About Painting

Painting is an art in which some kind of pigment or color is added to a picture on a surface. The pigment is mainly applied on to different kinds of surfaces with a brush but there are times that other tools are used to paint as well. While there are different kinds of pigments or colors that are used there are also different surfaces that one can paint on. For example, you can paint with water colors or oil colors and the surfaces that you can paint on include walls, paper, canvas, wood, glass, clay, copper, lacquer and more.

Painting is known to be a form of art in which the painter can express himself externally. While some paintings are abstract there are others that are made from still life, objects, sceneries, portraits of people and more.

It is said that the oldest paintings are found in France in Grotte Chauvet and these have been said to have been created more than 32,000 years back. These paintings use red ochre and black pigment and depict various animals like horses, rhinoceros, mammoths, buffalos, lions and even humans. There is some debate about these being the oldest paintings as against those found in Australia in Arnhem Land. These are said to be dated as far back as 60,000 years back. Examples of extremely old paintings have been found in other parts of the world such as India, China, Spain and Portugal too. This only goes to show how painting has been a part of human being and their expression since ages.

While water color and oil paintings have dominated the western world, it is ink and color ink that have been more popular in the east. Photography took a heavy toll on the popularity of painting and this is what really triggered art movements like Renaissance, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Expressionism and Cubism. Such a transformation was never observed in the eastern parts of the world or Africa.

Modern and contemporary art is different from the art that was practices years ago. The concept is more like pluralism where there is no definition of work and each is free to pursue his or her own style. Some of the trends that exist in modern and contemporary style of painting include pop art, abstract expressionism, color field painting, geometric abstraction, photorealism, collage, computer art, neo-Dada, mural paintings and paint on glass animations.

Color and tone of the paintings that are created are essentially equal to the pitch and tone of music. The colors used in paintings differ from culture to culture and these can have a different impact on different people. Some of the media that is used today for painting include water colors, oil colors, pastels, acrylic, ink, hot wax, enamel, spray paint, gouache, fresco, tempera and water miscible oil paints.

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