1. Unit 3
Textures in Visual Language

2. Definition
In the visual arts, texture is the perceived surface quality of a work of
art. It is an element of two-dimensional and three-dimensional design
and is distinguished by its perceived visual and physical properties. Use
of texture, along with other elements of design, can convey a variety of
messages and emotions.

3. 2D TEXTURES
Physical or tactile texures
Physical texture, also known as actual texture or tactile texture, are the actual
variations upon a surface. This can include, but is not limited to, fur, wood
grain, sand, smooth surface of canvas or metal, , glass, and leather. It
differentiates itself from visual texture by having a physical quality that can be
felt by touch.

4. Specific use of a texture can effect the smoothness that an artwork conveys. For
instance, use of rough surfaces can be visually active, whilst smooth surfaces can
be visually restful. The use of both can give a sense of personality to a design, or
be utilized to create emphasis, rhythm, contrast, etc.

5. Light is an important factor for physical artwork, because it can affect how a surface
is viewed. Strong lights on a smooth surface can obscure the readability of a
drawing or photograph, while they can create strong contrasts in a highly textured
surface such as moose or pigs.

6. Visual Textures
Visual texture is the illusion of having physical texture. Every material and every support
surface has its own visual texture and needs to be taken into consideration before creating
a composition. As such, materials such as canvas and watercolour paper are considerably
rougher than, for example, photo-quality computer paper and may not be best suited to
creating a flat, smooth texture. Photography, drawings and paintings use visual texture both
to portray their subject matter realistically and with interpretation. Texture in these media
are generally created by the repetition of shape and line.
Implied texture is a visual texture that has no basis in everyday reality. It is most often
utilized in works of abstraction.

7. Another classification could be ...
Natural textures and Artificial textures
Natural textures are textures that can be found in nature. The wood from tree
trunks, stones, grass, leaves, seashellls..
Artificial textures are made or transformed by man; furniture, bricks, industrial
objects, machines...

8. There are many diferent techniques to create textures, but we will
experiment with two of them:
● Collage technique
● Frottage technique
The composition on the left is made with the collage technique
and in the picture above there is a man experimenting with de
frottage technique

9. Collage
A collage (From the French: coller, to glue) is a work of formal art,
primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different
forms, thus creating a new whole.
A collage may include newspaper clippings, ribbons, bits of colored
or hand-made papers, portions of other artwork or texts, photographs
and other found objects, glued to a piece of paper or canvas. The
origins of collage can be traced back hundreds of years, but this
technique made a dramatic reappearance in the early 20th century as
an art form of novelty.

10. Here are two exemples obtanied by the collage technique:

11. Frottage
In art, frottage (from French frotter, "to rub") is
a surrealist and "automatic" method of creative
production developed by Max Ernst.
In frottage the artist takes a pencil or other drawing
tool and makes a rubbing over a textured surface.
The drawing can be left as is or used as the basis for
further refinement. While superficially similar
to brass rubbing and other forms of rubbing
intended to reproduce an existing subject, and in fact
sometimes being used as an alternate term for it,
frottage differs in being aleatoric and random in
nature.
It was developed by Ernst in 1925. Ernst was
inspired by an ancient wooden floor where the grain
of the planks had been accentuated by many years of
scrubbing. The patterns of the graining suggested
strange images to him. He captured these by laying
sheets of paper on the floor and then rubbing over
them with a soft pencil.

12. Textures in Artworks: Miquel Barceló

13. MIQUEL BARCELÓ

15. ANTONI TÀPIES

16. Gustav Klimt