Malerei

Malerei, or painting, is the practice of applying pigment to a surface to create images, forms, or abstract expressions. It includes media such as oil, acrylic, watercolor, tempera, fresco, and encaustic, as well as digital painting. Supports range from canvas and wood panels to paper, plaster walls, or digital canvases.

Techniques include ground preparation, underpainting, glazing, layering, impasto, and fresco application. Tools range from brushes and knives to sponges and airbrush, while digital painting uses tablets and software brushes. Media influence texture, color handling, and light, with each combination producing distinct expressive possibilities.

Historically, Malerei has a long trajectory. In Europe, it moved from medieval panels to Renaissance oil and perspective, then Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, and Realism, followed by modern movements such as Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism, and Abstract art. Non-European and contemporary practices widen the field and explore figuration, abstraction, and cross-media approaches.

Studies of Malerei cover formal analysis of composition, color, and space, as well as historical and social contexts. Conservation addresses pigment stability, varnish aging, and support integrity. Today Malerei remains a dynamic core of the visual arts, blending traditional studio methods with digital and interdisciplinary experimentation.