What is painting?
Painting is a type of fine art, works of which are created using paints applied to any surface.
“Painting is not just some kind of fantasy. It is work, work that must be done conscientiously, as every conscientious worker does,” Renoir argued.
Painting is amazing miracle making everyone accessible art materials into the most diverse visible images of reality. Mastering the art of painting means being able to depict real objects of any shape, different color and material in any space.
Painting, like all other forms of art, has a special artistic language, through which the artist reflects the world. But, expressing his understanding of the world, the artist simultaneously embodies his thoughts and feelings, aspirations, aesthetic ideals in his works, evaluates the phenomena of life, explaining their essence and meaning in his own way.
In works of art of different genres of fine art created by painters, drawing, color, light and shade, expressiveness of strokes, texture and composition are used. This makes it possible to reproduce on a plane the colorful richness of the world, the volume of objects, their qualitative material originality, spatial depth and light-air environment.
The world of painting is rich and complex, its treasures have been accumulated by humanity over many millennia. The most ancient works of painting were discovered by scientists on the walls of caves in which they lived primitive people. The first artists depicted hunting scenes and animal habits with amazing accuracy and sharpness. This is how the art of depicting with paints on the wall arose, which had features characteristic of monumental painting.
There are two main types of monumental painting - fresco and mosaic.
Fresco is a technique of painting with paints diluted with clean or lime water on fresh, damp plaster.
Mosaic is an image made of particles of stone, smalt, ceramic tiles of homogeneous or different materials, which are fixed in a layer of soil - lime or cement.
Fresco and mosaic are the main types of monumental art, which, due to their durability and color fastness, are used to decorate architectural volumes and planes (wall paintings, lampshades, panels).
Easel painting (picture) has an independent character and meaning. Breadth and completeness of coverage real life is reflected in the diversity of types and genres inherent in easel painting: portrait, landscape, still life, everyday, historical, battle genres.
Unlike monumental painting, easel painting is not connected to the plane of the wall and can be freely exhibited.
The ideological and artistic meaning of works of easel art does not change depending on the place where they are located, although their artistic sound depends on the conditions of exposure.
In addition to the above types of painting, there are decorative paintings - sketches theatrical scenery, scenery and costumes for cinema, as well as miniatures and iconography.
To create a miniature work of art or a monumental one (for example, a painting on a wall), the artist must know not only the constructive essence of objects, their volume, materiality, but also the rules and laws of the pictorial representation of nature, the harmony of color, and color. 
In a pictorial image from nature, it is necessary to take into account not only the variety of colors, but also their unity, determined by the strength and color of the light source. No spot of color should be introduced into the image without matching it with the overall color state. The color of each object, both in light and in shadow, must be related to the color whole. If the colors of the image do not convey the influence of the color of the lighting, they will not be subject to a single color scheme. In such an image, each color will stand out as something extraneous and alien to a given state of illumination; it will appear random and ruin the color integrity of the image.
Thus, the natural color unification of paints by the general color of lighting is the basis for creating a harmonious color structure of the picture.
Color is one of the most expressive means used in painting. The artist conveys on the plane the colorful richness of what he saw, with the help of color form he cognizes and reflects the world. In the process of depicting nature, a sense of color and its many shades develops, which allows the use of paints as the main expressive means of painting.
The perception of color, and the artist's eye is able to distinguish more than 200 of its shades, is perhaps one of the happiest qualities that nature has endowed man with.
Knowing the laws of contrast, the artist navigates those changes in the color of the depicted nature, which in some cases are difficult to catch by the eye. The perception of color depends on the environment in which the object is located. Therefore, the artist, when conveying the color of nature, compares the colors with each other, ensuring that they are perceived in interconnection or mutual relations.
“Taking light-and-shadow relationships” means preserving the difference between colors in lightness, saturation and hue, according to how it occurs in nature. 
Contrast (both in light and color) is especially noticeable on the edges of adjacent color spots. The blurring of the boundaries between contrasting colors enhances the effect of color contrast, and the clarity of the boundaries of the spots reduces it. Knowledge of these laws expands technical capabilities in painting, allows the artist, with the help of contrast, to increase the intensity of the color of paints, increase their saturation, increase or decrease their lightness, which enriches the painter’s palette. Thus, without using mixtures, but only contrasting combinations of warm and cold colors, you can achieve a special coloristic sonority of the painting.
