in the New English Dictionary), from Lat. pingere, to paint.
From the past participle pictus comes pictura, picture, and from
the root pig, pigment. The ultimate meaning of the root is
probably to decorate, adorn, and is seen in Gr. ποικίλος, many-coloured,
variegated.
In Part I. of this article, after a brief notice of the general character of the art and an account of its earliest manifestations, a sketch is given of the course of its development from the ancient Egyptian period to modern times. (An account, by countries, of recent schools of painting will be found as an appendix at the end of Part III.) The point of view chosen is that of the relation of painting to nature, and it is shown how the art, beginning with the delineation of contour, passes on through stages when the effort is to render the truth of solid form, to the final period when, in the 17th century, the presentment of space, or nature in all her extent and variety, becomes the subject of representation. Certain special forms of painting characteristic of modern times, such as portraiture, genre painting, landscape, still-life, &c., are briefly discussed.
Part II. consists in tables of names and dates intended to afford a conspectus of the different historical schools of painting from the 12th century A.D. downwards.
Part III. is devoted to a comprehensive treatment of the different technical processes of painting in vogue in ancient and modern times.
Authorities.—There is one elaborate general treatise on the whole art of painting in all its branches and connexions. It is by Paillot de Montabert, and was published in Paris (1829-1850). It is entitled Traité complet de la peinture, and is in nine substantial volumes, with an additional volume of plates. It begins with establishing the value of rules for the art, and giving a dictionary of terms, lists of artists and works of art, &c. Vols. ii. and iii. give the history of the art in ancient, medieval and modern times. Vols. iv., v., vi. and vii. contain discussions on choice of subjects, design, composition, &c.; on proportions, anatomy, expression, drapery; on geometry, perspective, light and shade, and colour. In vol. viii., pp. 1–285 deal with colour, aerial perspective and execution; pp. 285–503 take up the different kinds of painting, history, portrait, landscape, genre, &c.; and pp. 503–661 are devoted to materials and processes, which subject is continued through vol. ix. To en caustic painting 125 pages are given, and 100 to painting in oil. A long discussion on painting grounds and pigments follows, while other processes of painting, in tempera, water-colour, enamel, mosaic, &c., are more briefly treated in about 200 pages, while the work ends with a notice of various artistic impedimenta. Vol. i., it should be said, contains on 70 pages a complete synopsis of the contents of the successive volumes. The best general History of Painting is that by Woltmann and Woermann (Eng. trans., London, 1880, &c.), but it does not go beyond the 16th century A.D. See also the separate articles on China (Art), Japan (Art), Egypt (Art), Greek Art, Roman Art, &c.
For the Italian schools of painting may be consulted: Crowe and Cavalcaselle, History of Painting in Italy (2nd ed., London, 1902, &c.). The original edition was published in London under the titles History of Painting in Italy (3 vols., 1864-1866), and History of Painting in North Italy (2 vols., 1871), Venturi, Storia dell’ arte italiana (Milan, 1901, &c.).
For the German: Janitschek, Geschichte der deutschen Malerei (Berlin, 1890).
For the Early Flemish: Crowe and Cavalcaselle, The Early Flemish Painters (2nd ed., London, 1872); Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstler-Lexicon (Vienna and Leipzig, 1906, &c.); Weale, Hubert and John van Eyck (London, 1907).
For the Dutch: Wurzbach; Bode, Studien zur Geschichte der Holländischen Malerei (Braunschweig, 1883) and Rembrandt und seine Zeitgenossen (Leipzig, 1906); Havard, The Dutch School of Painting (trans., London. 1885).
For the French: Lady Dilke, French Painters of the Eighteenth Century (London, 1899); D. C. Thomson, The Barbizon School.
For the English: Redgrave, A Century of Painters of the English School (London, 1890).
For the Scottish: W. D. McKay, R.S.A., The Scottish School of Painting (London, 1906).
For the American: J. C. Van Dyke (ed.). History of American Art (New York, 1903, &c.); S. Isham, A History of American Painting (N. Y., 1905).
The modern schools generally are treated fully, with copious bibliographical references, by Richard Muther, The History of Modern Painting (2nd ed., Eng. trans., London, 1907).
Part I.—A Sketch of the Development of the Art
§ 1. Constituents and General Character.—If we trace back to the parent stock the various branches that support the luxuriant modern growth of the graphic art, we see that this parent stock is in its origin twofold. Painting begins on the one side in outline delineation and on the other in the spreading of a coloured coating over a surface. In both cases the motive is at first utilitarian, or, at any rate, non-artistic. In the first the primary motive is to convey information. It has been noticed of certain savages that if one of them wants to convey to a companion the impression of a particular animal or object, he will draw with his finger in the air the outline of some characteristic feature by which it may be known, and if this do not avail he will sketch the same with a pointed stick upon the ground. It is but a step from this to delineation on some portable tablet that retains what is scratched or drawn upon it, and in this act a monument of the graphic art has come into being.
In the other case there are various motives of a non-aesthetic kind that lead to the covering of a surface with a coat of another substance. The human body, the first object of interest to man, is tender and is sensitive to cold. Wood, one of the earliest building materials and the one material for any sort of boat-building, is subject, especially when exposed to moisture, to decay. Again, the early vessel of clay, of neolithic date, because imperfectly burned, is porous. Now the properties of certain substances suitable for adhesive coatings on anything that needed protection or reinforcement would soon be noticed. Unctuous and oily substances like animal fat, mixed with ashes or some such material, are smeared by some savages on their bodies to keep them warm in cold regions and to defend them against insect bites in the tropics. Wax and resin and pitch, liquefied by the heat of the sun or by fire, would lend themselves readily for the coating of wood with a substance impervious to moisture. Vitreous glazes, first no doubt the result of accident, fused over the surface of the primitive clay vessel would give it the required impermeability. This is no more art than the mere delineation which is the other source of painting, but it begins to take on itself an aesthetic character when colour plays a part in it. There are physiological reasons why the colour red exercises an exciting influence, and strong colours generally, like glittering surfaces, make an aesthetic appeal. In prehistoric times the flesh was sometimes stripped from the skeleton of a corpse and the bones rubbed with red earth or ruddle, while the same easily procured colouring substance is used to decorate the person or the implement of the savage. In this sensibility to colour we find a second and distinct origin of the art of painting.
What a perspective does a glance back at the development of painting afford! Painting, an art that on a flat surface can suggest to illusion the presence of solid forms with length, breadth and thickness; that on the area of a few square inches can convey the impression of the vast spaces of the universe, and carry the eye from receding plane to plane till the persons or objects that people them grow too minute for the eye to discern; painting that can deck the world in Elysian brightness or veil it in the gloom of the Crucifixion, that intoxicates the senses with its revelation of beauty, or magician-like withdraws the veil from the mysterious complexity of nature; the art that can exhibit all this, and yet can suggest a hundredfold more than it can show, and by a line, a shade, a touch, can stir within us “thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears”—this Painting, the most fascinating, because most illusive in its nature, of all the arts of form, is in its first origin at one time a mere display to attract attention, as if one should cry out “See here!” and at another time a prosaic answer to a prosaic question about some natural object, “What is it like?” The coat or streak or dab of colour, the informing outline, are not in themselves aesthetic products. The former becomes artistic when the element of arrangement or pattern is introduced. There is arrangement when the shape and size of the mark or marks have a studied relation to those of the surface on which they are displayed; there is pattern when they are combined among themselves so that while distinct and contrasted they yet present the appearance of a unity. Again, the delineation, serving at first a purpose of use, is not in itself artistic, and it is a difficult question in aesthetic whether any representation of nature that aims only at resemblance really
