Easel painting - definition, materials, genres and subtleties of writing. Painting types monumental easel What works are called easel painting

“Art is the same need for a person as eating and drinking. The need for beauty and creativity, embodying it, is inseparable from man,” wrote F. M. Dostoevsky.

Indeed, history testifies that man has always been inseparable from art. In the mountains, in the caves of different countries of the world, ancient rock paintings have been preserved. These expressive drawings of animals and hunters were made back in the days when people could not write.

Monuments of art tell us what great importance it had in the life of man and human society. The ancient Greeks created a beautiful myth about the Muses - eternally young sisters, personifying the arts and sciences. Melpomene - the muse of tragedy, Thalia - comedy, Terpsichore - dancing, Clio - the muse of history ... The myth says that when the god Apollo - the patron of art, poetry and music - appeared accompanied by the muses, then all nature listened to their singing ... Music, the museum - these words come from the word Muse.

The poetic myth of the sister muses has not lost its meaning. Each type of art has its own expressive means: in music it is sound, in fine arts it is color, line, etc., in literature it is the word. But the related essence of all kinds lies in the fact that art is one of the forms of social consciousness, which is based on a figurative reflection of the phenomena of reality.

Visual arts related to visual perception include: painting, graphics and sculpture. These arts create an image on the plane (painting and graphics) and in space (sculpture).

A picture, drawing, print, sculpture that has an independent meaning, that is, is not associated with any artistic ensemble or with a purely practical purpose, we call easel works. This definition comes from the word “machine” (in this case, an easel), on which a canvas is placed when a picture is painted. And even the fact that the picture is necessarily inserted into the frame emphasizes the independence, that is, the isolation of easel painting from the environment. The frame separates the picture, creates the opportunity to perceive it as an independent artistic whole. Some easel paintings are reproduced in the book.

Unlike machine monumental painting by its purpose and character it is connected with the architectural ensemble. Frescoes, mosaics, panels, stained-glass windows organically enter the architecture, complementing and enriching the decoration of the interior or the entire building. Excellent examples of monumental painting are the frescoes of Raphael in the Vatican Palace, the paintings by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. Monumental painting reached its highest level in Byzantine and Old Russian art.

In our time, monumental painting is widely used in palaces of culture, clubs, theaters, metro stations, railway stations, etc. Many of you have seen mosaics in the metro, created according to sketches by P. Korin, A. Deineka and other Soviet masters. Interior murals of the Bus Station and the Museum of the Armed Forces in Moscow (artist Yu. Korolev), murals of the Tsiolkovsky Museum in Kaluga (a group of artists led by A. Vasnetsov), stained-glass windows by Lithuanian masters, chased panels by Georgian artists adorned many new buildings in our cities.

The monumental art of modern Mexico has won international fame. The mosaics of Siqueiros and other major artists reflect the heroic struggle of the Mexican people for their independence.

It is not always possible to draw a sharp line between an easel and a monumental work of art. This is explained by the fact that easel painting often has the quality of monumentality. And monumental works sometimes have an independent meaning, being perceived as finished easel paintings.

There is still a very large area of ​​decorative and applied arts. These are artistically made furniture, dishes, clothes, fabrics, carpets, embroideries, jewelry, etc. However, some types of arts and crafts (tapestry, chasing, decorative sculpture) can also be considered as independent works. Painting, which is intended to decorate or reveal the design and purpose of an object and does not have a clearly independent meaning, is called decorative.

Thus, painting is divided into easel, monumental and decorative.

STANKABOUTART- a term that denotes works of painting, sculpture and graphics that have an independent character and meaning. The ideological meaning of works of easel art does not change depending on the place where they are located, although their artistic sound depends on the conditions of exposure. The term "easel art" comes from the "machine" on which many works of art are created (in painting, for example, it is an easel). Easel art has been widely developed since the Renaissance.

MONUMENTAL ART- a kind of art that includes architectural structures, sculptural monuments, relief, wall painting, mosaics, stained glass windows, etc. Monumental art focuses on mass perception and seeks to influence the emotions and thoughts of many people. Monumental sculpture is monuments, monuments, sculptural complexes that complement the architecture. Monumental painting is a panel, a list, a mosaic, stained-glass windows. Monumental graphics - a wall graphic image involved in the creation of a monumental image. Monumental art is characterized by a certain constant environment of existence. Properties: conciseness, catchiness, calm, balanced, clear, simple, whole and majestic. The "biography" of monumental art goes back to the human creations of the Stone Age. Murals of Altamira and Lasko, stones of Stonehenge, high stones (up to 20 m) vertically dug into the ground, having a cult significance (“menhirs”). Blossoming monument. The arts coincide with epochs when the collective consciousness is highly developed and the individual consciousness is not enough. It is no coincidence that all ancient cultures and the culture of the Middle Ages gravitated mainly towards the monumental.

