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From the palpable drama of Caravaggio's Supper at Emmaus to the nuances of domestic intimacy in Vermeer's The Love Letter , naturalist and realist
paintings by the Old Masters capture the rich hues, intricate forms, and dramatic textures of nature and real life in absolute perfection. Utilizing a variety of painting techniques , the Old Masters produced original art that transcends the superficial boundaries of time and geography and shines a beacon of artistic excellence to contemporary masters and students of realism
art and classical
realism. Perfected through years of rigorous training and highly disciplined apprenticeship, the painting techniques of the Old Masters are used by artists around the world to portray nature and real life in their unique majesty and dramatic elegance. An overview of the painting techniques used by the Old Masters will help art lovers appreciate the strokes of artistic genius that produced some of the world's masterpieces which continue to inspire the current generation of classical
realism artists.
One of the most widely employed Old Masters painting techniques , underpainting is the preliminary process that allows the artist to render the outline, define the composition, and set the tonal atmosphere of his or her painting. Underpainting creates a neutrally colored version of the final painting using tempera or oils. Tempera is a medium of painting in which pigments are mixed with an emulsion of egg yolk and water. Successive layers of color are added over the underpainting to produce the final work. Otherwise known as dead coloring, underpainting is usually monochromatic but may also be colored.
Underpainting guides the artist through the arduous and painstaking endeavor of creating a masterpiece by establishing a tonal and compositional path for the artist to follow. Although some contemporary artists prefer to do away with it altogether, underpainting remains one of the painting techniques that students of realism
art should strive to perfect if they want to produce original art with a transcendental quality that approximates that of the Old Masters paintings.
Glazing is another one of the most commonly used painting techniques of the Old Masters . Glazing involves applying a transparent layer of paint over a dried tempera or oil underpainting. Although glazing is usually done on monochrome underpainting, glaze may also be applied to colored underpainting to achieve a broader variety of hues. Think of a glazed painting as a monochromatic image superimposed with a sheet of transparent colored acetate. In this sense, the color of the underpainting and that of the overlaid glaze are mixed optically, not physically.
Like other highly useful painting techniques , glazing served two indispensable purposes for the Old Masters . Glazing allowed the Old Masters to build on the limited paint colors that were at their disposal and replicate the complicated, deeply nuanced hues found in real life. Additionally, glazing helped the Old Masters to create specific effects that would have otherwise been impossible to achieve with other painting techniques . Although glazing is one of few Old Masters painting techniques that classical
realism artists should master, it should be used with disciplined prudence. It is difficult to predict how glazing will affect the color harmony of the final painting, and glazed areas tend to attract the observer's eye more than other surfaces of the painting, therefore it is recommended that beginning artists use glazing only to achieve preconceived special effects.
Complementing the aforementioned Old Masters painting techniques is the technique called scumbling. Scumbling involves applying a thin layer of lighter opaque or semi-opaque paint over a layer of different, often darker, colored paint. Although glazing, like scumbling, also consists of applying a thin layer of paint on a dried underpainting, these two painting techniques are different in that scumbling generally overlays light color over dark and uses opaque paints. Scumbling may be achieved by scraping, scrubbing or dragging the lighter layer of opaque paint over a dark underpainting, resulting in a hazy, opalescent effect. Scumbling allows the artist to effect smooth transitions from light to dark and to modify the original color of the overlaid area without completely concealing it. |
