Painting Composition and Design
Sometimes called "disegno" - a term derived from Renaissance art which translates as both design and drawing, thus including the artist's idea of what he wants to create as well as its execution - painting design concerns the formal organization of various elements into a coherent whole.
These formal elements include: Line, Shape/Mass, Color, Volume/ Space, Time/Movement.
Line encompasses everything from basic outlines and contours, to edges of tone and color. Linework fixes the relationship between adjacent or remote elements and areas of the painting surface, and their relative activity or passivity.
Shape and Mass include the various different areas of color, tone and texture, together with any specific images therein. Many famous paintings are optically arranged around geometric shapes. Negative space can also be used to emphasize certain features of the composition.
Not surprisingly, given that the human eye can identify up to 10 million differing hues, color has many different uses. It can be used in a purely descriptive manner - Egyptians used different colors to distinguish Gods or Pharaohs, and to differentiate men from women. Above all, color is used to depict the effects of light, while many great painters like Caravaggio and Rembrandt have exploited the contrast between colors for dramatic effect - notably in the technique of chiaroscuro.
The elements of Volume and Space are concerned with how the painter creates depth and spatial relationships within the flat surface of the picture. Traditional painters do this by deploying the concept of linear perspective, while others, expressed space and volume by showing a range of overlapping "snapshots" of the same object as if viewed simultaneously from different viewpoints.
The elements of Time and Movement concern how the viewer's eye is allowed to experience the picture.
Arnheim, Rudolf.
Art and Visual Perception.
A Psychology of the Creative Eye.
Exercise 18. Study the painting elements and fill in the table.
| Type | Function |
| Line | |
| Shape | |
| Color | |
| Space | |
| Time |
Exercise 19. Translate into English using active vocabulary.
1) Художні образи живопису створюються за допомогою малюнка, кольору, світлотіні, колориту і перспективи.
2) Найбільш поширені фарби олійні, клейові, воскові (енкаустика).
3) Мозаїка – це орнаментальні композиції, виконані з природних елементів, емальних, керамічних плиток, невеликих кубиків, або пластинок.
4) Темпера – фарби для живопису, в яких сполучною речовиною є натуральні (з води та яєчного жовтка) або штучні (водяний розчин клен з олією) емульсії.
5) Aкварель – походить від латинського слова “aqua”, що означає вода, акварель це фарба, яка розводиться водою.
Exercise 20. Role – play:”Who is the author of the painting?”
Bring a reproduction to the class. Imagine you don't know who the author of the painting is, answer whether it is possible to guess: a man or a woman and prove your mind.
Exercise 21. Write a composition describing the colors that appeals to you most and considering the following points:
a) general symbolic meanings of colors, especially in painting;
b) your own associations with colors and your color preferences in clothing and as a designer;
c) color preferences in room design from the psychological point of view, especially the design of English language laboratory. Try to use as many new words denoting colors as possible.
Exercise 22. Read the texts about Mediums of Painting, and get ready to discuss the information from the texts.
Mediums of Painting
Encaustic
One of the main painting mediums of the ancient world, encaustic painting employs hot beeswax as a binding medium to hold colored pigments and to enable their application to a surface - usually wood panels or walls. It was widely used in Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Byzantine art.
Fresco
Fresco (Italian for "fresh") refers to the method of painting in which pigments are mixed solely with water (no binding agent used) and then applied directly onto freshly laid plaster ground, usually on a plastered wall or ceiling. The plaster absorbs the liquid paint and as it dries, retaining the pigments in the wall. Extra effects were obtained by scratching techniques like sgraffito. The greatest examples of fresco painting are probably Michelangelo's "Genesis" and "Last Judgment" Sistine Chapel frescoes, and the paintings in the Raphael Rooms, such as "The School of Athens".
Tempera
Instead of beeswax, the painting medium tempera employs an emulsion of water and egg yolk (occasionally mixed with glue, honey or milk) to bind the pigments. Tempera painting was eventually superseded by oils, although as a method for painting on panels it endured for centuries.
