Learn About Painting

In this episode of the I Can't Sleep Podcast, fall asleep learning about painting. Just think about words like brushes, styles, art, and more and you'll be on the right track to snooze-land. Happy sleeping!

Transcript

Welcome to the I Can't Sleep podcast,

Where I read random articles from across the web to bore you to sleep with my soothing voice.

I'm your host,

Benjamin Boster.

Today's episode is from a Wikipedia article titled,

Painting.

Painting is a visual art,

Which is characterized by the practice of applying paint,

Pigment,

Color,

Or other medium to a solid surface called the matrix or support.

The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush,

But 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.

The final work is called a painting.

The support for paintings includes such surfaces as walls,

Paper,

Canvas,

Wood,

Glass,

Lacquer,

Pottery,

Leaf,

Copper,

And concrete,

And the painting may incorporate multiple other materials,

Including sand,

Clay,

Paper,

Plaster,

Gold leaf,

And even whole objects.

Painting is an important form of visual art,

Bringing in elements such as drawing,

Composition,

Gesture,

Narration,

And abstraction.

Paintings can be naturalistic and representational,

As in still life and landscape painting,

Photographic,

Abstract,

Narrative,

Symbolic,

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 religious art.

Examples of this kind of painting range from artwork depicting mythological figures on pottery to biblical scenes on the Sistine Chapel ceiling to scenes from the life of Buddha or other images of eastern religious origin.

The oldest known paintings are approximately 40,

000 years old,

Found in both the Franco-Cantabrian region in western Europe and in the caves in the district of Maros,

Sulawesi,

Indonesia.

In November 2018,

However,

Scientists reported the discovery of the then-oldest known figurative art painting,

Over 40,

000 years old,

Of an unknown animal in the cave of Lubang Jeriji Saleh in the Indonesian island of Borneo.

In December 2019,

Figurative cave paintings depicting pig hunting in the Maros-Pangkep Karst in Sulawesi were estimated to be even older,

At at least 43,

900 years old.

The finding was noted to be the oldest pictorial record of storytelling and the earliest figurative artwork in the world.

More recently,

In 2021,

Cave art of a pig found in an Indonesian island and dated to over 45,

500 years has been reported.

However,

The earliest evidence of the act of painting has been discovered in two rock shelters in Arnhem Land in northern Australia.

In the lowest layer of material at these sites,

There are used pieces of ochre estimated to be 60,

000 years old.

Archaeologists have also found a fragment of rock painting preserved in a limestone rock shelter in the Kimberley region of northwestern Australia that is dated to 40,

000 years old.

There are examples of cave paintings all over the world in Indonesia,

France,

Spain,

Portugal,

Italy,

China,

India,

Australia,

Mexico,

Etc.

In western cultures,

Oil painting and watercolor painting have rich and complex traditions in style and subject matter.

In the east,

Ink and color ink historically predominated the choice of media with equally rich and complex traditions.

The invention of photography had a major impact on painting.

In the decades after the first photograph was produced in 1829,

Photographic processes improved and became more widely practiced,

Depriving painting of much of its historic purpose to provide an accurate record of the observable world.

A series of art movements in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,

Notably Impressionism,

Post-Impressionism,

Favism,

Expressionism,

Cubism,

And Dadaism,

Challenged the Renaissance view of the world.

Eastern and African painting,

However,

Continued a long history of stylization and did not undergo an equivalent transformation at the same time.

Modern and contemporary art has moved away from the historic value of craft and documentation in favor of concept.

This has not deterred the majority of living painters from continuing to practice painting,

Either as a whole or part of their work.

The vitality and versatility of painting in the 21st century defy the previous declarations of its demise.

In an epic characterized by the idea of pluralism,

There is no consensus as to a representative style of the age.

Artists continue to make important works of art in a wide variety of styles and aesthetic temperaments.

Their merits are left to the public and the marketplace to judge.

The feminist art movement began in the 1960s during the second wave of feminism.

