In this article we bring you all the pertinent information about the Paint characteristics, we will tell you about all the importance that painting has had in the history of the world, because it has left many marks and many stories, that is why when observing a valuable painting, you have to think about the different characteristics of painting. the present article which you will like!
Paint characteristics
The art of representing graphics through the use of pigments mixed with different synthetic or organic binding substances is what we know as painting. To use the art of painting, you must have a lot of knowledge about color theory and pictorial composition. as well as the different characteristics of the paint to be used.
To be able to carry out the art of painting and drawing, the practice of painting must be constantly carried out and this consists of taking advantage of a certain surface such as a sheet of paper, a canvas, a piece of fabric, a piece of wood, a wall. in which it is going to be painted, using a certain technique to obtain a composition of colors, shapes, drawings, textures among others, thus giving the design of a work of art fulfilling some aesthetic principles.
In this way, in the XNUMXth century, the architect and theoretician André Félibien of French origin came to affirm in one of his lectures at the French Academy on the hierarchy of genres that exist in classical painting, which are “the story, the portrait, the landscape, the seas, the flowers and the fruits”
In the Fine Arts, painting is one of the oldest artistic expressions that exist of the seven that exist, in the science of Art theory and in aesthetics, painting has been considered as the universal category and is in turn includes all artistic creations made on surfaces. One of the categories that are used in the different characteristics of painting is the type of support that is used or the material used and currently the supports or the different digital techniques.
It is important to note that in the history of painting it was dominated for a time by religion or religious art. There are many examples of this type of painting, ranging from works that have been painted emphasizing mythological and religious figures, to scenes described in the Bible, such as the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel located in Vatican City, Rome. Even the same painted scenes from the life of Buddha, as well as various painted images echoing the oriental religious theme.
Definition of painting
To define painting, and to talk about its main characteristics of painting, it can be said that it is a graphic representation using a series of pigments combined with other substances, whether organic or synthetic, to carry out an artistic expression. But it is well known that the art of painting is a bit complex, since it requires many painting techniques and methods, as well as the drawing and visual composition of the artist and how he makes use of color theory.
Making use of these techniques the painter can use the fresco painting methods or the oil painting method. But the painting can meet various thematic criteria, as well as the different characteristics of history painting or the different genres mentioned above.
You will also find the different styles of painting such as prehistoric and Gothic painting and in any period of painting to which reference is made. But the paintings are works of art, as Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich, the Austrian-born British art historian, says:
“There is nothing wrong in delighting ourselves with a landscape painting because it reminds us of our home or in a portrait because it reminds us of a friend, since as men that we are, when we look at a work of art we are subjected to the memory of a multitude of things that, for better or for worse, influence our tastes.
Gombrich, History of Art (2002)”
In the same way Arnold Hauser, an art historian of Hungarian origin after studying all his life between Germany and Italy defines the concept of painting stating the following:
"We interpret them (the paintings) according to our own purposes and aspirations, we transfer a meaning to them, whose origin is in our lifestyles and mental habits"
The German-born philosopher Ernst Bloch, in his book written in 1918 entitled The spirit of utopia, shows off his intelligence to defend non-figurative art, and makes a relationship with the conception of the utopian man, who has an unrevealed destiny, but is unconsciously present in the depths of the human being and in his book comes to affirm the next:
"If the task of painting were to put ourselves before the eyes of the air and the precious vastness of space and everything else, it would be better to go directly and freely enjoy all that"
For other historians and especially Mr. Erwin Panofsky, they examined the content of several paintings through their form and the content they represented, they carried out several studies trying to understand what the painting represents for society, then the meaning that said painting had for the observer. and finally items the meaning that painting had for culture and religion.
history of painting
In this article, entitled characteristics of painting, we are going to tell you a little about the history of painting. So that you have the necessary knowledge, since when talking about history we must go back to the time of prehistory and reach the contemporary age, which includes all the representations that are made with the different techniques used in painting and artistic drawing.
All this coincides with the history of art in the cultural and historical context, when trying to analyze the history of painting we have to go back to the paintings that were made as murals in the different caves, which can be found in the Pyrenean regions that belong to the countries of Spain and France and part of the Mediterranean coast in what was called Levantine art.
There are other paintings made in other parts of Europe that are a little lower, which are located in the following countries: Portugal, Italy, in the part of Eastern Europe and in North Africa. There are other very important paintings in the history of painting such as cave paintings and they are the oldest known to man.
In the history of painting is the Chauvet cave located in France, according to historians through the investigations carried out on said cave, it is more than 32 thousand years old and is located in the Aurignacian and Gravettian period. The characteristics of the painting made in this cave was that the artists used ocher clay, red iron oxide and black is manganese dioxide.
In other caves that also stand out for having different paintings are those of Altamira and Lascaux, in these paintings are drawn rhinos, mammoths, lions, buffalo, horses or human beings in a hunting attitude with reference to animals. Also the images that are found in the papyri and in the different walls of the Egyptian tombs dating from 5 thousand years before Christ, are scenes of the daily life of this population and also of their mythology and beliefs.
It will also symbolize the characteristics and traits of that society by making use of the size of the figures as the rank of the society. As in Ancient Rome, it was normal to decorate or paint the walls of houses and palaces, currently the one that is in the best state of conservation is the ancient city of Pompeii and the city of Herculaneum.
