How Famous Painters Used Art Supplies

Published: 2011-10-14

If one were to study the history of art, they would be introduced to the top ten artists as well as the chosen style and genre of each one. Also, they would have a good idea of the art supplies that were used by each artist in creating their works.

Below is a list of some of the most popular artists in history and a general overview of the supplies they used.

Considered as a monumental figure of the Golden Age of Holland, Rembrandt Van Rijn is known as an artist that can expertly capture human mood and gesture in his portraits. His most famous works involve scenes of biblical and mythological events and characters.

Through his masterpiece "The Nightwatch", Rembrandt has presented the pinnacle of his own artistic language. Being a painter and an etcher, he made use of different types of brushes, paint, and pieces of canvas.

Georgia O'Keefe, a product of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Student's League of New York, stands as one of the founders of emotional representation through stylized representation.

She is most well known for her trademark series of cattle bones and south-western landscapes. Various types of brushes, paint, and canvas were used by O'Keefe in her paintings.

Wassily Kandinsky, a lawyer by profession, started to take up painting in his 30's. Beginning with pointillist techniques, he then shifted to abstract representations of music as well as internal feelings.

His style would later be known as abstract expressionism. In creating his paintings, he used pencils and paintbrushes and a wide array of paint.

Henri Matisse, a painter and a sculptor, is another famous artist who is best known as the father of fauvism. This term comes from the French word "fauve", which means "wild beast".

Although considered by critics as bestial, Matisse's work, including the popular "The Dance" showed his ingenious use of colour and shape. Sculpting tools as well as paintbrushes and pieces of canvas were the common art supplies utilized by Matisse in his time.

"I am surrealism" were the famous words of artist Salvador Dali. His famous works depicted intricate and oftentimes frightening dreamscapes which had distorted figures, double images, and insects.

With regard to his art supplies, aside from the brush and canvas, he made use of sculpting tools as he is also a known sculptor.