Painting. Media. Techniques. Styles.

Painting as a Language

Painting is a form of communication. Just as an actor communicates through words, so the painter communicates through colours and shapes. Painting is a special type of language. It expresses feelings and ideas about a subject.

Painters have a wide range of subjects to choose from. Painters may paint portraits (pictures of people). They may paint landscapes (outdoor scenes) or still lives (arrangements of objects indoors). Painters may paint events, which took place long ago, in historical or religious paintings. They may paint scenes from their everyday lives. They can also paint things that they dream. In fact, painters can paint any subject that appeals to them.

There are many ways for a painter to communicate about these subjects. Some paintings are realistic. They look very much like photographs of the subject. Other paintings are abstract. In these paintings, the painter does not paint the subject itself. Instead, the painter paints only his or her feelings about the subject.

Exercise 5. Are the following sentences true or false? Write T or F in the brackets.

1. ( ) Painting is a form of communication.

2. ( ) Painting cannot express feelings and ideas it is just subject.

3. ( ) Painters may paint events which took place long ago

4. ( ) In abstract paintings the painters sometimes paint the subject itself.

Exercise 6. Answer the following questions:

a) Do you agree that painting can be compared with a language? Can you prove it?

b) Can we compare realistic painting with photographs; if so, can realistic painting be replaced by photographs in future?

c) Do you like the way of treating the difference between abstract and realistic painting in the text “Painting as a Language”?

Exercise 7. Find the words in the table that are:

a) Painting media and techniques;

b) Painting process;

c) Pictures.

Exercise 8. Explain the meanings of the following terms in English:

• sketch • image
• to make a rough • grisaille
• distance • wall painting
• finger painting • mural painting
• still life portrait • freehand drawing

Exercise 9. Match these words with the appropriate definitions.

a) Still Life 1. The art of depicting natural scenery in painting.
b) Landscape Painting 2. A picture of inanimate objects, such as fruit, flowers, dishes, books, or musical instruments, usually grouped on a flat surface.
c) Seascape 3. Pain painting, photograph, or drawing of somebody, somebody’s face, or a related group.
d) Battle painting   4. A pai morous drawing often published in a newspaper or magazine and commenting on a topical event or theme.
e) Portrait 5. Painting or picture of the battle.  
f) Cartoon 6. Painting or picture of the sea, or a view of the sea.

Exercise 10. Translate into Ukrainian and make up your own sentences with the underlined verbs.

a) She's no oil painting.

b) Their request for more funds was brushed aside.

c) He picked himself up from the ground and brushed himself down.

d) The minister brushed off questions about her personal finances.

e) I need to brush up on my Spanish before we go on holiday.

f) The figures on the side were painted in at a later date.

g) Volunteers spent two hours picking up litter and painting out graffiti

h) I've commissioned him to make a sketch of the park for me.

 

 

Exercise 11. Read and translate the text.

Painting. Media. Techniques. Styles.

Painting is a branch of the visual arts in which colour, derived from any of numerous organic or synthetic substances, is applied to various surfaces to create a representational or abstract picture or design.

Fresco painting, which reached its heights in the late Middle Ages and throughout the Renaissance, involves the application of paint to wet, or fresh, plaster or to dry plaster.

Tempera painting, another older form, involves the use of powdered pigments mixed with egg yolk applied to a prepared surface — usually a wood panel covered with linen.

Oil painting, which largely supplanted the use of fresco and tempera during the Renaissance, was traditionally thought to have been developed in the late Middle Ages by the Flemish brothers Jan van Eyck and Hubert van Eyck; it is now believed to have been invented much earlier.

Other techniques are enamel, encaustic painting, gouache, grisaille, and watercolor painting.

The use of acrylic paints has become very popular in recent times; this water-based medium is easily applied, dries quickly, and does not darken with the passage of time.

Over the centuries, different artistic methods, styles, and theories — ways of thinking about the purposes of art — have succeeded one another, only to appear again, generally with modifications, in other times.

Thus, a method of painting thought to have been used by cave painters involved blowing pigments through tubes onto the cave walls; a somewhat analogous method is that of those 20th-century painters who dribble pigments from their brushes onto canvas.

Exercise12. Write the answers to the following questions in groups.

a) What media are used most often in painting?

_________________________________________________________

b) In what way is painting similar to drawing?

_________________________________________________________

 

c) What are the oldest forms of painting?

_________________________________________________________

d) What technique is used in fresco painting?

_________________________________________________________

e) What media are used in tempera painting?

_________________________________________________________

f) What is popular belief about the origin of oil painting?

_________________________________________________________

g) What other techniques are used in painting?

_________________________________________________________

h)Why acrylic paints are easy to use?

_________________________________________________________

Exercise 13. Fill in the chart giving the equivalents from the text and defining the meanings of all words.

Word Similar meanings
  division / direction
  path / route / way
  main / foremost / most important
  method / system / skill
  well liked / accepted
  practical / useful
  get /gain/obtain
  design / produce
  compound / hybrid
  engage / engross / connect

Exercise 14. Put the words into the two categories and explain their meanings:

a) painting forms;

b) painting media and techniques.

Oil, watercolour, acrylic paints, enamel, fresco painting, tempera, gouache, fresco, tempera painting, oil painting, grisaille. encaustic painting, powdered pigments mixed with egg yolk.

 

Exercise 15. Bring a reproduction of the painting you know very well and get ready to analyze it. In small groups, discuss the media and techniques used by the artists.

 

Exercise 16. Make up a dialogue with the following substitution patterns and get ready to perform them with your partner.

a) What do you say visiting the Picture Gallery?

the Fine Arts Museum?

the exhibition of Kent's landscapes?

the exhibition of graphic art?

the exhibition of works by William Hogarth?

the display of children's drawings?

b) I'd like to draw your attention to this still life.

water colour.

engraving.

sculpture.

drawing.

portrait.

fresco.

c) It belongs to the brush of a famous French painter.

an unknown Dutch portrait painter.

a world known landscapist.

German animal painter.

g) What idea does this picture convey?

To my mind, the picture conveys an idea of man's beauty.

an idea of strength of human spirit.

an idea of mother's love.

a sense of space( light).

h) What school of (trend in) painting does the artist belong to?

'His works are typical specimens of classicism.'

romanticism.

realism.

old Flemish School

i) What colours does this painter prefer?

tones.

shades.

Exercise 17. Read and translate the text.