Post by ernesto thaddeus m. solmerano on Jun 13, 2007 19:59:57 GMT -5
Mediums Used in Visual Arts
The visual arts are a class of art forms, including painting, sculpture, film, photography, and others, that focus on the creation of works which are primarily visual in nature.
Arts or the Arts encompasses visual arts, performing arts, language arts, and culinary arts. Many artistic disciplines involve aspects of the visual arts as well other types, so these definitions are not strict.
The current usage of visual arts includes fine arts and well as crafts, but this was not always the case. In Britain and elsewhere, a visual artist referred to a person working in the fine arts (such as painting, sculpture, or printmaking) and not the handicraft, craft, or applied art disciplines. This distinction was emphasized by artists of the Arts and Crafts movement who valued vernacular artforms as much as high forms. The movement contrasted with modernists who sought to withhold the high arts from the masses by keeping them esoteric. Art schools made a distinction between the fine arts and the crafts in such a way that a craftsperson could not be considered a practitioner of art.
There may be some residual meaning of visual arts as fine art. But generally, visual arts is suitably independent of these older, loaded concepts and as such is the preferred term for work across all the disciplines in question.
A sculpture is a three-dimensional, human-made object selected for special recognition as art. A persons who creates sculptures is called a sculptor.
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the mineral calcite (calcium carbonate: CaCO3). Limestones often contain variable amounts of silica in the form of chert or flint, as well as varying amounts of clay, silt and sand as disseminations, nodules, or layers within the rock.
Limestone is partially soluble, especially in acid, and therefore forms many erosion landforms. These include limestone pavements, pot holes, cenotes, caves and gorges. Such erosion landscapes are known as karsts. Limestone is less resistant than most igneous rocks, but more resistant than most other sedimentary rocks. Limestone is therefore usually associated with hills and downland and occurs in regions with other sedimentary rocks, typically clays.
Limestone is especially popular in architecture, and many landmarks around the world, especially in North America and Europe, are made primarily of the material. So many buildings in Kingston, Ontario, Canada were constructed from it, that it was nicknamed the 'Limestone City'. Limestone is readily available and relatively easy to cut into blocks or more elaborate carving. It is also long-lasting and stands up well to exposure. However, it is a very heavy material, making it impractical for tall buildings. It is also quite expensive.
Granite is a common and widely-occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock.
Granites are usually a white, black or buff color and are medium to coarse grained, occasionally with some individual crystals larger than the groundmass forming a rock known as porphyry. Granites can be pink to dark gray or even black, depending on their chemistry and mineralogy.
Outcrops of granite tend to form tors, rounded massifs, and terrains of rounded boulders cropping out of flat, sandy soils. Granites sometimes occur in circular depressions surrounded by a range of hills, formed by the metamorphic aureole or hornfels.
Granite is nearly always massive, hard and tough, and it is for this reason it has gained widespread use as a construction stone.
The average density of granite is 2.75 g·cm−3 with a range of 1.74 g·cm−3 to 2.80 g·cm−3.
The word granite comes from the Latin granum, a grain, in reference to the coarse-grained structure of such a crystalline rock.
Granite has been extensively used as a dimension stone and as flooring tiles in public and commercial buildings and monuments. With increasing amounts of acid rain in parts of the world, granite has begun to supplant marble as a monument material, since it is much more durable. Polished granite has been a popular choice for kitchen countertops due to its high durability and aesthetic qualities.
Gold is a highly sought-after precious metal that for many centuries has been used as money, a store of value and in jewelry. The metal occurs as nuggets or grains in rocks and in alluvial deposits and is one of the coinage metals. It is a soft, shiny, yellow, dense, malleable, and ductile (trivalent and univalent) transition metal.
Gold has long been considered one of the most precious metals, and its value has been used as the standard for many currencies (known as the gold standard) in history. Gold has been used as a symbol for purity, value, royalty, and particularly roles that combine these properties.
An ornamental stone, jade is a name applied to two different rocks that are made up of different silicate minerals. Nephrite jade consists of the calcium- and magnesium-rich amphibole mineral actinolite (aggregates of which also make up one form of asbestos).
