Impasto

Impasto (from the Italian impasto, «dough» or «mixture») is an area of thickly applied paint or texture in painting, in which brushstrokes stand out from the surface of the canvas and preserve the marks of the brush or palette knife. The thick layer of paint catches the light, creating a play of relief, shadow, and material tangibility that lends an image energy and immediacy. The technique became possible with the spread of oil paints in European painting. It was used masterfully by Titian and Rembrandt, in whose work impasto modelled faces and fabrics, heightening the effect of an inner glow. In the nineteenth century, impasto achieved its most emotional expression in the work of Vincent van Gogh, whose swirling relief strokes became a hallmark of Post-Impressionism. Later, Expressionists and Abstract Expressionists developed the expressive potential of thick paint. Impasto stands in contrast to smooth, mark-free painting and remains one of the principal means of textural expressiveness.