Text_3_Painting

PAINTING

Painting is the expression of ideas and emotions in a two-dimensional visual language. The elements of this language are its shape, lines, colours, tones, and textures. They are used in different ways to produce sensations of volume, space, movement, and light on a flat surface.

Mediums are liquids added to paints to mix them and make them workable. In the wider meaning, mediums are various paints, tools, supports, surfaces, and techniques used by painters. An artist uses a particular medium, such as tempera, fresco, oil, watercolour, etc. A tempera medium is dry pigment tempered with an emulsion and thinned with water. It is a very ancient medium. Having been in constant use in most world cultures, it was replaced during the Renaissance by oil paints. Fresсо (Italian: "fresh") is the traditional medium for painting directly onto the wall or ceiling. Oil painting became the most widely used technique in Italy. It has remained so in Western countries ever since. Watercolour or aquarelle has remained popular especially for its immediate, sketchy transparent qualities.

Although we often think of paintings as framed images that are hung on the wall, the medium of painting has taken on an extraordinary range of forms. Artists have the choice of particular forms, such as mural, easel, scroll, panorama, or any of a variety of modern forms. Mural painting has its roots in the instincts of people to decorate their surroundings and to use wall surfaces as a form for expressing ideas, emotions, and beliefs. Murals cover wall areas, ceilings, and the interior of vaults. Smaller, movable paintings may be scrolls in the Orient or easel paintings in the West. Hand scrolls are ink paintings on the long pieces of paper or silk. They are unrolled at arm's length and viewed from right to left. They represent panoramic views of rivers, mountains and urban landscapes, and domestic interiors. The easel, or studio painting was a form developed during the Renaissance with the establishment of the painter as an individual artist. Easel paintings are usually framed. Panoramas were intended to simulate the sensation of scanning an extensive urban or country view or seascape. Quite small paintings are often decorations for useful objects, such as vases, plates, and all sorts of furniture.

SOME SUBJECTS AND STYLES OF PAINTING

In painting the subject matter is very important. The subjects of painting include a set of categories, or genres, of painting.

Landscape painting comprises country scenes, seascapes, and cityscapes. Idealized landscapes were common subjects for fresco decoration. Landscapes appeared on most Renaissance paintings. The most important developments in the 19th century painting were made through landscapes of Impressionists. Styles in landscape painting range from the tranquil, classically idealized world of Claude Monet and structural analyses of Paul Cezanne to the poetic romanticism of John Constable and Turner and exultant pantheism of Paul Peter Rubens and Van Gogh.

The category called genre painting consists of scenes from everyday life, such as hunting expeditions, domestic and agricultural occupations with scenes of feasting, dancing, and music. In Renaissance painting genre subjects were generally restricted by background features of portraits and historical narratives. Rembrandt used domestic scenes to underline the emotional intensity, Thomas Gainsborough — to show peasant life, Van Gogh and Edgar Degas — to describe the harsh realities of working life.

Still life is particularly associated with northern European painting. The choice of objects very often has a religious or literary significance: wine, water, and bread symbolizing the passion; skulls, hourglasses, and candles — the transience of life; the flowers, fruits — the seasons. Flower painting especially held a spiritual and emotional meaning for Japanese artists and for 19th century European painters, such as Paul Gauguin, and Van Gogh.

Portraiture is among the highest achievements in painting. The portraits of Raphael, Rubens express nobility, grace, and authority of the people. The psychological insight, emotional empathy, and aesthetic values are in the self-portraits and portraits of ordinary people by Rembrandt and Van Gogh.

Vocabulary:

an expression

two-dimensional

texture

a sensation

volume

a flat surface

medium

liquid

to add

tempera, fresco, oil, watercolour

to thin

ever since

immediate, transparent quality

to frame.

extraordinary

mural, easel, scroll

a root

a vault

urban landscapes

to simulate

tranquil

exultant pantheism

to hunt

to feast

to restrict

to underline

a peasant

harsh

still life

a significance

passion

skulls, hourglasses, candles

nobility, grace, authority

ordinary

an icon.

to admire

Questions:

1. What are the elements of the painting language?

2. What are mediums?

3. What are mediums in the wider meaning?

4. What is tempera medium?

5. Is tempera an ancient medium?

6. What was tempera replaced by?

7. When was tempera replaced by oil paints?

8. What is the origin of the word "fresco"?

9. Why has watercolour remained popular?

10. What roots has mural painting?

11. What do murals cover?

12. What movable paintings are in the East and in the West?

13. How are hand scrolls viewed?

14. When was the easel painting developed?

15. What can panoramas simulate?

16. What are the main subjects in painting?

17. What does landscape painting comprise?

18. What artists painted landscapes?

19. What does genre painting consist of?

20. What is still life?

21. What do the portraits of the famous artists express?

22. Have you ever visited a picture, gallery?

23. What famous picture galleries in your country do you know?

24. What famous picture galleries all over the world do you know?

25. Do you enjoy painting?