During the Stone Age of many cultures, jade was used for axe heads, knives, and weapons. As metal-working technologies became available, jade's beauty made it valuable for ornaments and decorative objects. Jade has a Mohs hardness of between 6.5 and 7.0 [1], so it can be worked with quartz or garnet sand, and polished with bamboo or even ground jade.
Ivory is a hard, white, opaque substance that is the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals such as the elephant, hippopotamus, walrus, mammoth, narwhal, etc. Prior to the introduction of plastics, it was used for billiard balls, piano keys, bagpipes, buttons and ornamental items. The word "ivory" was traditionally applied to the tusks of elephants; in fact, the word is ultimately from Ancient Egyptian âb, âbu "elephant". Plastics have been viewed by piano purists as an inferior ivory substitute on piano keys, although other recently developed materials more closely resemble the feel of real ivory.
Wood is derived from woody plants, notably trees but also shrubs. Wood from the latter is only produced in small sizes, reducing the diversity of uses.
In its most common meaning, "wood" is the secondary xylem of a woody plant, but this is an approximation only: in the wider sense, wood may refer to other materials and tissues with comparable properties. Wood is a heterogeneous, hygroscopic, cellular and anisotropic material. Wood is composed of fibers of cellulose (40%–50%) and hemicellulose (15%–25%) held together by lignin (15%–30%) [1].
Terra cotta (Italian: "baked earth") is a waterproof ceramic. Its uses include vessels, water & waste water pipes and surface embellishment in building construction. The term is also used to refer to items made out of this material and to its natural, brownish orange color.
As compared to bronze sculpture, terra cotta uses a far simpler process for creating the finished work. Reusable mold-making techniques may be used for series production. Compared to marble sculpture and other stonework the finished product is far lighter and may be further glazed to produce objects with color or durable simulations of metal patina. Robust durable works for outdoor use require greater thickness and so will be heavier, with more care needed in the drying of the unfinished piece to prevent cracking as the material shrinks. Structural considerations are similar to those required for stone sculpture.
Glass is a uniform amorphous solid material, usually produced when the viscous molten material cools very rapidly to below its glass transition temperature, without sufficient time for a regular crystal lattice to form. The most familiar form of glass is the silica-based material used for windows, containers and decorative objects.
In its pure form glass is a transparent, strong, hard-wearing, essentially inert, and biologically inactive material that can be formed with very smooth and impervious surfaces. Glass is, however, brittle and will break into sharp shards. These properties can be modified or changed with the addition of other compounds or heat treatment.
Aluminium is found primarily as the ore bauxite and is remarkable for its resistance to corrosion (due to the phenomenon of passivation) and its light weight. Aluminium is used in many industries to make millions of different products and is very important to the world economy. Structural components made from aluminium and its alloys are vital to the aerospace industry and very important in other areas of transportation and building in which light weight, durability, and strength are needed.
Bronze refers to a broad range of copper alloys, usually with tin as the main additive, but sometimes with other elements such as phosphorus, manganese, aluminum, or silicon.
With the exception of steel, bronze is superior to iron in nearly every application. Although bronze develops a patina, it does not oxidize beyond the surface. It is considerably less brittle than iron and has a lower casting temperature.
Steel is a metal alloy whose major component is iron, with carbon content between 0.02% and 1.7% by weight. Carbon is the most cost effective alloying material for iron, but many other alloying elements are also used.[1] Carbon and other elements act as a hardening agent, preventing dislocations in the iron atom crystal lattice from sliding past one another. Varying the amount of alloying elements and their distribution in the steel controls qualities such as the hardness, elasticity, ductility, and tensile strength of the resulting steel. Steel with increased carbon content can be made harder and stronger than iron, but is also more brittle.
Marble is a metamorphic rock resulting from the metamorphism of limestone, composed mostly of calcite (a crystalline form of calcium carbonate, CaCO3). It is extensively used for sculpture, as a building material, and in many other applications. The word 'marble' is colloquially used to refer to many other stones that are capable of taking a high polish.
