page_title: Painting
section_title: Elements of painting
hierarchical_section_title: Painting / Elements of painting
caption_attribution_description: Painting by the Chinese Ming Dynasty artist Chen Hongshou (1599-1652), leaf from an album of miscellaneous paintings. Chinese&#58; 《玉堂柱石圖》label QS:Lzh,"玉堂柱石圖"
context_page_description: Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface. The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and airbrushes, can be used.
  In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. The support for paintings includes such surfaces as walls, paper, canvas, wood, glass, lacquer, pottery, leaf, copper and concrete, and the painting may incorporate multiple other materials, including sand, clay, paper, plaster, gold leaf, and even whole objects.
  Painting is an important form in the visual arts, bringing in elements such as drawing, composition, gesture, narration, and abstraction. Paintings can be naturalistic and representational, photographic, abstract, narrative, symbolistic, emotive, and/or political in nature.
  A portion of the history of painting in both Eastern and Western art is dominated by religious art. Examples of this kind of painting range from artwork depicting mythological figures on pottery, to Biblical scenes on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, to scenes from the life of Buddha.
caption: Chen Hongshou (1598–1652), Leaf album painting (Ming dynasty)
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