Haitian Impressionist Impasto Oil on Canvas. Signed indistinctly bottom left. Stunning view of a small hut and sailboat with two figures, all in brown tones with light and shadow created by raised areas of paint. 

Frame: 15 3/4 x 32 in.

Sight: 12 x 28 1/2 in.

#2383 . 

Impasto is a technique used in painting where paint is laid on an area of the surface thickly so that the brush or painting-knife strokes are visible. Paint can also be mixed right on the canvas instead of the palette for additional effects. When dry, impasto provides texture, making the paint appear to be coming out of the canvas. The word is Italian in origin, meaning “dough paste” or “mixture.” Oil paint is the traditional medium for impasto, due to its thick consistency and slow drying time, although other mediums can be used depending on what is added to it to thicken it. Impasto makes light reflect off the image in a particular way, giving the artist additional control over the play of light in the painting, and can add expressiveness or even let the viewer realize the strength and speed by which the artist applied the paint. Some theorists consider impasto to be a process that transcends a piece from a painting into a three-dimensional sculptural rendering. The technique originated with Rembrandt, Titian, and Vermeer, as they sought to represent folds in clothes or jewels. The French Impressionists took it further by creating pieces covering entire canvases with rich impasto textures, with Vincent van Gogh using it frequently for aesthetics and expression. Abstract expressionists such as Hans Hofmann and Willem de Kooning also extensively used it as a commentary on the act of painting itself, and contemporary artists like Frank Auerbach have used extremely heavy impasto to create paintings that are fully three-dimensional.