Diamond is the hardest known natural material and one of the two best known forms (or allotropes) of carbon, whose hardness and high dispersion of light make it useful for industrial applications and jewelry. (The other equally well known allotrope is graphite.) Diamonds are specifically renowned as a mineral with superlative physical qualities — they make excellent abrasives because they can be scratched only by other diamonds, Borazon, ultrahard fullerite, or aggregated diamond nanorods, which also means they hold a polish extremely well and retain luster.
The name “diamond” derives from the ancient Greek adamas (αδάμας; “invincible”). They have been treasured as gemstones since their use as religious icons in India at least 2,500 years ago—and usage in drill bits and engraving tools also dates to early human history.
Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating to high temperature selected and refined materials often including clay in the form of kaolinite. One widely recognised definition is from the Combined Nomenclature of the European Communities which states porcelain is “completely vitrified, hard, impermeable (even before glazing), white or artificially coloured, translucent (except when of considerable thickness) and resonant
Raw materials for porcelain, when mixed with water, form a plastic paste that can be worked to a required shape or form before firing in a kiln at temperatures between about 1200 degrees Celsius and about 1400 degrees Celsius. The toughness, strength, and translucence of porcelain arise mainly from the formation at high temperatures of the mineral mullite and glass.
Porcelain was named after its resemblance to the white, shiny Venus-shell, called in old Italian porcella. The curved shape of the upper surface of the Venus-shell resembles the curve of a pig's back (Latin porcella, a little pig, a pig).
Properties associated with porcelain include low permeability, high strength, hardness, glassiness, durability, whiteness, translucence, resonance, brittleness, high resistance to the passage of electricity, high resistance to chemical attack, high resistance to thermal shock, and high elasticity.
Porcelain is used to make wares for the table and kitchen, sanitary wares, decorative wares, objects of fine art, and tile. Its high resistance to the passage of electricity makes porcelain an excellent insulating material. It is also used in dentistry to make false teeth, caps, and crowns.
Painting taken literally is the practice of applying pigment suspended in a liquid vehicle (such as water, oil, saliva, arabic gum or other liquid) to a surface (support) such as paper, canvas, wood or a wall. However, when used in an artistic sense it means the use of this activity in combination with drawing, composition and other aesthetic considerations in order to manifest the expressive and conceptual intention of the practitioner.
Painting is used as a mode of representing, documenting and expressing all the varied intents and subjects that are as numerous as there are practitioners of the craft. Paintings can be naturalistic and representational (as in a still life or landscape painting), photographic, abstract, be loaded with narrative content, symbolism, emotion or be political in nature. A large portion of the history of painting is dominated by spiritual motifs and ideas; sites 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 depictions of the human body itself as a spiritual subject.
A pigment is a material that changes the color of light it reflects as the result of selective color absorption. This physical process differs from fluorescence, phosphorescence, and other forms of luminescence, in which the material itself emits light.
Watercolor (or watercolour also known as aquarelle) is a painting technique using paint made of colorants suspended or dissolved in water. Although the grounds used in watercolor painting vary, the most common is paper. Others include papyrus, bark papers, plastics, leather, fabric, wood, and canvas.
The broader term for water-based painting media is watermedia. The term watercolor most often to refers to traditional transparent watercolor or gouache (an opaque form of the same paint).
Watercolor paint is made of finely-ground pigment or dye mixed with gum arabic for body, and glycerin or honey for viscosity and to bond the colorant to the painting surface. Unpigmented filler is added to gouache to lend opacity to the paint. Oil of clove is used to prevent mold.
Watercolor paints vary in their transparency, some being less transparent (more covering) than others. The more transparent paints allow the paper (or an undercolor) to show through while others allow less of the undercolor to be seen.
A fresco (plural frescoes) is a term for several related painting types. The word comes from the Italian affresco which in turn derives from fresco ("fresh"), which has Germanic origins. Fresco paintings can be done in two ways: Buon fresco paintings are done on wet plaster, while a secco paintings are completed on dried plaster.