Arriving at the paleochristian era in the catacombs they began to decorate them by painting scenes from the new testament and representing Jesus as the figure of the good shepherd, they painted the figures with large eyes creating the illusion that they were looking at the viewer. This style became much admired and continued to be done in the Byzantine school located in Constantinople.
Then romantic painting develops between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, in the most interesting areas of Europe located in the south of France and the areas of Catalonia, although the paintings that were made were of various religious themes made in the highest part of church and on large walls so that people could observe them, one of the most used representations was that of pantocrator, which is the image of Jesus of Nazareth and that of the Virgin Mary.
They also began to make paintings showing the lives of saints. In Gothic painting there was also religious painting but representing themes of secular origin but it was of greater proportion in the countries of Italy and France where the most important figure was the painter Giotto who worked as a muralist and architect of Florentine origin.
In the age of the Renaissance, classical painting had a great role in influencing the progress of society, at that time linear perspective was developed and human anatomy was being studied using painting as a point of support, a One of the most important characteristics of painting was the use of the oil technique.
At this time there were great painters who were recognized for their knowledge and the painting techniques they used, among the most outstanding were Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael Sanzio and Titian. In the characteristics of the painting they stand out in the work carried out by Leonardo Da Vinci when making The Mona Lisa, which is also known as the Mona Lisa, Well, I use the chiaroscuro and sfumato methods.
The architect and sculptor Michelangelo made one of the most important works by painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, known as one of the great works of the Renaissance, in addition many artists made use of symbolic themes among which are those from northern Europe among which include the brothers Jan van Eyck and Hubert van Eyck. In Germany, the painter and humanist Dürer stood out.
While the so-called counter-reformation church or the reform of the catholic church with which he wanted to counter Protestantism, sought to make use of religious art and to accomplish this he made use of the artificial conventions of the mannerists, who dominated art between the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries, but at this time the characteristics of the painting they used were to reject the rules and freedom of the composition of shapes and colors, but the novelty of the Caravaggists was used.
These made use of a radical naturalism, where they made use of the combination of physical observation to detail everything that needed to be highlighted and made the painting have a theatrical and dramatic art medial the use of the chiaroscuro technique. Well, he made use of shadow and light, in this art Caravaggio and Annibale Carracci stand out, two painters who were contemporary and very important in the pictorial conformation of Baroque art.
One of the most outstanding characteristics of Baroque painting is the dynamism of the compositions made by the painters Rubens Rembrandt and Velázquez. In the first part of the XNUMXth century, the rococo artistic movement was promoted, which was more festive and cheerful than baroque art and was widely accepted in the countries of France and Germany.
The cultural movement of romanticism that started at the beginning of the XNUMXth century, was expressing the moods and great intense feelings, but in France the most outstanding painter was Delacroix, in the United States an outstanding painter was Thomas Cole, while in the United Kingdom United was represented by Constable and Turner and in Spain was the painter Francisco de Goya.
In the mid-nineteenth century, photography was invented and painting began to lose the historical objective it had until then by providing the most realistic images, at that time the artistic movement of impressionism made its appearance represented by the painter of French origin named Edouard Manet who was the forerunner of this movement who made it possible based on his loose brushstrokes and the relationship of colors he used to make the construction of a more realistic image but without paying much attention to the most specific details.
In the XNUMXth century, the characteristics of painting stand out more because of the diversity of pictorial currents, among which we have Fauvism, which is also known as Fauvism and is a pictorial movement that was born in France and then spread to several countries and was characterized by rejecting traditional colors and make use of violent or very striking colors.
The cultural movement called Expressionism was also born but in Germany, but it was reflected in various fields of fine arts such as plastic arts, architecture, literature, music, cinema, theater, dance, photography, etc. And it was characterized by making feelings feel more than making a faithful product of reality.
Similarly, Cubism was born as an artistic movement between 1907 and 1924, created by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, and followed by the artists Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Robert Delaunay, Juan Gris, María Blanchard and Guillaume. Apollinaire, was a movement that was based on making paintings in the form of small cubes. Making three-dimensional images become two-dimensional paintings.
Abstract painting is inherited from this cultural movement of cubism, which is a form of abstract expressionism developed in New York City between the 1940s and 1950s.
Then, in the United Kingdom, Pop art appears, an artistic movement that is inspired by the aesthetics of everyday life and the consumer goods used at the time. Well, advertisements were made advertising some type of drink or food. Being its main representative Andy Warhol.
Finally, in the XNUMXth century, minimalism appears, which is a trend where everything is reduced to the essentials or to get rid of the surplus elements and making the characteristics of the paintings with the use of the minimum aesthetic resources. While in the XNUMXst century an idea of pluralism is made and today a great variety of styles and aesthetics are used.
Artistic genres used in painting
Among the artistic genres that exist and are going to be classified by themes, which in turn have been classified through the history of painting that have had an effect on the technique, dimensions, style and expression that makes the artwork. Authors such as Plato (427-347 BC), Aristotle (384-322 BC) and Horace (65-8 BC) came to affirm that art is a mimesis.
"A concept used by these authors thus calling the imitation of nature as the essential purpose of art"
For this concept, merit is made in the use of the didactic value that it has and makes a good representation, but it should not make differences between the portrait made by the imagination and the real portrait. The architect Marco Vitruvio Polión in the middle of the XNUMXst century, who began to decorate the dining rooms where images with various meals were observed and in other rooms landscapes and mythological scenes were made.
