Art: Distinguishing Beginner from Master

Have you ever stared at a museum painting and wondered why is this here? With some artwork, you can immediately tell. There’s just this… something… quality that shines through and you know it’s a masterpiece. The French (aka the world’s artsiest people) call this feeling Je ne sais quoi, literally “I don’t know what.” With other paintings, though, it might be a little harder to recognize the genius. All it takes is a little knowledge and practice to tell whether it was done by an experienced artist or a beginner. Consider these tips and, before you know it, you’ll be critiquing paintings like an art collector.

Texture and Brushwork

         There are various techniques and styles to texturing and brushwork—each of them achieves a specific desired effect.  Analyzing texture and brushwork is best done in person instead of through a book so you can closely examine the details of each brush stroke. An expert painter will utilize different stroke patterns to give a desired texture to a specific part of the painting. 

          Brushwork is how grass can look rough while clouds look soft and wispy. Most beginners are too focused on learning the basics of painting to really hone in on their brushwork and texturing so, if you see a painting where textures are used to enhance the picture, it was likely done by an artist with experience.

 Colors and Light

         Just because a painting is filled with eye-popping colors or accurately captures realistic hues does not mean it was expertly done. A professional painter chooses each color and blend just as deliberately as his/her composition. More than just picking colors that are realistic or fun, an expert lets color tell the desired story as much as everything else in the painting. 

         When you consider the colors of a painting, think to yourself what is the overall color scheme? Are the colors subdued or muted to convey sadness? Or maybe there’s a splash of vibrant pink among all the drab colors to tell a story of life and excitement. Are the colors cohesive and complementary to each other? How does the artist manipulate light? This is a big one. Use of light and the ability to skillfully infuse light into a painting (or conversely, to withhold it) is the mark of a truly gifted artist. Think of chiaroscuro — Italian for light-dark — and how Vermeer and Caravaggio, to name two masters, created intense modeling of their subjects by powerfully playing with light. Chiaroscuro is unmistakable, and usually achieved in expert hands.

Composition

         In an expert painting, every object in the picture is deliberately placed there for a specific reason. The composition is well thought out in order to convey something from the artist to you. Look at the composition of a painting and see where the objects on the canvas are placed and what that tells you about the story the painting is telling. 

  Is there an object placed farther away to produce depth? Or maybe the objects are situated in a way that draws your eye to a certain area of the painting. Are objects juxtaposed, perhaps in a way to convey meaning? Much like how an author carefully chooses each word of a novel, a painter places each object on the canvas very deliberately. This expert composition is not easily achieved by a beginner.

The Most Important Test

         Professional painting is about using every aspect of the medium to tell a cohesive story or convey a feeling. Regardless of the technical prowess, a good painting moves you and others. A painting can have all the techniques—brushwork, light and color, composition—textbook perfect but, the final test is how it makes you feel.