OVERVIEW OF VISUAL ARTS

Types of Visual Arts

This lesson discusses the various types of visual arts and their mediums. It aims to
activate the background knowledge of the students.

Learning Outcomes
At the end of the lesson, the students must have:
1. discussed the different types of visual arts;
2. differentiated the types of visual arts based on their mediums;
3. provided specific examples of each of the various types of visual art

Painting

Painting is the process of applying pigments to a surface. Painting mediums include oil,
watercolor, tempera, and others. Canvas, wood, paper, and plaster are some of the surfaces on
which paintings are executed. Drawing is the art of representing something by lines made on a
surface or the process of portraying an object, scene, or forms of decorative or symbolic
meaning through lines, shading, and textures in one or more colors. Mediums used include
pencil, pen and ink, crayon, brush, and charcoal.

Encaustic. In the technique known as encaustic, the medium for the powdered color is
hot wax which is painted onto a wood surface with a brush. It is then smoothed with a metal
instrument resembling a spoon, and then blended and set over a flame to soften and set the
colors into the wood. This method produces durable colors and permits sculptural modeling of
the paint surface. Because of the wax medium, the colors are semi-translucent and look fresh
and lively. This technique is rare today, but it was practiced in late Roman times; for example,
we have burial portraits from Faiyum, Egypt, 2nd century, A.D.

Mosaic. The design is created by small pieces of colored glass, stone, or ceramic (called
Tesserae), embedded in wet mortar which has been spread over the surface to be decorated.
Their slightly irregular placement on a surface creates a very lively, reflective surface when
viewed at a distance. This was often used to decorate walls, floors, and ceilings. This link takes
you to an gallery of Byzantine mosaics.

Fresco. also known as Buon Fresco or True Fresco, entails painting on freshly spread,
moist plaster. First, layers of plaster are applied to the surface. While the final layer is still wet,
the artist applies the colors, which are earth pigments mixed with water. The colors penetrate
the wet plaster and combine chemically with it, producing a painted surface which does not
peel when exposed to moisture. As the paint must be painted on wet plaster, the amount of
plaster which may be put down at one time is limited to what can be painted at one sitting.
Often lines can be seen in frescos around an area which was one day's work. The painting must
be done rapidly and without mistakes. This technique was perfected in Renaissance Italy.

Examples: The Lamentation by Giotto, The Last Supper by Da Vinci, School of Athens by
Raphael, Sistine Chapel paintings by Michelangelo

Tempera. In this method, the pigment is mixed with egg yolk or both the yolk and white
of an egg. It is thinned with water and applied to a gesso ground (plaster mixed with a binding)
on a panel. It was also used on parchment or paper to illustrate or embellish books in the era
before the 15th century development of the printing press. This type of painting dries very
quickly and produces an opaque, matte surface. The colors tend to dry to a lighter value than
they appear when wet. The colors produced are bright and saturated. Modeling is achieved by
hatching. Egg tempera was used for panel painting until the 15th century. Examples of artists
that worked in egg tempera include Cimabue (14th C.); Duccio (14th C.);Andrew Wyeth (20th
C.) Islamic and Medieval miniature paintings in books and manuscripts are another important
class of egg tempera paintings; the celtic Book of Kells is a well-known early example, as is
the Book of Hours commissioned by the Duc du Berry in the 14th century.

Examples: Madonna and Child by Duccio, The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli,

Oil. Prior to the 15th century oil paints were thick and hard to control, so they were
initially used only for utilitarian purposes. In the 15th century turpentine was discovered to be
an effective thinning agent. The Van Eyck brothers were credited with perfecting the technique
of oil painting, which they initially attempted to keep secret.

Powdered colors are mixed with a fine oil, usually linseed oil. A solvent, traditionally
turpentine, is also used to thin the colors as desired, so that the paint can be applied thickly and
opaquely, or thinly and transparently. The oil paint is applied to a prepared ground, usually a
stretched canvas with a coating of neutral pigment. The earliest technique of oil painting
involved building up layers of colors, moving from darker to lighter values. Fine brushes were
used, and a glossy, smooth finish was achieved. When applied in this way, the colors are
somewhat translucent, so that the darker layers of color below added depth and luminosity to
the surface, and permitted a remarkable degree of realism. 

Other artists came to discover that because of its slow drying, oil paints could actually
be re-worked on the surface to blend colors, and when applied thickly, with a larger brush or
palette knife, could also add real surface texture to the image. This technique of applying oils
lent itself to more expressive, dramatic effects in which fine detail was less important than total

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effect. Artists who worked in this way include Rembrandt, (17th C);Monet (19th
C), Cezanne (19th c., above), William de Kooning , (20th C).

Examples: Monalisa by da Vinci, Nude Descending a Staircase by Marcel Duchamp, Whistler’s

Mother by James Whistler, The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali

Pastel. Pastels or pastel colors are the family of colors which have high value and low to
intermediate saturation.

 The name comes from pastels, art media characteristic of this color family. The colors of
this family are usually described as "soothing”, "soft", "near neutral", "milky", "washed out",
"desaturated", lacking strong chromatic content.

Pink, mauve and baby blue are typical pastel colors.

The 1980s saw a huge trend in the use of pastel colors in men's fashion. In particular,
the NBC television police series Miami Vice popularized what was already a growing trend even
further as its lead character Sonny Crocket (Don Johnson) all but exclusively wore pastel shirts
and suits, setting a fashion that stood popular even years after the show ended. The abundance
of pastel was also abundant in the shooting locations with Art Deco buildings around the Miami
area.

Examples: Woman Combing Her Hair by Edgar Degas, The Scream by Edvard Munch

Gouache. 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 watermedia, it is diluted with water

Examples: Self-Portrait by Mary Cassatt

Water Color. Powdered pigments are mixed with gum-arabic or a similar substance that
will help them adhere to a surface. The artist then mixes them with water and applies them to a
ground, usually paper, with a soft brush. The final effect is that of translucent washes of color.
This method was the most important method of painting in China and Japan from an early date,
but did not become popular with European artists until after the 16th century. Chinese and
Japanese painting techniques have had a great deal of influence on modern watercolorists.
Examples: Albrecht Durer, 16th C; John Marin, 20th C.