In the Renaissance, the architect Leon Battista Alberti had the idea of raising the degree of painting craftsman to that of liberal artist, even stating that the most important job that the painter has is history, but the architect making use of The word history referred to narrative painting performing epic or religious scenes, then to say the following:
"The one that portrays the great deeds of great men worth remembering differs from the one that describes the customs of private citizens, from the one that depicts the life of peasants. The first has a majestic character, it should be reserved for public buildings and residences of the great, while the other will be suitable for gardens”
In the XNUMXth century, oil painting made its appearance and collecting, although the fact of making large narrative murals was not lost, also gave rise to commercial paintings and various more manageable formats. In this way, the different pictorial genres and the specialization of each artist began to be classified.
In Italy, historical painting continues and the painters who were in the northern part of Italy made portraits, while the painters who were in the Netherlands began to make genre paintings but on a small scale, painting works of peasant life, in addition to still life and landscape.
In this way, in the year 1667, the architect and theoretician named André Félibien came in a certain way to rank the genres of classical painting, which are history, portrait, landscape, seas, flowers and fruits.
Genre painting: Also called genre scene, this painting is based on the private habits of people in their everyday and contemporary scenes of the artist, it is also known as costumbrista painting. The most popular paintings of this genre were made in the Netherlands during the beginning of the XNUMXth century.
Among the most prominent artists in this genre are Pieter Brueghel the Elder and Vermeer. Although it is not known for sure if they were made to represent reality or with the purpose of distracting the observers from the paintings that were sometimes very comical. Perhaps they had a moralizing purpose through the different examples they made of the spectators.
But there is no doubt that in the genre painting of the XNUMXth century, they had in mind all the satirical or moralizing intention of the situation in the different works made by the painters William Hogarth or Jean-Baptiste Greuze, while in Spain the painter Diego Velázquez cultivated the genre painting performing his work the Old Woman frying eggs and the water carrier of Seville, in this way the painter Francisco Goya.
Portrait: In the hierarchy of genres used in painting, the portrait occupies an important but ambiguous position since in one way you represent people in the likeness of God, and on the other hand they try to glorify the person for their vanity and what they have done historically, because the rich and most influential people have always been represented.
But over time, the middle classes were hiring painters to portray all the people who made up the family, today there are portraits that are made between the families of those who govern, corporations, associations and individuals.
When the painter makes a portrait of himself this is called a self-portrait, one of the most famous painters in this was Rembrandt who made more than seventy self-portraits. In general, the artist makes a more representative self-portrait of him, as stated by Edward Burne-Jones who is an English artist and designer claiming that:
“The only expression that can be allowed in great portraiture is the expression of character and moral quality, nothing temporary, ephemeral or accidental.”
In the oil technique that has been used by one of the best painters of northern Europe in the fifteenth century named Jan Van Eyck, who was one of those who promoted the art of taking a self-portrait, an important example of this was when the artist painted Arnolfini Marriage, in this painting the painter is portrayed with his pregnant wife in full body.
During the Renaissance it was represented as a social status and as having a lot of personal success the people who were portrayed, in this way many artists stood out among them Leonardo da Vinci, Rafael Sanzio and Durero stand out. In Spain Zurbarán, Velázquez and Francisco de Goya.
Also added to these groups are the French Impressionists who also practiced this genre, Degas, Monet, Renoir, Vincent van Gogh, Cézanne etc, and in the XNUMXth century, Matisse, Gustav Klimt, Picasso, Modigliani, Max Beckmann, Umberto Boccioni, Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon or Andy Warhol.
Historical painting: Another characteristic of painting is historical painting, which is considered a great genre in religious, mythological, historical, literary and allegorical paintings. In this type of painting they demonstrated the personal and intellectual or moral life of the person who was painted. In one of his speeches, Sir Joshua Reynolds, who came to exhibit at the Royal Academy of Arts between 1769 and 1790, argued the following:
“The great purpose of art is to awaken the imagination… According to custom, I call this part of art Historical Painting, but it should be said Poetic. (…) He must sometimes deviate from the vulgar and the strict historical truth in search of greatness for his work”
Then the artist named Nicolás Poussin of French origin was the first painter who made the genre of historical painting in a smaller format, but this innovation was not as successful. While the painter Diego Velázquez in the year 1656 finished his work entitled Las Meninas where he describes the family of Felipe IV, in a large painting where it is symbolically shown that it is a portrait of the royal family within the genre of painting. historical.
After this and with the passage of time, the painter Pablo Picasso in the year 1937, finished his famous work entitled Guernica, to make this painting he used a great dimension in the genre of historical painting.
Landscape: In the XNUMXth century AD, paintings with the genre or theme of landscapes are found in the countries of China and Japan, since in Europe landscapes appear, but emphasizing narrative scenes or treatises on pharmacy and botany.
But this topic truly begins in the XNUMXth century AD, when the appearance of collecting and various themes dedicated to country paintings begin to be requested and the painters of northern Europe are designated as the specialists in the field, in this way This way, the genre of Dutch landscapes was promoted in a more specific way. That I was focused on painting the low horizon and the cloud-laden sky.
