![Bitwa pod Grunwaldem Muzeum Narodowe 05](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Bitwa_pod_Grunwaldem_Muzeum_Narodowe_05.JPG)
Canvas is an extremely durable
plain-woven fabric
Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not th ...
used for making
sails,
tent
A tent () is a shelter consisting of sheets of fabric or other material draped over, attached to a frame of poles or a supporting rope. While smaller tents may be free-standing or attached to the ground, large tents are usually anchored using gu ...
s,
marquees,
backpack
A backpack—also called knapsack, schoolbag, rucksack, rucksac, pack, sackpack, booksack, bookbag or backsack—is, in its simplest frameless form, a fabric sack carried on one's back and secured with two straps that go over the shoulders ...
s,
shelters, as a support for
oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...
and for other items for which sturdiness is required, as well as in such fashion objects as handbags, electronic device cases, and shoes. It is popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame.
Modern canvas is usually made of
cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus ''Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor perce ...
or
linen
Linen () is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant.
Linen is very strong, absorbent, and dries faster than cotton. Because of these properties, linen is comfortable to wear in hot weather and is valued for use in garments. It also ...
, or sometimes
polyvinyl chloride (PVC), although historically it was made from
hemp
Hemp, or industrial hemp, is a botanical class of ''Cannabis sativa'' cultivars grown specifically for industrial or medicinal use. It can be used to make a wide range of products. Along with bamboo, hemp is among the fastest growing plants o ...
. It differs from other heavy cotton fabrics, such as
denim
Denim is a sturdy cotton warp-faced textile in which the weft passes under two or more warp threads. This twill weaving produces a diagonal ribbing that distinguishes it from cotton duck. While a denim predecessor known as dungaree has been pr ...
, in being
plain weave
Plain weave (also called tabby weave, linen weave or taffeta weave) is the most basic of three fundamental types of textile weaves (along with satin weave and twill). It is strong and hard-wearing, and is used for fashion and furnishing fabric ...
rather than
twill weave
Twill is a type of textile weave with a pattern of diagonal parallel ribs. It is one of three fundamental types of textile weaves along with plain weave and satin. It is made by passing the weft thread over one or more warp threads then under ...
. Canvas comes in two basic types: plain and
duck
Duck is the common name for numerous species of waterfowl in the family Anatidae. Ducks are generally smaller and shorter-necked than swans and geese, which are members of the same family. Divided among several subfamilies, they are a form t ...
. The threads in duck canvas are more tightly woven. The term ''duck'' comes from the
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
word for cloth, ''doek''. In the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, canvas is classified in two ways: by weight (ounces per square yard) and by a graded number system. The numbers run in reverse of the weight so a number 10 canvas is lighter than number 4.
The word "canvas" is derived from the 13th century
Anglo-French
Anglo-French (or sometimes Franco-British) may refer to:
*France–United Kingdom relations
*Anglo-Norman language or its decendants, varieties of French used in medieval England
*Anglo-Français and Français (hound), an ancient type of hunting d ...
''canevaz'' and the
Old French
Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intelligib ...
''canevas''. Both may be derivatives of the
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal Register (sociolinguistics), registers of Latin spoken from the Crisis of the Roman Republic, Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve ...
''cannapaceus'' for "made of
hemp
Hemp, or industrial hemp, is a botanical class of ''Cannabis sativa'' cultivars grown specifically for industrial or medicinal use. It can be used to make a wide range of products. Along with bamboo, hemp is among the fastest growing plants o ...
", originating from the Greek (
cannabis
''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: ''Cannabis sativa'', '' C. indica'', and '' C. ruderalis''. Alternatively ...
).
For painting
Canvas has become the most common support medium for
oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...
, replacing
wooden panels. It was used from the 14th century in Italy, but only rarely. One of the earliest surviving oils on canvas is a French ''Madonna with angels'' from around 1410 in the
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
The Gemäldegalerie (, ''Painting Gallery'') is an art museum in Berlin, Germany, and the museum where the main selection of paintings belonging to the Berlin State Museums (''Staatliche Museen zu Berlin'') is displayed. It was first opened in ...