4. Types of fine arts.

1.Architecture or architecture is both the science and art of building design. In a broad sense, architecture is the organization of the human environment, starting with the design of cities, the organization of the urban environment, landscape architecture and ending with the design of furniture and interior decoration of buildings.

2.painting: monumental painting on arch structures and other stationary bases (fresco, mosaic, stained glass). easel is alive (landscape, portrait, still life, household is alive, historical is alive)

3.graphic arts- a type of fine art that uses lines, strokes and spots as the main visual means (color can also be used, but, unlike painting, here it plays an auxiliary role).

4.theatrical and decorative arts

5.DPI- the field of decor art: the creation of artistic products that have a practical purpose in public and private life and the artistic processing of utilitarian objects (batik, tapestry, thread graphics, ceramics, embroidery)

6.sculpture- a type of visual art, the works of which have a three-dimensional shape and are made of solid or plastic materials.

5. Sculpture as an art form.

Sculpture [from lat. skulpo - cut out, carve] - sculpture, plastic, a type of fine art, the works of which have a three-dimensional three-dimensional shape and are made of solid or plastic materials. Sculpture shows a certain affinity for architecture: it also deals with space and volume, obeys the laws of tectonics and is material in nature. But unlike architecture, it is not functional, but pictorial. The main specific features of sculpture are physicality, materiality, laconicism and universality. The materiality of the sculpture is due to the ability of a person to feel the volume. But the highest form of touch in sculpture, which brings it to a new level of perception, is the ability of a person to “visually touch” the form perceived through sculpture, when the eye acquires the ability to correlate the depth and convexity of different surfaces, subordinating them to the semantic integrity of all perception. The materiality of sculpture is manifested in the concreteness of the material, which, taking shape, ceases to be an objective reality for a person and becomes a material carrier of an artistic idea. Sculpture is the art of transforming space through volume. Each culture brings its own understanding of the relationship between volume and space: antiquity understands the volume of the body as an arrangement in space, the Middle Ages - space as an unreal world, classicism - the balance of space, volume and form. The conciseness of the sculpture is due to the fact that it almost devoid of plot and narrative. The ease of perception of the sculpture is only apparent. Sculpture symbolic, conditional and artistic, and therefore complex and deep for perception.

The main advantage of easel oil painting is that it is easy to move from place to place.

Every piece of art needs a base. The base on which the painters painted was originally a tree - poplar, ash, walnut, willow. Then, in antiquity, the tree replaces the canvas. First, the canvas is glued, and then primed with a dense layer of a special mixture. An image is applied to the primed canvas with paints. From the second half of the 16th century, copper boards appeared. Their advantage was that they did not allow the penetration of air harmful to oil paints.

Each foundation requires a specific primer. The task of the primer is to level, smooth the surface of the base in order to prevent the binders from being absorbed into the base, in addition, to participate in the color of the picture with its tone.


Oil painting is one of the painting techniques that uses paints with vegetable oil as the main binder. Oil paints are made up of dry pigments and drying oil. Linseed, poppy or walnut oil is used. The basis can be wood, plywood, cardboard, paper, canvas. Do not dilute, do not wash off with water. dries for a long time, the layers dry at different speeds. colors mix easily, the ability to create complex color transitions and developed coloring.


Ticket number 12. Easel painting. Pastel

An easel painting is an independent work of painting, free from any decorative functions and made on an easel or easel.

Easel painting is a kind of painting, which, unlike monumental,

not related to architecture, has an independent character.

The term "easel painting" comes from the easel on which paintings are created.

Pastel

Few binders ( Binders:

a substance that is part of the paint and determines its main properties, with the exception of the tone of the color, which is due to the pigment.

The main purpose is to bond the particles of pigment and soil together, in creating a stable and coherent paint layer, thereby ensuring the safety of the paint.)

High degree of coverage

Freedom at work

ALGORITHM FOR CREATING AN EASEL PICTURE

Features of the work of old masters and artists of the new time.