In addition, in this genre the typical Dutch windmills, cattle and different fishing boats were painted. In the Venetian landscapes located in Italy, which were painted by Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco and his disciples these paintings were made with a lyrical appearance and have a beautiful color treatment.
This type of painting is developed during the eighteenth century, but it was also called vedutismo, since it was an Italian genre that developed in Venice where the urban views of the city are represented similar to the cartographic style, as images are made panoramas of the city.
There the canals, monuments and the most typical places of Venice are described, sometimes they were painted alone or with human figures, the most important representatives of this genre were Canaletto, Bernardo Bellotto, Francesco Guardi, Michele Marieschi and Luca Carlevarijs.
In the Barbizon school, where the place where the landscape painters are located has been called, since these were the first characters to paint outdoors and make a study of how to work outdoors and the basis of this genre is the light and its many variants especially impacted Impressionist painting.
Still life: It is a more representative genre of the imitation of nature and inanimate objects, which are represented in everyday life such as fruits, flowers, food, kitchen utensils, tableware, books, jewelry, etc. But one of the characteristics of the painting on this genre is that the less literary.
The beginning of the genre of still life, occurs in antiquity where it was used to decorate the great halls for special events, such as the Roman frescoes in Pompeii, the writer Pliny the elder reported that the artists of Greek origin of the centuries past were the most skilled in portraiture and still life.
This genre of painting was very important in Western art in the XNUMXth century AD. An important example of this genre is the painting titled Butchery Made by the Spanish painter Joachim Beuckelaer. In that same century the painters Caravaggio and Annibale Carracci made works representing magnificent still lifes.
In the seventeenth century AD, C. in the Netherlands evolves a type of winery which is called vanity, All kinds of things began to be exhibited there, such as musical instruments, glass, silver and crockery, as well as jewelry and symbols such as books, skulls or hourglasses, which served as a moralizing message of the ephemeral pleasures of the senses.
While the French Academy qualified this place with the last site of the pictorial hierarchy. But the arrival of the artistic movement of impressionism together with many characteristics of painting, still life is once again a normal theme among painters and society, the paintings of Van Gogh's Sunflowers are one of the most widespread paintings of this genre.
Cubist artists also began to compose still lifes, among which the following Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Maria Blanchard and Juan Gris stand out.
nudes: in this subject that is an artistic genre where the representation of the human body will stand out and it is also one of the characteristics of painting, in the nude. It is considered as one of the academic classifications of works of art. But some intellectuals tend to associate it with eroticism.
But the genre of the nude always comes to have various interpretations and many meanings, since from mythology to religion and emphasizing the anatomical study or as a representation of beauty and the aesthetic ideal of perfection as was done in Ancient Greece. .
In the artistic subject, the study of the perfection and representation of the human body has always been a constant in the history of art, from prehistory with the sculpture of the Venus of Willendorf to the present. The topic of nudes became more representative in Ancient Greece, where the nude was conceived as perfection and absolute beauty.
This concept has lasted in classicist art and has reached the present day and is largely conditioned by the perception that Western society has towards the nude and art. In the Middle Ages, their impact reached religion, since they were based on religious themes and biblical scenes, giving justification to this genre.
In the Renaissance there was a new culture called the humanist and it was more anthropocentric, placing the human being as the center of all things, and with this new doctrine he reinvigorated the return of the nude genre to art, but based on historical and mythological themes. . Enduring on religious issues.
In the XNUMXth century AD, the genre of the nude began to lose its iconographic character due to the emergence of the cultural movement of Impressionism and was going to be represented by its aesthetic qualities as a sensual and erotic image, but fully referential.
painting techniques
In order to explain the characteristics of the paints, we must base ourselves on the most used techniques, since how the pigments are diluted and set on the surface where they are going to be painted, because if the pigments are not soluble in the binder used, they remain dispersed in it. . Among the most important techniques we have:
Oil: One of the characteristics of the painting is the use of oil, since various types of oils are used to fix the pigment and the solvent called turpentine to make it clearer, since it is a very volatile liquid. Oil painting is basically done with pigments pulverized dry and then mixed with the appropriate viscosity with the vegetable oil to be used, as there are oils that dry more slowly than others and do so by oxidation and not by evaporation.
With this technique, layers of pigments are formed that are embedded in the surface and that is why the drying times must be controlled very carefully so that the paint is correctly fixed in each layer of paint that is applied to the work. artistic.
The oxidation process gives the artwork a richness and depth to the colors that are used from the dry pigment used, and the artist will be able to vary on the oils used as well as the solvent so that the quality of the paint can show a range of colors and qualities from opaque to highly transparent or from matte to glossy.
For this reason and many more, artists seek to use the best oils and it is the most flexible medium always using it in the most convenient way, since oil paint hardly changes during the drying process, but in the long run. it begins to turn yellowish if it is not properly maintained for the work carried out.
Although oil painting can withstand many successive layers allowing the artist to realize a pictorial concept created in several layers, for example the painter Hilaire-Germain-Edgar de Gas called this process as the well run but the slow drying time allows artists to remove excess paint and go over entire areas.
In tests that have been carried out on various paintings with X-rays, they have allowed us to observe that the great masters of painting made many changes during the process of the work of art.
Wax: With this technique that is almost always used hot, also called encaustic, which means engraving in fire, it is a technique that is used by the use of wax as the binder of the pigments, when mixing with this material it has more covering effects since the wax is denser and creamier.
