Painting

Objectives:

a. Define painting
b. Identify the development of painting
c. Familiarize the famous paintings
d. Appreciate the importance of Paintings in life.

Painting is the application of pigments to a support surface that establishes an image,

design or decoration. In art the term “painting” describes both the act and the result.
Most painting is created with pigment in liquid form and applied with a brush.
Exceptions to this are found in Navajo sand painting and Tibetan mandala painting,
where powdered pigments are used. Painting as a medium has survived for thousands
of years and is, along with drawing and sculpture, one of the oldest creative media. It’s
used in some form by cultures around the world.

Three of the most recognizable images in Western art history are paintings: Leonardo da
Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Edvard Munch’s The Scream and Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night. These
three art works are examples of how painting can go beyond a simple mimetic function, that is,
to only imitate what is seen. The power in great painting is that it transcends perceptions to
reflect emotional, psychological, even spiritual levels of the human condition.

Painting media are extremely versatile because they can be applied to many different surfaces
(called supports) including paper, wood, canvas, plaster, clay, lacquer and concrete. Because
paint is usually applied in a liquid or semi-liquid state it has the ability to soak into porous
support material, which can, over time, weaken and damage it. To prevent this a support is
usually first covered with a ground, a mixture of binder and chalk that, when dry, creates a non-
porous layer between the support and the painted surface. A typical ground is gesso.

There are six major painting media, each with specific individual characteristics:

 Encaustic
 Tempera
 Fresco
 Oil
 Acrylic
 Watercolor
All of them use the following three basic ingredients:

 Pigment
 Binder
 Solvent (also called the “vehicle”)
Development of Painting

Pre-Historic Painting(40,000 BC 9000 BC)

Animal spear and other rudimentary materials were utilized to produced pre-historic paintings.
These works of art were drawn on caves, stones and on earth –filled ground. The drawing or
illustrations dealt heavily with hunting and employed stylistic treatment.

10 Prehistoric Cave paintings

1. Magura Cave

The Magura Cave is one of the largest caves in Bulgaria located in the northwest part of the
country. The cave walls are decorated by prehistoric cave paintings dating back about 8000 to
4000 years ago. More than 700 drawings have been discovered on the cave walls. They are
painted with bat guano (bat excrement) and represent hunting and dancing people as well as a
large variety of animals.
2. Cueva de las Manos

Cueva de las Manos is a cave located in an isolated area in the Patagonian landscape of
southern Argentina. It takes its name (Cave of the Hands) from the stencilled outlines of human
hands, but there are also many depictions of guanacos, rheas and other animals, as well as
hunting scenes. Most of the hands are left hands, which suggests that painters held a spraying
pipe with their right hand. The paintings are thought to have been created between 13,000 and
9,500 years ago.

3. Bhimbetka

wikipedia/Raveesh Vyas

Located in central India, Bhimbetka contains over 600 rock shelters decorated with prehistoric
cave paintings. Executed mainly in red and white with the occasional use of green and yellow
the paintings usually depict the lives and times of the people who lived in the caves. Animals
such as bisons, tigers, lions, and crocodiles have also been abundantly depicted in some caves.
The oldest paintings are considered to be 12,000 years old.
4.Serra da Capivara

The Serra da Capivara National Park in northeast Brazil is home to numerous rock shelters that
are decorated with cave paintings. The paintings include scenes of rituals and hunting, trees
and animals capivaras. Some scientists believe that the oldest cave paintings in the park are
created 25,000 years ago. This is disputed by several geneticists however as this would conflict
the currently accepted date of human settlement in the Americas.

4. Lass Gaal

Laas Gaal is a complex of caves and rock shelters in northwestern Somalia that contain some of
the earliest known rock art in the Horn of Africa and the African continent in general. The
prehistoric cave paintings are estimated to be between 11,000 and 5,000 years old. They show
cows in ceremonial robes accompanied by humans, domesticated dogs and even a giraffe. The
cave paintings are excellently preserved and retain their clear outlines and strong colors.
5. Tadrart Acacus

wikipedia/Roberto D'Angelo
Tadrart Acacus form a mountain range in the Sahara desert of western Libya. The area is known
for its rock paintings dating from 12,000 BC to 100 AD. The paintings reflect the changing
environment of the Sahara desert which used to have a much wetter climate. Nine thousand
years ago the surroundings were green with lakes and forests and with large herds of wild
animals as demonstrated by rock paintings at Tadrart Aracus of animals such as giraffes,
elephants and ostriches.

6.Chauvet Cave
The Chauvet Cave in southern France contains some of earliest known prehistoric cave
paintings in the world. Based on radiocarbon dating the oldest paintings in the cave may be up
to 32,000 years old. The cave was discovered in 1994 by Jean-Marie Chauvet and his team of
speleologists. These paintings contain images of animals such as the ibex, mammoth, horses,
lions, bears, rhinos and lions. Advanced techniques such as the use of perspective is clearly
demonstrated in the ‘panel of horses’ which shows several animals on the same plane.

6. Kakadu rock painting

Located in the Northern Territory of Australia, Kakadu National Park contains one of the
greatest concentrations of Aboriginal art sites in Australia. Approximately 5000 art sites have
been discovered in Kakadu along the escarpment and on rock outliers. The Aboriginal painting
are estimated to range in age from 20,000 years to the recent present although most of the
paintings are less than 1500 years old. The site at Ubirr has some of the finest examples of “X-
ray art” in the world. The Aboriginals not only painted the outside but also the bones and
internal organs of the animals.

7. Altamira cave
Discovered in the late 19th century, the Altamira Cave in northern Spain was the first cave in
which prehistoric paintings were discovered. The paintings were of such an astounding quality
that the scientific society doubted their authenticy and even accused it’s discoverer Marcelino
Sanz de Sautuola of forgery. Many people simply did not believe prehistoric man had the
intellectual capacity to produce any kind of artistic expression. It was not until 1902 when the
paintings were acknowledged as genuine. The charcoal and ochre images of horses, bison and
handprints in the Altamira Cave are among the best preserved cave paintings in the world.

7. Lascaux Cave

Nicknamed “the prehistoric Sistine Chapel”, the Lascaux Caves are a cave complex in
southwestern France decorated with some of the most impressive and famous cave paintings in
the world. The Lascaux paintings are estimated to be 17,000 years old. Most of the cave
paintings are situated quite a distance away from the entrance and must have been created
with the aid of candles. The most famous cave painting is The Great Hall of the Bulls where
bulls, horses and deers are depicted. One of the bulls is 5.2 meters (17 feet) long, the largest
animal discovered so far in any cave.

Due to the damage resulting from too many people visiting the caves, the Lascaux paintings
have been permanently closed to the public. The French