Canvas

Canvas is a strong woven fabric traditionally used as a support for painting, that is, the surface on which paint is applied. It is made chiefly of linen or cotton; linen canvas is regarded as higher in quality and more durable, while cotton is cheaper and more common in modern times. Before painting, the canvas is stretched over a wooden stretcher and primed — covered with a layer of size and ground (such as gesso or acrylic primer), which insulates the fibres from the paint and creates a surface suitable for painting. Canvas gradually displaced the wooden panel as the principal support for easel painting in Europe from around the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, especially in Venice, where the damp climate damaged wooden panels. Compared with wood, canvas was lighter, cheaper, allowed the creation of large-scale pictures and could be easily transported when rolled. This change also had aesthetic consequences: the grainy texture of the fabric encouraged a freer, more painterly brushstroke developed by masters such as Titian and Rembrandt. From the Renaissance to the present, stretched and primed canvas has remained the most common support for oil and acrylic painting, and the word "canvas" itself is often used as a synonym for a painting.