PAINTING

DEFINITIONS
- Painting is the art of applying pigments to a surface
in order to present a picture of the subject.
- A painting is an image (artwork) created
usingpigments(color) on a surface (ground) such as
paper or canvas. The pigment may be in a wet form, such
as paint, or a dry form, such aspastels.
- Painting is the art of creating pictures by applying
color to a surface. Paintings can record events; capture a
likeness of a person, place, or object; tell stories;
decorate walls; and illustrate texts. Paintings can
express emotions and ideas, or simply be enjoyed for
their beauty.

HISTORY OF PAINTING
PREHISTORIC PERIOD
- The history of paintings spans all cultures and dates back to the
time of prehistoric men who produced their own artifacts. Cave
dwellers were the earliest artists. Colored drawings of animals
dating from about 30,000 to 10, 000 B.C. have been found on the
walls of caves in Southern France and Spain. The oldest known
paintings are found at the Grotte Chauvet in France and depict
horses, rhinoceros, lions, buffalos, and mammoths.

Cave painting in Grotte

Chauvet, France

GREEK PERIOD
- Ancient Greece had great painters
who were then regarded as manual
laborers. Their paintings found in
pottery and ceramics gives a glimpse
of the way of life of ancient Greeks.
Painted vases are about all that
remains of Greek painting. The
earliest style of vase painting known
as the geometric style (1100 700
B.C.). Vases were decorated with
bands of geometric shapes and human

ROMAN PERIOD
- Roman painting are
influenced by ancient
Greek paintings. There are
only a few surviving Roman
paintings, which are the
wall paintings from villas in
Campania, Southern Italy.

Wall painting in Villa Boscoreale,

Southern Italy

Roman fresco Villa dei Misteri

Pompeii

MEDIEVAL PERIOD
- The Middle ages saw the
rise of Christianity, which
brought about a different
spirit and aim to painting
styles. Byzantine painting
has a hieratic feeling: icons
were and still are seen as a
reflection of the divine.
Generally, Byzantine art
borders on abstraction as
evidenced by its flatness and

Christ Pantocrator Deesis Mosaic

RENAISSANCE PERIOD
- Considered as the golden age of painting,
the renaissance spanned from the 14 th
through the mid 17th century. Leonardo da
Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Raphael,
Giovanni Bellini, Titian, Paolo Uccello, Fra
Angelico, Masaccio, Piero della Francesca,
Andrea Mantegna, Filippo Lippi, Giorgione,
Tintoretto, and Sandro Botticelli are among
the great Italian artists who reflected the
revolution of ideas and science during this
period through their paintings.

Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci

Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli

Coronation of the Virgin by Fra

Angelico

Creation of Adam, Sistine Chapel by

Michelangelo

BAROQUE PERIOD
- Beginning around 1600 until
the last years of the 17th
century, the Baroque period
produced paintings with
dramatic light and shade,
violent composition and
exaggerated emotion. Such
works are exemplified by the
paintings of Caravaggio,
Rembrandt, Rubens, Velasquez,
Poussin, Vermeer, Le Nain and

Girl With A Pearl Earring by Jan

Vermeer

St. Hieronymus Writing by

Caravaggio

The Infant Jupiter Nurtured by the

Goat Amalthea by Nicolas Poussin

Daniel in the Lion's Den by Rubens

ROCOCO PERIOD
- The period covering the 18th
century and following the Baroque
period is the Rococo period. The
painting during this period is
characterized lighter than that of
Baroque, and is often frivolous and
erotic. Famous among the Rococo
painters are Antoine Watteau,
Francois Boucher, Fragonard,
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Thomas
Gainsborough and Jean Baptiste
Simeon Chardin.

Toilette of Venus by Franois Boucher

Embarkation for Cythera by Antoine Watteau

The Swing by Fragonard

The Triumph of Venus by Francois Boucher

ROMANTIC PERIOD
- The fall of Rococo style
gave rise to new movement
which shifted its attention
toward landscape and
nature, as well as the
human figure and the
supremacy of natural order
above mankinds will. The
artists whose works are
characteristic of the period
are Jacques Louis David and

Mademoiselle Guimard as
Terpsichore, by Jacques-Louis David

La Grande Odalisque
by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

The Death of Socrates

by Jacques Louis David

REALIST AND NATURAL PERIOD

- In the late 1800s, a group of artists
actively painted in varying personal
styles and were linked mainly by their
rejection of Impressionism. Post
Impressionists were divided into three
groups: the expressionists (Van Gogh,
Gauguin) who were interested in
personal expression, the formalist
(Cezanne) who were concerned with
composition and structure, and the
realists and naturalists (Courbet) who
used light, shade, color and perspective.

Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh

Melting Snow by Paul Cezanne

Bonjour Monsieur Courbet by

Gustave Courbet

IMPRESSIONIST PERIOD
- In the last half of the 19th
century, a group of painters
developed a painting style
that tried to capture the
quality of light as it plays
across landscapes and
figures. Its followers ( Manet,
Degas, Pissarro, Monet) used
small strokes of contrasting
color next to create illusion of
vibrating light.

Water Lilies by Claude Monet

Boulevard Montmarte by Camille Pissarro

Le Dejeuner sur l Herbe by

Edouard Manet

MODERN PERIOD
- In the early 20th century,
avant garde artists
experimented on new styles of
formalist painting and such
experimentation led to the
birth of Cubism ( Picasso),
Futurism (Delaunay), De Stijl
(reduction of images to simple
shapes and horizontal and
vertical lines) and
Suprematism (geomoetric,
nonrepresentational art style).

Factory, Horta de Ebbo by Pablo

Picasso

An example of Suprematism painting

An example of De Stijl painting by Piet

Mondrian
An example of Futurism
painting by Fernand Leger

MEDIUMS
The choice of medium is a crucial aspect in art production.
Mediums differ not only in their inherent qualities but also
in the effects they produce.

Oil- oil painting is done with the use of ground pigments

(from minerals, coal tar, vegetable matter etc.). Many
painters prefer oil as a medium because oil- paintings are
long lasting, slow in drying, easy to handle and manipulate
in terms of texture and capable of being corrected.

Fresco- fresco painting is done with the use of earth

pigments mixed with water and applied to fresh plaster or
glue which attaches the color to surface like a wall.

 Water Color- water color painting is done with the use

of pigments mixed with water and applied to white fine
paper.

Tempera- tempera painting is done with the use of

ground pigments mixed with an albuminous or colloidal
vehicle (egg yolk, gum, glue). Tempera readily dries with
the evaporation of water.

Pastel- pastel painting is done with the use of pastel

colors closely resembling dry pigments bound to form
crayons, which are directly applied to the surface,
oftentimes paper.

Acrylic- acrylic painting is done with the use of

synthetic paints called acrylics mixed with a vehicle
capable of being thinned with water.

Encaustic- encaustic painting is done with the use

of hot wax as a vehicle to bind pigments to a wooden
panel or a wall.

SUBJECTS
There are so many subjects that can be presented in
painting.

Portraiture- portraits are pictures of men and women

singly or collectively.
Animals and Plants
Still Life- still life is a painting of an inanimate object
or a non living thing placed on a table or another
setting. Examples are a bag of groceries, a pack of
cigarettes or a bunch of flowers.
Landscape
Seascape
Cityscape
Others- mythological, fictional and cartoon
characters.

TOOLS
Just like any worker, a painter makes use of several
tools.
Brush or brushes

Palette and Palette knife

Easel

NOTABLE ARTISTS
Local Painters
Alcuaz, Federico
- Federico Alcuaz was conferred the Order of National Artist of the
Philippines for Visual Arts (painting, sculpture and mixed media).
Amorsolo, Fernando
- Fernando Amorsolo was posthumously conferred the Order of
National Artist of the Philippines for Visual Arts (painting) in
1972. He was considered as one of the most important artists in
the history of painting on the Philippines and regarded as the
Father of Philippine Realism for his numerous realistic paintings.
His works include Bombing of the Intendencia (1942), The
Burning Manila (1946), Sikatuna.

Luna, Juan
- Juan Lunas best known work was the Spoliarium , now a treasure
of the National Museum. His other works include, The Blood
Compact, Ang Espanya sa Pilipinas, Aliping Bulag.
Legaspi, Cesar
- National Artist of the Philippines for Visual Arts (Painting). He also
served as an art director. Some of his works are Man and Woman,
Begggars and Gadgets.
Manansala, Vicente
- Vicente Manansala was a cubist painter and illustrator. He received a
six- month UNESCO grant to study at the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Banff
and Montreal in Canada. His works include Madonna of the Slums,
Jeepneys and Kalabaw.

Foreign Painters
Da Vinci, Leonardo
- One of the greatest painters of all time and the most diversely talented
persons to have ever lived, he was known for the following works: The
Annunciation, The Last Supper, Mona Lisa, The Adoration of the Magi.
Degas, Edgar
- Degas was a French impressionistic painter who used photography as an aid
in studying figures in motion. In doing his paintings, he used pastel to combine
drawing and color. His works include Danseuse, The Ballet Girl Fixing Her
Slipper.

Buonarroti, Michelangelo Di Lodovico

- Buonarroti was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet
and engineer. He was known for his Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes which
include The Creation of Man, The Story of Noah, The Last
Judgement.
Munch, Edward
- Munch was a symbolist painter, printmaker and an important forerunner
of expressionistic art. His best works include The Scream, Death in the
Sickroom, Madonna.
Picasso, Pablo
- Picasso founded Cubism in 1906. His famous works are The Old
Guitarist, Les Demoiselles d Avignon, Women in White.