The wax painting is applied with a spatula or with a hot brush, after the work of art is finished it must be polished by making strokes with linen cloths on a layer of wax that has already been spread.
That in this case it will not act as a binder but to protect the work of art, this operation is called in causticization, and this technique is described by Marco Vitruvio Polión who in life was an architect and painter who lived between the years 75 BC and 25 AD, who according to what came to affirm the following:
“You have to spread a layer of hot wax on the paint and then you have to polish it with dry linen cloths”
Watercolor: It is a painting that is made on paper or cardboard, but one of the characteristics of watercolor painting is that it is diluted with water and the colors become more transparent or lighter depending on the amount of water used. In addition, you stop seeing the background of the paper if it is white.
This type of painting is composed with agglutinated pigments and gum arabic or with honey, in this procedure the painting is used by several transparent layers in order to achieve the greatest brilliance and ease of the composition that is made for the design of the painting. artwork.
To use this technique, the artist is required to have a lot of security in the strokes that he is making and a lot of spontaneity when executing the brushstrokes, since this technique has as its main characteristic of painting its transparency and the freshness of the colors that are used.
There is also the hyper-realistic watercolor that will go against the previous postulate and varnishes are used to be able to remove the first layers to give successive glazes and with this a very specific chiaroscuro will be achieved in the work of art but with little translucency of the classic watercolor technique used.
Tempera: also known as gouache It is a technique very similar to watercolor, but it differs because it carries a load of industrial talc that is intentionally added so that the pigment is a little more opaque and not translucent in the tempera, making it one of the main characteristics of tempera painting. and that is why it differs from watercolor.
In this way, various shades can be applied from the darkest to the lightest, and this procedure in watercolor is considered incorrect, tempera is a very excellent medium to apply it to different drawings and to be able to make dry or impasto strokes.
In the same way as watercolor, tempera should be agglutinated with gum arabic, but at present many temperas are being placed in plastic because it is easier to obtain and cheaper.
With the tempera technique, François Boucher, a French painter, created great masterpieces and the artists of the XNUMXth century AD, using tempera together with watercolor, were able to give distinction to specific areas within the work of art that was made of watercolor. That is why the painter Paul Signac French painter who was famous for performing the divisionist technique came to affirm the following:
"Certain purplish pinks in Turner's skies, certain greens in Johan Jongkind's watercolors could not have been achieved without a bit of gouache"
Acrylic: the use of acrylic paint as a technique the characteristics of the paint has been highly appreciated by contemporary artists due to its very fast drying, since the pigments are contained with a polymer emulsion that is generally vinyl glue, although they can be Easy to remove or dilute with water, after drying they are very resistant to water.
What stands out most about this technique is its ease and speed of drying, but when it dries, the color tone tends to change only a little, sometimes becoming darker or lighter depending on the color used. Acrylic painting is relatively new, having its origins in the XNUMXth century AD.
The acrylic technique developed in the United States and Germany, but in parallel, the American-born painter Jackson Pollock used acrylic paint, as it comes in containers, in order to achieve new textures and make them thicker. While the painter Morris Louis, also from that same country, used acrylic paint, but diluted it with water to paint large canvases and give it a dyed effect instead of painted.
Pie: A technique of great importance in painting is the pastel technique, since it consists of using color bars, in which the pigments are found in powders mixed with rubber or resin so that they can agglutinate and form a dry and very compact paste. .
That is why the word pastel emphasizes the word paste, because it is paste and they are modeled in the form of a stick and that are approximately one finger thick and can be used directly on the surface where the work of art is to be designed. without having to use brushes or spatulas and neither any solvent.
To work with the pastel technique, a very good quality paper that has a good grammage is used as a surface, being white or a neutral color that does not affect the paint, in addition to having a small roughness, although the pastel technique It is very flexible and at the same time versatile since it can be used on different surfaces such as wood or plastic.
Although the colors used can be very strong and opaque, it has a difficulty that is the adhesion of the pigment to the surface to be painted, so at the end to give an enhancement to the artistic work and a drawing fixative is applied with atomizers (spray), which are special for this technique.
But generally we know the pastel technique as crayons, its most used resource is the line where a series of frames can be formed, another way to use it is to turn it into powder, since the pastel tends to release a lot of colored powder.
Many of the artists are using this technique of using colored powder to give creativity to their work of art, among them are Leonardo da Vinci who was one of the first artists to use this technique in the drawing he made to Isabel de Este and also others such as Hans Holbein the Younger, Correggio, Fragonard or Degas.
Temple: When using the Tempera painting technique, a solution is used as a binder that is made with water and the white of an egg and a special oil. The first thing to do is mix the white of the egg with the oil until have a homogeneous paste, after that add water until you have the emulsion or the medium of the tempera technique.
The proportion that is used is the portion of a whole egg plus the same in oil, plus three parts of water, but this depends on the fluidity that the painter wishes to achieve, there are many artists who add a little varnish to replace the flaxseed oil that is mostly used. When performing this procedure, the tempering technique offers greater firmness and better grip, as well as drying faster.
But after drying, the finish it gives is more impermeable in the new glazes. There are other artists who, instead of using water, use skimmed milk or fig tree latex or wax, but always linked with water.
