Painterliness is a concept based on ''german: malerisch'' ('painterly'), a word popularized by Swiss

art historian Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

Heinrich Wölfflin (1864–1945) to help focus, enrich and standardize the terms being used by art historians of his time to characterize works of art. A painting is said to be ''painterly'' when there are visible brushstrokes in the final work – the result of applying paint in a manner that is not entirely controlled, generally without closely following carefully drawn lines. Any painting media – oils, acrylics, watercolors, gouache, etc. – can produce either linear or painterly work. Some artists whose work could be characterized as painterly are

Pierre Bonnard Pierre Bonnard (; 3 October 186723 January 1947) was a French painter, illustrator and printmaker, known especially for the stylized decorative qualities of his paintings and his bold use of color. A founding member of the Post-Impressionist ...

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 ...

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2 ...

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consid ...

, Renoir,

John Singer Sargent John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more ...

, and

Andrew Wyeth Andrew Newell Wyeth ( ; July 12, 1917 – January 16, 2009) was an American visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century. In his ...

(his early watercolors). The Impressionists,

Fauvists Fauvism /ˈfoʊvɪzm̩/ is the style of ''les Fauves'' ( French for "the wild beasts"), a group of early 20th-century modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values ret ...

and the

Abstract Expressionists Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

tended strongly to be painterly. Painterly art often makes use of the many visual effects produced by paint on canvas, such as chromatic progression, warm and cool tones, complementary and contrasting colors, broken tones, broad brushstrokes, sketchiness, and impasto.

Linear art

The opposite of painterly is ''linear'', ''plastic'' or ''formal linear'' design. ''Linear'' could describe the painting of artists such as

Botticelli Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi ( – May 17, 1510), known as Sandro Botticelli (, ), was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th century, when he was rediscovered ...

Michelangelo Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was insp ...

, and

Ingres Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres ( , ; 29 August 1780 – 14 January 1867) was a French Neoclassicism, Neoclassical Painting, painter. Ingres was profoundly influenced by past artistic traditions and aspired to become the guardian of academic ...

, whose works depend on creating the illusion of a degree of

three-dimensional Three-dimensional space (also: 3D space, 3-space or, rarely, tri-dimensional space) is a geometric setting in which three values (called ''parameters'') are required to determine the position of an element (i.e., point). This is the informal ...

ity by means of "modeling the form" through skillful drawing, shading, and an academic (rather than impulsive) use of color. Contour and pattern are more the province of linear artists, while dynamism is the most common painterly trait.

Other usage

Although ''painterly'' generally refers to a certain use of paint in art, it happens that some forms of

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

make use of apparently random surface effects which, if not exactly resembling brushstrokes, contain the traits of painterliness. The application of the term outside the realm of painting may help the viewer, or listener, experience more deeply the significance of

Auguste Rodin François Auguste René Rodin (12 November 184017 November 1917) was a French sculptor, generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a uniqu ...

's surfaces or

Richard Strauss Richard Georg Strauss (; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, he has been described as a successor of Richard Wag ...

's flow of chromatic harmonies. More recently, "painterly" is used to describe computer software, especially mobile apps, designed to create special effects on photographs, mimicking recognizable artistic media such as oils, watercolors, Japanese woodcuts, etc., or based on individual styles like

van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inclu ...

Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...

, and so on. The resulting photographs, once transformed, are also called "painterly".

Notes and references

{{reflist Painting Concepts in aesthetics

Linear art

Other usage

See also

Notes and references