Impasto is paint laid on so thickly that brushstrokes, knife marks and ridges stand out from the surface. Painters have used it for centuries, and museums record it in different ways: a conservator's note, a catalog entry, a wall label, the artist's own words.
The twelve paintings below count down from twelve to one. For each, the entry points to the part of the surface where the paint is thickest.
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How These Were Chosen
A painting is here if a museum, a curator, a catalog or the artist has recorded any of these about its paint: how heavily it was laid on, where on the canvas it is thickest, or which tool or gesture put it there.
12. Frank Auerbach, Head of E.O.W. IV (1961)
A woman's head fills a small plywood panel, modeled almost entirely in white, cream, gray and black oil paint. Frank Auerbach painted it in 1961, and the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh owns it.
The paint is thick across the whole surface, raised in ridges that catch the light. At the right edge and the lower right corner, the crust spills past the straight line of the panel.
E.O.W. is Estella West (1916 to 2014), Auerbach's companion, whom he painted from the 1950s to the 1970s. He worked at her home, three evenings a week and always by electric light.
The narrow range of colors follows from that light and from the fact that monochrome paints were cheaper.
"She was the most important person in my life at the time," Auerbach said of these portraits. He also spoke of "a sense of futility about it all disappearing into the void" and of wanting to "pin something down that would defy time."
The museum says the very thick paint, typical of his work, "comes from this desire to fix and 'pin down'."
On an earlier head of Estella West, from 1955, Auerbach repainted the portrait many times over several years, and the paint grew thicker as he went.
Rebecca Hellen, a paintings conservator at Tate in London, describes Auerbach's mark making over the decades as brushes, palette knives, putty scrapers and sometimes paint squeezed straight from the tube.
A palette knife is a thin, flexible blade normally used to mix paint on the palette.
Tate's glossary defines impasto as "an area of thick paint or texture" and says that in the mid twentieth century some artists "took impasto to the extreme," Auerbach among them.
Auerbach put the face low and just right of center, with the eyes and mouth reduced to a few black strokes inside the pale paint.
The museum lists the panel's weight as 26 kilograms, about 57 pounds.
At a Glance
Artist: Frank Auerbach (1931 to 2024)
Painted: 1961
Medium: Oil on plywood
Collection: National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh
About This Painting
How big is Head of E.O.W. IV? Head of E.O.W. IV measures 59.8 by 56.8 centimeters, about 23 9/16 by 22 3/8 inches. In its frame, the panel reaches 77.7 by 73.6 centimeters and 8.8 centimeters deep.
What is the panel's inventory number? The National Galleries of Scotland catalog the portrait as GMA 1537.
When did Edinburgh acquire Head of E.O.W. IV? The National Galleries of Scotland bought the panel in 1976.
11. James Ensor, Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889 (1888)
A carnival procession of masks, clowns, soldiers and officials fills a Brussels boulevard and surges toward the front of the picture. James Ensor painted it in 1888, a year before the date in its title, and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles owns it.
Christ rides a donkey in the middle of the crowd, a small figure with a halo whom almost nobody watches. Above the heads runs a red banner that reads "VIVE LA SOCIALE," long live the social.