Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Preparatory painting over which the finished work is done. In the early Italian schools, the under-painting was done probably for a long time in tempera, the dry quality of which was valuable under oil glazes.
Etymologies
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Examples
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The diptych "The Traveler and the Travel" is two panels whose size and edges don't quite line up, though the image continues from one canvas to the next (in a slightly different form) and both share a purple-pink under-painting.
A sense of direction in the middle of 'Nowhere' Jessica Dawson 2010
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I know it's tempting for you to go totally alla-prima and skip the structure of a more careful under-painting like that.
Balloon william wray 2009
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But at times his color will shift in hue, giving spatial depth to flatness; or veiled under-painting adds vibration, as if the lines were plucked strings.
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Herald Joshe, who was something of an artist, had remarked sadly that the King was like an under-painting, all bones and shadows.
Magic's Price Lackey, Mercedes 1990
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Herald Joshe, who was something of an artist, had remarked sadly that the King was like an under-painting, all bones and shadows.
Magic's Price Lackey, Mercedes 1990
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Black, therefore, should be reserved for a local colour, or employed only in the under-painting properly called grounding and dead colouring.
Field's Chromatography or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists George Field
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The wall of the river cañon is built up in stories of basalt rock, each story defined by a horizontal fissure, out of which these mysterious waters gush, white and cold, taking glorious colors in the sunlight from the rich under-painting of the rock.
A Touch of Sun and Other Stories Mary Hallock Foote 1892
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The greenish under-painting of the flesh-tints is often noticeable.
Illuminated Manuscripts John William Bradley 1873
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Another peculiarity in the works of the painters of the time referred to, particularly those of the Florentine and Sienese schools, is the greenish tone of their coloring in the flesh; produced by the mode in which they often prepared their works, viz. by a green under-painting.
On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature John Ruskin 1859
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Over the last four years, curators have used X-rays and other techniques to examine the work's under-painting, seeing how it evolved from a naturalistic scene to a Cubist work more reminiscent of Picasso's seminal "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" of 1907, with less influence from Matisse's beloved Cezanne.
Yahoo! News: Latest news headlines News Headlines | Top Stories 2010
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