#

Have you been to any art exhibition or seen any paintings for sale online recently that made you feel the surface and texture? Yes! Then chances are you might have come across an impasto painting.

Impasto painting is a method in which the artist magnificently creates thick layers of paint through fine brush stroke on the surface of a painting. It enables the artist to add a three-dimensional touch to give almost sculptural quality to a painting besides creating unique textures and effects. 

This technique is typically used with denser and impervious paints such as oils, acrylics, gouache and tempera. While impasto is theoretically possible with specific watercolors, it is seldom seen in that medium. 

Through this post, I would like to highlight some of the key examples of impasto used by famous artists in their paintings.

Albeit impasto painting has been around since long time, yet in initial many years the prime objective of a painter has been to beautiful camouflage the impression that something had been painted. Instead of accentuating the textural potentials of paint, artists have majorly made attempts to reduce brushstrokes and any evidence of the artist’s hand. With passage of time, things changed and today many painters have honed their skill to reflect visible brushstroke, and impasto technique of painting exhibits more of those qualities. 

Moreover, this form of painting can be enhanced through use of hardening agents, including gel used in acrylic painting and wax in oil paintings. Besides paint brushes, painters do use palette knives frequently to evenly spread over paint in a thick impasto style.

A good example of an artist who immaculately reflected impasto painting effects in oils was Rembrandt. In his self-portrait that he made in 1659, visible thick strokes of paint rising from the surface of the painting can be found.

Another renowned and eminent artist who has used impasto technique in his paintings was Vincent Van Gogh. He used this technique in an astounding way. Instead of bit by bit building up layers of paint as Monet did, he took paint straight from the tube and applied it to the canvas straight away. Otherwise, he loaded his brush full of paint in such a manner that bristles weren’t even doing any work– the paint brush was fundamentally a tool for thick drops of paint. 

You can find and buy Indian art online made through impasto technique. All you need to do is to look out for online art galleries and see through the paintings for sale.