. Its use in
''Saint George and the Dragon'' by
Paolo Uccello
Paolo Uccello ( , ; 1397 – 10 December 1475), born Paolo di Dono, was an Italians, Italian (Florentine) Florentine painting, painter and mathematician who was notable for his pioneering work on visual Perspective (graphical), perspective in art. ...
in about 1470, and
Sandro Botticelli
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi ( – May 17, 1510), known as Sandro Botticelli (, ), was an Italian Renaissance painting, Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th cent ...
's ''
Birth of Venus
''The Birth of Venus'' ( it, Nascita di Venere ) is a painting by the Italian artist Sandro Botticelli, probably executed in the mid 1480s. It depicts the goddess Venus arriving at the shore after her birth, when she had emerged from the sea ...
'' in the 1480s was still unusual for the period. Large paintings for country houses were apparently more likely to be on canvas, and are perhaps less likely to have survived. It was a good deal cheaper than a panel painting, and may sometime indicate a painting regarded as less important. In the Uccello, the armour does not use silver leaf, as other of his paintings do (and the colour therefore remains undegraded). Another common category of paintings on lighter cloth such as
linen
Linen () is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant.
Linen is very strong, absorbent, and dries faster than cotton. Because of these properties, linen is comfortable to wear in hot weather and is valued for use in garments. It also ...
was in
distemper or glue, often used for banners to be carried in procession. This is a less durable medium, and surviving examples such as
Dirk Bouts
Dieric Bouts (born c. 1415 – 6 May 1475) was an Early Netherlandish painter. Bouts may have studied under Rogier van der Weyden, and his work was influenced by van der Weyden and Jan van Eyck. He worked in Leuven from 1457 (or possibly earlie ...
' ''
Entombment
Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...
'', in distemper on linen (1450s,
National Gallery
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director o ...
) are rare, and often rather faded in appearance.
Panel painting remained more common until the 16th century in
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
and the 17th century in Northern Europe.
Mantegna and Venetian artists were among those leading the change; Venetian sail canvas was readily available and regarded as the best quality.
![3D Schildersdoek](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/3D_Schildersdoek.JPG)
Canvas is usually stretched across a wooden frame called a
stretcher
A stretcher, gurney, litter, or pram is an apparatus used for moving patients who require medical care. A basic type (cot or litter) must be carried by two or more people. A wheeled stretcher (known as a gurney, trolley, bed or cart) is often ...
and may be coated with
gesso
Gesso (; "chalk", from the la, gypsum, from el, γύψος) is a white paint mixture consisting of a binder mixed with chalk, gypsum, pigment, or any combination of these. It is used in painting as a preparation for any number of substrates suc ...
prior to being used to prevent oil paint from coming into direct contact with the canvas fibres which would eventually cause the canvas to decay. A traditional and flexible chalk gesso is composed of lead carbonate and linseed oil, applied over a rabbit skin glue ground; a variation using titanium white pigment and calcium carbonate is rather brittle and susceptible to cracking. As
lead-based paint
Lead paint or lead-based paint is paint containing lead. As pigment, lead(II) chromate (, "chrome yellow"), lead(II,IV) oxide, (, "red lead"), and lead(II) carbonate (, "white lead") are the most common forms.. Lead is added to paint to acceler ...
is poisonous, care has to be taken in using it. Various alternative and more flexible canvas primers are commercially available, the most popular being a synthetic latex paint composed of titanium dioxide and calcium carbonate, bound with a thermo-plastic emulsion.
Many artists have painted onto unprimed canvas, such as
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...
,
Kenneth Noland
Kenneth Noland (April 10, 1924 – January 5, 2010) was an American painter. He was one of the best-known American color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was though ...
,
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...
,
Helen Frankenthaler
Helen Frankenthaler (December 12, 1928 – December 27, 2011) was an American abstract expressionist painter. She was a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work for over six decades (early 1950s u ...
,
Dan Christensen
Dan Christensen, (October 6, 1942 – January 20, 2007) was an American abstract painter
He is best known for paintings that relate to Lyrical Abstraction, Color field painting, and Abstract expressionism.
Christensen was born in Cozad ...
,
Larry Zox
Larry is a masculine given name in English, derived from Lawrence or Laurence. It can be a shortened form of those names.
