bril painted vedute as early as the 16th century. As the itinerary of the Grand Tour
became somewhat standardized, vedute of familiar scenes like the Roman Forum or
the Grand Canal recalled early ventures to the Continent for aristocratic Englishmen. In the later 19th century, more personal
impressions of cityscapes replaced the desire for topographical accuracy, which was satisfied instead by painted panoramas.
See also
20th-century Western painting
Cobweb painting
Drawing
Graphic arts
Index of painting-related articles
List of most expensive paintings
Outline of painting
Painting outsourcing in China
Visual arts
Image

Notes
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3. Brumm, Adam; Oktaviana, Adhi Agus; Burhan, Basran; Hakim, Budianto; Lebe, Rustan; Zhao, Jian-xin;
Sulistyarto, Priyatno Hadi; Ririmasse, Marlon; Adhityatama, Shinatria; Sumantri, Iwan; Aubert, Maxime (1
January 2021). "Oldest cave art found in Sulawesi" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC780621
0). Science Advances. 7 (3): eabd4648. Bibcode:2021SciA....7.4648B (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/20
21SciA....7.4648B). doi:10.1126/sciadv.abd4648 (https://doi.org/10.1126%2Fsciadv.abd4648). ISSN 2375-
2548 (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/2375-2548). PMC 7806210 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P
MC7806210). PMID 33523879 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33523879).
4. Ferreira, Becky (13 January 2021). "Pig Painting May Be World's Oldest Cave Art Yet, Archaeologists Say -
The depiction of the animal on an Indonesian island is at least 45,500 years old, the researchers say" (http
s://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/science/cave-painting-indonesia.html). The New York Times. Retrieved
14 January 2021.
5. "How Old is Australia's Rock Art?" (https://web.archive.org/web/20130504175713/http://www.aboriginalarton
line.com/art/rockage.php). Aboriginalartonline.com. Archived from the original (http://www.aboriginalartonlin
e.com/art/rockage.php) on 4 May 2013. Retrieved 13 March 2014.
6. "Milhares de pinturas rupestres são descobertas em cavernas no México" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/portuguese/
noticias/2013/05/130523_pinturas_caverna_mexico_an). BBC News Brasil (in Portuguese). 23 May 2013.
7. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Goethe's theory of colours (https://archive.org/details/goethestheoryco01goet
goog), John Murray, London 1840
8. Wassily Kandinsky Concerning The Spiritual in Art, [Translated By Michael T. H. Sadler, pdf (http://www.sem
antikon.com/art/kandinskyspiritualinart.pdf).
9. A letter to the Royal Society presenting A new theory of light and colours Isaac Newton, 1671 pdf (http://ww
w.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/newton1671.pdf)
10. Pigments (http://colourlex.com/pigments/pigments-colour/) at ColourLex
11. Jean Metzinger, circa 1907, quoted by Georges Desvallières in La Grande Revue, vol. 124, 1907
12. Eiichi Tosaki, Mondrian's Philosophy of Visual Rhythm: Phenomenology, Wittgenstein, and Eastern thought
(https://books.google.com/books?isbn=9402411984), Volume 23 of Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural
Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, Springer, 15 Nov 2017, pp. 108–109, 130, 139, 158,
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Retrieved 17 September 2016.
15. , François Le Targat, Kandinsky, Twentieth Century masters series, Random House Incorporated, 1987, p. 7,
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Kandinsky at the Guggenheim Museum: a selection from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the
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hko-pollock/)
19. "Plato's Aesthetics" (https://web.archive.org/web/20171001041449/http://www.rowan.edu/open/philosop/clo
wney/Aesthetics/philos_artists_onart/plato.htm). www.rowan.edu. Archived from the original (http://www.rowa
n.edu/open/philosop/clowney/aesthetics/philos_artists_onart/plato.htm) on 1 October 2017. Retrieved
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s?id=5m5z_ca-qDkC&pg=PA276). Routledge. 1998. p. 278. ISBN 978-0-415-18709-1.
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Britannica. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 200–207, see page 207. "Painting and music are
the specially romantic arts. Lastly, as a union of painting and music comes poetry, where the sensuous
element is more than ever subordinate to the spirit"
23. Franciscono, Marcel, Paul Klee: His Work and Thought, part 6 'The Bauhaus and Düsseldorf', chap. 'Klee's
theory courses', p. 246 and under 'notes to pp. 245–54' p. 365
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30. Mayer, Ralph. The Artist's Handbook of Materials and Techniques. Viking Adult; 5th revised and updated
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45. Chase, Linda, Photorealism at the Millennium, The Not-So-Innocent Eye: Photorealism in Context. Harry N.
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doi:10.1515/sem-2014-0035 (https://doi.org/10.1515%2Fsem-2014-0035). S2CID 170631343 (https://api.se
manticscholar.org/CorpusID:170631343).
49. Achenbach specialized in the "sublime" mode of landscape painting in which man is dwarfed by nature's
might and fury.
50. "Clearing Up—Coast of Sicily" (http://art.thewalters.org/detail/19760). The Walters Art Museum.
51. "Mona Lisa – Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo" (https://web.archive.org/web/2014
0730003620/http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/mona-lisa-%E2%80%93-portrait-lisa-gherardini-wife-fran
cesco-del-giocondo). Louvre Museum. c. 1503–19. Archived from the original (http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre
-notices/mona-lisa-%E2%80%93-portrait-lisa-gherardini-wife-francesco-del-giocondo) on 30 July 2014.
Retrieved 2014-03-13. Check date values in: |date= (help)

Further reading
Daniel, H. (1971). Encyclopedia of Themes and Subjects in Painting; Mythological, Biblical, Historical,
Literary, Allegorical, and Topical. New York: Harry N. Abrams Inc.
W. Stanley Jr. Taft, James W. Mayer, The Science of Paintings, First Edition, Springer, 2000.

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