The Minoan Paintings

Egyptian painting expertise is mainly made in the tombs and temples, while in the northern Aegean civilizations of the Mediterranean make the most of the paintingroom of the house of the rich and respectable.

A wall painting dating from 1600 BC in a palace at Knossos, Crete, showing the relationship of the bull cult, described the two bulls who are preparing for a fight.

The island of Thera, at the time it is a form of development of the colony Crete. In about 1525 BC, the island is buried under volcanic ash caused by local volcaniceruptions. Archaeological excavations on the island (which is also referred to asthe island of Santorin) managed to find a wonderful room, which once occupied the richer inhabitants of Thera more than 3500 years ago. This room is decoratedwith lavish wall paintings (murals). One room is decorated with paintings of the mountain, which then was very familiar in Chinese painting. Minoan traditionintroduces landscape as a subject of art.

Plastered walls from the Minoan palaces and villas that have survived to our day provide a precious portrait of life in Crete during prehistoric times.

The figures and scenes painted in the Minoan frescoes display the familiar Egyptian side view with the frontal eye, as well as the sharp outlines in solid color.

The Egyptian influence when it comes to painting seems to stop there as the Minoan frescoes distinguish themselves from the products of other Mediterranean cultures in many ways. They are characterized by the small waist, the fluidity of line, and the vitality of character bestowed on every painted figure. Minoan stylistic conventions emphasized elasticity, spontaneity, and dynamic motion, while the colors and high-contrast patterns instill an elegant freshness to characters and nature scenes alike.

While the Egyptian painters of the time painted their wall paintings in the "dry-fresco" (fresco secco) technique, the Minoans utilized a "true" or "wet" painting method. Painting on wet plaster allowed the pigments of metal and mineral oxides to bind well to the wall, while it required quick execution. The nature of this technique allowed for a high degree of improvisation and spontaneity and introduced the element of chance into the final art. Since they had to work within the time constrains of the drying plaster, the painters had to be very skillful, and their fluid brush strokes translated into the graceful outlines that characterize minoan painting. For this reason, the true wet method of painting was most appropriate for the fluid moments of life and nature scenes that the Minoans favored, which contrasted sharply with the strict stylization and stereotyping typical of frescoes from other Mediterranean cultures of the same time. The figures of Minoan frescoes are depicted in natural poses of free movement that reflect the rigors of the activity they engage with, an attitude characteristic of a seafaring culture accustomed to freedom of movement, liquidity, and vigor

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Ancient Egyptian Paintings

The first known human civilization is Egypt with a style of high art. This art stylefollows a strange habit but an awesome, they are very consistent, which is wherethe feet and the head of each figure is depicted from the side, while the body,shoulders, arms and eyes is depicted from the front. This suggests that the art style of artists at that time able to paint the subject with the easiest point of view.This is an art style that is easy and is used in painting or sculpture.

Paintings on Egyptian tombs and temples usually depict events that will be experienced during the journey of the dead into the next world. Practical purposeof this painting is to provide details in the sacred journey after death, in the form of images and hieroglyphs. In the great temple of Ramses II at Thebes, for example,one painting shows the queen Nefertari, gently taken his life by the goddess Isis.The inscription mentions the words issued by Isis: "Come to the Great QueenNefertari, beloved of Mut, without sin. I'll show you a place in the world of the sacred. "

Paintings that decorated the walls of the tombs in Egypt were intended to keep alive the history. The pictures and models found in Egyptian tombs were connected with the idea of providing the soul with helpmates in the other world. These wall-paintings provide in extraordinarily vivid picture of life as it was lived in Egypt thousands of years ago. And yet, looking at the art for the first time, may find rather look strange. What mattered most was not prettiness but completeness. It was the artists' task to preserve everything as clearly and permanently as possible. So they did not set out to sketch nature as it appeared to them from any fortuitous angle. They drew from memory, according to strict rules which ensured that everything that had to go into the picture would stand out in perfect clarity.

Under the Empire the tombs became a riot of painting. The Egyptian artist had now developed every color in the rainbow, and was anxious to display his skill.

On the walls and ceilings of homes, temples, palaces and graves hetried to portray refreshingly the life of the sunny fields birds in flight through the air, fishes swimming in the sea, beasts of the jungle in their native haunts.

Floors were painted to look like transparent pools, and ceilings sought to rival the jewelry of the sky.

Around these pictures were borders of geometric or floral design, ranging from a quiet simplicity to the most fascinating complexity.

The "Dancing Girl," so full of orig inality and esprit, the "Bird Hunt in a Boat," the slim, naked beauty in ochre, mingling with other musicians in the Tomb of Nakht at Thebes these are stray samples of the painted population of the graves.

