Painting

Painting is a form of pictorial art that represents any type of visual images created by means of laying paint on a solid surface. Together with other forms of art painting is one of the highly developed forms of human activities able to perform ideological and educational functions as well as serves as a medium for creation of aesthetical values. Being able to strongly influence the human psychology and to make people experience certain conditions, painting has a powerful educational function.

The whole variety of possibilities peculiar to this art form and its ability to reproduce the existing reality in various forms according to the cultural and social and educational background of the painter explains the existence of a whole range of genres and subgenres (portrayal of historical events, battles, objects of everyday life, animals and so on). Depending on the type of execution there may be differentiated the following types of painting: monumental (wall painting, plafonds, etc.); easel painting, which is more personal than wall paintings and, as a rule, not connected with a particular place; decorative (theatrical and motion picture sets); icon painting and miniature.

Today more and more subgenres of painting are emerging and gain a great amount of supporters. Among such new subgenres of painting is graffiti, which is a technique of applying spray paint to street walls. It is as a part of the hip-hop culture. The major idea of graffiti is encoding one or several words in the shape of weird curved letters.