The Mona Lisa , by Leonardo da Vinci , is one of the most recognizable artistic paintings in the Western world.
Colour is the essence of painting as sound is of music . [ citation needed ] Colour is highly subjective, but has observable psychological effects [ citation needed ] , although these can differ from one culture to the next. Black is associated with mourning in the West, but elsewhere white may be. Some painters, theoreticians, writers and scientists, including
Goethe, [8] Kandinsky , [9] and
Newton , [10] have written their own
colour theory. Moreover, the use of language is only an abstraction for a colour equivalent. The word " red ," for example, can cover a wide range of variations on the pure red of the spectrum. There is not a formalized register of different colours in the way that there is agreement on different
notes in music, such as C or C#, although the Pantone system is widely used in the printing and design industry for this purpose.
Modern painters have extended the practice considerably to include, for example, collage . Collage is not painting in the strict sense since it includes other materials. Some modern painters incorporate different materials such as
sand, cement , straw , wood or strands of hair for their artwork texture . Examples of this are the works of Elito Circa , Jean Dubuffet or Anselm Kiefer. Broadly speaking, Modern and contemporary painting seems to move away from the historic value of craft in favour of
concept ;[ citation needed ] which becomes more apparent from early-twentieth century onwards. This transition has led some to say that painting, as a serious art form, is dead, [ citation needed ] although this has not deterred the majority of artists from continuing to practise it either as whole or part of their work. [ citation needed ] Indigenouism is also considered as Modern and contemporary Art in early 20th Century.
