Test Your Knowledge of Painting

Painting: A Brief Overview

• Painting involves applying paint, pigment, color, or other medium to a surface.

• Paintings can be created on a variety of surfaces, including walls, paper, canvas, wood, glass, lacquer, pottery, leaf, copper, and concrete, and may include other materials such as sand, clay, paper, plaster, gold leaf, and whole objects.

• Paintings can be naturalistic, photographic, abstract, narrative, symbolistic, emotive, or political in nature.

• Religious art has dominated a portion of the history of painting in both Eastern and Western art.

• The oldest known paintings are approximately 40,000 years old and have been found in various locations around the world, including caves in western Europe and Indonesia.

• Photography had a major impact on painting and led to the development of various art movements in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

• Modern and contemporary art has moved away from the historic value of craft and documentation in favor of concept.

• The feminist art movement began in the 1960s during the second wave of feminism.

• Color, made up of hue, saturation, and value, is the essence of painting, and is highly subjective.

• Some modern painters incorporate different materials such as metal, plastic, sand, cement, straw, leaves, or wood for their texture.

• Rhythm is important in painting as it is in music and can be used to add new creations such as form, melody, and coloration.

• Different types of paint include hot wax or encaustic, watercolor, gouache, and ink.Overview of Painting Mediums and Styles

• Ink is a liquid containing pigments or dyes used for drawing with a pen, brush, or quill.

• Enamels are made by painting a substrate, typically metal, with powdered glass, and are traditionally used for decoration of precious objects.

• Tempera is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigment mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, and was a primary method of painting until after 1500 when it was superseded by the invention of oil painting.

• Fresco is a mural painting done on plaster on walls or ceilings, and can be done in buon fresco or a secco painting.

• Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil, such as linseed oil, and became the principal medium used for creating artworks in early modern Europe.

• Pastel is a painting medium in the form of a stick, consisting of pure powdered pigment and a binder.

• Acrylic paint is fast-drying paint containing pigment suspension in acrylic polymer emulsion and can resemble a watercolor or an oil painting.

• Aerosol paint is a type of paint that comes in a sealed pressurized container and is released in a fine spray mist when depressing a valve button, and is commonly used in graffiti art.

• Water miscible oil paints are a modern variety of oil paint engineered to be thinned and cleaned up with water, rather than having to use chemicals such as turpentine.

• Digital painting is a method of creating an art object (painting) digitally or a technique for making digital art on the computer.

• Modernism was a revolt against the conservative values of realism, and encompasses the activities and output of those who felt the "traditional" forms of art were becoming outdated in the new economic, social, and political conditions of an emerging fully industrialized world.

• Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the artistic and literary production of those affiliated with the Surrealist Movement.Overview of Indian Painting Styles

• Rajasthani painting was popular in the 17th century and was influenced by the Mughal miniature style.

• Punjab Hills or Pahari painting was a sub-style of Rajasthani painting and was popular for its theme of Shringar.

• Company style paintings were made in India by Indian artists for European patrons in the 18th and 19th centuries.

• Other prominent miniature painting styles in India include the Sikh style and Deccan style.

• Pichwai paintings are large-format paintings on textiles and depict stories from the life of Lord Krishna, mainly produced in Rajasthan.

• Pattachitra is a traditional cloth-based scroll painting from the eastern Indian states of Odisha and West Bengal, which is closely linked with the worship of Lord Jagannath.

• Madhubani Art is a style of Indian painting practiced in the Mithila region of India and Nepal, which is characterized by complex geometrical patterns.

• Warli is a folk tribal art form from India.

• The Bengal School was an art movement and style of Indian painting that originated in Kolkata and Shantiniketan in the early 20th century.

• Illustration, landscape, portrait, still life, and veduta are some of the different types of painting.