Larry may refer to the following:
People Arts and entertainment
* Larry D. Alexander, American artist/writer
*Larry Boone ...
,
Ronnie Landfield
Ronnie Landfield (born January 9, 1947) is an American abstract painter. During his early career from the mid-1960s through the 1970s his paintings were associated with Lyrical Abstraction (related to Postminimalism, Color Field painting, an ...
,
Color Field painters,
Lyrical Abstraction
Lyrical abstraction is either of two related but distinct trends in Post-war Modernist painting:
''European Abstraction Lyrique'' born in Paris, the French art critic Jean José Marchand being credited with coining its name in 1947, considered ...
ists and others. Staining acrylic paint into the fabric of cotton duck canvas was more benign and less damaging to the fabric of the canvas than the use of oil paint.
In 1970 artist
Helen Frankenthaler
Helen Frankenthaler (December 12, 1928 – December 27, 2011) was an American abstract expressionist painter. She was a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work for over six decades (early 1950s u ...
commented about her use of staining:
When I first started doing the stain paintings, I left large areas of canvas unpainted, I think, because the canvas itself acted as forcefully and as positively as paint or line or color. In other words, the very ground was part of the medium, so that instead of thinking of it as background or negative space or an empty spot, that area did not need paint because it had paint next to it. The thing was to decide where to leave it and where to fill it and where to say this doesn't need another line or another pail of colors. It's saying it in space.
![Kessel Bleaching of canvas](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Kessel_Bleaching_of_canvas.jpg)
Early canvas was made of
linen
Linen () is a textile made from the fibers of the flax plant.
Linen is very strong, absorbent, and dries faster than cotton. Because of these properties, linen is comfortable to wear in hot weather and is valued for use in garments. It also ...
, a sturdy brownish fabric of considerable strength. Linen is particularly suitable for the use of oil paint. In the early 20th century, cotton canvas, often referred to as "
cotton duck
Cotton duck (from nl, doek, "linen canvas"), also simply duck, sometimes duck cloth or duck canvas, is a heavy, plain woven cotton fabric. Duck canvas is more tightly woven than plain canvas. There is also linen duck, which is less often use ...
", came into use. Linen is composed of higher quality material, and remains popular with many professional artists, especially those who work with oil paint. Cotton duck, which stretches more fully and has an even, mechanical weave, offers a more economical alternative. The advent of
acrylic paint
Acrylic paint is a fast-drying paint made of pigment suspended in acrylic polymer emulsion and plasticizers, silicone oils, defoamers, stabilizers, or metal soaps. Most acrylic paints are water-based, but become water-resistant when dry. Depe ...
has greatly increased the popularity and use of cotton duck canvas. Linen and cotton derive from two entirely different plants, the
flax
Flax, also known as common flax or linseed, is a flowering plant, ''Linum usitatissimum'', in the family Linaceae. It is cultivated as a food and fiber crop in regions of the world with temperate climates. Textiles made from flax are known in ...
plant and the cotton plant, respectively.
Gessoed canvases on stretchers are also available. They are available in a variety of weights: light-weight is about or ; medium-weight is about or ; heavy-weight is about or . They are prepared with two or three coats of gesso and are ready for use straight away. Artists desiring greater control of their painting surface may add a coat or two of their preferred gesso. Professional artists who wish to work on canvas may prepare their own canvas in the traditional manner.
One of the most outstanding differences between modern painting techniques and those of the
Flemish
Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...
and
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
Masters is in the preparation of the canvas. "Modern" techniques take advantage of both the canvas
texture
Texture may refer to:
Science and technology
* Surface texture, the texture means smoothness, roughness, or bumpiness of the surface of an object
* Texture (roads), road surface characteristics with waves shorter than road roughness
* Texture ...
as well as those of the
paint
Paint is any pigmented liquid, liquefiable, or solid mastic composition that, after application to a substrate in a thin layer, converts to a solid film. It is most commonly used to protect, color, or provide texture. Paint can be made in many ...
itself.
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
masters took extreme measures to ensure that none of the texture of the canvas came through. This required a painstaking, months-long process of layering the raw canvas with (usually) lead-white paint, then polishing the surface, and then repeating. The final product had little resemblance to fabric, but instead had a glossy, enamel-like finish.
