impasto

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impasto

(ĭmpăs`tō, –pä`stō), thickly applied paint that projects from the picture surface. Such works as Childe Hassam's Allies Day (1917; National Gall. of Art, Washington, D.C.) and Hans Hoffman's abstraction In Upper Regions (1963; David N. Marks Coll.) exploit to advantage the vigorous effect inherent in impasto technique.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Impasto

the thick, uneven application of paint to a canvas or to a ground. The surface’s resulting sculptural quality, which is sometimes quite marked, often consists of the very strokes applied by the brush or palette knife. The areas with the thickest application of paint are most prominent.

The use of impasto, which in the past was often combined with a thin application of pigments in the dark areas of a painting, intensifies the emotional expressiveness of a work and conveys the textures of objects most convincingly, revealing the sculptural possibilities of the paint itself.

impasto

[im′pä·stō]

(graphic arts)

The thick, heavy application of oil paint to a canvas, often with a palette knife; impasto sections stand out in considerable relief.

The thick application of polymer or other paint to any surface.

impasto

In painting, the thick laying of pigments.

impasto

1. paint applied thickly, so that brush and palette knife marks are evident

2. the technique of applying paint in this way

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

References in periodicals archive ?

Impasto freestyle, on the other hand, is a style characterized by its carefree strokes with the palette knife (or brush) and thick paint application.

A man, and an artist, in motion: Grenada native Joachim Mcmillan paints with 'images and memories' from his non-stop mind

I prefer sticks, trowels, knives and dripping fluid paint or a heavy impasto with sand, broken glass ..." (1), said Pollock about his expressive technique, which came to be known as action painting.

Oneness, complexity, and the distribution of disease

At first she'd imagined the bar in impasto: wrong, or at least not right.

Self-Portraits

Six styles are offered, including Fresco, Impasto, Sfuamto, Intaglio, Collage and Camaieu.

A picture full of products

Maurice Vlamlinck was a one-man revolution against all discipline and order, and his paintings were his personal anarchy, as may be seen from the lashed-up impasto of his Potato Pickers, and the loaded greens and reds of View of Chatou.

Art notes: the Fauves invade the academy

How could, they ask, he have loved the swirling chaotic impasto of Turner's later seascapes and, at the same time, the flat, thin, precisely drawn figures of the Pre-Raphaelites?

BRITAIN'S TATE GALLERY IS REORGANIZED AND THE OLD BUILDING IS RELAUNCHED WITH A MAGNIFICENT EXHIBITION WHICH CELEBRATES THE LIFE AND VISION OF JOHN RUSKIN, THE NATION'S GREATEST CRITIC. THE MILLENIUM WHEEL DOMINATES THE LONDON SKYLINE. SPECTRUM EXHIBITION, THE BEST OF FURNITURE DESIGN

A face or gesture is caught in a seemingly effortless flash of colour, or a thickly-layered impasto of expression.

Books: Colours of a changing life in literature; The Complete Stories of Bernard Malamud. (Vintage pounds 9.99). Reviewed by Marianne Nault

I wanted to model the morning light Too difficult to impasto the sky

Rewriting the other and the others

The moods were not discrete but overlapped in a rich impasto. Of the various participants, I found Beatriz Rodriguez and Ryuji Yamamoto especially sensitive in conveying this layered quality.

Joffrey Ballet

Far below, a dizzying impasto of green and brown-- and you are frozen in the knowledge that one slip of the toe will send you hurtling to your death on the ledges below.

How dare we? Scientists seek the sources of risk-taking behavior

Characterized by bold, slashing strokes in thick impasto, his later paintings relate his inner turmoil through their intensity.

Van Gogh, Vincent

Her rich, impasto acrylics have the energetic colours of the Scottish Colourist tradition yet are richly evocative of this corner of Wales.