In painting a fresco, the surface of a plastered wall is divided into areas roughly corresponding to the contours of the figures or the landscape, generally drawn on a rough underlayer of plaster, called the arriccio. Many artists sketched their compositions on this underlayer, which would never be seen, in a red pigment called sinopia. From this pigment, the underdrawing acquired its name, the sinopia. On top of this first, rough layer of plaster, a second layer is added, called the intonaco. This is the final layer, and would be smoothed and perfected as the painting surface.
Tempera (or egg tempera) is the primary type of artist's paint and associated art techniques that were prevalent in Europe's Middle Ages, and the required medium for Orthodox icons. It is paint made by binding pigment in an egg medium. However, the term tempera in modern times is also used by some manufacturers to refer to ordinary poster paint, which is a form of gouache that has nothing to do with real egg tempera.
Tempera was traditionally created by hand-grinding dry powdered pigments into egg yolk (which was the primary binding agent or medium), sometimes along with other materials such as honey, water, milk (in the form of casein) and a variety of plant gums. After the invention of oil paint in the Late Middle Ages, tempera continued to be used for awhile as the underpainting (base layer) with translucent or transparent oil glazes on top.
Oil painting is done on surfaces with pigments that are ground and mixed into a medium of oil — especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Other oils occasionally used include poppyseed oil, walnut oil, and safflower oil. These oils give various properties to the oil paint, such as less yellowing or different drying times. Certain differences are also visible in the sheen of the paints depending on the oil. Painters often use different oils in the same painting depending on specific pigments and effects desired. The paints themselves also develop a particular feel depending on the mediums. A basic rule of oil paint application is 'fat over lean.' This means that each additional layer of paint should be a bit oilier than the layer below, to allow proper drying. Traditional oil painting techniques often begin with paint mixed with turpentine. As a painting gets additional layers, the paint must get oilier (leaner to fatter) or the final painting will crack and peel. There are many other painting mediums that can by used in oil painting, including cold wax, resins, and varnishes.
The term stained glass refers either to the material of coloured glass or to the art and craft of working with it.
As a material the term generally refers to glass that has been coloured by adding metallic salts during its manufacture. Painted details and yellow stain are often used to enhance the design. The term is also applied to windows in which all the colours have been painted onto the glass and then annealed in a furnace.
Stained glass, as an art and a craft, requires the artistic skill to conceive the design, and the engineering skills necessary to assemble the decorative piece, traditionally a window, so that it is capable of supporting its own weight and surviving the elements.
Oil pastel is a painting and drawing medium with characteristics similar to pastels and wax crayons. Unlike "soft" or "French" pastel sticks, which are made with a gum or methyl cellulose binder, oil pastels consist of pigment mixed with a non-drying oil and wax binder. The surface of an oil pastel painting is therefore less powdery, but more difficult to protect with a fixative.
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.
A mural is a painting on a wall, ceiling, or other large permanent surface. Murals of sorts date to prehistoric times such as the paintings on the Caves of Lascaux in southern France, but the term became famous with the Mexican muralista art movement (Diego Rivera, es:Pedro Nel Gómez, David Siqueiros, José Orozco or Rufino Tamayo). There are many techniques. The best-known is probably "fresco", which uses water soluble paints with a damp lime wash, a rapid use of the resulting mixture over a large surface, and often in parts (but with a sense of the whole). The colors lighten when dried. Murals today may be painted in a variety of ways, using oil or water based media.
Tapestry is a form of textile art. It is woven by hand on a weaving-loom. It is weft-faced weaving, which means that all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike cloth weaving where both the warp and the weft threads are visible. In this way, a colourful pattern or image is created. Most weavers use a naturally based warp thread such as linen or cotton. The weft threads are usually wool or cotton, but may include silk, wool, gold or silver, or other alternatives.
A woodcut is a wooden printing surface used in woodblock printing, a method in which an image is carved into the surface of a piece of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges.