1. Ink drawing

2. Underpainting

3. Glazing


Ticket number 13. Easel painting. Watercolor and gouache

Easel painting is a kind of painting, which, unlike monumental, is not connected with architecture, it has an independent character. The term "easel painting" comes from the easel on which paintings are created.

ALGORITHM FOR CREATING AN EASEL PICTURE

Old masters - work with three stages:

Ink drawing

Underpainting

Glazing

The artists of the new time (since the 17th century) - the indivisibility of the pictorial process (impasto).

Gouache
Gouache is called painting, executed with opaque, dense and covering glue paints with an admixture of white. The word gouache comes from the Italian guazzo, which means wet.

Sources of the 16th century mention gouache painting. In the Renaissance, gouache was used to make illustrations, highlight drawings, paint fans, snuff boxes, etc.

Since the 18th century, gouache painting has been improving and becoming a widespread type of painting. It is used for writing preparatory cardboards, decorative sketches, illustrations and easel works. Unlike watercolors, gouache is opaque, since white is part of the paints.

Watercolor
Watercolor was known in ancient times, but until the 17th century it had no independent meaning, it was used for coloring drawings, rough sketches, etc.

Watercolor acquired independent significance in painting starting from the 17th century. Paintings executed in watercolor are completely finished works of fine art with a rather deeply developed manner and technique of writing. Of the Russian watercolorists, Bryullov K., Sokolov, Benois, Vrubel, Savinsky and others are known.

Ticket number 14. Easel painting. Tempera

From linear-planar style to the illusion of space. The role of direct and light perspective
Easy to move from place to place. The basis was originally a tree - poplar, ash, walnut, willow. Then the tree replaces the canvas. First, the canvas is glued, and then primed with a dense layer of a special mixture. An image is applied to the primed canvas with paints
Easel painting has many genres. The most important of them are subject painting, portrait, landscape and still life.
They will divide: linear-planar and volumetric-spatial, but there are no clear boundaries between them. Linear-planar painting is characterized by flat spots of local color, outlined by expressive contours, clear and rhythmic lines; In painting of this type, spatial relationships can be reproduced by color, the illusion of deep three-dimensional space can be created, the pictorial plane can be visually destroyed with the help of tonal gradations, airy and linear perspective, by distributing warm and cold colors; volumetric forms are modeled by color and chiaroscuro.
In volume-spatial and linear-planar images, the expressiveness of line and color is used, and the effect of volume, even sculpture, is achieved by gradation of light and dark tones distributed in a clearly limited color spot; at the same time, the coloring is often colorful, figures and objects do not merge with the surrounding space into a single whole.
Light perspective - is determined by the distance to the light source and the position of the object in relation to it.
Direct perspective - designed for a fixed point of view and assuming a single vanishing point on the horizon (objects decrease proportionally as they move away from the foreground).
Light perspective characterizes the distance of objects from a light source. It occurs in conditions of uneven lighting.


Ticket number 15. Color in painting

Color- a qualitative subjective characteristic of electromagnetic radiation in the optical range, determined on the basis of the emerging physiological visual sensation and depending on a number of physical, physiological and psychological factors.

This is visible electromagnetic radiation, a wave of a certain length.

Color options:

1. Tone (color name - red, blue, yellow, etc.)

  1. Saturation

3. Lightness

4.Temperature: warm and cold colors

Color circle:

Includes all visible colors of the spectrum and is built as a system of continuous color transitions.

Primary colors- red, yellow, blue.
Composite colors- colors of the second order: green, violet, orange. Obtained by mixing pairs of primary colors: red, yellow and blue.
complex colors are obtained by mixing three secondary colors with adjacent primary ones. For example: orange + yellow = yellow-orange. There are six of these colors.
The compound color triad can be one of these combinations:
red-orange, yellow-green and blue-violet;
blue-green, yellow-orange and red-violet.
On the color wheel, they are all at the same distance from each other, occupying an intermediate position between the compound colors.

related colors- belong to any one quarter of the circle.

Contrasting (complementary) colors- are on diametrically opposite sides of the circle.

Hue- tone gradation; the difference in color when it goes from cold to warm and vice versa.

Nuance- a very subtle shade of color or a very slight transition from light to shadow, etc.

Saturation (intensity) - characterizes the degree of purity of the color tone. The concept operates in the redistribution of one tone, where the degree of saturation is measured by the degree of difference from gray. This concept is also related to brightness., since the most saturated tone in its lineup will be the brightest.