Here, as in the bas-reliefs, the line is good and the composition poor; the participants in an action, whom we should portray as intermingled, are represented separately in succession;2 superposition is again preferred to perspective;

the stiff formalism and conventions of Egyptian sculpture are the order of the day, and do not reveal that enlivening humor and realism which distinguish the later statuary.

But through these pictures runs a freshness of conception, a flow of line and execution, a fidelity to the life and movement of natural things, and a joyous exuberance of color and ornament, which make them a delight to the eye and the spirit.

With all its shortcomings Egyptian painting would never be surpassed by any Oriental civilization until the middle dynasties of China.

Many similar paintings are also found buried in a papyrus manuscript known as the Book of Death - was introduced to the New Kingdom from the 16th century BC

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Abstract Paintings

Abstract art work is really hard to appreciate especially if you are not an artist yourself. Only the real artist can explain the meaning of his or her artwork. Modern and past art works are not far from each other. Symbols seen on textiles, pottery and rocks with linear or geometric signs.

If you happen to observe this kind of painting, you can see different colors and shapes with different sizes. The painter make their art in a unique way and it is not easy to understand the meaning. Abstraction is when the painter make a real image into his or her own art with the use of expression.

There are many different styles available that you can use in making your own painting. Splattering and dripping are two of the most used techniques in this era. For the beginners, these two styles will be easier to use. In using this You let the gravity guide the paint on it’s opposite way.

The splattering technique is like the dripping technique but here you will dip your brush and just whip it through your blank canvass. You can also use different tools such as a toothbrush, combs or just use your hands.

In its purest form in Western art, an abstract art is one without a recognisable subject, one which doesn't relate to anything external or try to "look like" something. Instead the colour and form (and often the materials and support) are the subject of the abstract painting. It's completely non-objective or non-representational.

A further distinction tends to be made between abstract art which is geometric, such as the work of Mondrian, and abstract art that is more fluid (and where the apparent spontaneity often belies careful planning and execution), such as the abstract art of Kandinsky or Pollock.

Also generally classified with abstract art are figurative abstractions and paintings which represent things that aren't visual, such an emotion, sound, or spiritual experience. Figurative abstractions are abstractions or simplifications of reality, where detail is eliminated from recognisable objects leaving only the essence or some degree of recognisable form.

In Western art history, the break from the notion that a painting had to represent something happened in the early 20th century. Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism and other art movements of the time all contributed by breaking the "rules" of art followed since The Renaissance. Impressionism saw painters not "finishing" their paintings. The Fauvists used colour in a non-realistic way. Cubism introduced the idea of painting an object from more than one view point. From all of these the idea developed that colour, line, form, and texture could be the "subject" of the painting.

Abstract Expressionism, which emerged in the 1940s, applied the principles of Expressionism to abstract painting. The action painting of Jackson Pollock, in which paint was dripped, dropped, smeared, spattered, or thrown on the canvas, is a good example.

In 1864 the critic Ernest Chesneau wrote that if the trend the Impressionists were setting continued, paintings would eventually consist of nothing but "two broadly brushed areas of colour".

Making any art works are fun, exciting and also challenging. The main key here is using your imagination, creativity and your emotions. Think about anything for your idea and make a new version of it using this kind of art. Release the inner artist in you.

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Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent Willem van Gogh was a post-Impressionist Dutch painter. The paintingsand drawings including works of art the best, most famous, and most expensive in the world. Van Gogh is considered as one of the greatest painters in Europeanart history.

He is son of a pastor, brought up in a religious and cultured atmosphere, Vincent was highly emotional and lacked self-confidence. Between 1860 and 1880, when he finally decided to become an artist, van Gogh had had two unsuitable and unhappy romances and had worked unsuccessfully as a clerk in a bookstore, an art salesman, and a preacher in the Borinage (a dreary mining district in Belgium), where he was dismissed for overzealousness.

He remained in Belgium to study art, determined to give happiness by creating beauty. The works of his early Dutch period are somber-toned, sharply lit, genre paintings of which the most famous is "The Potato Eaters" (1885). In that year van Gogh went to Antwerp where he discovered the works of Rubens and purchased many Japanese prints.

In 1886 he went to Paris to join his brother Théo, the manager of Goupil's gallery. In Paris, van Gogh studied with Cormon, inevitably met Pissarro, Monet, and Gauguin, and began to lighten his very dark palette and to paint in the short brushstrokes of the Impressionists. His nervous temperament made him a difficult companion and night-long discussions combined with painting all day undermined his health. He decided to go south to Arles where he hoped his friends would join him and help found a school of art. Gauguin did join him but with disastrous results. Near the end of 1888, an incident led Gauguin to ultimately leave Arles. Van Gogh pursued him with an open razor, was stopped by Gauguin, but ended up cutting a portion of his own ear lobe off. Van Gogh then began to alternate between fits of madness and lucidity and was sent to the asylum in Saint-Remy for treatment.

