Painting is the art of applying paint, pigment or another medium to a surface to create an image or other form. It is often associated with figurative subjects, but it may also be nonrepresentational or abstract. The medium used is typically oil or acrylic, although other paints including watercolor, gouache, casein, encaustic, or other water-based and/or natural-based media, as well as ink, pencil, or other drawing materials can be used. It is also possible to produce a painted work on a variety of surfaces, from canvas to wood or other sculptural supports.
In the early 20th century, painters began to experiment with nonrepresentational styles. These abstract works focused on formal qualities, such as line, shape, and color rather than subject matter. The result was a wide variety of artistic expressions, from the highly detailed work of abstract expressionism to the geometric abstraction of Paul Klee. Throughout the century styles vacillated between representational and nonrepresentational painting, and talented new artists repeatedly brought painting back to center stage of artistic production.
The design of a painting is the arrangement of its lines, shapes, colors, and tones into an expressive pattern. It is this formal organization that gives a great painting its sense of inevitability.
An artist’s choice of material and form, the brushwork techniques used, and the composition of a painting all combine to realize a unique visual image. The choice of a particular medium—whether tempera, fresco, oil, acrylic, or other water-based paints; ink; gouache; or casein—as well as the type of support, such as panel, easel, scroll, screen or fan, miniature, manuscript illumination, or the modern forms of canvas, paper or board, is determined by an understanding of the sensuous qualities and expressive potential of those materials.
A painting’s subject matter is its theme or topic, which may be derived from any number of sources. It is often influenced by religious or philosophical ideas, as in the case of Biblical or esoteric works of art, or it may be inspired by the natural world around us, as in the art of Georgia O’Keeffe, which features flowers and shells that appear to have been dreamed into being.
Some paintings are meant to evoke a specific time or place in history. Others are intended to be timeless, as in the case of Vermeer’s The Art of Painting, which was once thought to portray a realistic glimpse into a painter’s studio, and Theophile Thore even speculated erroneously that it might be a portrait of the painter herself.
Other painters are more interested in exploring the mystical, psychological, or poetic aspects of their subject. This style of painting is called abstract art, and it can be achieved by reducing a subject’s elements to dominant colors or shapes, or by removing all resemblance to physical reality, as in the works of Claude Monet.