When creating a picture, the artist relies on nature, but in this process the creative imagination plays an important role. The concept of a painting is applied primarily to works of a plot-thematic nature, the basis of which is the depiction of important historical, mythological or social events, human actions, thoughts and emotions in multi-figured complex compositions. Therefore, painting plays a leading role in the development of painting.
The painting consists of a base (canvas, wooden or metal board, plywood, cardboard, pressed board, plastic, paper, silk, etc.), onto which a primer and a paint layer are applied. The aesthetic perception of a painting benefits greatly when it is enclosed in an appropriate frame (baguette), separating the painting from the surrounding world. The eastern type of painting retains the traditional form of a free-hanging unfolded scroll (horizontal or vertical). The picture, unlike monumental painting, is not strictly connected with a specific interior. It can be removed from the wall and hung differently.
The pinnacles of art have been achieved in the paintings of outstanding painters. In the diverse movements of modernism, there is a loss of plot and a rejection of figurativeness, thereby significantly reconsidering the concept of a picture. More and more wide circle paintings of the 20th century. called paintings. Painting is one of the most typical types of easel art. Johann-Wolfgang Goethe wrote: “Paintings are not just a painted canvas, they affect feelings and thoughts, leave a mark on the soul, awaken premonitions.”
Reproduction or copy original painting may also be called a painting if, in the appropriate context, it does not matter whether it is a copy or an original work. For example, “there were several paintings hanging in the corridor.”
2) In figurative or more general meaning- any completed, integral work of art, including a living and vivid description, oral or written, of a beautiful view of nature.
3) In a musical theater work, a part of the act separated not by an intermission, but by a short pause, during which the curtain is briefly lowered.
4) In music - the designation of instrumental symphonic works, which are characterized by special concreteness and clarity of musical images; Sometimes such works belong to the genre of program music.
5) In construction, a roofing element whose edges are prepared for seam joints. Used in seam roofs. Depending on the technology, it is made by hand or machine methods. There are paintings for ordinary coverings, as well as paintings for eaves overhangs, wall gutters, gutters, valleys, etc.
“Art is the same need for a person as eating and drinking. The need for beauty and creativity, which embodies it, is inseparable from man,” wrote F. M. Dostoevsky.
Indeed, history shows that man has always been inseparable from art. In the mountains, in caves different countries ancient rock paintings have been preserved around the world. These expressive drawings of animals and hunters were made back in the days when people could not write.
Monuments of art tell us what enormous significance it had in the life of man and human society. The ancient Greeks created a wonderful myth about the muses - eternally young sisters who personified the arts and sciences. Melpomene is the muse of tragedy, Thalia - comedy, Terpsichore - dancing, Clio - the muse of history... The myth tells that when the god Apollo - the patron of art, poetry and music - appeared accompanied by the muses, then all nature listened to their singing... Music, museum - these the words come from the word Muse.
The poetic myth about the sister muses has not lost its meaning. Each type of art has its own means of expression: in music it is sound, in fine arts it is color, line, etc., in literature it is a word. But the related essence of all types is that art is one of the forms of social consciousness, which is based on figurative reflection phenomena of reality.
TO fine arts associated with visual perception, include: painting, graphics and sculpture. These arts create images on a plane (painting and graphics) and in space (sculpture).
We call a painting, drawing, print, sculpture that has independent meaning, that is, not associated with any artistic ensemble or with a purely practical purpose easel works. This definition comes from the word “machine” (in in this case- easel) on which the canvas is placed when a picture is painted. And even the fact that the painting must be inserted into a frame emphasizes the independence, that is, the isolation of easel painting from environment. The frame separates the painting and creates the opportunity to perceive it as an independent artistic whole. Some easel paintings are reproduced in the book.
Unlike easel monumental painting by its purpose and nature it is related to architectural ensemble. Frescoes, mosaics, panels, stained glass windows are organically included in the architecture, complementing and enriching decoration interior or entire building. Excellent examples of monumental painting are the frescoes of Raphael in the Vatican Palace, the paintings of Michelangelo in Sistine Chapel. The highest level monumental painting reached in Byzantine and Old Russian art.
