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{{Other uses|Watercolor (disambiguation)}}
{{More footnotes needed|date=October 2019}}
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[[File:Loves Messenger Stillman DAM.jpg|thumb|''[[Love's Messenger]]'', an 1885 watercolor and [[tempera]] by [[Marie Spartali Stillman]]]]
'''Watercolor''' ([[American English]]) or '''watercolour''' ([[British English]]; see [[American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or|spelling differences]]), also '''''aquarelle''''' ({{IPA-fr|akwaʁɛl|lang}}; from Italian diminutive of Latin {{lang|la|aqua}}
The conventional and most common [[Support (art)|support]] — material to which the paint is applied—for watercolor paintings is [[watercolor paper]]. Other supports or substrates include stone, ivory, silk, reed, [[papyrus]], bark papers, plastics, [[vellum]], [[leather]], [[textile|fabric]], wood, and watercolor canvas (coated with a gesso that is specially formulated for use with watercolors). Watercolor paper is often made entirely or partially with cotton.<ref>"100% cotton papers are more absorbent in most brands, but there are papers that have only 50% cotton or even high quality papers, which have no blending with cotton." {{Harvtxt|Viscarra|2020|p=21}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Vloothuis |first=Johannes |date=2017-07-14 |title=Understanding the Different Grades of Watercolor Paper |url=https://www.artistsnetwork.com/art-mediums/watercolor/understanding-the-different-grades-of-watercolor-paper/ |access-date=2018-10-03 |publisher=Artists Network |language=en-US}}</ref> This gives the surface the appropriate texture and minimizes distortion when wet.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Watercolor Paper: How to Choose the Right Paper for Use with Watercolors |url=http://www.art-is-fun.com/watercolor-paper/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151007051717/http://www.art-is-fun.com/watercolor-paper/ |archive-date=2015-10-07 |access-date=2015-10-06 |website=art-is-fun.com |publisher=Art Is Fun}}</ref> Watercolor papers are usually cold-pressed papers that provide better texture and appearance with a weight at least 300 gsm (140 lb). Under 300 gsm (140 lb) is commonly not recommended for anything but sketching.<ref>"I would not recommend a weight less than 140lb (300 gsm) to paint anything other than quick sketches." {{Harvtxt|Mann|2016}}</ref><ref>"a paper that weighs 300 grams x meter² (140 pounds), has more body and looks more like a cardboard or thin cardboard, which makes it better to support the use of water." {{Harvtxt|Viscarra|2020|p=17}}</ref> Transparency is the main characteristic of watercolors.<ref>"It consists of a mixture of pigments, binders such as gum arabic and humectants such as glycerin, which together with other components, allow the color pigment to join and form the paint paste, which we know as watercolor. With regard to the colors, the quality of the pigments and their degree of concentration, it is what determines how good the watercolor is and also its price. A paint that has a high concentration of pigment, professional type, allows us to use it with a large amount of water without losing the intensity of color." {{Harvtxt|Viscarra|2020|p=47}}</ref> Watercolors can also be made opaque by adding [[Chinese white]]. This is not a method to be used in "true watercolor" (traditional).<ref>"Turner himself was of the same opinion; he declared to me [Munro] that water-colour painting would be totally mined, and lose all its individuality and beauty by the bad practice of mingling opaque with transparent colour." {{Harvtxt|Redgrave|Redgrave|1866}}</ref>
Watercolor paint is an ancient form of painting, if not the most ancient form of art itself.<ref name="London, Vladimir p. 19" /> In East Asia, watercolor painting<ref>"With the discovery of paper in China around 2000 years ago, the watercolor media took a different route in which the color of the paper played an important role." {{Harvtxt|London|2021|p=19}}</ref> with inks is referred to as [[brush painting]] or scroll painting. In [[Chinese painting|Chinese]], [[Korean painting|Korean]] and [[Japanese painting]]<ref>"Watercolors on silk were frequently used by Chinese and Japanese artists. Their artworks often included calligraphy as well as peaceful nature scenes, animals, and pictures of everyday life." {{Harvtxt|London|2021|p=21}}</ref> it has been the dominant medium, often in monochrome black or browns, often using [[inkstick]] or other pigments. India, Ethiopia and other countries have long watercolor painting traditions as well.
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==History==
Watercolor
[[File:Albrecht Dürer - Hare, 1502 - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|left|[[Albrecht Dürer]], ''[[Young Hare]]'', 1502, watercolor and [[body color]], [[Albertina, Vienna]]|alt=A painting of a hare with large ears.]]