Oils
The dominant medium since 1500, oil painting uses oils like linseed, walnut, or poppyseed, as both a binder and drying agent. Its popularity stems from the increased richness and glow that oil gives to the colour pigments. It also facilitated subtle details, using techniques like sfumato, as well as bold paintwork obtained through thick layering (impasto). Important pioneers of oil paint techniques included (in Holland) Hubert and Jan Van Eyck, and (in Italy) Piero della Francesca, Filippo Lippi, Antonello da Messina, and Leonardo Da Vinci.
Watercolors and Gouache
Watercolour painting - a rather unforgiving medium - developed in England during the 18th/19th century - uses water soluble pigments pre-formulated with a binder, typically gum arabic. When watercolors are thickened, made opaque and mixed with white, it is called gouache. Early pioneers of watercolor painting include Thomas Girtin and JMW Turner.
Acrylics
The most modern of all mediums, acrylic painting is a man-made paint containing a resin derived from acrylic acid that combines some of the properties of watercolor and oils. Highly versatile, it can be applied to almost any surface in varying amounts, ranging from thin washes to thick layers. It can give either a matt or gloss finish and is extremely fast-drying.
Exercise 23. Study all mediums of painting and give the examples of famous painters or artists who created in this field. Give examples of their works. Fill in the table.
| Painter / Artist | Worked | Works |
Exercise 24. Give definitions to the following terms.
1. Encaustic painting is…
2.Fresco painting is …
3. Tempera painting is…
4.Oil painting is …
5.Gouachepainting is …
6. Acrylic painting is …
Exercise 25. Translate into Ukrainian.
Colored pigments; wood panels; mixed solely with water; emulsion of water and egg yolk; linseed, walnut, or poppyseed, oil paint techniques; typically gum arabic.
Exercise 26. Read the texts about forms of painting, and get ready to discuss the information from the texts.
Forms of Painting
Murals
Dating back to Paleolithic cave painting, murals were painted in tombs, temples, sanctuaries and catacombs throughout the ancient Western world, including Etruria, Egypt, Crete, and Greece. Initially devoid of "depth", they were fully developed during early Renaissance times by fresco artists like Giotto, and later by Masaccio, Fra Angelico, Raphael and Michelangelo. As interior decoration became increasingly dominated by stained glass and tapestry art, mural painting declined, although a number of site-specific works were commissioned during the 19th and 20th centuries.
Panel Painting
The earliest form of portable painting, panels were widely used in Egyptian and Greek art, and later by Byzantine artists from 400 CE onwards. As with murals, panel-paintings were rejuvenated during the late Gothic and early Renaissance period, chiefly as a type of decorative devotional art. Wooden panel painting was especially popular in Northern Europe, due to the climate which was not favorable for fresco murals, and remained so up until the end of the 17th century.
Easel Painting
This form, like panel painting, was a form of studio art but used canvas as a support rather than wood panels. Canvas was both lighter and less expensive than panels, and required no special priming with gesso and other materials. From the Baroque era onwards (1600) oil on canvas became the preferred form of painting throughout Europe. It was particularly popular with the new bourgeois patrons of art for home display.
Manuscript Illumination
Dating back to celebrated examples from ancient Egypt, like the "Book of the Dead", this type of painting achieved its apogee during the Middle Ages (c.500-1000 CE) in the form of Carolingian and Irish illuminated manuscripts. Typically executed in egg-white tempera on vellum and card, these painted manuscripts featured extremely rich and complex graphic designs of Celtic-style interlace knot work, spirals and zoo morphs, as well as figurative portraits of Saints and Apostles. Thereafter it survived only in the East, notably in the form of Islamic calligraphic painting and decorated texts, and miniatures from India.
Scroll Painting
Hand scrolls are an East Asian art form dating from c.350 CE, common to both China and Japan. Composed of varying lengths of paper or silk, they featured a wide variety of ink and wash paintings whose subjects included landscapes, Buddhist themes, historical or mythological scenes, among others.
Screen/Fan Painting
There are two basic types of painted screen: traditional Chinese and Japanese folding screens, painted in ink or gouache on paper or silk, dating from the 12th century - a form which later included lacquer screens; and the iconostasis screen, found in Byzantine, Greek and Russian Orthodox churches, which separates the sanctuary from the nave. This screen is traditionally decorated with religious icons and other imagery, using either encaustic or tempera paints. Painted fans - typically decorated with ink and colored pigments on paper, card or silk, sometimes laid with gold or silver leaf - originated in China and Japan, although curiously many were actually painted in India. In Europe, fan painting was not practiced until the 17th century, and only properly developed in France and Italy from about 1750 onwards.