Nowadays, monumental painting is widely used in cultural palaces, clubs, theaters, metro stations, train stations, etc. Many of you have seen mosaics in the metro, created according to sketches by P. Korin, A. Deineka and other Soviet masters. Interior paintings of the Bus Station and the Museum of the Armed Forces in Moscow (artist Yu. Korolev), paintings of the Tsiolkovsky Museum in Kaluga (a group of artists led by A. Vasnetsov), stained glass windows by Lithuanian masters, embossed panels Georgian artists decorated many new buildings in our cities.
Monumental art has gained international fame modern Mexico. The mosaics of Siqueiros and other major artists reflect the heroic struggle of the Mexican people for their independence.
It is not always possible to draw a sharp line between an easel and a monumental work of art. This is explained by the fact that easel painting often has a monumental quality. And monumental works sometimes have independent significance, being perceived as finished easel paintings.
There is also a very large area of decorative and applied arts. These are artistically made furniture, dishes, clothes, fabrics, carpets, embroideries, jewelry etc. However, some types of decorative arts (tapestry, embossing, decorative sculpture) can also be considered as independent works. Painting that is intended to decorate or reveal the design and purpose of an object and does not clearly have independent meaning is called decorative.
Thus, painting is divided into easel, monumental and decorative.
Painting- a work of painting that has a complete character (as opposed to a sketch or sketch) and independent artistic significance. It consists of a base (canvas, wooden or metal board, cardboard, paper, stone, silk, etc.), primer and a paint layer. Painting is one of the types of easel art. Paintings come in various genres. When creating a picture, the artist relies on nature, but in this process the creative imagination plays an important role. The end of the 19th century throughout Europe was marked by a new, dynamic view of the world. The artist of the turn of the century had to correspond to the constantly changing life: not so much to reflect the world around him (photography and cinema now do this), but to be able to express his individuality, his inner world, own vision. The pinnacles of art have been achieved in the paintings of outstanding painters. In the diverse movements of modernism, there is a loss of plot and a rejection of figurativeness, thereby significantly reconsidering the concept of a picture. Some artists belonging to various schools of painting have moved away from depicting the world (people, animals, nature) as we see it. on their paintings the world appears deformed, sometimes completely unrecognizable, because artists are guided more by their imagination than by visual perception of the phenomena around us.
In the development of painting, painting plays a vital role.
A reproduction may also be called a painting if, in the relevant context, it does not matter whether it is a copy or an original work.
A painting in a figurative or more general meaning is any completed, integral work of art, including a living and vivid description, oral or written, of a view of nature.
Painting is the art of plane and one point of view, where space and volume exist only in illusion. Painting thanks to complexity visual arts is capable of creating such depth of illusory space and multidimensionality on a plane artistic reality, which is not subject to other methods of representation. Each painting performs two functions - pictorial and expressive-decorative. The painter's language is completely understandable only to those who are aware of the decorative and rhythmic functions of the picture plane.
In aesthetic perception, all functions of the picture (both decorative, planar, and pictorial, spatial) must participate simultaneously. To correctly perceive and understand a picture means to simultaneously, indivisibly see the surface, the depth, the pattern, the rhythm, and the image.
The aesthetic perception of a painting benefits greatly when it is enclosed in an appropriate frame that separates the painting from the surrounding world. The eastern type of painting retains the traditional form of a free-hanging unfolded scroll (horizontal or vertical). The painting, unlike monumental painting, is not strictly connected with a specific interior. It can be removed from the wall and hung differently.
The depth of the illusory space of paintings
Professor Richard Gregory has described the “strange properties of paintings”: “Paintings are a unique class of objects because they are simultaneously visible in themselves and as something quite different from the mere piece of paper on which they are drawn. The pictures are paradoxical. No object can be in two places at the same time; no object can be both two-dimensional and three-dimensional. And this is exactly how we see pictures. The picture has a completely definite size, and at the same time it shows the true size human face, building or ship. Paintings are impossible objects.
The ability of a person to react to absent, imaginary situations presented in paintings is important stage in the development of abstract thinking."
How paintings are created
The picture is spiritual world the artist, his experiences and feelings expressed on canvas or paper. It is difficult to explain how paintings are created - it is better to see it yourself. It is impossible to convey in words how the artist paints the canvas, what brush he touches the canvas with, what colors he chooses. During work, everything becomes one: the artist, the brush and the canvas. And after the first stroke of the brush, the special magic of painting begins to work in the studio.