Acrylic paint is fast-drying paint containing pigment suspended in an 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), the finished acrylic painting can resemble a watercolor or an oil painting.
The visual arts are a class of art forms, including painting, sculpture, film, photography, and others, that focus on the creation of works which are primarily visual in nature.
Arts or the Arts encompasses visual arts, performing arts, language arts, and culinary arts. Many artistic disciplines involve aspects of the visual arts as well other types, so these definitions are not strict.
The current usage of visual arts includes fine arts and well as crafts, but this was not always the case. In Britain and elsewhere, a visual artist referred to a person working in the fine arts (such as painting, sculpture, or printmaking) and not the handicraft, craft, or applied art disciplines. This distinction was emphasized by artists of the Arts and Crafts movement who valued vernacular artforms as much as high forms. The movement contrasted with modernists who sought to withhold the high arts from the masses by keeping them esoteric. Art schools made a distinction between the fine arts and the crafts in such a way that a craftsperson could not be considered a practitioner of art.
There may be some residual meaning of visual arts as fine art. But generally, visual arts is suitably independent of these older, loaded concepts and as such is the preferred term for work across all the disciplines in question.
A sculpture is a three-dimensional, human-made object selected for special recognition as art. A persons who creates sculptures is called a sculptor.
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the mineral calcite (calcium carbonate: CaCO3). Limestones often contain variable amounts of silica in the form of chert or flint, as well as varying amounts of clay, silt and sand as disseminations, nodules, or layers within the rock.
Limestone is partially soluble, especially in acid, and therefore forms many erosion landforms. These include limestone pavements, pot holes, cenotes, caves and gorges. Such erosion landscapes are known as karsts. Limestone is less resistant than most igneous rocks, but more resistant than most other sedimentary rocks. Limestone is therefore usually associated with hills and downland and occurs in regions with other sedimentary rocks, typically clays.
Limestone is especially popular in architecture, and many landmarks around the world, especially in North America and Europe, are made primarily of the material. So many buildings in Kingston, Ontario, Canada were constructed from it, that it was nicknamed the 'Limestone City'. Limestone is readily available and relatively easy to cut into blocks or more elaborate carving. It is also long-lasting and stands up well to exposure. However, it is a very heavy material, making it impractical for tall buildings. It is also quite expensive.
Granite is a common and widely-occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock.
Granites are usually a white, black or buff color and are medium to coarse grained, occasionally with some individual crystals larger than the groundmass forming a rock known as porphyry. Granites can be pink to dark gray or even black, depending on their chemistry and mineralogy.
Outcrops of granite tend to form tors, rounded massifs, and terrains of rounded boulders cropping out of flat, sandy soils. Granites sometimes occur in circular depressions surrounded by a range of hills, formed by the metamorphic aureole or hornfels.
Granite is nearly always massive, hard and tough, and it is for this reason it has gained widespread use as a construction stone.
The average density of granite is 2.75 g·cm−3 with a range of 1.74 g·cm−3 to 2.80 g·cm−3.
The word granite comes from the Latin granum, a grain, in reference to the coarse-grained structure of such a crystalline rock.
Granite has been extensively used as a dimension stone and as flooring tiles in public and commercial buildings and monuments. With increasing amounts of acid rain in parts of the world, granite has begun to supplant marble as a monument material, since it is much more durable. Polished granite has been a popular choice for kitchen countertops due to its high durability and aesthetic qualities.
Gold is a highly sought-after precious metal that for many centuries has been used as money, a store of value and in jewelry. The metal occurs as nuggets or grains in rocks and in alluvial deposits and is one of the coinage metals. It is a soft, shiny, yellow, dense, malleable, and ductile (trivalent and univalent) transition metal.
Gold has long been considered one of the most precious metals, and its value has been used as the standard for many currencies (known as the gold standard) in history. Gold has been used as a symbol for purity, value, royalty, and particularly roles that combine these properties.
An ornamental stone, jade is a name applied to two different rocks that are made up of different silicate minerals. Nephrite jade consists of the calcium- and magnesium-rich amphibole mineral actinolite (aggregates of which also make up one form of asbestos).