In May of 1890, he seemed much better and went to live in Auvers-sur-Oise under the watchful eye of Dr. Gachet. Two months later he was dead, having shot himself "for the good of all." During his brief career he had sold one painting. Van Gogh's finest works were produced in less than three years in a technique that grew more and more impassioned in brushstroke, in symbolic and intense color, in surface tension, and in the movement and vibration of form and line. Van Gogh's inimitable fusion of form and content is powerful; dramatic, lyrically rhythmic, imaginative, and emotional, for the artist was completely absorbed in the effort to explain either his struggle against madness or his comprehension of the spiritual essence of man and nature.

From November 1881 until July 1890, Vincent Van Gogh had produced more than 900 paintings. Since his death, he still became one of a famous painter in the world. Van Gogh's paintings have already captured the hearts of lovers of painting and create a new world in the world of painting for painting lovers. It is listed inevery description of a painting that he created as a painter. This is directly related to the work of his such as starry night, sunflower, irises, poppies, and the potatoeaters.

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History Of Painting

Historically, art was strongly associated with images. Prehistoric relics show that since thousands of years ago, human ancestors had begun making drawings on cave walls to portray the important parts of their lives.

All cultures in the world to know the art of painting. This is because a painting or drawing is very easy to make. A painting or drawing can be made simply by using simple materials such as charcoal, chalk, or other materials. One technique made famous picture of prehistoric cave people is to put a hand on the cave wall, then menyemburnya to chew the leaves or stone-colored minerals.

The result is plagiarism colored hand-colored on the walls of caves that can still be seen today. This convenience allows the image (and subsequent painting) to grow faster than other branches of fine arts such as sculpture and ceramic art.

Such as drawings, paintings mostly made on a flat surface such as walls, floors, paper, or canvas. In modern art education in Indonesia, this property is also called the bi-dimension (two dimensional, flat dimensions). Along with the development of civilization, the ancestors of humans increasingly adept at making shapes and arrange them in the picture, it automatically works they began forming a composition of form and narrative (story / story) in his works.

Objects that often appear in works of ancient human beings, animals and other natural objects such as trees, hills, mountains, rivers, and seas. The shape of the object being drawn are not always similar to the original. This is called the image and was greatly influenced by the painter's understanding of its object. For example, a picture of a bull's horn is made with the proportion of unusually large compared with the size of the original horn. Imaging is influenced by the understanding of the painter who thinks the horn is the most impressive part of a bull. Therefore, the image of one kind of object to be different depending on the communities' cultural understanding. Imaging is becoming very important because it is also influenced by the imagination. In the development of painting, imagination plays an important role until now.

At first, the development of painting is strongly associated with the development of human civilization. Language system, how to survive (scavenging, hunting and trapping, and plant crops), and trust (as the embryo of religion) are the things that influenced the development of painting. This influence is seen in the types of objects, imagery and narrative in it. In this period, painting has a special purpose, such as recording media (in the form of a way) to diulangkisahkan. Idle moments in prehistoric times one of which is filled with drawing and painting. Way communication using images in turn stimulates the formation of the writing system because the letter actually comes from the symbols of the image which is then simplified and standardized.

At one point, there are certain people in a group of prehistoric people who would rather spend time to draw rather than looking for food. They began to make advanced picture and begin to find that the shape and composition of a particular form, when arranged in such a way, it would seem more interesting to see than usual. They began to find some kind of flavor of beauty in its activities and continue to do so so that they become more expert. They are the first artists on the earth and that's when drawing and painting began leaning into an art activity.

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Indonesian Paintings

What Indonesian painting before the 19th century are mostly restricted to the decorative arts, considered to be a religious and spiritual activity, comparable to the pre-1400 European art. Artists name are anonymous, since the individual human creator was seen as far less important than their creation to honor the deities or spirits. Some examples are the Kenyah decorative art, based on endemic natural motifs such as ferns and hornbills, found decorating the walls of Kenyah long houses. Other notable traditional art is the geometric Toraja wood carvings. Under the influence of the Dutch colonial power, a trend toward Western-style painting emerged in the 19th century. In the Netherlands, the term "Indonesian Painting" is applied to the paintings produced by Dutch or other foreign artists who lived and worked in the former Netherlands-Indies. The most famous indigenous 19th century Indonesian painter is Raden Saleh (1807–1877), the first indigenous artist to study in Europe. His art is heavily influenced by Romanticism. The 1920s to 1940s were a time of growing nationalism in Indonesia. The previous period of romanticism movement was not seen as a purely Indonesian movement and did not developed. Painters began to see the natural world for inspiration. Some examples of Indonesian painter during this period are the Balinese Ida Bagus Made and the realist Basuki Abdullah. The Indonesian Painters Association (Persatuan Ahli-Ahli Gambar Indonesia or PERSAGI, 1938–1942) was formed during this period. PERSAGI established a contemporary art philosophy that saw art works as reflections of the artist’s individual or personal view as well as an expression of national cultural thoughts. From the 1940s on, artists started to mix Western techniques with Southeast Asian imagery and content. Painters that rooted in the revolutionary movement of the World War and the post-World War period started to appear during this period, such as Sudjojono, Affandi, and Hendra.