Paintings are not just a painted canvas, they affect feelings and thoughts, leave a mark on the soul, and awaken premonitions.
How is a picture created?
It would seem, with paints, brushes, on canvas. There may be another universal answer: in different ways.
Methods of painting have constantly changed throughout the history of art. The artists of the Italian Renaissance worked completely differently than Rembrandt or the “little Dutchmen” of the 17th century, the romantics - differently than the impressionists, abstractionists, and contemporary realist artists. And within the same era and even one direction you can find a lot of diversity.
Realist artists of the past and present (if we understand realism in in a broad sense words) combines the following:
Creating a full-fledged work, in this case a painting, portrait or landscape, is impossible without a deep study of life and the author’s active attitude towards it. By means artistic knowledge life is served by working from life, visual impressions, analysis and synthesis of life phenomena.
Creating a painting is complex and time-consuming creative process, the results of which are determined not by the time spent, but by the measure of the artist’s talent, skill, and the strength and effectiveness of the original figurative solution. The most important milestones in this process are the inception and concretization of the idea, direct observations, sketches, sketches from nature, the actual painting of the picture with the certainly creative, active processing of life material.
And when a viewer approaches a painting in a museum or at an exhibition, before making his judgment about it, he must remember that behind it there is always a living person, an artist who has invested a piece of his life, heart, nerves, talent and skill into the work. We can say that the painting is the artist’s dream come true.
G. S. OSTROVSKY
Completeness of the picture
In life, many things happen by chance - in a picture there cannot be such accidents, everything in it must be completed, logical. At what point is the painting considered complete?
Rembrandt's masterly impasto brushstroke, so highly valued later and in our time, only caused bewilderment among Rembrandt's contemporaries and gave rise to ridicule and witticisms about him. Objecting to his critics, Rembrandt challenged the correctness of their understanding of the completeness of a painting, contrasting them with his own understanding of it, which he formulated in this way: a painting should be considered finished when the artist said everything he wanted in it. In order not to hear the annoying questions about the “unfinishedness” of his paintings, Rembrandt stopped allowing naive visitors to his studio, who looked with great curiosity at the bravura strokes of his painting, to come close to them, frightening them with the fact that they should not come too close to the paintings, since smelling their paints is harmful to health.
Matisse about his painting:
“I simply try to put on the canvas those colors that express my feeling. The required proportion of tones can force me to change the shape of a figure or change the composition. Until I have achieved this proportion in all parts of the picture, I look for it and continue working. Then the moment comes, when all the parts acquire their final relationships, and then I cannot touch the picture without redoing it all over again."
Starting approximately with the Impressionists, the categories of drawing, form and color are closely related, fused, seeming to be a continuous process: drawing and color, modeling and composition, tone and line appear and develop as if at the same time. The process of painting a picture can, so to speak, continue indefinitely; the moment of finishing the work is somewhat conditional: anywhere on the canvas the artist can continue it, applying new strokes to similar ones that lie lower. The most striking and consistent representative of this system is Cezanne. In letters and recorded conversations, he repeatedly formulated this mixed or, more correctly, undifferentiated method of painting. At any moment, work on the painting can be interrupted, but the work will not lose its aesthetic value. The painting is ready at any moment.
The connection between the pictorial space of the painting and real space
The artist and art theorist V. A. Favorsky, in a course on the theory of composition, emphasized that a true work of art from birth is inherent in a dual existence: as an object in the surrounding space and as a relatively closed world with its own spatio-temporal relationships. In painting, this goal is achieved by coordinating the internal structure of the picture with the frame, in sculpture - with the surrounding space (classic example: a statue in a niche).
To connect the pictorial space with the real space in which the viewer is located, the picture frame is used. Artists also play with the multiple “reproduction of the frame” in the image itself, visual rhymes, repetitions of verticals and horizontals. One of the characteristic techniques that allows you to visually “strengthen” an image within the boundaries of a rectangular format is “corner bevel”. The separation of painting from architecture gave rise to a certain system of perception easel painting. The main content of the picture becomes the expression of a holistic representation of space. The composition is transformed into an exhibition in which the viewer stands before the transformed world of spatio-temporal relations and sees himself in it as in a mirror. This is how transparent glass from the Renaissance turned into a mirror from the Classical and Baroque eras. The art of the post-Renaissance era is characterized by playing with reflections in the mirror, introducing mediator figures into the composition of the picture, persons who, with their position, gaze or hand gesture, indicate the action taking place in the depths of the picture, as if inviting one to enter it. In addition to the frame, in such compositions there is a proscenium - the front part of the stage, the wings, then medium shot, in which the main action takes place, and the background is the “backdrop”.
