Texture Actual and Visual Simulated Objectives Explain the

Texture Actual and Visual (Simulated)

Objectives: • Explain the element of Texture • Know the different ways to define texture • Know how to describe art with regards to texture • Use the element of texture in a 4 step Criticism

Vocabulary: • Actual Texture • Visual Texture • Real Texture • Artificial Texture • Illusion • Simulation

We use our sense of touch to feel Texture. Close your eyes and think about what you feel when you run your hands over the bark of a tree. This object has a Texture that could be described even with your eyes closed. This is called “ACTUAL TEXTURE”

Works of art can have a variety of actual textures created by the artist's choice of materials and how they are handled. The actual texture of this oil painting is quite rough and bumpy. Vincent Van Gogh Olive Trees 1889 Oil on canvas

Texture is the way something feels when you touch it. Artists can create the illusion of texture in artworks such as paintings, drawings and prints. If you were to touch the screen, these shapes would feel smooth to our fingers, but our eyes suggest that they are rough and bumpy. This is called a “visual” or “simulated texture”.

Painters and sculptors who work in the Realist style imitate natural surfaces and textures. The actual texture of a painting or sculpture may not be at all the same as the "visual texture" that the artist is simulating. “Droplets on a leaf” K. Miller 01/2011

In the detail of this painting, you can see the artist's successful simulation of the surface of a soap bubble. Its "visual texture" appears to be wet and shiny. If you look more closely, you can see the actual texture created by the artist's application of paint. Detail of Gathering of Gamblers with Hurdy-Gurdy Player

So textures may be actual or visual (or simulated). Actual textures can be felt with the fingers, while visual (or simulated) textures are suggested by an artist in the painting of different areas of a picture — Simulated texture is an illusion that must be seen to be understood Young Field-Hare ·Watercolor, 1502, Albrecht Durer

Critique: Step 1 Describe. Real or Artificial texture…. The thick application of the paint and the use of many colors to accent the paint strokes gives this painting an textured quality. It is an Actual texture. But in reality the air around us does not have that kind of actual texture, Because it is not an attempt to capture a real texture, we would call this texture Artificial. Self-Portrait, Vincent van Gogh 1889, Oil on canvas

At first glance, with the image so small, you may notice the shapes used in this work first, before you notice the texture. The entire surface of this painting is covered in thick, rectangular brushstrokes of color. Can you imagine what this painting would feel like if you could touch it? The colors and lines of the work are extremely simple. The added texture adds detail. Paul Klee (French) 1879 -1940, Ad Parnassum, 1932 , Oil on canvas, 39 x 49 in.

Detail of Ad Parnassum by Paul Klee

"No. 1 (Royal Red & Blue). “ By Mark Rothko 1954

In Review

Real vs Artificial • A “Real” thing that exists in the Real world • Artificial texture is made up…. The artist created something that does not really exist

Actual vs Visual (Simulated) • Actual texture can be experienced with your eyes closed through your sense of touch • Visual texture is experienced with your eyes, and is an illusion.

Real texture exists in the real world. Something like a wet leaf • An actual wet leaf • Visual illusion

Artificial… does not exist in the real world’ • Actual texture • Visual illusion

Jennifer Vranes Autumn Bliss acrylic on canvas Artists strive very hard to imitate the look and feel of real Texture in works of art. Perhaps an artist can't "make" the bark of a tree in his landscape "feel" like real bark, but the viewer will "see" the Texture and be able to associate it with the rough feel of actual bark. Artists are masters of deception. In some works, the viewer is tempted to actually reach out and touch a work of art because it looks like it has a Texture. They are surprised to feel only brushstrokes or a flat surface. The eye is tricked into seeing a "real" Texture.

Jennifer Vranes Three Daughters acrylic on canvas