Medium

the means by which an artist communicates

an idea.
It is the stuff out of which the work of art is
created.

Sculpture
It is a three-dimensional form constructed to
represent a natural or imaginary shape.

Mediums in Sculpture
Stone it is durable; it resists weather, fire,
and all ordinary hazards. On the other hand, it
is heavy and expensive and breaks easily.

Marble
Of the stones, marble is the most beautiful. It
takes a high polish and is almost translucent.

 Praxiteles, Hermes and Dionysus.

Limestone
Limestone is soft, but it does not polish well.

Granite
Granite is coarse, but hard and is suitable for bold effects.

Augustus Saint-Gaudens,The Mystery of the Hereafter and The Peace of God that Passeth Understanding (often
called Grief)

Bronze
traditionally, bronze is the most commonly
used of the metals. In small statues, the
bronze is solid, but in large ones, solid metal
would be too heavy and too expensive. Most
bronze statues are hollow.

Wood
it is cheap, readily available, and easy to cut. It
can be painted or gilded. It is not brittle and
permits the sculptor to work in thin, extended
forms. It is capable of fine detail and polishes
well.

Wood Bodhisattva, Jin Dynasty (1115-1234 AD)

Ivory
it is used for small pieces, like crosses, chess
pieces, etc., in which very delicate carving is
needed because it is expensive and securing
large pieces is difficult. The color of ivory is a
rich, creamy yellow.

A piece of carved ivory from the Pushkin Museum representing Christ blessing
Emperor Constantine VII.
Dated back to 945, the piece passed from the treasury at Echmiadzin to the collection
of Count Sergey Uvarov in the mid-19th century.

Terra Cotta
the term means baked earth. It is made by
firing clay. It is usually painted and covered
with a heavy glaze. It is very cheap, and
brilliant colors are made possible by the
glazing. However, like all pottery, terra cotta is
easily broken and chipped.

 Terra Cotta Warriors and Horses of Qin Shi Huang the First Emperor of
China. The terracotta figures, dating from 210 BC, were discovered in 1974

Painting
It is the process of applying pigment on a
smooth surfacepaper, cloth, canvas, wood,
or plasterto secure an interesting
arrangement of forms, lines, and colors.

Pigments
Its the part of the paint which supplies the
color. It may come from natural or artificial
sources.

Vehicle
The substance that is mixed with the pigment
that allows the powder to be spread over a
flat surface.

Mediums in Painting
Oil this is the most widely used medium for
painting. Oil can be applied so thinly that
canvas shows through or so thickly as to
produce a textured surface.

 Paul Gauguin"Fatata te Miti" ("By the Sea")

Vincent Van Gogh, Self-Portrait,Summer 1887

Acrylic
is a synthetic medium for pigments. It is the
most adaptable of mediums for painting;
depending on the amount of water, it can be
used as paint or watercolor.

 Natalja Picugina,Acrylic On Artist Canvas

Watercolor
the pigments are mixed with water and when
applied to a good-quality paper, it is pale and
light in color.

 Thomas Girtin , Jedburgh Abbey from the River,

1798-99 (watercolor on paper)

 The Blue Boat (1892) by Winslow Homer

Gouache
it is an opaque watercolour. It differs from
dominantly brilliant quality of translucent
watercolour painting.

 Friedrich Schwinge, Self Portrait in Garden (1888),Gouache

Fresco
Fresco painting is the application of earth
pigments mixed with water on a plaster wall
while the plaster is damp. Color then sinks
into the surface and becomes an integral part
of the wall.

 Detail of mural by Jos Clemente Orozco at Baker Library,

Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire.

Egg tempera
it is usually done on a wooden panel that has
been made very smooth with a coating of
plaster. Because of its great luminosity of
tone, the colors are clear and beautiful.

Egg tempera

 Madonna and Child by Duccio, tempera and gold on wood, 1284

Encaustic
Wax was used by the Egyptians for portraits
painted on mummy cases. There were several
ways of preparing the wax, but in general the
color was mixed with warm wax and burned
in.

 Painted mummy cover of a young boy, dating to the Roman Period,

2nd century A.D., made of encaustic on wood. On display at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art.

 A 6th-century encaustic icon from Saint Catherine's

Monastery, Mount Sinai.

Pastel
They are pigments in the form of powders are
compressed lightly into sticks. Its colors are
brilliant, and it is a very flexible medium, one
in which very rich and varied effects may be
produced.

 Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin. Self Portrait in pastel 1771

Drawing
Art or technique of producing images on a
surface, usually paper, by means of marks in
graphite, ink, chalk, charcoal, or crayon.
It is often a preliminary stage to work in other
media.

 Male nude by Annibale Carracci, 16th century

Printmaking
Art form consisting of the production of
images, usually on paper but occasionally on
fabric, parchment, plastic, or other support,
by various techniques of multiplication, under
the direct supervision of or by the hand of the
artist.

Woodcut
The technique of printing designs from planks of
wood incised parallel to the vertical axis of the
woods grain. It is one of the oldest methods of
making prints from a relief surface, having been used
in China to decorate textiles since the 5th century ad.

 Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861) 1845-46 (late Edo)mulberry paper,

pigments. General Taira no Tomomori

Engraving
The technique of making prints from metal
plates into which a design has been incised
with a cutting tool called a burin.

 Modern reproduction of Rembrandt's 1639 self portrait

Etching
a method of making prints from a metal plate,
usually copper, into which the design has been
incised by acid.

 Christ Preaching, known as The Hundred Guilder print;

etching c1648 by Rembrandt.

Lithography
In the lithographic process, ink is applied to a
grease-treated image on the flat printing
surface; nonimage (blank) areas, which hold
moisture, repel the lithographic ink. This inked
surface is then printedeither directly on
paper, by means of a special press (as in most
fine-art printmaking), or onto a rubber
cylinder (as in commercial printing).

 Charles Marion Russell's The Custer Fight (1903). Note

the range of tones, fading out towards the edges.

Serigraphy
A sophisticated stenciling technique for
surface printing, in which a design is cut out of
paper or another thin, strong material and
then printed by rubbing, rolling, or spraying
paint or ink through the cut out areas.

 A silk screen design.

Photography
is the art, science, and practice of creating
pictures by recording radiation on a radiationsensitive medium, such as a photographic
film, or electronic image sensors.

 Ansel Adams' The Tetons and the Snake River (1942).

Illumination
It is a handwritten book that has been
decorated with gold or silver, brilliant colours,
or elaborate designs or miniature pictures.

Illumination

Folio 4 verso of the Aberdeen

Bestiary. The illumination shows
the Christ in Majesty.

The illuminated letter P in the Malmesbury

Bible. The script is blackletter, also known as
Gothic script

Mosaic
Surface decoration of small coloured
componentssuch as stone, glass, tile, or
shellclosely set into an adhesive ground.

Mosaic

Casa del Poeta tragico a Pompei

Stained Glass
Coloured glass used to make decorative
windows and other objects through which
light passes.

Stained Glass

Detail of a 13th-century window from Chartres Cathedral

Tapestry
Heavy, reversible, patterned or figured
handwoven textile, usually in the form of a
hanging or upholstery fabric.
They are usually designed as single panels or
as sets of panels related by subject and style
and intended to be hung together.

Tapestry

Boar and Bear Hunt, The Devonshire Hunting Tapestries, late 1420s
V&A Museum no. T.204-1957