The artist usually places the main figures in the middle plan of the painting, placing them on the mental horizontal as on a pedestal. The depth of the “spatial layer” depends on the position of this reference horizontal line (in planimetric terms - above or below relative to the lower edge of the picture frame). By repeatedly laying the horizontal upward, the painter creates a certain rhythm of movement into the depths of the imaginary space. Thanks to this, even on a small canvas you can depict a space of any length with any number of figures and objects. In such an exhibition it is necessary to specifically draw the viewer’s attention to the fact that some objects are closer and others are further away. For this, “pointers” are used: perspective reduction, introduction of scale landmarks (small figures of people in the background), overlapping plans, tonal contrast, falling shadows from a light source inside or outside the picture. Another reference point for the viewer’s mental movement in the space of a picture are diagonals, the main one of which is the “entrance diagonal” (usually from left to right).
Painting within a painting
Picture in Picture
"Image in Image" can be used in a special composition function. A similar hierarchical organization is represented in the case of the depiction of a painting within a painting (as well as frescoes in wall paintings, etc.).
"Picture within a picture" - compositional technique, found in classical art pictorial painting XVI-XVII centuries A picture within a picture can be endowed with a special hidden meaning.
The compositional technique “picture within a picture” can perform several tasks:
- express an idea
- explain the plot
- contrast or create harmony
- be a detail of the furnishings (interior)
Very often, the image of a background in a painting can be understood as a kind of picture within a picture, that is, an independent image constructed according to its own special laws. In this case, the background image in to a greater extent, than the depiction of figures on the main plan, is subject to purely decorative tasks, we can say that what is often depicted here is not the world itself, but the decoration of this world, that is, it is not the image itself that is presented, but the image of this image.
The Dutch have a geographical map, a trellis, a painting, open window how the image included in the picture expands the boundaries of the world or serves to develop the allegorical meaning of the main plot. Vermeer, lifting the curtain of his workshop, becomes a guide through three levels of reality: the space of the viewer, the space of his workshop, the space work of art(of the canvas that stands on the easel), likening these metamorphoses to swimming across the oceans painted on geographical map or flying over mapped land.
The flow of reality - art - myth can also be observed in Velazquez, who willingly resorts to the “picture within a painting” technique, as exemplified by “Las Meninas” and “Spinners”.
“A painting within a painting” is also found in Velazquez’s “Venus before a Mirror,” but the foggy mirror only reflects the shadow of the goddess of love.
Picture and frame
Any image created by an artist, excluding only ancient ones rock paintings, has a frame. Framing is a necessary and important part of the composition; it completes it and gives unity. The frame can be located on the same plane on which the pictorial or graphic composition itself is made. It can also be created specifically as a kind of relief form with the help of decorative, sculptural and architectural elements. Most often, rectangular frames are found, somewhat less often - round and oval.
Frame helps highlight painting from the environment as something special and worthy of attention, does not at the same time connect it with the environment. So, if the style of the frame coincides with the artistic appearance, structure and character of the interior where the painting is located, this contributes to the integrity of the ensemble. Depending on the color, saturation with decorative and sculptural details, the frame significantly influences the overall impression of the pictorial image. All this allows us to talk about the unity of the picture and the frame, where the framing, of course, performs not the main, but very necessary function.
The paths to the development of easel painting were complex. What a striking milestone in its history was the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance! The most significant thing in it was the desire to get away from the rigidity and abstraction of the icon image that dominated in the Middle Ages. Around the 14th century, a painting was born in modern sense of this word, and with it a frame appears, still dressed in the lace of Gothic decoration.
The first frames were not completely opposed to the entire image and were not separated from it; the materials of both were similar, the conventional gilding of the background, for example, of an ancient Russian or Byzantine icon, transferred to the frame, and the image itself often “splashed out” onto it. Then the boundaries between the picture and the frame began to be recognized more and more clearly. Yet, as a kind of memory of previous centuries, the frame retained its golden color. When the golden background, which denoted the world of the divine, disappeared from the painting, the gilding of the frame began to be perceived conventionally, in other words, as a necessary attribute of the frame, which helped to highlight the painting in the room and attract the viewer’s eye to it.
