Four Types Of Painting

1112 Words5 Pages

Nattamon Siwanartnusorn (Nat) 5780728

Classification in Art

“A picture is a poem without word,” said Horace (as cited in “Art quotes,” n.d.). A painting can express feelings towards viewers, and each person can derive different messages while looking at the same artwork, which depends on their personal experiences or how they perceive the world. Paintings can be classified into four categories, which are portrait, history, genre, and landscape painting.

The initial group of paintings is portrait painting. Portraiture is a genre of painting depicting either a person or a group of people. This is one of the most well-known types of art. Most of the greatest artists have painted this type of art at least once (Murray, 1851). Subject matter …show more content…

It is a genre of painting depicting scenes that happen in daily life such as cooking, having dinner, working, and so on. It can help people in a particular location comprehend their society, values, customs, and surroundings (“Painting in the Dutch,” n.d.). The painting always has a main character as human. The artists may depict their family, lover, friends, or even strangers. The characterisation can be authentic, visualisable, romanticised by the painters (“A room,” 2014). Composition in genre painting can be complicated depending on a number of components in the painting. It is created to make illusionistic effects or highlight the most consequential thematic component in paintings. In crowded scenes, the movement of figures in the painting draws spectators’ eyes to different points. It can be from one side to another side. To poise composition, the artists have to heedfully take the measurements of horizontals and verticals to amalgamate foreground and distance in the artwork (“Painting in the Dutch,” n.d.). Artists convey feeling, such as sorrow, misery, relaxation, and so on, towards viewers through actions. Genre artwork is a reflection of love, family, responsibility, and other facets of life. In the early modern period of modern history, it conveys comprehensible metaphorical content, and during mid century the content had become less didactic (“Painting in the Dutch,” n.d.). To illustrate, in An Old Woman Dozing Over a Book, Nicolaes Maes portrayed an elderly woman falling asleep, while she opened a book. This woman was presented in the centre of the painting. There is a key hung on the wall behind her, conveying a sense of

Open Document