The movement sought to gain equal rights and equal opportunities for female artists internationally.

Color,

Made up of hue,

Saturation,

And value,

Dispersed over a surface,

Is the essence of painting,

Just as pitch and rhythm are the essence of music.

Color is highly subjective,

But has observable psychological effects,

Although these can differ from one culture to the next.

Black is associated with mourning in the West,

But in the East,

White is.

Some painters,

Theoreticians,

Writers,

And scientists,

Including Goethe,

Kandinsky,

And Newton,

Have written their own color theory.

Moreover,

The use of language is only an abstraction for a color equivalent.

The word red,

For example,

Can cover a wide range of variations from the pure red of the visible spectrum of light.

There is not a formalized register of different colors in the way that there is an agreement on different notes in music,

Such as F or C sharp.

For a painter,

Color is not simply divided into basic,

Primary,

And derived complementary or mixed colors like red,

Blue,

Green,

Brown,

Etc.

Painters deal practically with pigments,

So blue,

For a painter,

Can be any of the blues.

Phthalocyanine blue,

Prussian blue,

Indigo,

Cobalt blue,

Ultramarine,

And so on.

Psychological and symbolical meanings of color are not,

Strictly speaking,

Means of painting.

Colors only add to the potential,

Derived context of meanings,

And because of this,

The perception of painting is highly subjective.

The analogy with music is quite clear.

Sound and music,

Like a C note,

Is analogous to light in painting,

Shades to dynamics,

And coloration is to painting as the specific timbre of musical instruments is to music.

These elements do not necessarily form a melody in music of themselves,

Rather they can add different context to it.

Modern artists have extended the practice of painting considerably to include,

As one example,

Collage,

Which began with cubism,

And is not painting in the strict sense.

Some modern painters incorporate different materials,

Such as metal,

Plastic,

Sand,

Cement,

Straw,

Leaves,

Or wood,

For their texture.

Examples of this are the works of Jean Dubuffet and Anselm Kiefer.

There is a growing community of artists who use computers to paint color onto a digital canvas,

Using programs such as Adobe Photoshop,

Corel Painter,

And many others.

These images can be printed onto traditional canvas if required.

Jean Metzinger's mosaic-like divisionist technique had its parallel in literature,

A characteristic of the alliance between symbolist writers and neo-impressionist artists.

I ask of divided brushwork not the objective rendering of light,

But iridescences and certain aspects of color still foreign to painting.

I make a kind of chromatic versification,

And for syllables I use strokes which,

Variable in quantity,

Cannot differ in dimension without modifying the rhythm of a pictorial phraseology destined to translate the diverse emotions aroused by nature.

Rhythm,

For artists such as Piet Mondrian,

Is important in painting as it is in music.

If one defines rhythm as a pause incorporated into a sequence,

Then there can be rhythm in paintings.

These pauses allow creative force to intervene and add new creations,

Form,

Melody,

Coloration.

The distribution of form or any kind of information is of crucial importance in a given work of art,

And it directly affects the aesthetic value of that work.

This is because the aesthetic value is functionality dependent,

I.

E.

The freedom of movement of perception is perceived as beauty.

Free flow of energy in art as well as in other forms of techne directly contributes to the aesthetic value.

Music was important to the birth of abstract art,

Since music is abstract by nature.

It does not try to represent the exterior world,

But expresses in an immediate way the inner feelings of the soul.

Wassily Kandinsky often used musical terms to identify his works.

He called his most spontaneous paintings improvisations,

And described more elaborate works as compositions.

Kandinsky theorized that music is the ultimate teacher,

And subsequently embarked upon the first seven of his ten compositions.

Hearing tones and chords as he painted,

Kandinsky theorized that,

For example,

Yellow is the color of middle C on a brassy trumpet,

Black is the color of closure and the end of things,

And that combinations of colors produce vibrational frequencies akin to chords played on a piano.