During the Renaissance, the idea of painting as a look into the world through a window prevailed; the frame, with its forms, very clearly hinted at the prevailing idea and responded to it. These magnificent, solemn frames were made according to the artists’ drawings in special workshops or by the artist’s assistants working in his workshop.
During the Renaissance, painting was constantly compared to a mirror in which reality is reflected, and the frame, created like the ornamental frame of a mirror, further emphasized this comparison. This frame could be made not only from wooden slats and plaster, but also from precious materials, including silver, ivory, mother-of-pearl, etc. The preciousness of the materials seemed to correspond to the preciousness of the painting, enhancing it.
The old masters were very attentive to the frame, took into account its influence in the process of work, sometimes even painted in a finished frame, taking into account in a certain tone and the decorative rhythm of the frame. Therefore, compositions by old masters often benefit greatly from their original frames.
Observations of the frames of old masters allow us to establish another principle - the correspondence between the profile and width of the frame and the size of the picture: so, Dutch painters used to insert their small paintings into large frames with deep, vertical profiles, which seem to lead the eye to the center of the picture and isolate it from any influence of the environment
At the beginning of the 20th century, voices began to be heard calling for the abandonment of frames altogether, as something too material, “grounding” the spirituality of art. Various avant-garde artists, heeding such calls, began to exhibit their works without frames. However, as a result of this innovation, their works themselves ceased to be paintings in the strict sense of the word. These were some kind of “objects”, “spots”, often devoid of clear meaning.
Although now there is no one style in the design of frames, as there once was, there is a greater correspondence of the frame to the individual style of the artist than before.
IN lately on art exhibitions one can notice that the inertia regarding the design of frames (let it be, but what kind is not so important), which manifested itself in the past among our artists, is beginning to be overcome. Frames are painted in different colors, small additional images and inscriptions are often placed on them, sculptors help the painters - frames with rich plastic motifs appear.
Format of paintings
There are, however, two specific elements of the picture that seem to create a transition from the plane to the image, simultaneously belonging to both the reality of the picture and its fiction - the format and the frame. It may seem that the format of a painting is only an artist’s tool, but not a direct expression of his creative concept: after all, the artist only chooses the format. Meanwhile, the nature of the format is most closely connected with the entire internal structure of the work of art and often even points the right way to understanding the artist’s intention. As a rule, the format is chosen before the painter begins work. But there are a number of artists known who liked to change the format of the picture while working, either cutting off pieces from it or adding new ones (Velasquez was especially willing to do this).
The most common format for a painting is quadrangular, with a pure square being much less common than a quadrangle that is more or less elongated upward or outward. Some eras value the round (tondo) or oval format. No format selection random, the format usually reveals a deep, organic connection both with the content of the work of art, with its emotional tone, and with the composition of the picture; it equally clearly reflects the individual temperament of the artist and the taste of an entire era. We feel the hidden causal connection between the format and the artist’s intention before each painting, from which the charm of a true work of art emanates. There are paintings whose content has become so intertwined with the nature of the format that the slightest shift in proportions would seem to upset the stylistic and ideological balance of the painting.
The horizontal, elongated format, in general, is certainly more suitable for narrative composition, for the sequential development of movement past the viewer. Therefore, artists who are epically minded and strive for active composition and action readily turn to this format, for example, Italian painters of the 14th and first half of the 15th centuries (especially in fresco compositions). On the contrary, a square format or one in which the height somewhat prevails over the width, as if immediately stops the dynamics of the action and gives the composition the character of a solemn representation - it was this type of format that the masters preferred for their altar paintings High Renaissance("Sistine Madonna"). In turn, with a significant predominance of height over width, the composition again acquires dynamics, a strong thrust, but this time up or down; such a narrow format was especially to the liking of aristocratic, decorative (Crivelli) or mystical-minded artists (Mannerists, Greco), seeking to embody certain emotions and moods.
The connection between the format and the individual temperament of the artist is also undeniable: Rubens’ sensual, dynamic fantasy requires a larger format than Rembrandt’s restrained and spiritual fantasy. Finally, the format is directly dependent on the painting technique. The wider and freer the artist’s stroke, the more natural is his desire for a large format.