PAINTING

DEFINITIONS

- Painting is the art of applying pigments to a surface in order to

present a picture of the subject.

- A painting is an image (artwork) created using pigments (color)

on a surface (ground) such as paper or canvas. The pigment may be in a

wet form, such as paint, or a dry form, such as pastels.

- Painting is the art of creating pictures by applying color to a

surface. Paintings can record events; capture a likeness of a person,

place, or object; tell stories; decorate walls; and illustrate texts.

Paintings can express emotions and ideas, or simply be enjoyed for their

beauty.

HISTORY OF PAINTING

PREHISTORIC PERIOD- The history of paintings spans all cultures and dates back to the time of prehistoric men who produced their own artifacts. Cave dwellers were the earliest artists. Colored drawings of animals dating from about 30,000 to 10, 000 B.C. have been found on the walls of caves in Southern France and Spain. The oldest known paintings are found at the Grotte – Chauvet in France and depict horses, rhinoceros, lions, buffalos, and mammoths.

Cave painting in Grotte – Chauvet, France

GREEK PERIOD- Ancient Greece had great painters who were then regarded as manual laborers. Their paintings found in pottery and ceramics gives a glimpse of the way of life of ancient Greeks. Painted vases are about all that remains of Greek painting. The earliest style of vase painting known as the geometric style (1100 – 700 B.C.). Vases were decorated with bands of geometric shapes and human figures in a brown glaze on light – colored clay.

ROMAN PERIOD- Roman painting are influenced by ancient Greek paintings. There are only a few surviving Roman paintings, which are the wall paintings from villas in Campania, Southern Italy.

Wall painting in Villa Boscoreale, Southern Italy

Roman fresco Villa dei Misteri Pompeii 

MEDIEVAL PERIOD- The Middle ages saw the rise of Christianity, which brought about a different spirit and aim to painting styles. Byzantine painting has a hieratic feeling: icons were and still are seen as a reflection of the divine. Generally, Byzantine art borders on abstraction as evidenced by its flatness and highly stylized depictions of figures and landscapes.

Christ Pantocrator Deesis Mosaic 

RENAISSANCE PERIOD- Considered as the golden age of painting, the renaissance spanned from the 14th through the mid – 17th century. Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Raphael, Giovanni Bellini, Titian, Paolo Uccello, Fra Angelico, Masaccio, Piero della Francesca, Andrea Mantegna, Filippo Lippi, Giorgione, Tintoretto, and Sandro Botticelli are among the great Italian artists who reflected the revolution of ideas and science during this period through their paintings.

Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci

V

Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli

Coronation of the Virgin by Fra Angelico

Creation of Adam, Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo

BAROQUE PERIOD- Beginning around 1600 until the last years of the 17th century, the Baroque period produced paintings with dramatic light and shade, violent composition and exaggerated emotion. Such works are exemplified by the paintings of Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Rubens, Velasquez, Poussin, Vermeer, Le Nain and La Tour.

Girl With A Pearl Earring by Jan Vermeer

St. Hieronymus Writing by Caravaggio

Daniel in the Lion's Den by Rubens

The Infant Jupiter Nurtured by the Goat Amalthea by Nicolas Poussin

ROCOCO PERIOD- The period covering the 18th century and following the Baroque period is the Rococo period. The painting during this period is characterized lighter than that of Baroque, and is often frivolous and erotic. Famous among the Rococo painters are Antoine Watteau, Francois Boucher, Fragonard, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Thomas Gainsborough and Jean – Baptiste – Simeon Chardin.

Toilette of Venus by François Boucher

Embarkation for Cythera by Antoine Watteau

The Triumph of Venus by  Francois Boucher

The Swing by Fragonard

ROMANTIC PERIOD- The fall of Rococo style gave rise to new movement which shifted its attention toward landscape and nature, as well as the human figure and the supremacy of natural order above mankind’s will. The artists whose works are characteristic of the period are Jacques Louis David and Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres.

Mademoiselle Guimard as Terpsichore, by Jacques-Louis David

La Grande Odalisque by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

The Death of Socratesby Jacques Louis David

REALIST AND NATURAL

PERIOD- In the late 1800s, a group of artists actively painted in varying personal styles and were linked mainly by their rejection of Impressionism. Post – Impressionists were divided into three groups: the expressionists (Van Gogh, Gauguin) who were interested in personal expression, the formalist (Cezanne) who were concerned with composition and structure, and the realists and naturalists (Courbet) who used light, shade, color and perspective.

Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh

Melting Snow by Paul Cezanne

Bonjour Monsieur Courbet by Gustave Courbet

IMPRESSIONIST

PERIOD- In the last half of the 19th century, a group of painters developed a painting style that tried to capture the quality of light as it plays across landscapes and figures. Its followers ( Manet, Degas, Pissarro, Monet) used small strokes of contrasting color next to create illusion of vibrating light.