In 1871,

The young Kandinsky learned to play the piano and cello.

Kandinsky's stage design for a performance of Mussorgsky's Picture at an Exhibition illustrates his synesthetic concept of a universal correspondence of forms,

Colors,

And musical sounds.

Music defines much of modernist abstract painting.

Jackson Pollock underscores that interest with his 1950 painting Autumn Rhythm No.

30.

Aesthetics is the study of art and beauty.

It was an important issue for 18th and 19th century philosophers such as Kant and Hegel.

Classical philosophers like Plato and Aristotle also theorized about art and painting in particular.

Plato disregarded painters,

As well as sculptors,

In his philosophical system.

He maintained that painting cannot depict the truth.

It is a copy of reality,

A shadow of the world of ideas,

And is nothing but a craft,

Similar to shoemaking or iron casting.

By the time of Leonardo,

Painting had become a closer representation of the truth than painting was in ancient Greece.

Leonardo da Vinci,

On the contrary,

Said that Italian la pittura e cosa mentale,

Painting is a thing of the mind.

Kant distinguished between beauty and the sublime in terms that clearly gave priority to the former.

Although he did not refer to painting in particular,

This concept was taken up by painters such as J.

W.

M.

Turner and Caspar David Friedrich.

Hegel recognized the failure of attaining a universal concept of beauty,

And in his Aesthetic Essay,

Wrote that painting is one of the three romantic arts,

Along with poetry and music,

For its symbolic,

Highly intellectual purpose.

Painters who have written theoretical works on painting include Kandinsky and Paul Klee.

In his essay,

Kandinsky maintains that painting has a spiritual value,

And he attaches primary colors to essential feelings or concepts,

Something that Goethe and other writers had already tried to do.

Iconography is the study of the content of paintings rather than their style.

Erwin Panofsky and other art historians first seek to understand the things depicted,

Before looking at their meaning for the viewer of the time,

And finally analyzing their wider cultural,

Religious,

And social meaning.

In 1890,

The Parisian painter Maurice Denis famously asserted,

Remember that a painting,

Before being a warhorse,

A naked woman,

Or some story or other,

Is essentially a flat surface covered with colors,

Assembled in a certain order.

Thus,

Many 20th-century developments in painting,

Such as cubism,

Were reflections on the means of painting.

Rather than on the external world,

Nature,

Which had previously been its core subject.

Recent contributions to thinking about painting have been offered by the painter and writer Julian Bell.

In his work,

What is Painting?

,

Bell discusses the development through history of the notion that paintings can express feelings and ideas.

In Mirror of the World,

Bell writes,

A work of art seeks to hold your attention and keep it fixed.

A history of art urges it onwards,

Bulldozing a highway through the homes of the imagination.

Different types of paint are usually identified by the medium that the pigment is suspended or embedded in,

Which determines the general working characteristics of the paint,

Such as viscosity,

Miscibility,

Solubility,

Drying time,

Etc.

Encaustic painting,

Also known as hot wax painting,

Involves using heated beeswax to which colored pigments are added.

The liquid paste is then applied to a surface,

Usually prepared wood,

Though canvas and other materials are often used.

The simplest encaustic mixture can be made from adding pigments to beeswax,

But there are several other recipes that can be used,

Some containing other types of waxes,

Damar resin,

Linseed oil,

Or other ingredients.

Pure powdered pigments can be purchased and used,

Though some mixtures use oil paints or other forms of pigment.

Metal tools and other special brushes can be used to shape the paint before it cools,

Or heated metal tools can be used to manipulate the wax once it has cooled onto the surface.

Other materials can be encased or collaged into the surface,

Or layered,

Using the encaustic medium to adhere it to the surface.

The technique was the normal one for ancient Greek and Roman panel paintings,

And remained in use in the Eastern Orthodox icon tradition.

Watercolor is a painting method in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle.

The traditional and most common support for watercolor paintings is paper.