During the Stone Age of many cultures, jade was used for axe heads, knives, and weapons. As metal-working technologies became available, jade's beauty made it valuable for ornaments and decorative objects. Jade has a Mohs hardness of between 6.5 and 7.0 [1], so it can be worked with quartz or garnet sand, and polished with bamboo or even ground jade.
Ivory is a hard, white, opaque substance that is the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals such as the elephant, hippopotamus, walrus, mammoth, narwhal, etc. Prior to the introduction of plastics, it was used for billiard balls, piano keys, bagpipes, buttons and ornamental items. The word "ivory" was traditionally applied to the tusks of elephants; in fact, the word is ultimately from Ancient Egyptian âb, âbu "elephant". Plastics have been viewed by piano purists as an inferior ivory substitute on piano keys, although other recently developed materials more closely resemble the feel of real ivory.
Wood is derived from woody plants, notably trees but also shrubs. Wood from the latter is only produced in small sizes, reducing the diversity of uses.
In its most common meaning, "wood" is the secondary xylem of a woody plant, but this is an approximation only: in the wider sense, wood may refer to other materials and tissues with comparable properties. Wood is a heterogeneous, hygroscopic, cellular and anisotropic material. Wood is composed of fibers of cellulose (40%–50%) and hemicellulose (15%–25%) held together by lignin (15%–30%) [1].
Terra cotta (Italian: "baked earth") is a waterproof ceramic. Its uses include vessels, water & waste water pipes and surface embellishment in building construction. The term is also used to refer to items made out of this material and to its natural, brownish orange color.
As compared to bronze sculpture, terra cotta uses a far simpler process for creating the finished work. Reusable mold-making techniques may be used for series production. Compared to marble sculpture and other stonework the finished product is far lighter and may be further glazed to produce objects with color or durable simulations of metal patina. Robust durable works for outdoor use require greater thickness and so will be heavier, with more care needed in the drying of the unfinished piece to prevent cracking as the material shrinks. Structural considerations are similar to those required for stone sculpture.
Glass is a uniform amorphous solid material, usually produced when the viscous molten material cools very rapidly to below its glass transition temperature, without sufficient time for a regular crystal lattice to form. The most familiar form of glass is the silica-based material used for windows, containers and decorative objects.
In its pure form glass is a transparent, strong, hard-wearing, essentially inert, and biologically inactive material that can be formed with very smooth and impervious surfaces. Glass is, however, brittle and will break into sharp shards. These properties can be modified or changed with the addition of other compounds or heat treatment.
Aluminium is found primarily as the ore bauxite and is remarkable for its resistance to corrosion (due to the phenomenon of passivation) and its light weight. Aluminium is used in many industries to make millions of different products and is very important to the world economy. Structural components made from aluminium and its alloys are vital to the aerospace industry and very important in other areas of transportation and building in which light weight, durability, and strength are needed.
Bronze refers to a broad range of copper alloys, usually with tin as the main additive, but sometimes with other elements such as phosphorus, manganese, aluminum, or silicon.
With the exception of steel, bronze is superior to iron in nearly every application. Although bronze develops a patina, it does not oxidize beyond the surface. It is considerably less brittle than iron and has a lower casting temperature.
Steel is a metal alloy whose major component is iron, with carbon content between 0.02% and 1.7% by weight. Carbon is the most cost effective alloying material for iron, but many other alloying elements are also used.[1] Carbon and other elements act as a hardening agent, preventing dislocations in the iron atom crystal lattice from sliding past one another. Varying the amount of alloying elements and their distribution in the steel controls qualities such as the hardness, elasticity, ductility, and tensile strength of the resulting steel. Steel with increased carbon content can be made harder and stronger than iron, but is also more brittle.
Marble is a metamorphic rock resulting from the metamorphism of limestone, composed mostly of calcite (a crystalline form of calcium carbonate, CaCO3). It is extensively used for sculpture, as a building material, and in many other applications. The word 'marble' is colloquially used to refer to many other stones that are capable of taking a high polish.