The Italian painter and architect Giorgio Vasari also used the word tempera to be able to make a varnish oil, great masterpieces have been made with the use of this technique, for example Sandro Botticelli stands out when he made The birth of Venus, As DV Thompson explained:
“A well-done egg painting is among the most durable forms of painting man has invented. Beneath the dirt and varnishes, many medieval egg tempera works are as fresh and bright as when they were painted. Normally tempera paintings have changed less in five hundred years than oil paintings in thirty”
Ink: in this article, about the characteristics of painting the use of the ink technique or also known as Chinese ink, this ink is generally liquid, although it also comes in a solid bar, but it must be ground and diluted to use it, it is almost always used on paper and the most used colors are sepia and black but nowadays there are several colors.
Chinese ink can be applied in various ways, but one of the most common is the use of a nib or pen, which are more practical to make a drawing or some calligraphy, different tips are used for the pen and they are loaded with ink. to make lines and with them to be able to write or make drawings but not to make paintings.
Another way or resource to be able to use Chinese ink is with the brush, but it will be used like watercolor and is called gouache, which is to mix Chinese ink with water and alcohol and the color to be used. This technique is similar to the ancient technique used in Japan where they made their Japanese calligraphy, which was also based on ink and paper.
Another way to use it is by using the drawing pen, which is an ink charger or the so-called rapidograph, but this technique, together with graphite, is more for drawing than for painting.
Cool: the technique is a painting technique that is modern, since it is based on the chemical change of ground earth pigments that are mixed with pure water, this can be applied on a mortar that has lime and sand inside, while the lime is It is in the form of calcium hydroxide. Because the carbon dioxide found in the atmosphere, the lime is going to transform into calcium carbonate.
In this way the pigment will crystallize within the wall. The techniques to paint with the fresco are very simple but it is very laborious and when preparing the mixture it takes a long time. This technique has the characteristic of painting to be very durable over time.
But it tends to be damaged due to physical, chemical or bacteriological causes, one of the main causes will be the humidity that will have as main damage the alteration of the colors due to the dissolution of the calcium carbonate and the work tends to develop what they call mold .
Grisaille: another of the techniques used in painting, but it is based on a monochromatic painting in what they call chiaroscuro or light and shadow, as declared by the painter Giorgio Vasari of Italian origin, the color is made with the mixture of iron oxides and with a little copper and flux is added, this produces a sensation of sculptural relief in the works of art.
In the fourteenth century AD, this technique was used for the preparatory sketches that sculptors use to achieve this relief effect by making various engravings of the same color. In the reign of Charles V of France, the grisaille technique was used in stained glass and miniature painting.
Its use will be one of the main characteristics of Flemish painting since on the back of the stables a representation of a Annunciation with the grisaille technique. The Spanish painter Josep Maria Sert applied this technique but instead of its monochromatic evolution.
He used it leaning on the golden monochrome since this painter used a wide range of chromatic colors where he made use of metals such as gold, silver, copper, toasted earth, with touches of carmine, using as a background a rich preparation in metal, silver and bread. of gold.
Pointillism: It is one of the techniques that emerged in neo-impressionism because the painter Georges Seurat was studying and practicing it, but the technique consists of placing small spherical dots of pure colors, instead of performing the brushstroke technique on the desired surface. paint.
As there are physical relationships between the different colors, there is an interaction between the primary and complementary colors, achieving a great mix of colors for the observer.
This mixture is seen by the observer at a certain distance from the painting and is capable of producing a great effect on the observer when the different points are joined.
Dripping: It is a technique to make an automatic painting, for the surrealists this technique can be achieved by making a casual painting, it is done with drops and splashes of various paints, it is a technique that is also called the American action painting (action painting).
The technique is carried out when the artist walks on the surface to be painted with large brushes or with the same pot of paint. And it drops the color dripping that the figure is making, this is done with an enamel that is the stains that are left on the support that the artist uses.
Graffiti: This technique is being used with paints that are packaged and are very prominent in the characteristics of the paint. That is why they call it aerosols and it is used when the artist presses the button on the upper part through which the paint shoots out in the form of a spray, with this technique it is possible to paint on large surfaces.
Normally this technique is used by people who are painting walls and streets, this type of painting is called graffiti. At the end of the 70s, urban artists began to make their graffiti on all the walls they could get and with the experience they were creating true works of art.
Aerosol paints are currently being manufactured for these artists, and some already have their own templates to be able to demarcate the surface they want to mark with their work of art, of course, templates of different models and letters can already be found on the market with which less experienced artists will be able to rehearse.
Mixed techniques: In the realization of works of art, some artists use the different characteristics of the painting within the same work to attract the attention of the observer. For example, some artists use what is called collage, which is going to be an artistic technique that is not pictorial since it is not painted, but it becomes a mixed technique when the artist uses some technique such as watercolor, tempera or the ink.
But in the end the artist must decide on the difference between a pictorial procedure and a pictorial technique, since it is understood that a pictorial procedure is to make the union of several elements in the same work. Whereas the way the artist applies it is going to make a pictorial technique.
Materials used in the paintings
To be able to dedicate yourself to painting, there is an infinity of materials that are used by artists through written documents and notes addressed to different artists, and another source is to carry out a technical and scientific examination of the work of art. Some of these exams are intended to reinforce the documentary evidence of the works to certify whether they are original or not.