Lively, strong, deep saturation.

Desaturated colors are dull, weak, washed out.

The degree of color difference between white and black. If the difference between the determined color and black is greater than between it and white, then the color is light. Otherwise, dark. If the difference between black and white is equal, then the color is medium in lightness.


Ticket number 16. perspective

Fr. perspective from lat. perspicere - look through - a technique for depicting spatial objects on a plane or any surface in accordance with those apparent reductions in their size, changes in shape outlines and light and shade relationships that are observed in the surrounding (real) world.

Perspective types

1. Direct perspective - a type of perspective designed for a fixed point of view and assuming a single vanishing point on the horizon line (objects decrease proportionally as they move away from the foreground).

VANISHING POINT - a point on a perspective image where the projections of lines that are parallel in the object space intersect.

2. Reverse perspective - a type of perspective used in Byzantine and Old Russian painting, in which the depicted objects appear to increase as they move away from the viewer, the picture has several horizons and points of view, and other features - as if the center of the vanishing lines is not on the horizon, but within the viewer.

3. Panoramic perspective - an image built on an internal cylindrical (sometimes spherical) surface.

4. Aerial perspective - characterized by the disappearance of the clarity and clarity of the outlines of objects as they move away from the observer's eyes (sfumato effect - haze). At the same time, the background is characterized by a decrease in color saturation (color loses its brightness, chiaroscuro contrasts soften), thus - the depth seems darker than the foreground. Aerial perspective is associated with changing tones, which is why it can also be called tonal perspective.

5. Spherical perspective - a kind of perspective in which the viewer's eyes are always in the center of the "reflection" on the ball. This is the position of the main point, which is not really tied to either the horizon level or the main vertical. When depicting objects in a spherical perspective, all depth lines will have a vanishing point at the main point and will remain strictly straight. The main vertical and the horizon line will also be strictly straight. All other lines will bend more and more as they move away from the main point, transforming into a circle. Every line that does not pass through the center, when extended, is a semi-ellipse.

Painting is distinguished by a variety of genres and types. Each genre is limited by its range of subjects: the image of a person (portrait), the world around (landscape), etc.
Varieties (types) of painting differ in their purpose.

In this regard, there are several types of painting, which we will talk about today.

easel painting

The most popular and well-known type of painting is easel painting. So it is called for the reason that it is performed on a machine - an easel. The basis is wood, cardboard, paper, but most often canvas stretched on a stretcher. An easel painting is an independent work made in a certain genre. She has a richness of color.

Oil paints

Most often easel painting is executed with oil paints. Oil paints can be used on canvas, wood, cardboard, paper, metal.

Oil paints
Oil paints are suspensions of inorganic pigments and fillers in drying vegetable oils or drying oils or based on alkyd resins, sometimes with the addition of auxiliary substances. They are used in painting or for painting wooden, metal and other surfaces.

V. Perov "Portrait of Dostoevsky" (1872). Canvas, oil
But a picturesque picture can also be created with the help of tempera, gouache, pastels, watercolors.

Watercolor

Watercolor paints

Watercolor (French Aquarelle - watery; Italian acquarello) is a painting technique using special watercolor paints. When dissolved in water, they form a transparent suspension of fine pigment, due to this, the effect of lightness, airiness and subtle color transitions is created.

J. Turner "Fierwaldstadt Lake" (1802). Watercolor. Tate Britain (London)

Gouache

Gouache (French Gouache, Italian guazzo water paint, splash) is a type of adhesive water-soluble paints, more dense and matte than watercolor.

gouache paints
Gouache paints are made from pigments and glue with the addition of white. The admixture of white gives the gouache a matte velvety, but when it dries, the colors are somewhat whitened (lightened), which the artist must take into account in the process of drawing. With the help of gouache paints, you can cover dark tones with light ones.


Vincent van Gogh "Corridor in Asulum" (black chalk and gouache on pink paper)

Pastel [e]

Pastel (from Latin pasta - dough) - artistic materials used in graphics and painting. Most often produced in the form of crayons or rimless pencils, having the form of bars with a round or square section. There are three types of pastels: dry, oil and wax.