Diamond is the hardest known natural material and one of the two best known forms (or allotropes) of carbon, whose hardness and high dispersion of light make it useful for industrial applications and jewelry. (The other equally well known allotrope is graphite.) Diamonds are specifically renowned as a mineral with superlative physical qualities — they make excellent abrasives because they can be scratched only by other diamonds, Borazon, ultrahard fullerite, or aggregated diamond nanorods, which also means they hold a polish extremely well and retain luster.
The name “diamond” derives from the ancient Greek adamas (αδάμας; “invincible”). They have been treasured as gemstones since their use as religious icons in India at least 2,500 years ago—and usage in drill bits and engraving tools also dates to early human history.
Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating to high temperature selected and refined materials often including clay in the form of kaolinite. One widely recognised definition is from the Combined Nomenclature of the European Communities which states porcelain is “completely vitrified, hard, impermeable (even before glazing), white or artificially coloured, translucent (except when of considerable thickness) and resonant
Raw materials for porcelain, when mixed with water, form a plastic paste that can be worked to a required shape or form before firing in a kiln at temperatures between about 1200 degrees Celsius and about 1400 degrees Celsius. The toughness, strength, and translucence of porcelain arise mainly from the formation at high temperatures of the mineral mullite and glass.
Porcelain was named after its resemblance to the white, shiny Venus-shell, called in old Italian porcella. The curved shape of the upper surface of the Venus-shell resembles the curve of a pig's back (Latin porcella, a little pig, a pig).
Properties associated with porcelain include low permeability, high strength, hardness, glassiness, durability, whiteness, translucence, resonance, brittleness, high resistance to the passage of electricity, high resistance to chemical attack, high resistance to thermal shock, and high elasticity.
Porcelain is used to make wares for the table and kitchen, sanitary wares, decorative wares, objects of fine art, and tile. Its high resistance to the passage of electricity makes porcelain an excellent insulating material. It is also used in dentistry to make false teeth, caps, and crowns.
Painting taken literally is the practice of applying pigment suspended in a liquid vehicle (such as water, oil, saliva, arabic gum or other liquid) to a surface (support) such as paper, canvas, wood or a wall. However, when used in an artistic sense it means the use of this activity in combination with drawing, composition and other aesthetic considerations in order to manifest the expressive and conceptual intention of the practitioner.
Painting is used as a mode of representing, documenting and expressing all the varied intents and subjects that are as numerous as there are practitioners of the craft. Paintings can be naturalistic and representational (as in a still life or landscape painting), photographic, abstract, be loaded with narrative content, symbolism, emotion or be political in nature. A large portion of the history of painting is dominated by spiritual motifs and ideas; sites 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 depictions of the human body itself as a spiritual subject.
A pigment is a material that changes the color of light it reflects as the result of selective color absorption. This physical process differs from fluorescence, phosphorescence, and other forms of luminescence, in which the material itself emits light.
Watercolor (or watercolour also known as aquarelle) is a painting technique using paint made of colorants suspended or dissolved in water. Although the grounds used in watercolor painting vary, the most common is paper. Others include papyrus, bark papers, plastics, leather, fabric, wood, and canvas.
The broader term for water-based painting media is watermedia. The term watercolor most often to refers to traditional transparent watercolor or gouache (an opaque form of the same paint).
Watercolor paint is made of finely-ground pigment or dye mixed with gum arabic for body, and glycerin or honey for viscosity and to bond the colorant to the painting surface. Unpigmented filler is added to gouache to lend opacity to the paint. Oil of clove is used to prevent mold.
Watercolor paints vary in their transparency, some being less transparent (more covering) than others. The more transparent paints allow the paper (or an undercolor) to show through while others allow less of the undercolor to be seen.
A fresco (plural frescoes) is a term for several related painting types. The word comes from the Italian affresco which in turn derives from fresco ("fresh"), which has Germanic origins. Fresco paintings can be done in two ways: Buon fresco paintings are done on wet plaster, while a secco paintings are completed on dried plaster.
