Painting

(pānting.) [Fr. peinture.) The art of representing objects in nature, or scenes of human life, with fidelity and expre ion, upon a plane surface, by means of a pencil or crayon, and of various colored bodies called pigments. It consists of two pp. parts Design, or the art of representing the contour of objects, and Color, which gives to the image not only the color,but also the form and relief proper to each object. Coëval with civilization, P. was practised with succe by the Greeks and Romans; obscured for many ages, it revived in Italy in the 15th cent., producing the Roman, Venetian, and Tuscan schools; afterwards the German, Dutch, Flemish, French, and Spanish schools. TheP. of the Egyptians, as is evident from the specimens found in their tombs, was very rude; that of the Etruscans, as seen on their vases, was extremely elegant; that of the Greeks, from the praises bestowed on some of their productions by the ancients, must have Fig. 515.-A LADY ARTIST PAINTING HER OWN PORTRAIT. (14th century.) had considerable merit; and that of the Romans, as evinced by what we find in Pompeii, must have attained a high degree of excellence. The art is distinguished into historical P., portrait P., landscape P., animalP.,marineP., .; and, as regards the form and the materials, into P. in oil, water colors, fresco, distemper, miniature,mosaic, . Historical P. is the noblest and most comprehensive of all branches of the art; for in that the painter vies with the poet, embodying ideas, and representing them to the spectator. He must have technical skill, a practised eye and hand, and must understand how to group his well-executed parts so as to produce a beautiful composition; and all this is insufficient without a poetic spirit which can form a striking conception of an historical event or create imaginary scenes of beauty.- The accompanying figure, copied from a MS. of the 14th cent., and representing a lady artist at work, is particularly curious, as exhibiting the entire suite of working materials of an artist of the period. The lady is occupied in painting her own portrait, from its reflection in a small mirror beside it, as it was the general use with earlier artists. For the ancient history of the art, see Winckelmannand Müller, and an admirable article in Dr. Smith's Dic tion ary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. For the history of modern painting, consult Kugler's History of Art; Wornum's Epochs of Painting. The technical proce es are to be found in Hundertpfund's Art of Painting Restored; Mrs. Merrifield's Ancient Practice of Oil Painting; the same author's Fresco Painting, . [s. 677]