Chapter 11: Painting

We started last week with an Allegory of Painting by Vermeer in order to display the various fine art media. This week will look at another Allegory of Painting, this one by the prominent Italian Baroque Links to an external site. painter, Artemisia Gentileschi Links to an external site..

Painted during her time in England, art historians believe this to be a self-portrait of Gentileschi as the allegory of painting. According to Cesare Ripa’s handbook Iconography Links to an external site.(1593), the allegory of painting should look like:

a beautiful woman with disheveled hair, painting with a brush in one hand and palette in other; wear gold chain, which symbolizes the link between master and pupil, generation to generation, with a pendant of mask, a symbol of imitation.

Artemisia represents herself in the middle of painting; she is not presented to us, the viewer, because she’s pre-occupied in her craft! The viewer must enter on their own and she encourages with the open line of arms. The line implies the motion from arm to arm, starting at her palette, up through her mind, and up further onto the canvas, and then we can follow that line back down. She is a painter, painting, and represents the act of painting (idea, pigments, action).

So how do we define painting?

Painting: pigments suspended in medium/binder, and adhered to a support.

What’s a support?

Supports are what the painting is placed on. Typically fine art works are painted on canvas (cloth), wood panel, or fresco (plaster).

What’s a pigment?

Pigments are what give color to paint and are created from ground up minerals, and animal or plant tissue. The beautiful aqua blue often used to paint the Virgin Mary’s blue mantle is often made from ground up lapis lazuli. (see below)

What’s a binder?

Binders are what hold the pigment to the surface and are often made of oil, water, or egg yolk.

Now, let’s start looking at various materials for painting.