I. Levitan "River Valley" (pastel)

Tempera

Tempera (Italian tempera, from Latin temperare - to mix paints) - water-borne paints prepared on the basis of dry powder pigments. The binder of tempera paints is the yolk of a chicken egg diluted with water or a whole egg.
Tempera paints are one of the oldest. Before the invention and distribution of oil paints until the XV-XVII centuries. tempera paints were the main material of easel painting. They have been used for over 3,000 years. The famous paintings of the sarcophagi of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs are made with tempera paints. Tempera was mainly easel painting by Byzantine masters. In Russia, the technique of tempera writing was predominant until the end of the 17th century.

R. Streltsov "Daisies and violets" (tempera)

Encaustic

Encaustic (from other Greek ἐγκαυστική - the art of burning out) is a painting technique in which wax is the binder of paints. Painting is done with melted paints. Many early Christian icons were painted in this technique. Originated in Ancient Greece.

"Angel". Encaustic technique

We draw your attention to the fact that you can also find another classification, according to which watercolor, gouache and other techniques using paper and water-based paints are classified as graphics. They combine the features of painting (the richness of tone, the construction of form and space with color) and graphics (the active role of paper in the construction of the image, the absence of a specific relief stroke characteristic of the pictorial surface).

monumental painting

Monumental painting - painting on architectural structures or other grounds. This is the oldest type of painting, known since the Paleolithic. Due to stationarity and durability, numerous examples of it remained from almost all cultures that created developed architecture. The main techniques of monumental painting are fresco, and secco, mosaic, stained glass.

Fresco

Fresco (from Italian fresco - fresh) - painting on wet plaster with water-based paints, one of the wall painting techniques. When dried, the lime contained in the plaster forms a thin transparent calcium film, which makes the fresco durable.
The fresco has a pleasant matte surface and is durable in indoor conditions.

Gelati Monastery (Georgia). Church of the Holy Mother of God. Fresco on the top and south side of the Arc de Triomphe

A secco

And secco (from Italian a secco - dry) - wall painting, performed, unlike frescoes, on hard, dried plaster, re-moistened. Paints are used, ground on vegetable glue, egg or mixed with lime. Secco allows more surface area to be painted in a working day than fresco painting, but is not as durable a technique.
The asecco technique developed in medieval painting along with fresco and was especially common in Europe in the 17th-18th centuries.

Leonardo da Vinci The Last Supper (1498). A secco technique

Mosaic

Mosaic (fr. mosaïque, ital. mosaico from lat. (opus) musivum - (work dedicated to the muses) - decorative, applied and monumental art of different genres. Images in a mosaic are formed by arranging, setting and fixing multi-colored stones, smalt, ceramic tiles and other materials on the surface.

Mosaic panel "Cat"

stained glass

Stained-glass window (fr. vitre - window glass, from lat. vitrum - glass) - a work of colored glass. Stained glass has been used in churches for a long time. During the Renaissance, stained glass existed as a painting on glass.

Stained-glass window of the Palace of Culture "Mezhsoyuzny" (Murmansk)
Diorama and panorama also belong to the varieties of painting.

Diorama

The building of the diorama "Assault on the Sapun Mountains on May 7, 1944" in Sevastopol
A diorama is a ribbon-shaped, semicircularly curved painting with a foreground subject plan. The illusion of the presence of the viewer in the natural space is created, which is achieved by the synthesis of artistic and technical means.
Dioramas are designed for artificial lighting and are located mainly in special pavilions. Most of the dioramas are dedicated to historical battles.
The most famous dioramas are: "Assault on the Sapun Mountains" (Sevastopol), "Defense of Sevastopol" (Sevastopol), "Fights for Rzhev" (Rzhev), "Breakthrough of the Siege of Leningrad" (Petersburg), "Storm of Berlin" (Moscow), etc.

Panorama

In painting, a panorama is a picture with a circular view, in which a flat pictorial background is combined with a three-dimensional subject foreground. Panorama creates the illusion of real space surrounding the viewer in a full circle of the horizon. Panoramas are mainly used to depict events covering a large area and a large number of participants.

Museum-panorama "Battle of Borodino" (museum building)
In Russia, the most famous panoramas are the Battle of Borodino Panorama Museum, the Volochaev Battle, the Defeat of the Nazi Troops at Stalingrad in the Battle of Stalingrad Panorama Museum, the Defense of Sevastopol, and the panorama of the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Franz Rubo. Canvas panorama "Battle of Borodino"

Theatrical and decorative painting

Scenery, costumes, make-up, props help to reveal the content of the performance (film) more deeply. The scenery gives an idea of ​​the place and time of the action, activates the viewer's perception of what is happening on the stage. The theater artist seeks to sharply express the individual character of the characters, their social status, the style of the era, and much more in sketches of costumes and make-up.
In Russia, the heyday of theatrical and decorative art falls on the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. At this time, outstanding artists M.A. began working in the theater. Vrubel, V.M. Vasnetsov, A.Ya. Golovin, L.S. Bakst, N.K. Roerich.