Other supports include papyrus,

Bark papers,

Plastics,

Vellum or leather,

Fabric,

Wood,

And canvas.

In East Asia,

Watercolor painting with inks is referred to as brush painting or scroll painting.

In Chinese,

Korean,

And Japanese painting,

It has been the dominant medium,

Often in monochrome black or browns.

India,

Ethiopia,

And other countries also have long traditions.

Finger painting with watercolor paints originated in China.

There are various types of watercolors used by artists.

Some examples are pan watercolors,

Liquid watercolors,

Watercolor brush pens,

And watercolor pencils.

Watercolor pencils,

Water-soluble color pencils,

May be used either wet or dry.

Gouache is a water-based paint consisting of pigment and other materials designed to be used in an opaque painting method.

Gouache differs from watercolor in that the particles are larger,

The ratio of pigment to water is much higher,

And an additional inert white pigment such as chalk is also present.

This makes gouache heavier and more opaque,

With greater reflective qualities.

Like all water media,

It is diluted with water.

Ink paintings are done with a liquid that contains pigments or dyes and is used to color a surface to produce an image,

Text,

Or design.

Ink is used for drawing with a pen,

Brush,

Or quill.

Ink can be a complex medium composed of solvents,

Pigments,

Dyes,

Resins,

Lubricants,

Solubilizers,

Surfactants,

Particulate matter,

Fluorescers,

And other materials.

The components of inks serve many purposes.

The ink's carrier,

Colorants,

And other additives control flow and thickness of the ink and its appearance when dry.

Enamels are made by painting a substrate,

Typically metal with powdered glass.

Minerals called color oxides provide coloration.

After firing at a temperature of 750 to 850 degrees Celsius,

The result is a fused lamination of glass and metal.

Unlike most painted techniques,

The surface can be handled and wetted enamels have traditionally been used for decoration of precious objects,

But have also been used for other purposes.

Limoges enamel was the leading center of Renaissance enamel painting,

With small religious and mythological scenes and decorated surrounds.

On plaques or objects such as salts or caskets.

In the 18th century,

Enamel painting enjoyed a vogue in Europe,

Especially as a medium for portrait miniatures.

In the late 20th century,

The technique of porcelain enamel on metal has been used as a durable medium for outdoor murals.

Tempera,

Also known as egg tempera,

Is a permanent,

Fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigment mixed with a water-soluble binder medium,

Usually a glutinous material such as egg yolk or some other size.

Tempera also refers to the paintings done in this medium.

Tempera paintings are very long-lasting,

And examples from the late 19th century and examples from the first centuries CE still exist.

Egg tempera was a primary method of painting until after 1500,

When it was superseded by the invention of oil painting.

A paint commonly called tempera,

Though it is not,

Consisting of pigment and glue size,

Is commonly used and referred to by some manufacturers in America as poster paint.

Fresco is any of several related mural painting types done on plaster on walls or ceilings.

The word fresco comes from the Italian word afresco,

Which derives from the Latin word for fresh.

Frescos were often made during the Renaissance and other early time periods.

Buon fresco technique consists of painting and pigment mixed with water on a thin layer of wet,

Fresh lime mortar or plaster,

For which the Italian word for plaster,

Intonaco,

Is used.

A secco painting,

In contrast,

Is done on dry plaster.

Secco is dry in Italian.

The pigments require a binding medium,

Such as egg,

Tempera,

Glue or oil to attach the pigment to the wall.

Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil,

Such as linseed oil,

Which was widely used in early modern Europe.

Often the oil was boiled with a resin,

Such as pine resin or even frankincense.

These were called varnishes and were prized for their body and gloss.

Oil paint eventually became the principal medium used for creating artworks,

As its advantages became widely known.

The transition began with early Netherlandish painting in northern Europe,

And by the height of the Renaissance,

Oil painting techniques had almost completely replaced impera paints in the majority of Europe.

Pastel is a painting medium in the form of oil painting.