As it must be essential that the materials currently used by the artist are various and in the XXI century we are going to make you a great list of materials that can be used to make a work of art. Among which we have:
Supports: This material has the function of supporting the background and the different layers of paint used by the painter, but it must be remembered that in the characteristics of the painting there are very different models to choose from, the most used are those made of paper , the cardboard, the wood, the canvas and the walls of the city. But you can also add metal, glass, plastic and leather among much more.
But all the supports are going to need a special primer which is to prepare a surface so that the painter can make his work of art and all of them have a different procedure for the material that is going to be used.
Wood plank: It is one of the most used supports since the beginning of painting, when it was in the Egyptian era the artists already used the wooden board as sarcophagi, and in the Middle Ages altarpieces were used to make altars and their primer was very easy since they only put a single layer of glue on it.
And if the wood had to be gilded, use the primer with gold leaf, which is characteristic of paint, but before placing the gold leaf on it, another primer should be made with a layer of glue and another layer of plaster or clays to give a stronger touch to the wooden board.
By the XNUMXth century AD, the European easel began to be used as the main support, since the solid wood that was used in the past was covered with strips of linen fabric glued so that they could not be seen to be together. The wood had to be in good condition and avoid possible cracks that they might have.
Then it began to be used in plywood and chipboard as a wooden board. The wooden boards began to be made prefabricated and offered a great characteristic of painting; they could be smooth and the joints were not visible, as was the so-called board. tablex, that it was very light and easy to handle, in addition the artist could always carry it with him and it had two sides, the smooth and the rough and the boards are very important in the characteristics of the painting.
The canvas: According to the writer and soldier Pliny the Elder, the Roman emperor Nero was told that he had a portrait of him painted on a canvas measuring 36,5 meters long by 12 meters wide, the philosopher Heraclitus in his manuscript entitled From Coloribus et Artibus Romanorum from the XNUMXth century BC, he described how a linen canvas should be prepared in order to decorate and paint it.
He also wrote the exact way to stretch it and how to prepare the fabric with the glue so that it would be excellent as parchment. The paint that was placed on the canvas began to be used in northern Europe and later in Italy because of its great lightness and the multiple ways of using it.
In the XNUMXth century AD, it began to be used very frequently on backstage and at the beginning of the XNUMXth century AD, it began to be produced in series. The canvases that were most used were those made of vegetable fibers such as hemp, linen, finely woven jute or cotton, which is also one of the characteristics of painting.
All these canvases were made with coarse or fine grains, depending on the result that the artist wanted to obtain in the work he wanted to do, there is also documentation stating that they used polyester canvas.
At present, all the canvases can be purchased in the number of meters that the artist wishes and can be mounted on the frame that he wants, since there are different models, types and formats on the market. But of course there is an international numbering for the width and length measurements of the frame, depending on the characteristics of the painting that is going to be painted on the canvas.
At present, three different formats have been made for each one to have the characteristics of the painting that the artist wishes to carry out, such as the figure, the landscape and the marine. On one side it always has the same size and on the other it will decrease, remaining as follows:
- The one in the figure will measure 100 cm by 81 cm
- The landscape measures are 100 cm by 73 cm.
- The navy one will have the following measurements: 100 cm by 64 cm.
These are the agreements that have been reached internationally, but knowing the artists, they are not governed by these measures and they carry out their works of art with the measures that they believe their work should be, in most of the canvases found in the market for sale they prepare them with linseed oil and pore filler.
But there are also those that are prepared based on emulsions that are the most suitable for use with oil paint, or with acrylic paint, in this way the priming of the canvases is simplified for the different characteristics of the paint that is going to be used. the artist and thus obtain the expected result with the best quality.
Copper: One of the most important materials in the use of the characteristics of painting is copper, since it has been used since the fifteenth century AD. It was used in very thin sheets by painters who were north of the European continent. German-born artist Adam Elsheimer. He came to use them but in a small size and this made the researchers think that the old engravings used them in a way to recycle them.
Glass: another medium that was widely used by different artists to paint was glass, countless objects were also made such as jars, glasses, containers, squares, triangles among many others where the artist made his enamel and once he decorated them cold , was introduced in a heat furnace with a temperature lower than the melting point of glass making large and beautiful works of art.
In the seventeenth century AD, they began to be used as supports for stained glass windows, since it is a very important support for the characteristics of painting in the different churches and the great Cathedrals, large colored crystals began to be placed there and the painting on glass with religious images and numerous scenes taken from the bible.
Through the use of the grisaille technique, one of the characteristics of painting, it was achieved that on one side it was in one color and on the other it was decorated with some religious artistic work emphasizing a saint or a scene from the Bible. Many faces of the saints were also made.
Paper: According to the data held by the researchers and the findings that have been found, the paper that was used to make the works of art came from China, around the year 200 BC, and the inventor of this material is Chinese. called Cai Lun between the years 50 a, C. and in the 121 d, C.
Who served as an imperial eunuch, because he improved the paper formula and made it a better alternative than papyrus and parchment. That at that time they were the most used alternatives for writing and for making the characteristic works of art of painting.
Since this character added starch that had the peculiarity of protecting vegetable fibers, paper has been a material that is very well used by artists as it is used in many painting techniques and the most common were watercolor, tempera, pastel , and Chinese ink and its various colors but the most used is black and sepia.