With a properly prepared canvas, the painter will find that each subsequent layer of color glides on in a "buttery" manner, and that with the proper consistency of application (
fat over lean Fat over lean refers to the principle in oil painting of applying paint with a higher oil to pigment ratio ('fat') over paint with a lower oil to pigment ratio ('lean') to ensure a stable paint film, since it is believed that the paint with the high ...
technique), a painting entirely devoid of
brushstrokes can be achieved. A warm
iron
Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...
is applied over a piece of wet cotton to flatten the wrinkles.
Canvas can also be printed on using
offset or specialist digital printers to create
canvas prints. This process of digital inkjet printing is popularly referred to as
Giclée
Giclée ( ) is a neologism, ultimately derived from the French word ''gicleur,'' coined in 1991 by printmaker Jack Duganne for fine art digital prints made using inkjet printers. The name was originally applied to fine art prints created on a mo ...
. After printing, the canvas can be wrapped around a stretcher and displayed.
For embroidery
Canvas is a popular base fabric for embroidery such as
cross-stitch
Cross-stitch is a form of sewing and a popular form of counted-thread embroidery in which X-shaped stitches in a tiled, raster-like pattern are used to form a picture. The stitcher counts the threads on a piece of evenweave fabric (such as lin ...
and
Berlin wool work
Berlin wool work is a style of embroidery similar to today's needlepoint that was particularly popular in Europe and America from 1804 to 1875. It is typically executed with wool yarn on canvas, worked in a single stitch such as cross stitch or ...
. Some specific types of embroidery canvases are
Aida cloth
Aida cloth (sometimes called Java canvas) is an open, even-weave fabric traditionally used for cross-stitch embroidery. This cotton fabric has a natural mesh that facilitates cross-stitching and enough natural stiffness that the crafter does not ...
(also called Java canvas), Penelope canvas, Chess canvas, and Binca canvas.
Plastic canvas
Plastic canvas is a craft material of lightweight plastic with regularly spaced holes in imitation of embroidery canvas. It is also commonly known as ''vinyl weave''.
Plastic canvas is typically used as a foundation for needlepoint or other canva ...
is a stiffer form of Binca canvas.
As a compound agent
![Canvas-stretching](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Canvas-stretching.jpg)
From the 13th century onward, canvas was used as a covering layer on
pavise
A (or ) was an oblong shield used during the late 14th to early 16th centuries. Often large enough to cover the entire body, it was used by archers, crossbowmen, and other infantry soldiers.
Etymology
The name comes from the city of Pavia, Ita ...
shields. The canvas was applied to the wooden surface of the pavise, covered with multiple layers of
gesso
Gesso (; "chalk", from the la, gypsum, from el, γύψος) is a white paint mixture consisting of a binder mixed with chalk, gypsum, pigment, or any combination of these. It is used in painting as a preparation for any number of substrates suc ...
and often richly painted in
tempera
Tempera (), also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. Tempera also refers to the paintings done ...
technique. Finally, the surface was sealed with a transparent varnish. While the gessoed canvas was a perfect painting surface, the primary purpose of the canvas application may have been the strengthening of the wooden shield corpus in a manner similar to modern
glass-reinforced plastic.
Splined canvas, stretched canvas and canvas boards
''Splined canvases'' differ from traditional side-stapled canvas in that canvas is attached with a
spline at the rear of the frame. This allows the artist to incorporate painted edges into the artwork itself without staples at the sides, and the artwork can be displayed without a frame. Splined canvas can be restretched by adjusting the spline.
''Stapled canvases'' stay stretched tighter over a longer period of time, but are more difficult to re-stretch when the need arises.
''Canvas boards'' are made of canvas stretched over and glued to a
cardboard
Cardboard is a generic term for heavy paper-based products. The construction can range from a thick paper known as paperboard to corrugated fiberboard which is made of multiple plies of material. Natural cardboards can range from grey to light ...
backing, and sealed on the backside. The canvas is typically linen primed for a certain type of paint. They are primarily used by artists for quick
studies.
