2. Pattern and Texture
• Pattern begins with a unit or shape that is
repeated. This unit is called a Motif
• Most patterns can be reduced to a grid of
some sort, and the result is a crystallographic
balance or order.
4. Pattern and texture-differences
• It is difficult to draw a strict line between
texture and pattern. Pattern is usually defined
as a repetitive design, with the same motif
appearing again and again. Texture, too, often
repeats, but its variations usually do not
involve such perfect regularity. The difference
in the two terms is admittedly slight.
5. Pattern and Texture
• The essential distinction between texture and
pattern seems to be whether the surface
arouses our sense of touch or merely provides
designs appealing to the eye.
7. Texture
• Texture refers to the surface quality of objects.
Texture appeals to our sense of touch. Even
when we do not actually feel an object, our
memory provides a sensory reaction or
sensation of touch.
10. Categories of Texture
• Architecture and sculpture have what is called
tactile texture (or actual texture)—this is
texture that can actually be felt. In painting,
the same term describes an uneven paint
surface, produced when an art- ist uses thick
pigment (a technique called impasto) to
create a rough, three-dimensional paint
surface.
15. Verisimilitude and Trompe L’oeil
• In painting, artists can create the impression of
texture on a flat, smooth painted surface. This is
called verisimilitude, or an appearance that is “truly
the same.” By reproducing the color and value
patterns of familiar textures, painters encourage us
to see textures where none actually exist. Visual
texture is the impression of texture as purely visual;
it cannot be felt or enjoyed by touch.
17. Frottage_a technique in the visual arts of obtaining
textural effects or images by rubbing lead, chalk, charcoal,
etc., over paper laid on a granular or relieflike surface.
The drawings of M.C. Escher continue the tradition of highly mathematical pattern. Example D reveals the hexagon that orders the pattern of fish shapes. Slide the hexagon down and to the right on a thirty- degree axis, and the pattern is created
This distinction between what the eye takes to be simply pattern and the qualities that evoke our sense of touch can be seen beginning with A. This decorative motif is regular, high in contrast, and representational of a plant. It is clearly a pattern. The image in B is also a Victorian-era decorative motif, but its irregular pattern and lack of a representational image allow it to be read as a series of ridges, and thus it has some textural associations.
This photograph shows how a variety of textures create sustained interest in the image. Our eye may be initially drawn to the red architectural details, but our attention would soon fade were it not for the contrasts of stone, shingle, and wood.
As the need and desire for illusionism in art faded, tactile tex- ture became a more common aspect of painting. Paintings now could look like what they truly were—paint on canvas. Calling attention to the painting’s surface became another option avail- able to the artist. Van Gogh was an early proponent of the appli- cation of paint as an expressive element. The detail in A shows how short brushstrokes of thick, undiluted paint are used. The ridges and raised edges of the paint strokes are obvious to the viewer’s eye. On the figure they follow the form, and in the back- ground these strokes form a more abstract pattern
The “relief painting” by Thornton Dial (B) shows a next step in bringing tactile texture into a painting. This painting is so com- plex with contrasts of value (light and dark) and added materials that we have to look closely at some parts to determine what is tactile texture and what is implied texture.
the image of brushstrokes in Lichtenstein’s print Brushstrokes from1967.
is only an implied texture. In fact, the texture of a screen print is as flat and smooth as can be.
Pieter Claesz. Still Life with Two Lemons, Venise Glass, Roemer, Knife and Olives on a Table. 1629. Oil on panel,
This painting appears to have been painted with fluid paint and a soft brush. No physical mark is made by the paint. evokes the cold hardness of stone, the moist surface of fruit, and the feel of metal and glass.
In contrast to the method used by Peter Claesz, Max Ernst creates an eerie landscape texture through processes like frottage or rubbings (B). This surrealist artist exploits equiva- lence between the depicted texture and the technique that cre- ates it.
Technique of reproducing a texture or relief design by laying paper over it and rubbing it with some drawing medium, for example pencil or crayon. Max Ernst and other Surrealist artists incorporated such rubbings into their paintings by means of collage. It is also a popular method of making rubbings of medieval church brasses and other ancient monuments and inscriptions.
Textural trompe l’oeil is most convincing when the image is shallow or almost two dimensional. When a three-dimensional object is represented in a painting, no matter how skillfully, our binocular vision will soon betray the deception. An ordinary bridge underpass is transformed into elaborate masonry through trompe l’oeil painting here. It’s successful in the deception, not only because of a skillful attention to detail but also because the subjects depicted are low relief textures..