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| Painting (visual arts) | |
|---|---|
| Name | Painting |
| Type | Visual art |
| Material | Pigment, binder, support |
| Earliest | Paleolithic |
| Notable | Leonardo da Vinci; Michelangelo; Rembrandt; Vincent van Gogh; Pablo Picasso |
Painting (visual arts) Painting is a visual art form in which pigments are applied to a support to create imagery, expression, or decoration. It encompasses a wide range of techniques, materials, genres, and cultural traditions from prehistoric cave art to contemporary installations. Practitioners and institutions across continents have shaped its development, reception, and preservation.
Painting as an artistic practice involves the application of colored media such as tempera, oil, acrylic, Fresco and encaustic onto supports like Canvas, Wood panel, walls, and Paper. Major practitioners include Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, and Yayoi Kusama, while institutions such as the Louvre, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tate Modern, Museo del Prado, and Uffizi define public collections and exhibitions. Techniques overlap with Graphic design, Printmaking, and Muralism, and painting often intersects with commissions from patrons like the Medici family or public programs like the Works Progress Administration.
The history of painting traces from Paleolithic sites such as Lascaux and Altamira through ancient traditions in Egypt, Greece, Rome and China under dynasties like the Han dynasty. In the medieval era, workshops in Byzantium, Florence, and Siena produced icons and altarpieces for patrons including the Catholic Church and the Republic of Venice. The Renaissance, propelled by figures like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael, shifted technical and intellectual approaches with innovations in perspective championed by Filippo Brunelleschi. Baroque masters such as Rembrandt and Caravaggio developed chiaroscuro, while the 18th and 19th centuries saw academies in Paris and salons featuring Édouard Manet and Édouard Degas. Modernism sprang from movements including Impressionism, Post-Impressionism with Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cézanne, and the 20th century expanded via Cubism with Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, Surrealism with Salvador Dalí, and Abstract Expressionism with Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. Contemporary painting engages global biennials like the Venice Biennale and artists including Yayoi Kusama, Ai Weiwei, and Kehinde Wiley.
Traditional media include Egg tempera, oil, Gesso, and gold leaf employed in Byzantine icons and Renaissance panels. Mural techniques comprise Fresco methods used in works such as The Last Supper and Michelangelo’s ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. Print-influenced techniques, glazing, impasto, alla prima, and underpainting were developed by artists like Jan van Eyck and Titian. Photo-based processes and synthetic media appeared with photographers-cum-painters like Gerhard Richter and the advent of acrylics broadened studio practice for artists such as David Hockney. Ground preparation, pigment chemistry studied by chemists and conservators at institutions like The Getty inform material longevity. Supports range from Parchment and wood panels to stretched canvas popularized in 17th-century Holland.
Stylistic categories include Renaissance art, Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Symbolism, Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, Dada, Abstract Expressionism, Pop art, Minimalism, and Contemporary art. Movements often coalesced around cities and institutions—Paris, New York City, Berlin—and were associated with exhibitions at venues like the Salon (Paris) or curatorial programs at the Museum of Modern Art.
Traditional subjects include religious narratives in works tied to Catholic Church commissions, mythological cycles from Ovid and Homer depicted by artists such as Sandro Botticelli and Peter Paul Rubens, portraiture of figures like Queen Elizabeth I and Napoleon, and history painting exemplified by Jacques-Louis David. Landscapes from Claude Lorrain and John Constable, still lifes from Jan Brueghel the Elder and Paul Cézanne, and genre scenes by Jan Vermeer and Gustave Courbet represent secular subjects. Modern and contemporary painters tackle identity politics via works by Frida Kahlo, Kara Walker, Kehinde Wiley and Jenny Saville, environmental themes shown at venues like the Venice Biennale, and conceptual approaches linked to Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Beuys.
Conservators in museums such as the Louvre, The British Museum, and research centers like the Getty Conservation Institute apply scientific methods—X-radiography, Infrared spectroscopy, and Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry—to analyze pigments and binders in works by Jan van Eyck, Rembrandt, and Édouard Manet. Ethical debates involve reversible treatments debated at conferences of the International Council of Museums and legal cases concerning restitution involving collections like the Nazi art looting inquiries and claims linked to the Holocaust era. Climate control standards in institutions such as the Victoria and Albert Museum and disaster planning by the Smithsonian Institution aim to preserve painted surfaces against deterioration.
Painting has shaped visual culture via iconic works displayed at the Louvre and MOMA, influenced movements in Fashion and Cinema through collaborations with filmmakers like Federico Fellini and designers such as Coco Chanel, and provided sites for political contestation around works by Diego Rivera and controversies like the Degenerate Art exhibition. Critical discourse has been advanced by critics writing for outlets associated with The New Yorker and The Burlington Magazine, and theorists at universities such as Harvard University and University of Oxford have reframed narratives through postcolonial and feminist lenses influenced by scholars citing Edward Said and bell hooks.
Category:Visual arts