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The three English artists credited with establishing watercolor as an independent, mature painting medium are [[Paul Sandby]] (1730–1809), often called the "father of the English watercolor"; [[Thomas Girtin]] (1775–1802), who pioneered its use for large format, romantic or picturesque landscape painting; and [[Joseph Mallord William Turner]] (1775–1851),<ref>"He was born in London on 23 April 1775, and given the names Joseph Mallord William Turner. His family called him William but he is now usually referred to by initials as J. M. W. Turner." {{Harvtxt|Reynolds|2020|p=19}}</ref> who brought watercolor painting to the highest pitch of power and refinement,<ref>"Girtin and Turner in particular explored the capacity of watercolour for creating atmospheric effects, experimenting with texture and colour." {{Harvtxt|Chaplin|2001|p=8}}</ref> and created hundreds of superb historical, topographical, architectural, and mythological watercolor paintings. His method of developing the watercolor painting in stages, starting with large, vague color areas established on wet paper, then refining the image through a sequence of [[wash (visual arts)|washes]] and glazes,<ref>"The seemingly effortless freshness of these watercolours disguises the rigorous planning stage that lies behind them. For, between the pencil sketches and the finished watercolours, Turner evolved a creative process that enabled him to experiment in an open-ended fashion with the structure and relative dispositions of colour and light." {{Harvtxt|Moorby|Chaplin|Warrell|Smibert|2010|p=26}}</ref> permitted him to produce large numbers of paintings with "workshop efficiency"<ref>"One charming account recalls how Turner would hang up his moist studies on cords spread across his room, so that his drying sheets, stained with 'pink and blue and yellow', would at first glance resemble the laundry of a washerwoman." {{Harvtxt|Moorby|Chaplin|Warrell|Smibert|2010|p=26}}</ref> and made him a multimillionaire, partly by sales from his personal art gallery, the first of its kind. Among the important and highly talented contemporaries of Turner and Girtin were [[John Varley (painter)|John Varley]], [[John Sell Cotman]],<ref>"John Varley (1778–1842), Thomas Girtin (1775–1802), John Sell Cotman (1782–1842) and David Cox (1783–1859) ushered in the golden age of British watercolour". {{Harvtxt|Chaplin|2001|p=7}}</ref> [[Copley Fielding|Anthony Copley Fielding]], [[Samuel Palmer]],<ref>"When it is remembered that men of such diverse gifts and temperaments as David Cox and Samuel Palmer, F.O. Finch and Copley Fielding were his [John Varley] pupils it will be apparent that he did not impose his own vision on his scholars but, as education truly signifies, drew out of them what was latent in them." {{Harvtxt|Reynolds|1998}}</ref> [[William Havell]],<ref>"William Havell was, at the age of twenty-three, the youngest of the exhibiting members in 1805. His work typifies the common approach of the members of the Society: the dependence of composition on the seventeenth-century landscape painters, the aspiration to vie with oil paintings, the rich tonality of the piece." {{Harvtxt|Reynolds|1998}}</ref> and [[Samuel Prout]]. The Swiss painter [[Abraham-Louis-Rodolphe Ducros]] was also widely known for his large format, romantic paintings in watercolor.
[[File:Jamaica hut4.jpg|thumb
[[File:Remains of the Vicars’ College, Exeter.jpg|thumb|''Remains of the Vicars' College, [[Exeter]]'' by George Townsend; 1885.]]
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[[File:Brooklyn Museum - White Ships - John Singer Sargent.jpg|thumb|right|John Singer Sargent, ''White Ships''. [[Brooklyn Museum]]]]
Watercolor painting also became popular in the United States during the 19th century; outstanding early practitioners included [[John James Audubon]], as well as early [[Hudson River School]] painters such as [[William H. Bartlett]] and [[George Harvey (painter)|George Harvey]]. By mid-century, the influence of John Ruskin led to increasing interest in watercolors, particularly the use of a detailed "Ruskinian" style by such artists as John W. Hill Henry, [[William Trost Richards]], [[Roderick Newman]], and [[Fidelia Bridges]]. The ''American Society of Painters in Watercolor'' (now the [[American Watercolor Society]]) was founded in 1866. Late-19th-century American exponents of the medium included [[Thomas Moran]], [[Thomas Eakins]], [[John LaFarge]], [[John Singer Sargent]],<ref>"Watercolor extended its reach to the American continent with European painters documenting the "new world
===Europe===
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[[File:Paul Cézanne 151.jpg|thumb|[[Paul Cézanne]], self-portrait]]
The adoption of brightly colored, petroleum-derived aniline dyes (and pigments compounded from them), which all fade rapidly on exposure to light, and the efforts to properly conserve the twenty thousand [[J. M. W. Turner]] paintings inherited by the British Museum in 1857, led to a negative reevaluation of the permanence of pigments in watercolor.<ref>{{
===20th and 21st centuries===
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===Transparency===
In the partisan debates of the 19th-century English art world, gouache was emphatically contrasted to traditional watercolors and denigrated for its high [[hiding power]] or lack of "transparency"; "transparent" watercolors were exalted. The aversion to opaque paint had its origin in the fact that well into the 19th century [[lead white]] was used to increase the covering quality. That pigment tended to soon discolor into black under the influence of sulphurous air pollution, totally ruining the artwork.<ref>{{Harvtxt|Kraaijpoel|Herenius|2007|p=187}}</ref> The traditional claim that "transparent" watercolors gain "luminosity" because they function like a pane of stained glass laid on paper—the color intensified because the light passes through the pigment, reflects from the paper, and passes a second time through the pigment on its way to the viewer—is false. Watercolor paints typically do not form a cohesive paint layer, as do acrylic or [[oil paint|oil]] paints, but simply scatter pigment particles randomly across the [[paper]] surface; the transparency is caused by the paper being visible between the particles.<ref name="Kraaijpoel2007">{{Harvtxt|Kraaijpoel|Herenius|2007|p=183}}</ref> Watercolors may appear more vivid than acrylics or oils because the pigments are laid down in a purer form, with few or no fillers (such as kaolin) obscuring the pigment colors. Typically, most or all of the gum binder will be absorbed by the paper, preventing the binder from changing the visibility of the pigment.<ref name="Kraaijpoel2007" /> The gum being absorbed does not decrease but increase the adhesion of the pigment to the paper, as its particles will then penetrate the fibres more easily. In fact, an important function of the gum is to facilitate the "lifting" (removal) of color, should the artist want to create a lighter spot in a painted area.<ref name="Kraaijpoel2007" /> Furthermore, the gum prevents [[flocculation]] of the pigment particles.<ref name="Kraaijpoel2007" />
==See also==
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===Works cited===
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* {{Cite book |last=Chaplin |first=Mike |title=Painting Expressive Watercolours |date=2001 |publisher=Collins |edition=Kindle |location=London |asin=B00KV2RLEA}}
* {{Cite book |last=Chilvers |first=Ian |title=The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists |date=2009 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=USA}}
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