Pastel is a painting medium in the form of a stick,

Consisting of pure powdered pigment and a binder.

The pigments used in pastels are the same as those used to produce all colored art media,

Including oil paints.

The binder is of a neutral hue and low saturation.

The color effect of pastels is closer to the natural dry pigments than that of any other process.

Because the surface of a pastel painting is fragile and easily smudged,

Its preservation requires protective measures,

Such as framing under glass.

It may also be sprayed with a fixative.

Nonetheless,

When made with permanent pigments and properly cared for,

A pastel painting may endure unchanged for centuries.

Pastels are not susceptible,

As are paintings made with a fluid medium,

To the cracking and discoloration that result from changes in the color,

Opacity,

Or dimensions of the medium as it dries.

Acrylic paint is fast-drying paint containing pigment suspension and acrylic polymer emulsion.

Acrylic paints can be diluted with water,

But become water-resistant when dry.

Depending on how much the paint is diluted with water or modified with acrylic gels,

Media,

Or pastes,

The finished acrylic painting can resemble a watercolor or an oil painting,

Or have its own unique characteristics not attainable with other media.

The main practical difference between most acrylics and oil paints is the inherent drying time.

Oils allow for more time to blend colors and apply even glazes over underpaintings.

This slow-drying aspect of oil can be seen as an advantage for certain techniques,

But may also impede the artist's ability to work quickly.

Another difference is that watercolors must be painted onto a porous surface,

Primarily watercolor paper.

Acrylic paints can be used on many different surfaces.

Both acrylic and watercolor are easy to clean up with water.

Acrylic paint should be cleaned with soap and water immediately following use.

Watercolor paint can be cleaned with just water.

Between 1946 and 1949,

Leonard Bakker and Sam Golden invented a solution acrylic paint under the brand MagnaPaint.

These were minimal,

Spirit-based paints.

Water-based acrylic paints were subsequently sold as latex house paints.

In 1963,

George Rowney,

Part of Daler Rowney since 1983,

Was the first manufacturer to introduce artists acrylic paints in Europe under the brand name Krilla.

Acrylics are the most common paints used in grottage,

A surrealist technique that began to be used with the advent of this type of paint.

Acrylics are used for this purpose because they easily scrape or peel from a surface.

Aerosol paint,

Also called spray paint,

Is a type of paint that comes in a sealed,

Pressurized container and is released in a fine spray mist when depressing a valve button.

A form of spray painting,

Aerosol paint,

Leaves a smooth,

Evenly coated surface.

Standard-sized cans are portable and expensive and easy to store.

Aerosol primer can be applied directly to bare metal and many plastics.

Speed,

Portability,

And permanence also make aerosol paint a common graffiti medium.

In the late 1970s,

Street graffiti writers' signatures and murals became more elaborate,

And a unique style developed as a factor of the aerosol medium and the style of the medium.

And a unique style developed as a factor of the aerosol medium and the speed required for illicit work.

Many now recognize graffiti and street art as a unique art form,

And specifically manufactured aerosol paints are made for the graffiti artist.

A stencil protects a surface,

Except the specific shape to be painted.

Stencils can be purchased as movable letters,

Ordered as professionally cut logos,

Or hand-cut by artists.

Water-missable oil paints,

Also called water-soluble or water-mixable,

Is a modern variety of oil paint engineered to be thinned and cleaned up with water,

Rather than having to use chemicals such as turpentine.

It can be mixed and applied using the same techniques as traditional oil-based paint,

But while still wet,

It can be effectively removed from brushes,

Palettes,

And rags with ordinary soap and water.

Its water solubility comes from the use of an oil medium,

In which one end of the molecule has been altered to bind loosely to water molecules,

As in a solution.

Sand painting is the art of pouring colored sands and powder pigments from minerals or crystals,

Or pigments from other natural or synthetic sources onto a surface,

To make a fixed or unfixed sand painting.