M. Vrubel "City Lollipop". Sketch of the scenery for the opera by N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov "The Tale of Tsar Saltan" for the Russian Private Opera in Moscow. (1900)

Miniature

A miniature is a pictorial work of small forms. Particularly popular was the portrait miniature - a portrait of a small format (from 1.5 to 20 cm), characterized by a special subtlety of writing, a peculiar technique of execution and the use of means inherent only to this pictorial form.
The types and formats of miniatures are very diverse: they were painted on parchment, paper, cardboard, ivory, metal and porcelain, using watercolor, gouache, special artistic enamels or oil paints. The author can inscribe the image, in accordance with his own decision or at the request of the customer, in a circle, oval, rhombus, octagon, etc. A classic portrait miniature is a miniature made on a thin ivory plate.

Emperor Nicholas I. Fragment of a miniature by G. Morselli
There are several miniature techniques.

Lacquer miniature (Fedoskino)

Miniature with a portrait of Princess Zinaida Nikolaevna (Yusupov's jewels)

It is common for all types of fine art to reflect reality exclusively in visual, visual images. First of all, it is painting, graphics, sculpture, as well as arts and crafts. All of them recreate visible forms in real or conditional space, but not in time. If such types of art as music, theater, cinema unfold the plot or action in time, then in fine art it is only possible to demonstrate one specific moment, but this does not make it any less powerful. If we recall that vision for a person is the main channel for obtaining information, then artistic visual images serve as special carriers that allow us to convey very, very much.



One of the main types of fine arts is undoubtedly painting. It accurately reflects all the diversity of the surrounding world, and also the mood, the impression, and in the color of many colors and shades. Painting according to the technique of execution is divided into oil, watercolor, tempera, fresco, mosaic, wax, stained glass, pastel, gouache. Well, by genre, painting can be easel, monumental, decorative, theatrical and decorative, miniature.

easel painting- these are paintings that have an absolutely independent character and meaning. The idea embedded in the work will not change its meaning depending on the place where it is located, but the artistic sound, perception will, nevertheless, depend on the place of exposure. Since easel painting got its name from the word machine - a device on which artists paint large pictures, it is clear that the proportionality of the room, its design, lighting, are important for exhibiting an easel work.

Painting "Stone Bridge"

monumental painting- these are, as a rule, works of a large scale attached to architectural structures, decorating ceilings, walls, and various fragments. Most often it is a fresco, mosaic, panel.

Monumental painting "Winter evening"

Vicenc Will Valmaran. Fresco, 1757


Empress Theodora. Fragment of a mosaic in the Church of San Vitale

decorative painting also serves to decorate architectural structures, but is also widely used to decorate various products. Acting in unity with the three-dimensional composition (with the interior, exterior or shape of the product), it accentuates the expressiveness of the entire composition or even transforms it, introducing its own scale, rhythm, color.


Decorative ceiling painting

Theatrical and decorative painting seeks through scenery, costumes, make-up, lighting to create a visual image for the performance. The basis for all this is the artists' sketches, which help to reveal the content of the performance, the characters of the characters, and help the viewer to perceive what is happening on the stage.


Theatrical and decorative composition: Roerich N.K. "Courtyard"

miniature can be called works of fine art, distinguished by their small size and, of course, the subtlety of artistic techniques. Book miniatures, for example, appeared as early as handwritten books, and with the beginning of printing, they developed and the pages of books were already unthinkable without such decorations. The portrait miniature is no less widespread. This is, as a rule, a picturesque portrait of a small format. It is believed that for the first time such portraits appeared in the Renaissance. Today, a very wide range of materials and technical means for making miniatures is known. Perhaps many have seen them in the enamel technique, but they can be made with ceramic paints on porcelain, gouache, watercolor on parchment, paper, cardboard, ivory, and also oil on metal. To all that has been said above, it can be added that all types of works can be combined into one or another genre and on the basis of similar themes. Everyone knows that there are genres of still life, landscape, portrait, interior, plot painting, and there are also genres: everyday, historical, battle, and each of them has its fans and admirers.