Painting

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Painting (disambiguation).

"Painter" redirects here. For other uses, see Painter (disambiguation).

The Mona Lisa, by Leonardo da Vinci, is one of the most recognizable paintings in the world.

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium^[1] to asurface (support base). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brushbut other implements, such as knives, sponges, and airbrushes, can be used.

In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. Paintings may have for their support such surfaces as walls, paper, canvas, wood, glass,lacquer, clay, leaf, copper or concrete, and may incorporate multiple other materials including sand, clay, paper, plaster, gold leaf as well as objects.

The term painting is also used outside of art as a common trade among craftsmen and builders.

Painting is a mode of creative expression, and the forms are numerous. Drawing,gesture, composition, narrative or abstraction, among other aesthetic modes, may serve to manifest the expressive and conceptual intention of the practitioner.^[2]Paintings can be naturalistic and representational (as in a still life or landscape painting), photographic, abstract, be loaded with narrative content, symbolism,emotion or be political in nature.

A portion of the history of painting in both Eastern and Western art is dominated byspiritual motifs and ideas; examples of this kind of painting range from artwork depicting mythological figures on pottery to Biblical scenes rendered on the interior walls and ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, to scenes from the life of Buddha or other images of eastern religious origin.