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"Watercolor painting, in its wider sense, refers to all pigments
mixed with water rather than with oil and also to the paintings produced
by this process; it includes
fresco and
tempera as well as aquarelle, the process now commonly meant by the
generic term.
Gouache and distemper are also watercolors, although they are prepared
with a more gluey base than the other forms. Long before oil was used in
the preparation of pigment, watercolor painting had achieved a high form
of sophistication. The oldest existing paintings, found in Egypt, are
watercolors. The Persian artist Bihzad (15th cent.) produced exquisite
miniatures of great complexity. Gouache was employed by Byzantine and
Romanesque artists. In the
Middle Ages, illuminated manuscripts on vellum used watercolor to
produce their flat, brilliant effects. In this same manner watercolors
were used during and after the Renaissance by such artists as Dürer,
Rembrandt, Rubens, and
Van Dyck to tint and shade drawings and woodcuts. Dürer in particular
colored landscape drawings in a manner not unlike the modern
method."
Source:
Answer.com |