Types
*Dyed canvas
*Fire-proof canvas
*Printed canvas
*Stripe canvas
*Water-resistant canvas
*Waterproof canvas
*Waxed canvas
*Rolled canvas
Products
*Wood-and-canvas
canoe
A canoe is a lightweight narrow water vessel, typically pointed at both ends and open on top, propelled by one or more seated or kneeling paddlers facing the direction of travel and using a single-bladed paddle.
In British English, the term ...
s (see photo of canvas being stretched on a canoe)
*
Bags, including coated canvas (e.g.
Goyard
Maison Goyard, or simply Goyard, is a French trunk and leather goods maker established in 1792 as Maison Martin in Paris; the company also operated as Maison Morel, before becoming Maison Goyard in 1853. The brand is known for a certain amount o ...
)
*Covers and
tarpaulin
A tarpaulin ( , ) or tarp is a large sheet of strong, flexible, water-resistant or waterproof material, often cloth such as canvas or polyester coated with polyurethane, or made of plastics such as polyethylene. Tarpaulins often have reinforce ...
s
*
Shoes
A shoe is an item of footwear intended to protect and comfort the human foot. They are often worn with a sock. Shoes are also used as an item of decoration and fashion. The design of shoes has varied enormously through time and from culture t ...
(e.g.
Converse
Converse may refer to:
Mathematics and logic
* Converse (logic), the result of reversing the two parts of a definite or implicational statement
** Converse implication, the converse of a material implication
** Converse nonimplication, a logical c ...
,
Vans
Vans is an American manufacturer of skateboarding shoes and related apparel, established in Anaheim, California, and owned by VF Corporation. The company also sponsors surf, snowboarding, BMX, and motocross teams. From 1996 to 2019, the comp ...
,
Keds
Keds is an American brand of canvas shoes with rubber soles. Founded in 1916, the company is owned by Wolverine World Wide. The original shoe design, the Champion, was the first mass-marketed canvas-top "sneaker".
History
Early history
In 1 ...
)
*
Tent
A tent () is a shelter consisting of sheets of fabric or other material draped over, attached to a frame of poles or a supporting rope. While smaller tents may be free-standing or attached to the ground, large tents are usually anchored using gu ...
s
*
Martial arts
Martial arts are codified systems and traditions of combat practiced for a number of reasons such as self-defense; military and law enforcement applications; combat sport, competition; physical, mental, and spiritual development; entertainment; a ...
uniforms (e.g.
Tokaido,
Shureido,
Judogi
''Judogi'' (柔道着 or 柔道衣), also called keikogi or dogi, is the formal Japanese name for the traditional uniform used for Judo practice and competition.
A judogi is somewhat similar to a karategi (空手着 or 空手衣, Karate uniform) ...
)
*
Canvas Prints
*
Wrestling
Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...
canvas, used in WWE and other Sports Entertainment promotions
See also
*
Canvas print
A canvas print is the result of an image printed onto canvas which is often stretched, or gallery-wrapped, onto a frame and displayed. Canvas prints are used as the final output in an art piece, or as a way to reproduce other forms of art.
Print ...
*
Eisengarn
''Eisengarn'', meaning "iron yarn" in English, is a light-reflecting, strong, waxed-cotton thread. It was invented and manufactured in Germany in the mid-19th century, but is now best known for its use in cloth woven for the tubular-steel chairs ...
*
Marine canvas
*
Plastic canvas
Plastic canvas is a craft material of lightweight plastic with regularly spaced holes in imitation of embroidery canvas. It is also commonly known as ''vinyl weave''.
Plastic canvas is typically used as a foundation for needlepoint or other canva ...
*
Salembaree
Salembaree is an obsolete variant of cotton cloth that was a coase, stout and heavy fabric. It was made in the Indian subcontinent. The cloth was used for tents in India and Pakistan. Kathee was an alternative name for Salembaree. John Forbes Wats ...
References
*Gordon, Dillian, National Gallery Catalogues (new series): ''The Fifteenth Century Italian Paintings'', Volume 1, 2003,
External links
{{Authority control
Woven fabrics
Painting materials
Maritime culture
es:Lona
it:Interfodera
pl:Płótno
pt:Tela