With regard to paper, there is a great diversity of textures, weights and colors, being one of the most important characteristics of painting, and to choose a type of paper it is necessary for the artist to have an idea of what he wants to do among the types of paper. find:
- Hot-Press Paper: Has a hard, smooth surface, many artists find it too slippery for watercolor painting.
- Cold-pressed paper: it is textured, semi-rough, suitable for wide and smooth washes.
- Rough Paper: With a grainy surface, when a wash is applied a mottled effect is obtained from the cavities in the paper.
Also every artist must consider the weight of the paper to be able to choose it, since a very heavy paper cannot be corrugated so easily and it must be stretched and to apply the watercolor technique the grammage of the paper must be between 120 grams squared and with an auction of 850 grams squared.
Brushes: They are very essential tools or instruments for the artist. They are also very important in the characteristics of painting, since the painter uses them in different ways in his work to carry out the artistic work.
Brushes, being a very useful tool for artists, are designed in various sizes, widths, and of the quality that is needed, since the materials with which the brushes are made can be organic or synthetic.
The brush is structured in three parts and they are the hair, the ferrule or the viola and the magician to be able to hold it, they are distinguished more by the hair and the way they are made, some are called flat or cat's tongue brushes. The brushes are also usually made with hard hair and those that are round almost always go with straight hair.
The brushes are chosen by the different artists according to the work they intend to do and the way they are going to use the paint they have. If the artist is going to use large surfaces to carry out the work, he will use brushes instead of brushes.
In the brushes they almost always have an empty interior to be able to collect more paint at the moment of making the stroke, the smaller brushes do not have that central emptiness, there are also brushes that have bristles and there are brushes that also have them and these are always usually natural of organic origin and come from various animals such as horses, martens and pigs among many others.
Comma paint features are also made from artificial manes a synthetic material. The care of the brushes is very important to be able to prolong their useful life, they must be cleaned after using them in addition to continuous cleaning, cleaning it is extremely easy since you only have to put soap and water on them.
After washing them, they can be dried with moisture or with a flannel, then they should be stored in a horizontal position without putting pressure on the hair so that it does not deform. Another use that is given to the brushes is as the means to be able to print paintings by the roller which are made of different sizes and materials.
Among the materials are wool, foam or fiber rubber, natural or artificial sponges and last but not least are palettes, knives and spatulas as one more option in the characteristics of painting since they are tools made of an extremely light and flexible sheet of metal or plastic that can be used in different ways and colors can be joined and painted by the most experienced artists.
Money: In the different supports that exist, artists get used to modifying the backgrounds before starting the work of art, it is a quality that has the characteristics of painting. A primer treatment is carried out since the background is the surface that the artist paints with the color and texture that he wishes to begin his work of art there.
Before, the backgrounds were made with an organic oil or glue, and then it was mixed with white or with a colored tone that the artist who was going to do the work liked. Although that adhesive means were the tails of different animals and fish.
Emulsions based on egg, oil or resin are also used. To give it color, lime and pumice stone were previously used, as well as ocher earth. It depends on the material that was used, this defined how the visual effect of the work of art would look. Also the background color that was used as a support gave it a different hue.
For this reason, artists looked for a white background to reflect the different layers of paint they used, but if the background color was dark, it tended to lower the hue of the paint, making it darker.
The Italian-born architect Giorgio Vasari even stated that the oily backgrounds had the advantage of preserving the flexibility of the canvases, which were made in large dimensions and could be rolled up to be moved to different places.
But the disadvantage they had was that a longer drying time was needed. Between the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries, the backgrounds that were most used were those that were painted with reddish earth, with this some spaces could be left unpainted but the work gained total uniformity. At present, the funds that are prepared in commercial companies are made industrially with a white lead and blotter.
Pigments: the pigments that are a very fundamental characteristic of painting tend to be divided into inorganic and this in turn derives from minerals, earth, salts and oxides and with these the colors of ocher and sienna are achieved. Organic pigments are also used that are derived from plants and some animals that are obtained by cooking some seeds or because some parts of the animals are calcined.
There are others that are obtained by the synthetic route, such as anilines and also organic compounds. Organic pigments are generally less unsafe than inorganic pigments. The pigment used together with the binders form what we call paint and the binder is what allows the pigment to be fluid and thus achieve adhesion of the paint surface to the background.
Although sometimes it can become watery and can also be greasy, it all depends on how it is prepared, the solvent is an important factor in the characteristics of the paint since it has the mission of diluting or dissolving the type of binder used to make it. the play.
A solvent liquid called turpentine is also used, it is a very volatile and colorless solvent that is mixed and diluted with the oil and with the resin it tends to dissolve, in the same way it does with water since it also dissolves, in the same way it is used with rubber that also dissolves and can further dilute the characteristics of the paint in this way.
You have to be aware of the opacity indexes of the paint to be used, since over the years you can better capture the background of the painting and the artist's regrets during the execution of the work. of art.
In paintings that were made before the XNUMXth century, the particles of the pigments used can be observed under a microscope, and this led to the conclusion that the coarser the pigment grain, the lower the quality of the paint.
In the nineteenth century, scientists began to synthesize dyestuffs that were used as pigments, among them were cobalt blue, zinc yellow, and chrome oxide as the most used by artists. And nowadays the number of pigments has been growing very quickly, there is a great variety of colors and all the pigments have an excellent quality.
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