During the 1960s, new elements were added when abstract expressionism and Islamic art began to be absorbed by the art community. Also during this period, group of painters that are more concerned about the reality of Indonesian society began to appear, taking inspiration from the social problem such as division between the rich and the poor, pollution, and deforestation. The national identity of Indonesia was stressed by these painters through the use of a realistic, documentary style. During the Sukarno period this socially-engaged art was officially promoted, but after 1965 it lost popularity due to its presumed communist tendencies.

Three art academies offer extensive formal training in visual art: Bandung Institute of Technology founded in 1947; the Akademi Seni Rupa Indonesia (Indonesian Fine Arts Academy) or ASRI, now known as ISI, in Yogyakarta was inaugurated in 1950; and the Institut Kesenian Jakarta (Jakarta Arts Institute) or IKJ, was opened in 1970.

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The art of painting by Leonardo da Vinci

In April 1498, Leonardo began to paint the Sala delle Asse in the Castello Sforzesco. It is thought that the Master has personally completed the work that has made much more hands. Leonardo in this work simulates a compact trellis in front of the background of the sky and tree trunks free of kinks, whose branches and rich foliage are woven by joining a network of ropes made at the summit is in the ducal coat of arms a garland.

The work will be forgotten for several centuries.Only in the late nineteenth century, the architect Luca Beltrami, during the restoration of the castle, unfortunately finding it discovers in poor condition. Another restoration (in the twentieth century) will eventually take away what little remained of the original whole work.Today, visitors can appreciate the complicated composition and imagine the original elegance, admiring the lunettes over the supper of Grace.

Around 1409, the year that corresponds to the fall of Ludovico il Moro, Leonardo wanders between Mantua, Venice, in some areas of Romagna (experience of Valentino), and finally to Florence where it remains for five years (1501 - 1506). In Mantua, manufactures paperboard which is currently at the Louvre in Paris where he is portrayed Isabella d'Este.

The cardboard served for the construction of St. Anne (1500, for a painting commissioned by the announcement), presents a compact architecture that recalls a mysterious landscape, dominated by its beautiful here too blurred to soften the contours and gives smoothness and softness to 'enclosure. It is currently kept at the National Gallery in London, while the oil is operating at the Louvre in Paris. Here the composition is much more complex than in the box, presenting a structure - on the figures - a pyramid scheme, where standing out against a background dominated by irregular and rocky mountains, in a pale coloring that contributes even more to bring out the group of figures placed in the foreground: a perfect pitch of the landscape with poetic tenderness expressed by the soft smiles of the figures.

The two portraits made during Milan - the Musician in the Ambrosiana and the so-called Louvre Belle Ferronniere - unlike other works by Leonardo, but nolandscape backgrounds harmonized colors slightly, however, unable effectively toremove the figures from their mountings . It is not the same thing in the famousMona Lisa, where an enchanting blend harmoniously with the figure in the foreground. In this work a formal portrait Leonardo gives the idealizedtransfiguration which is evident especially in the soft flesh and focusesnell'intramontabile and mysterious smile. The poem breathes a complete vision of this fantastic environment, represented in the soft light of a beautiful sunset.Everything becomes a dream .... and the general tone tending to greenishhighlights very effectively the gradient of light and shade, rather than the color scheme.

In the hall of the Five Hundred in the Palazzo Vecchio (Florence), the great Leonardo is measured by the great Michelangelo. His Battle of Anghiari, a work created with encaustic technique and probably lost for incorrect use of technical devices with aggravating circumstances - in the fifties of the century - a badrestoration, would be one of the most important works of the Master.

Leonardo gives the characters their grace, beauty and charm, its Hellenic art. Healso infuses the soul with natural things, and gives vitality to the compositionswith a new color vision in the atmospheric degradation of its rich fine nuanced.Leonardo will exercise over the centuries a vast and permanent influence.

The stays have been very fruitful Lombardy for the great Tuscan artist, however,that nothing can pass in this region because it is surrounded by followers who, despite their allegiance to it, will not be able to pursue his art. None of themcomes close to his genius, however, one among them, Giovanni Ambrogio dePredis (1467 - 1517), became his collaborator in the Virgin of the Rocks.

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