Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color
or other medium to a solid surface (support base). The medium is commonly
applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives,
sponges, and airbrushes, can be used.
Painting is a mode of creative expression, and the forms are
numerous. Drawing, gesture (as in gestural painting), composition, narration
(as in narrative art), or abstraction (as in abstract art), among other
aesthetic modes, may serve to manifest the expressive and conceptual intention
of the practitioner. Paintings can be naturalistic and representational (as in
a still life or landscape painting), photographic, abstract, narrative,
symbolistic (as in Symbolist art), emotive (as in Expressionism), or political
in nature (as in Artivism).
A portion of the history of painting in both Eastern and
Western art is dominated by spiritual 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.
In art, the term painting describes both the act and the
result of the action. The support for paintings includes such surfaces as
walls, paper, canvas, wood, glass, lacquer, clay, leaf, copper and concrete,
and the painting 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.
________________________________________________________________