The Fine Art of Painting
Painting in Naples, FL
Painting is a principal category of visual fine arts. As a fine art, it is the practice of applying one of a variety of artistic media to a solid surface, to create an aesthetic image. In art, the term “painting” describes both the creative act and the product that results.
Painting is the application of pigments, usually a medium in liquid form, to a variety of different surfaces so as to establish an image or specific depiction, pattern or design, or decoration. Paintings are created by applying media to surfaces called supports–artists choose from supports such as paper, canvas, wood, clay, and many others, depending on the type of media they want to use. Paintings are created when a support is coated with a media using a specific implement; most involve the application of some liquid pigment with a paintbrush. However, other tools are often used for effect (e.g., knives and scrapers, sponges and wedges, spray bottles and airbrushes, etc.).
PAINTING IS…
“the expression of ideas and emotions, with the creation of certain aesthetic qualities, in a two-dimensional visual language. The elements of this language—its shapes, lines, colours, tones, and textures—are used in various ways to produce sensations of volume, space, movement, and light on a flat surface. These elements are combined into expressive patterns in order to represent real or supernatural phenomena, to interpret a narrative theme, or to create wholly abstract visual relationships. An artist’s decision to use a particular medium, such as tempera, fresco, oil, acrylic, watercolour or other water-based paints, ink, gouache, encaustic, or casein, as well as the choice of a particular form, such as mural, easel, panel, miniature, manuscript illumination, scroll, screen or fan, panorama, or any of a variety of modern forms, is based on the sensuous qualities and the expressive possibilities and limitations of those options. The choices of the medium and the form, as well as the artist’s own technique, combine to realize a unique visual image.”
The fine art of painting has its historical roots in prehistory, as pictographs and petrograms, rock and cave paintings that date back to the Stone Age. The world’s oldest representational artwork known at this time is a prehistoric painting of three wild pigs, found by archaeologists on the wall of a cave on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi; it was painted at least 45,500 years ago according to ArtNet News. (There are, however, hand stencils and other markings made by Neanderthals in Spanish caves that are about 64,000 years old. And there is abstract artwork that is older still: archaeologists found red markings dating to approximately 73,000 years ago in a South African cave.)
Painting brings together other artistic methods, integrating things like basic drawing and composition into each piece, and can be “naturalistic and representational (as in still life and landscape painting), photographic, abstract, narrative, symbolistic (as in Symbolist art), emotive (as in Expressionism) or political in nature (as in Artivism),” as noted in Wikipedia. It incorporates elements of art including space and dimension, shapes, lines, colors and hues, tones, and textures, synthesizing each component to create a single piece of art. When these elements are considered and translated onto a support surface to create a painting, they allow for an artist to stylistically communicate a message or general intention in an aesthetic way.
The Naples Art District is home to the largest concentration of working artists in Southwest Florida, with over 70 professional creatives maintaining studios and galleries there. The Naples Art District (NAD) member artists share their work with unique art mediums and their artistic processes with visitors to the District via gallery exhibits and special events like art walks and demonstrations/workshops, to encourage people to learn more about and gain a greater appreciation of the creative arts. Check out the work of NAD member artists, including the many accomplished painters among them. NAD publishes a calendar of events, classes, and workshops online for anyone interested in learning more about the arts from NAD member artists. Contact the Naples Art District online or by phone at 239-249-1977 any time.