Learn About: Painting

Historically, fine art has been dominated by painting, and while there have been claims over the last 50 years that painting is declining as a medium for contemporary artists, paintings remain at the forefront of the art market as its most ubiquitous form.

Types of Painting

The substance used to make a work of art is known as the ‘medium’, and there are many types that come under the general heading of ‘painting’. The medium which probably springs to most people’s minds is oil painting, largely because many of the most well-known renaissance artists in the world, such as Da Vinci and Raphael and later greats such as Rembrandt and van Gogh and used oil extensively. In other cultures across the world other media have flourished, such as ink painting traditions in East Asia, and in many cases these styles and techniques have longer histories than in European art. In Europe, oil painting took over from ‘tempera’, a kind of paint made with egg-yolk and water used during the middle ages. Oil paints may have come to Europe from Afghanistan, but its first widespread use in Europe was certainly in the Low Countries before spreading to the Mediterranean. Oil paintings are found on a wide variety of surfaces, from medieval wooden panelling, to canvas, to metals like copper.

Pastels and watercolours also originated in the Renaissance period, with the former often being used as a medium for preparatory studies for oil paintings, but also later being used in its own right for portraiture and gained a particular reputation in French art. Albrecht Durer is known as one of the best early watercolourists and ever since it has been typified by natural scenes of wildlife, landscapes and botany. One of the newest media to reach canvas has been acrylic paint which was first popularised after the Second World War due to its versatility and compatibility with a wide variety of surfaces. Acrylics gave rise to new and innovative techniques such as ‘grattage’ in which paint is scraped from canvas.

Aesthetics, Religion and Photography

The theory behind painting, and behind beauty more broadly known as ‘aesthetics’, has been thought about since the philosophers of ancient Greece. Plato, one of the most influential philosophers of all time, theorised ‘perfect forms’ beyond our material world of which paintings are just our best impressions. Aesthetics was also important to thinkers and painters from the Renaissance, such as Da Vinci, to enlightenment thinkers such as Kant whose ideas would influence the Aestheticist painters of the 19th century and many other romantic painters besides. Another strand of thought which has continually influenced painting from all parts of the world is religion. Devotional art and iconography dominated the middle ages in Europe and most religious art across the world, with the notable exception of Islamic art in which depiction of the human form has been contentious in Islamic painting.

The nature of western painting has changed greatly in the last 150 years following the rise of impressionism and abstract art. The introduction of the photography in the early-mid 19th century gave rise to further thought about the representation of reality and another reaction to the deliberately precise painting of the world, culminating in abstract ideas found in the likes of cubism and surrealism. The further development of technologies and the broadening of the media used in modern and contemporary art led some 20th century artists and collectors to predict the total decline of painting as an artistic medium. In reality, painting has only become more innovative and adapted to the challenges placed upon the medium by the demands of contemporary artists.