In painting a fresco, the surface of a plastered wall is divided into areas roughly corresponding to the contours of the figures or the landscape, generally drawn on a rough underlayer of plaster, called the arriccio. Many artists sketched their compositions on this underlayer, which would never be seen, in a red pigment called sinopia. From this pigment, the underdrawing acquired its name, the sinopia. On top of this first, rough layer of plaster, a second layer is added, called the intonaco. This is the final layer, and would be smoothed and perfected as the painting surface.
Tempera (or egg tempera) is the primary type of artist's paint and associated art techniques that were prevalent in Europe's Middle Ages, and the required medium for Orthodox icons. It is paint made by binding pigment in an egg medium. However, the term tempera in modern times is also used by some manufacturers to refer to ordinary poster paint, which is a form of gouache that has nothing to do with real egg tempera.
Tempera was traditionally created by hand-grinding dry powdered pigments into egg yolk (which was the primary binding agent or medium), sometimes along with other materials such as honey, water, milk (in the form of casein) and a variety of plant gums. After the invention of oil paint in the Late Middle Ages, tempera continued to be used for awhile as the underpainting (base layer) with translucent or transparent oil glazes on top.
Oil painting is done on surfaces with pigments that are ground and mixed into a medium of oil — especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Other oils occasionally used include poppyseed oil, walnut oil, and safflower oil. These oils give various properties to the oil paint, such as less yellowing or different drying times. Certain differences are also visible in the sheen of the paints depending on the oil. Painters often use different oils in the same painting depending on specific pigments and effects desired. The paints themselves also develop a particular feel depending on the mediums. A basic rule of oil paint application is 'fat over lean.' This means that each additional layer of paint should be a bit oilier than the layer below, to allow proper drying. Traditional oil painting techniques often begin with paint mixed with turpentine. As a painting gets additional layers, the paint must get oilier (leaner to fatter) or the final painting will crack and peel. There are many other painting mediums that can by used in oil painting, including cold wax, resins, and varnishes.
The term stained glass refers either to the material of coloured glass or to the art and craft of working with it.
As a material the term generally refers to glass that has been coloured by adding metallic salts during its manufacture. Painted details and yellow stain are often used to enhance the design. The term is also applied to windows in which all the colours have been painted onto the glass and then annealed in a furnace.
Stained glass, as an art and a craft, requires the artistic skill to conceive the design, and the engineering skills necessary to assemble the decorative piece, traditionally a window, so that it is capable of supporting its own weight and surviving the elements.
Oil pastel is a painting and drawing medium with characteristics similar to pastels and wax crayons. Unlike "soft" or "French" pastel sticks, which are made with a gum or methyl cellulose binder, oil pastels consist of pigment mixed with a non-drying oil and wax binder. The surface of an oil pastel painting is therefore less powdery, but more difficult to protect with a fixative.
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.
A mural is a painting on a wall, ceiling, or other large permanent surface. Murals of sorts date to prehistoric times such as the paintings on the Caves of Lascaux in southern France, but the term became famous with the Mexican muralista art movement (Diego Rivera, es:Pedro Nel Gómez, David Siqueiros, José Orozco or Rufino Tamayo). There are many techniques. The best-known is probably "fresco", which uses water soluble paints with a damp lime wash, a rapid use of the resulting mixture over a large surface, and often in parts (but with a sense of the whole). The colors lighten when dried. Murals today may be painted in a variety of ways, using oil or water based media.
Tapestry is a form of textile art. It is woven by hand on a weaving-loom. It is weft-faced weaving, which means that all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike cloth weaving where both the warp and the weft threads are visible. In this way, a colourful pattern or image is created. Most weavers use a naturally based warp thread such as linen or cotton. The weft threads are usually wool or cotton, but may include silk, wool, gold or silver, or other alternatives.
A woodcut is a wooden printing surface used in woodblock printing, a method in which an image is carved into the surface of a piece of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges.
Acrylic paint is fast-drying paint containing pigment suspended in an 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), the finished acrylic painting can resemble a watercolor or an oil painting.