What Is A Painting

What is a Painting

1. A layer of pigments applied to a surface.
2. An arrangement of shapes and colors. (in a certain relationship to each other.)
3. A projection of the personality of the person who painted it.
4. A philosophy pf the age that produced it.
5. It can have a meaning beyond anything concerned with only one man or one period of time.
6. Most people see a painting as a picture of something, a pretty woman, a landscape, seascape, cityscape, a vase of flowers etc.

Beyond the subject of the picture the average person (lay person) sees very little. It is simple to judge the merits of a painting first to the extent that the subject looks real and second to the extent that the subject conforms to established ideas of what is entertaining ( little boy stealing cookies)  or beautiful (vase of flowers) or uplifting (Madonna) or simply informative!

Painting therefore does admittedly begin with a subject but the subject should be only a point of departure. Remember: What is the subject of arrangement in gray and black?
The mood of a painting may be suggested by the subject, but it is completed by the arrangement of shapes and colors and the relationship the artist establishes among them. This is called “composition” and it is the most  important single factor in the expressive quality of a painting!!

Author unknown; submitted by LaVerne Arkenberg