Water Lilies by Claude Monet

Boulevard Montmarte by Camille Pissarro

Le Dejeuner sur l‘ Herbe by Edouard Manet

MODERN PERIOD- In the early 20th century, avant – garde artists experimented on new styles of formalist painting and such experimentation led to the birth of Cubism ( Picasso), Futurism (Delaunay), De Stijl (reduction of images to simple shapes and horizontal and vertical lines) and Suprematism (geomoetric, nonrepresentational art style).

Factory, Horta de Ebbo by Pablo Picasso

An example of Suprematism painting

An example of De Stijl painting by Piet Mondrian

An example of Futurism painting by Fernand Leger

MEDIUMS

The choice of medium is a crucial aspect in art production. Mediums differ not only in their inherent qualities but also in the effects they produce.

• Oil- oil painting is done with the use of ground pigments (from minerals, coal tar, vegetable matter etc.). Many painters prefer oil as a medium because oil- paintings are long – lasting, slow in drying, easy to handle and manipulate in terms of texture and capable of being corrected.

• Fresco- fresco painting is done with the use of earth pigments mixed with water and applied to fresh plaster or glue which attaches the color to surface like a wall.

• Water Color- water color painting is done with the use of pigments mixed with water and applied to white fine paper.

• Tempera- tempera painting is done with the use of ground pigments mixed with an albuminous or colloidal vehicle (egg yolk, gum, glue). Tempera readily dries with the evaporation of water.

• Pastel- pastel painting is done with the use of pastel colors closely resembling dry pigments bound to form crayons, which are directly applied to the surface, oftentimes paper.

• Acrylic- acrylic painting is done with the use of synthetic paints called acrylics mixed with a vehicle capable of being thinned with water.

• Encaustic- encaustic painting is done with the use of hot wax as a vehicle to bind pigments to a wooden panel or a wall.

SUBJECTS

There are so many subjects that can be presented in

painting.• Portraiture- portraits are pictures of men and women

singly or collectively.• Animals and Plants• Still Life- still life is a painting of an inanimate object

or a non – living thing placed on a table or another setting. Examples are a bag of groceries, a pack of cigarettes or a bunch of flowers.

• Landscape• Seascape• Cityscape• Others- mythological, fictional and cartoon

characters.

TOOLS

Just like any worker, a painter makes use of several

tools.• Brush or brushes

• Palette and Palette knife

• Easel

NOTABLE ARTISTS

Local Painters Alcuaz, Federico- Federico Alcuaz was conferred the Order of National Artist of

the Philippines for Visual Arts (painting, sculpture and mixed media).

Amorsolo, Fernando- Fernando Amorsolo was posthumously conferred the Order of

National Artist of the Philippines for Visual Arts (painting) in 1972. He was considered as one of the most important artists in the history of painting on the Philippines and regarded as the Father of Philippine Realism for his numerous realistic paintings. His works include “Bombing of the Intendencia” (1942), “The Burning Manila” (1946), “Sikatuna”.

Luna, Juan- Juan Luna’s best known work was the “Spoliarium” , now a

treasure of the National Museum. His other works include, “The Blood Compact”, “Ang Espanya sa Pilipinas”, “Aliping Bulag”.

Legaspi, Cesar- National Artist of the Philippines for Visual Arts (Painting).

He also served as an art –director. Some of his works are “Man and Woman”, “Begggars” and “Gadgets”.

Manansala, Vicente- Vicente Manansala was a cubist painter and illustrator. He received a six- month UNESCO grant to study at the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Banff and Montreal in Canada. His works include “Madonna of the Slums”, “Jeepneys” and “Kalabaw”.

Foreign PaintersDa Vinci, Leonardo- One of the greatest painters of all time and the most diversely talented persons to have ever lived, he was known for the following works: “ The Annunciation”, “ The Last Supper”, “Mona Lisa”, “The Adoration of the Magi”.Degas, Edgar- Degas was a French impressionistic painter who used photography as an aid in studying figures in motion. In doing his paintings, he used pastel to combine drawing and color. His works include “Danseuse”, “The Ballet Girl Fixing Her Slipper”.

Buonarroti, Michelangelo Di Lodovico- Buonarroti was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor,

architect, poet and engineer. He was known for his Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes which include “The Creation of Man”, “The Story of Noah”, “The Last Judgement”.

Munch, Edward - Munch was a symbolist painter, printmaker and an important forerunner of expressionistic art. His best works include “The Scream”, “Death in the Sickroom”, “Madonna’.Picasso, Pablo- Picasso founded Cubism in 1906. His famous works are “ The Old Guitarist”, “Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon”, “Women in White.”