Digital painting is a method of creating an art object,

Painting,

Digitally,

Or a technique for making digital art on the computer.

As a method of creating an art object,

It adapts traditional painting mediums such as acrylic,

Paints,

Oils,

Ink,

Watercolor,

Etc.

,

And applies the pigment to traditional carriers,

Such as woven canvas cloth,

Paper,

Polyester,

Etc.

,

By means of software driving industrial robotic or office machinery printers.

By means of software driving industrial robotic or office machinery printers.

As a technique,

It refers to a computer graphics software program that uses a virtual canvas and virtual painting box of brushes,

Colors,

And other supplies.

The virtual box contains many instruments that do not exist outside the computer,

And which give a digital artwork a different look and feel from an artwork that is made the traditional way.

Furthermore,

Digital painting is not computer-generated art,

As the computer does not automatically create images on the screen using some mathematical calculations.

On the other hand,

The artist uses his own painting technique to create a particular piece of work on the computer.

Style is used in two senses.

It can refer to the distinctive visual elements,

Techniques,

And methods that typify an individual artist's work.

It can also refer to the movement or school that an artist is associated with.

This can stem from an actual group that the artist was consciously involved with,

Or it can be a category in which art historians have placed the painter.

The word style,

In the latter sense,

Has fallen out of favor in academic discussions about contemporary painting,

Though it continues to be used in popular contexts.

Such movements or classifications include the following.

Western modernism.

Modernism describes both a set of cultural tendencies and an array of associated cultural movements,

Originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

Modernism was a revolt against the conservative values of realism.

The term encompasses the activities and output of those who felt the traditional forms of art,

Architecture,

Literature,

Religious faith,

Social organization,

And daily life were becoming outdated in the new economic,

Social,

And political conditions of an emerging fully industrialized world.

A salient characteristic of modernism is self-consciousness.

This often led to experiments with form and work that draws attention to the processes and materials used,

And to the further tendency of abstraction.

Impressionism.

The first example of modernism in painting was Impressionism,

A school of painting that initially focused on work done not in studios but outdoors.

Impressionist paintings demonstrated that human beings do not see objects but instead see light itself.

The school gathered adherents despite internal divisions among its leading practitioners and became increasingly influential.

Initially rejected from the most important commercial show of the time,

The government-sponsored Paris Salon,

The Impressionists organized yearly group exhibitions in commercial venues during the 1870s and 1880s,

Timing them to coincide with the official Salon.

A significant event in 1863 was the Salon des Refusés,

Created by Emperor Napoleon III,

To display all of the paintings rejected by the Paris Salon.

Abstract styles.

Abstract painting uses a visual language of form,

Color,

And line to create a composition that may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world.

Abstract expressionism was an American post-World War II art movement that combined the emotional intensity and self-denial of the German Expressionists with the anti-figurative aesthetic of the European abstract schools,

Such as Futurism,

Bauhaus,

And Cubism.

And the image of being rebellious,

Anarchic,

Highly idiosyncratic,

And some feel nihilistic.

Action painting,

Sometimes called gestural abstraction,

Is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled,

Splashed,

Or smeared onto the canvas,

Rather than being carefully applied.

The resulting work often emphasizes the physical act of painting itself as an essential aspect of the finished work or concern of its artist.

The style was widespread from the 1940s until the early 1960s,

And is closely associated with the abstract expressionism.

Some critics have used the terms action painting and abstract expressionism interchangeably.

Other modernist styles include color field,

Lyrical abstraction,

Hard-edge painting,

And pop art.

Outsider art The term outsider art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for art brut,

French raw art or rough art.

A label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture.

Dubuffet focused particularly on art by insane asylum inmates.

Outsider art has emerged as a successful art marketing category.

An annual Outsider Art Fair has taken place in New York since 1992.

The term is sometimes misapplied as a catch-all marketing label for art created by mainstream art world,

Regardless of their circumstances or the content of their work.

