Painting in our Life

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We know more about Roman painting than Greek painting because a wider selection of Roman paintings has survived. Roman artist

were strongly influenced by the Greeks. They gave the figures in their paintings the same lifelike quality. Roman artists added to the reality of their works by painting convincing illusions of depth, shade, shadow and reflected light. Some of the best examples of Roman painting have been Found in the ruins of the city of Pompeii. The house of two brothers named Vettius contains frescoes portraying stories about lxion, a mythical hero. These frescoes consist of elaborately designed painted panels.

Roman sculptures. The finest work of Roman sculptors was probably their mass-produced portrait sculpture. To meet the large demand for portrait busts, the Romans developed a set of standard symbols for hair, eyes, nose, and mouth. A student learned to carve by reproducing these details accurately, rather than by copying a living model. Art schools used this method of teaching until as recently as the 1940's.

The Romans were deeply religious, and many reliefs from altars show ceremonies or symbolic stories. A famous example of such sculpture is the Ara Pacis (Altar of Peace) in Rome.

The Romans also were particularly interested in showing historical events, a theme that the Greeks had avoided. Reliefs of commemorative arches and columns tell the story of complete military campaigns. The best-known columns are Trojan’s Column and the Column of Marcus Aureoles.

Oriental painting, the painting of Asia, has three main branches — Indian, Chinese, and Islamic.

Indian painting, is primarily religious art. Indian painters create their works to help the people communicate with their gods. Their main subject include gods and stories about the gods and holy people. Indian artists paint on manuscripts of holy texts, on banners and wallhangings, and on walls. They direct all the elements of their pictures toward increasing the religious experience of the viewer. Every object and figure in their paintings has a specific meaning. Gods are usually portrayed as red and fierce in order to show their great power. Their many arms let them display all the symbols of their power at once. The god appears warlike and full of motion, which shows that he can conquer his enemies. The artists do not attempt to show gods and the other figures in real space. All the figures seem to float in a heavenly atmosphere. They are seated on clouds or lotus plants. Clouds and a ring of flame — which symbolize the universe — encircle the chief figure and fill the background with swirling movements and color.

Chines painting. The major Chinese religions al stressed a love of nature. Partly as a result, tree major kinds of subject matter dominate

Chinese painting. They are birds and flowers; figures; and landscapes of the countryside, mountains, and sea. Chinese landscape painters tried to create a feeling of union between the human spirit and the energy of the wind. water, mist, and mountains. Such pictures express the Chinese belief that there is an inner harmony and balance among all things in the world. Chinese painters use black ink that could produce different tones and a brush that could many kinds of lines. Artists created many paintings in black ink only. Even when they added color, the ink drawing remained the basis of the design. The Chinese paid more attention to the brushstrokes than to the subject matter. Most surviving Chinese painting are painted on silk or an absorbent paper. Many artists painted on walls or a large screens. All these paintings require special study. The artist intended their works to be examined only if the viewer had time to enjoy them without distraction.

In China, painters, like poets and scholars, were considered persons of learning and wisdom. Chinese paintings were closely associated with poetry. Many Chinese paintings combine certain objects, such as a particular bird or flower, because the objects are associated with a famous poem.

Chinese painters produced many great landscapes painted on long scrolls. The viewer unrolls the scroll slowly from right to left, revealing a continuous succession of scenes of the countryside. These hand scrolls are in a uniquely Chinese art form. Appreciation of them requires much patience and thought.

Xia Gui and Ma Yuan created a style of idealized landscapes that greatly influenced Chinese and Japanese painting.

Human figures were also important in Chinese painting. Artists painted portraits of both real and imaginary people. They painted scenes that illustrate stories and historical subjects. Many paintings show the elegant, refined life at court. Some of these pictures show furniture and decorations in great detail. Others have a plain background. All these paintings are remarkable for a delicacy of line.

Japanese painting is included in the tradition of Chinese painting because Japan's art was greatly influenced by China's. However, the Japanese changed the Chinese styles to suit their own taste. The Japanese use of the color and abstract design had transformed the art into a new form of expression. Japanese artists were interested in the time and place in which they lived. Their paintings show their fondness for storytelling as well as for art that appeals to the emotions and the senses.

From the 1500's to the 1800's, Japanese artists painted in a style that strongly emphasized color and design. These artists were called decorators. The decorators omitted detail from their pictures and stressed

only outlines. They applied their color evenly with no shading. The decorators often added gold leaf to their paintings for an effect of luxury. The finest decorative paintings were pictures of nature, particularly animals, flowers, and landscapes.

Throughout most of its history, Japanese painting has reflected the taste of the upper classes. But the Japanese style most familiar in the West is an art of the common people. The style is called ukiyo-e (the floating world). The floating world is a world of pleasure and entertainment, and of great actors and beautiful women.

Islamic painting is primarily the creation of beautiful books through calligraphy and illustration. Calligraphers copied texts in elegant handwriting, and artists added illustration to increase the beauty of the books. Calligraphers copied the texts of Koran, the Islamic holy book, on pages that were then covered with gold leaf. Early Islamic artists decorated the pages with complicated patterns because their religion prohibited the making of images of human beings and animals. However, as time passed, many Islamic artists — especially those living in Persia - began painting human and animal figures.

In addition to the Koran, Persian artists illustrated collections of fables, histories, love poems, and scientific works. These illustrations have jewel — like color, the most important element in Islamic painting. The artists did not try to portray the real world, but instead tried to create a luxurious, ideal setting to delight the eye and simulate the imagination.

Medieval painting refers to most of the art produced in Europe during a period of about 100 years. This period began with the fall of the Roman Empire in the AD 300's and 400's and ended with the beginning of the Renaissance in the 1300's. Almost all medieval artists dealt with religious subjects, they developed several styles. One of these styles, called Byzantine, became the most important tradition among Christian artists of eastern Europe and the Near East.

Byzantine painting. Starting in the AD 300's, eastern Christians gradually separated from the western Christians, who were ruled by the pope in Rome. Eastern Christians art is called Byzantine because the religion centered in the city of Byzantium (now Istanbul, Turkey). By the 500's, the Byzantine artists had developed a special style of religious painting. The Byzantine painting style has remained largely unchanged to the present day. Byzantine pictures portray colorful but unlifelike figures that stand for religious ideas rather than flash-and-blood people. The artists were not interested to techniques that would help show the world as it was. They generally ignored perspective and gave their works a flat look. They made wide use of symbols in their works in order to tell stories.