Painting
The art of creating pictures using colors, shapes and lines is called painting. Museums and galleries show the paintings of professional (专业的) artists. But painting is also a popular form of entertainment and creative expression.
Experienced painters usually use a brush to apply oil paints to a canvas cloth surface. Young painters usually use watercolors on pieces of paper. Very young children may use finger paints to create paintings.
Painters can use their art to express devotion to a religion, to tell a story, to express feelings and ideas, or simply to present a pleasing picture. Religious paintings often show a god or a scene from a sacred text (圣典). Other common subjects have been famous legends and events in history, as well as scenes from daily life. Artists also paint portraits (画像), or pictures of people. All of these types of paintings show the human figure in some way.
Some kinds of paintings do not focus on people. In landscape (风景) painting the focus is on scenes from nature. Artists also paint still objects such as fruits and vegetables. Some artists communicate their ideas through pictures that do not represent any object.
Paintings dating back 15,000 years have been found on the walls of caves in France and Spain.
Samples of painted pottery (陶器) from at least 5,000 years ago have been found in China and Iran. The ancient Egyptians decorated their temples with beautiful paintings. People in ancient Greece painted decorative objects such as vases in addition to the walls of temples.
A. These works are called still-life paintings.
B. These works can communicate a special feeling.
C. Humans have been making paintings for thousands of years.
D. People of all ages create pictures using a variety of materials.
E. Cave paintings generally show animals that early humans hunted.
F. The design of a painting is the plan of its lines, shapes and colors.
G. Sometimes artists make portraits of themselves, which are called self-portraits.