Photorealism Photorealism is a genre of painting based on using the camera and photographs to gather information and then from this information creating a painting that appears to be very realistic like a photograph.

The term is primarily applied to paintings from the United States art movement that began in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

As a full-fledged art movement,

Photorealism evolved from pop art and as a counter to abstract expressionism.

Hyperrealism is a genre of painting as sculpture resembling a high-resolution photograph.

Hyperrealism is a fully-fledged school of art and can be considered an advancement of photorealism by the methods used to create the resulting paintings or sculptures.

The term is primarily applied to an independent art movement and art style in the United States and Europe that has developed since the early 2000s.

Surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s and is best known for the artistic and literary production of those affiliated with the Surrealist movement.

Surrealist artworks feature the element of surprise,

The uncanny,

The unconscious,

Unexpected juxtapositions,

And non-sequitur.

However,

Many Surrealist artists and writers regard their work as an expression of the philosophical movement first and foremost,

With the works being an artifact.

Leader Andre Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was above all a revolutionary movement.

Surrealism developed out of the Dada activities of World War I and the most important center of the movement was Paris.

From the 1920s onward,

The movement spread around the globe,

Eventually affecting the visual arts,

Literature,

Film,

And music of many countries,

As well as political thought and practice,

Philosophy,

And social theory.

Miniature paintings were the primary form of painting in pre-colonial India.

These were done on a special paper known as wasli,

Using mineral and natural colors.

Miniature painting is not one style but a group of several styles of schools of painting,

Such as Mughal,

Pahari,

Rajasthani,

Company style,

Etc.

Mughal miniature painting is a particular style of South Asia,

Particularly North Indian.

More specifically,

Modern-day India and Pakistan.

Painting confined to miniatures either as book illustrations or as single works to be kept in albums.

It emerged from Persian miniature painting,

Itself partly of Chinese origin,

And developed in the court of the Mughal Empire of the 16th to 18th centuries.

Mughal painting immediately took a much greater interest in realistic portraiture than was typical of Persian miniatures.

Animals and plants were the main subject of many miniatures for albums,

And were more realistically depicted.

Rajasthani painting evolved and flourished in the royal courts of Rajputana in northern India,

Mainly during the 17th century.

Artists such as Gautam Raghunath,

Artists trained in the tradition of the Mughal miniature were dispersed from the imperial Mughal court,

And developed styles also drawing from local traditions of painting,

Especially those illustrating the Sanskrit epics,

The Mahabharata and Ramayana.

Subjects varied,

But portraits of the ruling family,

Often engaged in hunting or their daily activities,

Were generally popular,

As were native scenes from the epics of Hindu mythology,

As well as some genre scenes of landscapes and humans.

Punjab Hills,

Or Pahari painting,

Of which Kangra,

Gulur,

Pasholi,

Or major sub-styles.

Kangra painting is the pictorial art of Kangra,

Named after Kangra,

Himachal Pradesh,

A former princely state which patronized the art.

It became prevalent with the fading of Basoli's school of painting in mid-18th century.

The focal theme of Kangra painting is Sringar.

Subjects are seen in Kangra painting exhibit the taste and the traits of the lifestyle of the society of that period.

The artists adopted themes from the love poetry of Jayadeva and Keshavdas,

Who wrote ecstatically of the love of Radha and Krishna,

With Bhakti being the driving force.

Company style is a term for a hybrid Indo-European style of paintings made in India by Indian artists,

Many of whom worked for European patrons in the British East Indian Company,

Or other foreign companies in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Three distinct styles of company painting emerged in the three British power centuries,

Delhi,

Calcutta,

And Madras.

The subject matter of company paintings made for Western patrons was often documentary rather than imaginative,

And as a consequence,

The Indian artists were required to adopt a more naturalistic approach to painting than had traditionally been usual.

The Sikh style and Deccan style are other prominent miniature painting styles of India.

Reviews

Watching paint dry would have been more exciting. 😴