Modern Forms of Painting
20th Century painters have experimented with a huge range of supports and materials, including steel, concrete, polyester, neon lights, as well as an endless variety of "found" objects. The latter is exemplified in the works of Yves Klein (1928-62), who decorated women's nude bodies with blue paint and then imprinted them on canvas; and Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) whose work "Bed" (1955) consisted of the quilt from his own bed, painted with toothpaste, lipstick and fingernail polish.
Exercise 27. Study forms of painting and identify painting’s form of each picture. Name some famous painters or artists who created in this field.
| ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ | |
| ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ | |
| ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ | |
| ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ | |
| ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ | |
| ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ | |
| ____________________________ ____________________________ ____________________________ |
Exercise 28. Match these terms with the appropriate definitions.
| a)History Painting | 1. is a genre in painting, where the intent is to depict the visual appearance of the subject. |
| b) Landscape | 2. pictorial representations in any of various media that represent scenes or events from everyday life, such as markets, domestic settings, interiors, parties, inn scenes, and street scenes. |
| c) Portraiture | 3. is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural (food, flowers, plants, rocks, or shells) or man-made (drinking glasses, books, vases, jewelry, coins, pipes, and so on). |
| d) Genre-Painting | 4. is the painting of scenes with narrative content from classical history, Christian history, and mythology, as well as depicting the historical events of the far or near past. These include paintings with religious, mythological, historical, literary, or allegorical subjects. |
| e) Still Life | 5. is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. |
Exercise 29. Give the English equivalents for the following word combinations and use them in sentences of your own.
– фресковий живопис ______________________
– панельний живопис ______________________
– малювання на мольберті ______________________
– рукописний живопис ______________________
– живопис на пергаменті ______________________
– малювання на ширмах ______________________
– пейзажний живопис ______________________
– натюрморт ______________________
– стильовий живопис ______________________
Exercise 30. Underline the most suitable words:
a) The history of art has witnessed / evidence a wide range of painting styles.
b) Medieval Western painting was hard / heavily regulated by convention.
c) The first artists to challenge the rigidity of these painting laws /rules were Cimabue.
d) Giotto's creative ideas were further studied / explored during the quattrocento in the Early Renaissance.
e) Realism, linear perspective and new forms of composition / essay were all further refined by major artists.
f) One of the real / greatest 20th century realists is the American painter Edward Hopper.
g) Rococo became closely associated with the decadent ancient regimes / modes of Europe.
h) A vital hero / patron of the arts at this time was the Medici family.
Exercise 31. Express your opinion about:
a) the importance of colours in painting;
b) the symbolic meaning of colors in different cultures;
c) colors and visual information as one of the most important things for human world perception;
d) the influence of artist's mood on the choice of colors in a painting and the influence of colors on our psychological state.
Exercise 32. Choose the most suitable word to complete each sentence:
1) boundaries; 2) modern; 3) contributions; 4) Europe; 5) century; 6) period; 7) painting; 8) War; 9) introduction; 10) neoplasticism.
Modern Art
Modern Art -1) ______, sculpture, and other forms of 20th -century art. It is the art of the 20th 2) ______ that includes many movements and styles. Before World 3)______ II some of the styles that originated in Europe were fauvism, expressionism, cubism, futurism, constructivism, 4)______, dada, and surrealism; artists in the United States developed the styles synchronism and precisianism.
Although scholars disagree as to precisely when the 5)______ period began, they mostly use the term modern art to refer to art of the 20th century in 6)______ and the Americas, as well as in other regions under Western influence. The modern 7) ______ has been a particularly innovative one. Among the 20th century’s most important 8) ______ to the history of art are the invention of abstraction (art that does not imitate the appearance of things), the 9) ______ of a wide range of new artistic techniques and materials, and even the redefinition of the 10) ______ of art itself.
Exercise 33. Read and translate the text.